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Kaveena
This dark and suspenseful novel tells the story of a fictitious West African country caught in the grip of civil war. The dispassionate and deadpan narrator, Asante Kroma, is a former head of Secret Services and finds himself living with the corpse of the dictator, a man who once ruled his nation with an iron fist. Through a series of flashbacks and letters penned by the dictator, N'Zo Nikiema, readers discover the role of the French shadow leader, Pierre Castaneda, whose ongoing ambition to exploit the natural resources of the country knows no limits. As these powerful men use others as pawns in a violent real-life chess match, it is the murder of six-year-old Kaveena and her mother's quest for vengeance that brings about a surprise reckoning.
300 pages, Paperback
First published March 28, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 4, 2022
This novel is like shrapnel -- sharp & damaging in many directions. It has a stream-of-consciousness feel along with unreliable narrators, who pull you headfirst into a rushing, & at times unforgiving, current. Originally written over 15 years ago, it's still shockingly relevant, while the barbs & descriptions of evils are spot on. The ending really is just right. Not one for the faint of heart, but strongly recommended.
Edited to add: This is an excellent review: https://developmentbookreview.com/201...
Edited to add: This is an excellent review: https://developmentbookreview.com/201...
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July 15, 2019A dark and disturbing account by a Senegalese author of a fictitious African country moving from French colonial rule to a strongman dictator who is then overthrown in favour of another puppet. A white French businessman is the power behind the throne. It's a pretty brutal story--well, it starts with the ex head of the secret police in hiding with the dictator's putrefying corpse--and especially with the little girl of the title, raped and murdered by the men in power as part of a magic ceremony.
It's all about corruption and the vile things people learn to do, habituating themselves to evil. We see how the dictator invites the Frenchman in to his country--giving the coloniser power as long as it floats his own boat, and damn the rest of the nation--and the appalling development of the secret police, and the toll it takes on everyone by fear and corrupt compromise that encourages greed over everything because anything else is dangerous. There's not a lot of hope here, though there is what you might call a good ending, if you squint, but only in terms of this book.
It's more discursive than plot-driven, told in letters and flashbacks, and the translation isn't the smoothest, but nevertheless a powerful, disturbing read about the damage colonialism wreaks from many angles.
It's all about corruption and the vile things people learn to do, habituating themselves to evil. We see how the dictator invites the Frenchman in to his country--giving the coloniser power as long as it floats his own boat, and damn the rest of the nation--and the appalling development of the secret police, and the toll it takes on everyone by fear and corrupt compromise that encourages greed over everything because anything else is dangerous. There's not a lot of hope here, though there is what you might call a good ending, if you squint, but only in terms of this book.
It's more discursive than plot-driven, told in letters and flashbacks, and the translation isn't the smoothest, but nevertheless a powerful, disturbing read about the damage colonialism wreaks from many angles.
April 10, 2022
Boubacar Boris Diop is a Senegalese author who won this year's Neustadt Prize. Kaveena is one of his most recent novels, and the first I have read by him; like all but one (or perhaps now two) it is written in French.
Like Carpentier's El recurso del método and Garcia Marquez's El otoño del patriarca, both of which I read last month, this is a novel about a dictator of a fictional (but typical) country, in this case in Africa rather than Latin America. Also like the latter novel it begins with the narrator finding a cadaver, which he soon reveals is that of N'Zo Nikiema, the recently deposed president, and the book is largely the history of the dictator's life; and just as in that book we ultimately learn that the dictator was never really in control of the country, so here we learn that Nikiema has never been the real power, but a puppet of the man who ultimately deposes him (for a new and even more docile puppet), the French capitalist Pierre Cardenas. The narrator is obviously from the first few pages an ex-policeman, and in fact he soon reveals that he is the former head of Nikiema's secret police, Colonel Asante Kroma. Himself fearing Cardenas, he decides to utilize Nikiema's hideout and spend his time in hiding studying the letters and documents of Nikiema to try to understand his former boss better. Excerpts from these letters and documents supplement the first person narrative by Kroma.
The main thread of the novel is the relationship between Nikiema and Cardenas, which goes back before Cardenas puts Nikiema in power at the time of independence from France. Throughout the book, however, there are references to a major scandal, the rape and ritual murder of a six-year-old girl named Kaveena. At first it seems the book may be a mystery novel about the case, but very early on we learn that Kroma knows who is responsible, and that in fact it was Pierre Cardenas himself. The case of Kaveena does influence the ending of the novel, which I won't reveal. The novel is an interesting psychological study of Nikiema, Cardenas, Kroma himself, and one or two other characters, but the real point is undoubtedly to illustrate the dynamics of Africa after independence and its continuing dependence on the former colonial powers.
Like Carpentier's El recurso del método and Garcia Marquez's El otoño del patriarca, both of which I read last month, this is a novel about a dictator of a fictional (but typical) country, in this case in Africa rather than Latin America. Also like the latter novel it begins with the narrator finding a cadaver, which he soon reveals is that of N'Zo Nikiema, the recently deposed president, and the book is largely the history of the dictator's life; and just as in that book we ultimately learn that the dictator was never really in control of the country, so here we learn that Nikiema has never been the real power, but a puppet of the man who ultimately deposes him (for a new and even more docile puppet), the French capitalist Pierre Cardenas. The narrator is obviously from the first few pages an ex-policeman, and in fact he soon reveals that he is the former head of Nikiema's secret police, Colonel Asante Kroma. Himself fearing Cardenas, he decides to utilize Nikiema's hideout and spend his time in hiding studying the letters and documents of Nikiema to try to understand his former boss better. Excerpts from these letters and documents supplement the first person narrative by Kroma.
The main thread of the novel is the relationship between Nikiema and Cardenas, which goes back before Cardenas puts Nikiema in power at the time of independence from France. Throughout the book, however, there are references to a major scandal, the rape and ritual murder of a six-year-old girl named Kaveena. At first it seems the book may be a mystery novel about the case, but very early on we learn that Kroma knows who is responsible, and that in fact it was Pierre Cardenas himself. The case of Kaveena does influence the ending of the novel, which I won't reveal. The novel is an interesting psychological study of Nikiema, Cardenas, Kroma himself, and one or two other characters, but the real point is undoubtedly to illustrate the dynamics of Africa after independence and its continuing dependence on the former colonial powers.
April 1, 2019
This is the first novel I've read from Senegalese author Boubacar Boris Diop and hopefully not the last one. Despite having read many African novels by African authors from different countries writing about the same theme of anti-colonialism and/or post independance relationship between France and an African country, I still enjoyed reading this fiction novel due to the creativity of the author and the new perspective used. Most of the books read before on the subjects were either non-fiction or fiction following the people victims of the colonialism and foreign powers; however, it is the first time I read from the perspective of the dictators: The African dictator and his "French master" who owns the real power.
In this novel, readers follows Colonel Asante Kroma, a former political police chief, on the run and hiding at the same place, where the deceased former runaway African dictator had been hiding for months. While hiding the Colonel reads letters left by the African dictator to his secret mistress and also studies the relationship between the dictator and Pierre Castaneda, the French owner of the largest mining company in the country and who holds the true economic and political power.
Most of the novel is about the relationship between the Africa dictator and the French owner, from its beguinning until its ends, when the French owner attakcs indirectly the leadership of his "friend" the African dictator and removes him from office. All three leading characters have plenty of innoncent blood on their hands throughout their carreers, but only one crime seperated them and haunted them for years.
The lack of structure and organization (no parts, no chapters, no chronology mentioned...) of the novel doesn't make it easy to read and follow the story quickly.
This fiction story is original and creative in many ways. The leading character of the African dictator is very well developed and detailed, but not so much of the French Pierre Castaneda and neither of the colonel Kroma.
The end of the story is surprisingly totally unexpected.
In this novel, readers follows Colonel Asante Kroma, a former political police chief, on the run and hiding at the same place, where the deceased former runaway African dictator had been hiding for months. While hiding the Colonel reads letters left by the African dictator to his secret mistress and also studies the relationship between the dictator and Pierre Castaneda, the French owner of the largest mining company in the country and who holds the true economic and political power.
Most of the novel is about the relationship between the Africa dictator and the French owner, from its beguinning until its ends, when the French owner attakcs indirectly the leadership of his "friend" the African dictator and removes him from office. All three leading characters have plenty of innoncent blood on their hands throughout their carreers, but only one crime seperated them and haunted them for years.
The lack of structure and organization (no parts, no chapters, no chronology mentioned...) of the novel doesn't make it easy to read and follow the story quickly.
This fiction story is original and creative in many ways. The leading character of the African dictator is very well developed and detailed, but not so much of the French Pierre Castaneda and neither of the colonel Kroma.
The end of the story is surprisingly totally unexpected.
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June 8, 2025A disgraced police chief investigates the ruined post-colonial past of his fictitious West African country. Uneven but worthwhile.
May 24, 2018
A very straight forward novel about the fate of the leaders of a small African country. It might be a mystery novel, it might be a speculative history of post-colonial deals made with the devil, it may just be a straight forward narrative told through diaries and letters.
Asante Kroma is a strong and likable character, possibly a fair and uncorruptible agent of law enforcement; or more likely he is forgetting and glossing over his own atrocities. His complicity is secondary to the investigation he is embroiled in - to solve the murder of a little girl, Kaveena. So while the state breaks down, while the dictator, literally, rots in the other other room, Korma pours over documents, decoding ciphers, and piecing together the events of the child mutilation.
The child is a metaphor. The child's mother too. But they aren't.
Everyone is lying. And the codes Kroma discovers tell him nothing.
What is left out, the brutality, the bloodthirsty return of colonial projects.
The Devil as a Frenchman.
In the end, the art project is all that matters.
Asante Kroma is a strong and likable character, possibly a fair and uncorruptible agent of law enforcement; or more likely he is forgetting and glossing over his own atrocities. His complicity is secondary to the investigation he is embroiled in - to solve the murder of a little girl, Kaveena. So while the state breaks down, while the dictator, literally, rots in the other other room, Korma pours over documents, decoding ciphers, and piecing together the events of the child mutilation.
The child is a metaphor. The child's mother too. But they aren't.
Everyone is lying. And the codes Kroma discovers tell him nothing.
What is left out, the brutality, the bloodthirsty return of colonial projects.
The Devil as a Frenchman.
In the end, the art project is all that matters.
April 6, 2026
2022 Neustadt International Literature Prize.
The former head of secret service of an unnamed African country finds the body of the former dictator in a little house. From here, a story about the end of colonialism and the beginning of neocolonialism starts. It seems initially to be a typical dictator-novel, similar to ones written by several Latin American authors, but it branches out to cover the complex relationship between colonisers and colonised, both before and after independence.
I am not wholly convinced about how this was executed, but it is an intelligent novel nevertheless.
The former head of secret service of an unnamed African country finds the body of the former dictator in a little house. From here, a story about the end of colonialism and the beginning of neocolonialism starts. It seems initially to be a typical dictator-novel, similar to ones written by several Latin American authors, but it branches out to cover the complex relationship between colonisers and colonised, both before and after independence.
I am not wholly convinced about how this was executed, but it is an intelligent novel nevertheless.
August 17, 2023
A nice novel in the usual style of western African writers, embedded with political issues. The background story is interesting, with the dual narrators, colonel of security and the late president (via letters he wrote), but after a promising start it starts to dilute too much and the casual reader can lose attention.
July 29, 2020
An interesting take on a fictional west-african country and its history. A bit confusi g at times but well worth the read.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews