La Malédiction du lamantin (Fayard Noir)

Les enquêtes du commissaire Habib #4

by Moussa Konaté

"À la saison sèche, au cœur du fleuve Niger, une ethnie réputée pour sa connaissance des mystères du monde aquatique, les Bozos, s'installe sur l'îlot de Kokrini. Un jour, contre toute attente, le fleuve entre en furie et un orage d'une violence inouïe frappe le campement. On découvre au petit matin deux corps sans vie. Dépêchés sur les lieux comme la loi l'exige, le commissaire Habib et son fidèle Sosso doivent affronter la foule des villageois et bientôt le pays entier: en dépit des preuves, tout le monde croit à un mort surnaturelle. C'est le Lamantin, le dieu du fleuve Niger, qui s'est vengé. Jamais enquête n'aura semblé aussi difficile. Les anciens, sa femme et même le directeur général de la police pressent Habib de suspendre ses investigations. Enfant du continent noir formé à l'école des Blancs, le commissaire vit un cas de conscience."--P. 4 of cover.

Genres: African Literature, Africa

168 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 27, 2009

Reviews

[David Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mi-chemin, je voulais donner 3 étoiles à ce bouquin. C’est les 80 dernières pages qui valent l’étoile additionnel. Le génie de Moussa Konaté est sa façon de faire une toile entre le monde d’aujourd’hui et la tradition. On ne peut pas comprendre le Sahel sans avoir plonger dans les deux. Merci de m’avoir amené sur ses montagnes russes sahélienne.

[Friederike Knabe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moussa Konaté is a Mali writer of many talents, one of the most important authors of today in his homeland. In addition to studies on social and political topics he embarked on a career as playwright and fiction writer back in the 1980s. Increasingly popular has been his series of detective stories, centred on Habib Keita as the gentle, open-minded chief of the criminal police investigation department. His young side-kick, the enthusiastic inspector Issa is known for often acting before reflecting... but sometimes that is just what is needed to take a creative approach to a case that seems bogged down in mystery and mythology...

La malédiction du Lamantin (The Curse of the Manatee) is the most recent of Konaté's novels. Like in his previous detective novels, the author's easygoing and fluid storytelling combines an intriguing case of murder with an introduction to the culture and mythology of one of Mali's ethnic groups of Mali, in this case the Bozo, the fisher people. They lead a seasonally precarious existence along - and on islands in - the Niger river which regularly rises above its banks. The Manatee is a mythical figure in the Bozo belief system and in the novel it plays a special role... Chief Habib needs all his sensitivity and knowledge to cut through a web of stories presented by the affected parties.

While spending time in Mali recently I enjoyed three of Konaté's novels. "l'empreinte du renard ; meurtres en pays Dogon" (the fox's footprint; murder in Dogon land) opens a window into Dogon culture, whereas the earlier "L'honneur des Keita" addresses the complexities of Mandinke honour system. While clearly fiction, all three novels open a door into an intriguing world that continues today to be very different from ours. The interested observer can recognize long-established thinking and parallels in societal behaviour steeped in tradition. As police procedural or detective stories alone, the three novels don't stand out particularly, however in terms of setting cultural scenes and depiction of landscapes and environments, they remind me of the Georges Simenon African 'romans durs', in particular his "Tropic Moon (New York Review Books Classics)". Unfortunately, Konaté has not yet been translated into English.

[Ilmatte · Rating 3 out of 5]

che strano effetto, un noir coloratissimo. colore di risate, di sentimenti e di usanze ataviche, rispetto per i saggi e le tradizioni. colore di storie vere e di realtà che si incrociano e restano sempre credibili, soprattutto le superstizioni. un noir metropolitano in un mondo atavico, dove la morte si incrocia con le maledizioni, e la speranza con le benedizioni.