رحلة إلى شمال أفريقيا

by André Gide, أندريه جيد, محمود عبد الغني (Translator)

"يجب تذوق الصحراء,لفهم ما معنى ثقافة..."
هكذا يفتتح أندريه جيد رحلته الشيقة التي قام بها عام 1899 , ولم يكن عمره آنذاك يتجاوز العقد الثالث
تلك هي الرؤية الكلية لرحلاته إلى شمال أفريقيا , إلى تونس والجزائر على الخصوص. وهو يقول هذه الجملة, هذا النص بأكمله, بتلذذ ظاهر ,وبذلك يمنح للصحراء الإفريقية,وللفرد هناك معنى آخر يختلف كليًا عن تلك النظرة المعممة التي تخيب شعورنا وأفق انتظارنا , ربما لإن أندريه جيد من الكتاب اللذين تخلصوا مبكرا من تلك النظرة الشاذة للشرق, ومن تلك الشناعات التي يسوقها الرحالة الأوروبيون في نصوصهم الرحلية, ومن الصنف الذي نقله فلوبير مثلا في رحلته إلى مصر سنة 1849. أو كارل ماركس في رحلته إلى الجزائر سنة1881. ارتبط جيد بكل الأماكن التي زارها في رحلته ارتباطا ثقافيا شديدا. كانت لا تفوته لحظة دون تأمل النباتات والرمال والناس والمقاهي والأعراس.إلا إنها كانت رحلة شاقة على الفت الفرنسي , فكان يقضي ليله متعبا , سائح الخيال مصيغا السمع لثغاء القطيع في الليل.تلك هي اللحظات القوية في هذه الرحلة التي يشعر فيها بثقل لساعة وهي تعيد الساعة ,واليوم وهو يكرر اليوم.

Genres: Africa, Nonfiction, Travel, France, History, Literature, French Literature

111 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1927

About the author

Diaries and novels, such as The Immoralist (1902) and Lafcadio's Adventures (1914), of noted French writer André Gide examine alienation and the drive for individuality in an often disapproving society; he won the Nobel Prize of 1947 for literature.

André Paul Guillaume Gide authored books. From beginnings in the symbolist movement, career of Gide ranged to anticolonialism between the two World Wars.

Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide exposes the conflict and eventual reconciliation to public view between the two sides of his personality; a straight-laced education and a narrow social moralism split apart these sides. One can see work of Gide as an investigation of freedom and empowerment in the face of moralistic and puritan constraints, and it gravitates around his continuous effort to achieve intellectual honesty. His self-exploratory texts reflect his search of full self, even to the point of owning sexual nature without betraying values at the same time. After his voyage of 1936 to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the same ethos informs his political activity, as his repudiation of Communism suggests.

Chinese 安德烈·纪德

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

In July 1925, French novelist André Gide, accompanied by filmmaker Marc Allegret, his lover, took a ten-month trip that encompassed the French Congo, touched briefly on the Belgian Congo, and then swung north to Chad, the territory of Ubangui-Shari, and coming back to the ocean via a long journey through the entire length of Cameroon. What with the tsetse flies, the ringworm, and strange jungle fevers which killed not a few of their party, this was not in any way deluxe travel. Although Allegret was some thirty years his junior, Gide ran into considerable difficulties toward the latter part of the trip as they passed through a devastating heat wave in a country that had been scorched by brush fires. Toward the end, Gide was almost blind and required strong medicines to enable him to sleep; and Allegret was besieged by toothache and fever until the last few hundred miles.

What I like about this book is that Gide did not clean up any of the text afterwards to make a more literary impression. The last hundred pages are almost like a death march as they went from Fort Lamy to their port of embarkation at Douala. It was painful to read because one feels the pain that the two Frenchmen felt. Yet despite their agony, Gide always had interesting observations to make about the flora, fauna, and native human populations they encountered.

Most writers about Africa at that time did not quite view the natives as quite human. Gide, on the other hand, goes out of his way to be fair and friendly (perhaps, given his sexual proclivities, too friendly). He also makes an effort as he writes to distinguish the characters of his various African lieutenants, from the cook boy to his factotums. There are descriptions of scores of different African cultures met along the way. Although I have never felt any deep love for Gide's fiction, I felt that he had the makings of a great travel writer.

I could only wish that the edition I read had a glossary which explained many of the italicized terms that were tossed around. I finally figured out what a matabiche was (a tip), but I could never quite see what kind of body of water a marigot was. Also no attempt is made to translate the many quotations from the Latin, French, and German.

Be that as it may, I thought that Travels in the Congo was a real find -- though it had been nestling on my bookshelf untouched since trade paperbacks went for $1.95.

Finally, I was interested to hear that Gide was not only a big fan of Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness, but he read his edition at least four times in the course of his trip. Also, the book is dedicated to the memory of Conrad, which I thought was a nice touch.

[Nathaniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Travels in the Congo” is an artifact, a strange viewfinder showing hard to access parts of Central Africa circa 1925 from the perspective of a very oddly chosen “special envoy of the Colonial Ministry.” Andre Gide (a controversial, avant-garde French playwright) is shuttled around in a Tipoye (a porter-conveyed chair about which he is often wringing his hands with guilt, “As a general rule we use our tipoyes very little, as much because we like walking as to spare our wretched bearers.”), on horseback, in various boats and sometimes, to his credit, he walks on his own feet. Gide’s entourage often exceeds seventy people forcibly requisitioned to transport the ponderous equipment of his unclear mission for less than two francs per person, per day.

There is little structure or revision to Gide’s reflections—which is why the book never gathers the sort of momentum that makes something hard to put down. Now he is talking about chasing butterflies and poisoning colorful beetles, next he is reflecting on the precarious health of the over-worked and underfed men in whose company he travels, then he ruminates on the capabilities and qualities of Africans in general and often he shares, in captivating detail, the precise nature of the hospitality and celebrations that he enjoys in a tiny village, a dusty Sultanate or in a kingdom of the Cameroonian highlands. It is typical for Gide to back two sentences like these up against one another: “The natives had all got either the itch or the mange or the scab, or something of the sort; not one of them had a clean, wholesome skin. Saw for the first time the extraordinary fruit of the barbadine (passion-flower).” Much of this book’s charm comes from this unaffected, almost scatterbrained and rarely judgmental attention.

Gide’s eccentricities also result in numerous awkwardly comical moments. For instance, “Wanting to get a taste of solitude and feel more intimately the closeness of the forest, I quickened my step and began to run, in an attempt to escape, to outdistance the porters. In vain! They all immediately started off at a trot to catch up with me. Thoroughly annoyed, I stopped and made them stop, drew a line on the ground, and told them not to pass it until they should hear my whistle from a long way ahead. But a quarter of an hour later I had to go back and fetch them; they had not understood, and the whole convoy was being held up.”

Throughout, Gide does his best to show charity and love towards the people who serve him or show him hospitality; he wants to distinguish his line of thinking about Africans from that of the people he considers prejudiced, “When the white man gets angry with the blacks’ stupidity, he is usually showing up his own foolishness! Not that I think them capable of any but the slightest mental development; their brains as a rule are dull and stagnant—but how often the white man seems to make it his business to thrust them back into their darkness.” As his trip progresses, he gets closer to some of his assistants and develops deep-rooted admiration for several Africans as well as various sorts of African music, architecture or customs. Supposedly, some of his criticisms of the way that European businesses and governments took advantage of Central Africans gave momentum to movements for reform.

Ultimately, this journal is not about a transformation of Andre Gide or a carefully plotted criticism of anything—though moments of transformation and criticism can be discerned. This book should be read for the wealth of carefully observed details that bring to life a period in Central Africa’s history that I have never seen described so well and with such fantastically accidental humor.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a mere travel book. Apart from the mostly dull and sometimes somewhat poetically floating observations of the Central African nature, this travellog documents the way the colonial administration treated the local people: structurally hardly human and without respect for their culture and traditions. The last aspect has led, via Gide's report to the French government, to discussions in the French House of Representatives and an international conference in Geneva about Gide's accusations.
One of the main difficulties in trying to get grip on the situation in the African colonies was, that, in fact, private trade companies like the 'Compagnie Forestière' dominated the colonies, and the officials in France had hardly any of the necessary knowledge nor the motivation to get things, far away, done properly. So mainly this is a worthful historical document.
(And than 'Voyage au Congo' only covers the first - inland - part of Gide's journey; more personal difficulties were still to come, as experienced on the way from Fort Lamy to Douala and documented in 'Retour du Tchad', published in 1928). JM

[Adolfo · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pesar que se ve hay cierta denuncia de las explotaciones e injusticias cometidas por los colonialistas franceses ingenuamente Gide, no condena el colonialismo, por el contrario no hay páginas donde se puede relucir sus propios prejuicios hacia la cultura de los africanos. Como decia, hay muchos parrafos donde el escribe sobre lo inculto, feo o horrible de la vida de los africanos. Cuando el encuentra algún paisaje bonito, agradable no duda en compararlo con su Francia o Europa.

A pesar de todo este libro es interesante y nos cuenta de los "primeros" años del colonialismo cuando la prepotencia del europeo, por no decir racismo, en este caso del francés, es la norma de actuar. El libro es un ejemplo de como Francia, Belgica, Inglaterra, Alemanía con sus politicas racistas y de explotación han llevado a ese continente al subdesarrollo. Y el problema está en que esas políticas colonialistas del siglo pasado se han acondicionado y perfeccionado a nuestra época y siguen prevaleciendo y funcionando en el neocolonialismo.

[Ayda Zarrouk · Rating 1 out of 5]

"رحلة إلى شمال إفريقيا" لـِ André Gide..

عبارة عن مجموعة من الملاحظات والمشاهدات التي دوّنها الكاتب أثناء رحلته إلى الجزائر وتونس في بداية القرن العشرين. إلّا أنّني شخصيًّا لم أتمكّن من العثور على الكثير عن تونس في الكتاب، ما جعل التّركيز الأكبر على الجزائر..
قد يبدو للوهلة الأولى كأنّه مذكّرات سفر عابرة أكثر منه عملاً أدبيًّا متكاملًا، وهو ما قد يثير بعض خيبة الأمل لدى القارئ الذي يتوقّع معالجة أعمق أو تحليلًا ثقافيًّا غنيًّا..

الكتاب يتّسم بأسلوب سردي بسيط للغاية، حيث يقدّم الكاتب اِنطباعاته الشّخصية عن الأماكن التي زارها، مع التّركيز على تفاصيل الحياة اليوميّة، مشاهد المُدن، والتّفاعل مع النّاس، لكن دون أن يقدّم رؤية معمّقة أو تحليلًا سياسيًّا أو اِجتماعيًّا يتجاوز السّطح..

يمكن اِعتبار الكتاب بمثابة وثيقة تاريخيّة تلتقط لحظات من الواقع الإجتماعي في الجزائر في الحقبة الإستعماريّة، لكنهّ في الوقت نفسه يفتقر إلى العمق الأدبي الذي يتوقّعه القارئ في مثل هذه الأعمال. كما أنّ التّرجمة قد تكون أحد الأسباب التي تؤثّر على تجربة القراءة، إذ قد تكون غير دقيقة أو غير موفّقة في بعض المقاطع، ممّا يجعل النّص أحيانًا غير سلس أو مشوّش..

في المجمل، الكتاب عبارة عن ملاحظات سطحيّة قد لا تلبّي توقّعات القرّاء الذين يبحثون عن عمق فكري أو أدبي أكبر.
إذا كنت مثلي تبحث عن نصّ أدبي يتجاوز مجرّد وصف الأماكن والأشخاص، قد تشعر بخيبة أمل!

[Balkis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es un libro de no ficción y es básicamente la bitácora de viaje de este escritor durante su tiempo en las colonias francesas de Africa a principios del siglo pasado. Me pareció muy interesante el desarrollo de las observaciones de su viaje y como paulatinamente el escritor va pasando de su asombro inicial con lo diferente, al reconocimiento del grado de injusticia social en las poblaciones Africanas y la fría apatía de los blancos.

[César Torres Hernández · Rating 2 out of 5]

Un diario de viaje, que a nivel literario no ofrece mucho (bastante aburrido), pero en su momento causó bastante interés por la crítica que realizó André Gide sobre el maltrato y la esclavitud que sufría la población nativa, aunque esta crítica no era hacía el colonialismo en sí, sino únicamente a la forma en que se trataba a las personas.

[K.E. Page · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was enjoyable both as travel writing and as a historical document. Gide writes poetically about the scenery, the people and animals that he encounters. He documents the abuses of the colonists with no little despair and he is never less than fair in his dealings with the Africans. It is interesting to look at the map at the front of the book and consider how different its countries are from a modern map and also how different our politics are. Given the attitudes at the time, it is even more remarkable that Gide is able to be so fair and kind, teaching Adoum, one of their servants to read, for example.

[Judith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating information about the old Africa, unfortunately mixed in with a lot of boring stuff that should have remained in a private diary.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

terrible translation but well worth the read. The edition I read was published by University of California/Berkeley press 1964.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've never read Gide before, and I don't have a lot of experience with travel writing, so this was kind of a step outside of what I expected. It's good, though the level of detail on butterflies, beetles, and hut design was more than I needed. I think, from reading around on the internet, that the main take-away from this book is Gide's critique of the way the French colonial admin treats the Africans in the Congo, and this book definitely has that.

Otherwise interesting, I'd include his relationships, with Marc, his paramour and traveling companion, and with some of the guides and natives he does manage to spend enough time with. The writing is good-- I wasn't as charmed by it as I think I'm supposed to be, but it is thoughtful/ reflective and detailed. Travel writing is just a weird format, when you're not reading it with an eye toward travel or even geography.

The last entry in the book is very strange-- an ambiguous anecdote that I think is again meant to indict the French and their racism, but that reading relies on reading things ironically in a way that his previous critiques were more explicit. Without that guidance, I kind of wondered what Gide wanted me to make of it. I mean, I have my take, but I don't understand his.

[Juan · Rating 2 out of 5]

André Gide sobando a adolescentes en el Congo, calificando de “estúpidas” las danzas con las que les recibían donde se encontraban, disparando contra bonitos pájaros “para poder verlos mejor” y, sí, mostrándose clemente y paternalista con los nativos contra los abusos a los que los sometían sus compatriotas (que eran de diferente naturaleza a los que los sometía él), no es realmente mi idea de buena literatura. Se libra de la estrella solitaria porque al menos denuncia la explotación de sus compatriotas, aunque siempre trata de ver que se trata de casos aislados y no algo generalizado y sistemático.
El problema es que ni siquiera es literatura. Es una sucesión de anécdotas, paisajes “que son como los de Francia” o no. Ni siquiera su amante, Marc, al que se llevó a este viaje, aparece como alguien de carne y hueso, sólo cazando o filmando o algo. Sus “criados”, uno de los cuales aparece en todo el viaje, Andu, no sabemos nada de él, no llega ni a un secundario.
En resumen: ni en la edición que venía gratis con “Siete Leguas” ni con ninguna otra, evítalo.

[David Burns · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Engourdissement, peut être diminution. La vue baisse ; l'oreille durcit ; aussi bien portent-elles moins loin des désirs sans doute plus faibles. L'important, c'est que cette équation se maintienne entre l'impulsion de l'âme et l'obéissance du corps. Puissé-je, même alors et vieillissant, maintenir en moi l'harmonie. Je n'aime point l'orgueilleux raidissement du stoïque ; mais l'horreur de la mort, de la vieillesse et de tout ce qui ne se peut éviter, me semble impie. Je voudrais rendre à Dieu quoi qu'il m'advienne, une âme reconnaissante et ravie.”

Voyage au Congo, suivi de Retour de Tchad ** Ce livre a été lu au Sénégal et en Arabie Saoudite (jan-fev 2022)

[Paky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Escrito en formato de diario, aunque nos siempre al día, a lo largo del viaje, además de los paisajes, nos describe las condiciones de vida de los africanos, en un injusto régimen impuesto por la dominación francesa y controlado por las grandes compañías que explotan la región. El autor relata hechos concretos con claridad, revela el sometimiento, la arbitrariedad, la injusticia y el abuso de los blancos sobre las tribus que legítimamente poblaban estos territorios. También nos deja ver en distintos momentos, la bondad innata de los nativos, su generosidad y el agradecimiento que rápidamente muestran cuando son bien tratados.
El mismo autor nos cuenta en el capítulo final del libro: “en las regiones que hemos atravesado solo había razas humilladas, más envilecidas que viles, esclavizadas, que aspiraban sólo al bienestar más burdo, tristes rebaños humanos sin pastor.”

[Jordi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Aunque su publicación supuso un cierto escándalo en París, para el lector del siglo XXI que conoce las prácticas del Congo Belga, este relato puede resultar algo descafeinado ya que, aunque sí menciona abusos y malas prácticas, en realidad es más un libro de viajes donde predomina la descripción del paisaje, la fauna y las anécdotas cotidianas, con las denuncias bastante dosificadas y en segundo plano.

[Ernest Hogan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An valuable alternative to the Ernest Hemingway and Edgar Rice Burroughs visions of Africa.

[Atticus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Also a strong case for its time.

[fouch6 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Étudier l'éthique et l'esthétique de Dindiki.
Amitié paresseux-humain.
Faire don d'un paresseux à un explorateur se mouvant sur tipoye.
André Gide et ses tipoyeurs.

[- Andrew · Rating 1 out of 5]

روح الرحالة المُشبعة بكتابات الآخرين والمُفرّغة لبواطن نفسها ، لذاتها وشهواتها في محيطها. اسوء ما يصفُ شمال إفريقيا!

[Bunza · Rating 3 out of 5]

Compares favorably with Gide’s fiction and has an excellent eye for detail. Several other writers of Gide’s era who tried their hand at non-fiction did not pull it off so well nor age so gracefully. The somewhat misleading title ‘Travels in the Congo’ may sound better than ‘Travels in French Equatorial Africa’ but the latter is a more accurate description. The back cover of my Ecco Press edition manages to muddy the waters further by describing the Belgian Congo as now having devolved into the nations of Zaire, Congo and the Central African Republic, which is patently false. Only the Democratic Republic of Congo (the name recently changed from Zaire) can claim to be Belgian and there are relatively few pages of this book which are dedicated to it. The majority of the book covers parts of French colonial Africa that are now the modern Central African Republic, Congo-Brazzaville, Chad, Gabon and Cameroon rounded out by some short visits to other West African ports while in transit. Confusion aside, this is a well-written and enjoyable book about a Central Africa which has (mostly) long since past.

[Stéphane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Récit d'un long périple effectué par Gide au Congo (Brazzaville et belge) et au-delà vers l'Oubangui-Chari et jusqu'au Lac Tchad.
Un vrai récit de voyage mais aussi une dénonciation cinglante de l'exploitation de l'Afrique et des africains par les concessionnaires privés. Si Gide peut avoir une relative compréhension pour l'exploitation imposée par l'état - garant du bien-fondé des développements réalisés, par le biais de cette exploitation, pour la mise en valeur du pays - il expose que le seul but des entreprises privées est d'épuiser les ressources du pays pour le profit d'une minorité de riches administrateurs en métropole.
Un récit passionant par son côté très humain.
Non dénué non plus d'un humour involontaire quand on imagine le grand auteur qui gambade en culotte courte après des papillons ; chasse au filet répétitive dont il ne nous épargne aucun détail.

[Leonardo]

...la denostación de André Gide de las prácticas de trabajos forzados en su libro Viaje al Congo (1927) había despertado con anterioridad a la guerra la conciencia pública acerca de los crímenes europeos cometidos en el África central...

Posguerra Pág. 369

----

Testimonios sobre el "espantoso consumo de vidas humanas".

Una breve historia de la igualdad Pág.83

[Jeffe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting document. It's a journal so you get a day to day account of traveling through the heart of French Congo in the Twenties, with the backing of the French Government. Problems with porters, local chiefs and sheiks, fevers, cooks and the French companies extracting rubber from the dirt poor peoples of the region. It also sheds a light onto the nuances of racism in the colonial world.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andre Gide has a passion for humanity, nature, language and literature, as reflected in the diary of his nine month trip in 1925-26 across the Congo. He is quite forward thinking (for the time period) in his views on Africans, in his relentless pursuit of local justice and in his premonition of the future for the continent. How marvelous it would be to retrace his steps today, or at the least to speak with him.

[David Bachmann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gidés Buch schwankt zwischen Reisebericht und kritischem Essay.
Interessantes Stimmungsbild von Zentralafrika, Kongo und Tschad in den 20er Jahren des letzten Jahrhunderts.
Manchmal etwas eintönig, hinterlässt aber beim Leser die Lust eine Abenteuerreise a la Gidé ebenfalls antreten zu müssen.

[Tine Mauer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read it in Slovene...good itinerary.
I also own a copy of this book in Slovene.