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Rihata
Siirtomaavallasta vapautunut Afrikka – uusi Euroopassa koulutettu luokka loistoautoineen ja juonitteluineen: uuden afrikkalaisen kansanlaulun sanojen riipaiseva totuus:
"Voi näitä uusia miehiä mersuineen / huviloineen ja sveitsiläisine pankkitileineen. / Eivät, eivät isillemme vedä vertaa."
Afrikkalainen todellisuus: tyrannivalta, sissit pohjoisessa, kehitys kangertelee – kaiken tämän tajuaa antillilainen Marite- Hélène jouduttuaan avioliittoon syrjäiseen kaupunkiin perinteen ja lapsilauman kahlitsemaksi. Kaupunkiin ilmestyy aviomiehen nuori veli, ministeri, jota Marie-Hélène on aikoinaan rakastanut kiihkeästi. Herää toivo paremmasta elämästä, ehkä veljen avulla uudesta virkapaikasta? Ministeri murhataan, horjuuko diktaattorin valta, onko Afrikalla toivoa paremmasta?
Guadeloupelainen Maryse Condé kuvaa uuden Afrikan kuohuvaa todellisuutta, ihmistä intohimoineen, kansaa, joka peittyy räikeiden lehtiotsikoiden alle.
"Voi näitä uusia miehiä mersuineen / huviloineen ja sveitsiläisine pankkitileineen. / Eivät, eivät isillemme vedä vertaa."
Afrikkalainen todellisuus: tyrannivalta, sissit pohjoisessa, kehitys kangertelee – kaiken tämän tajuaa antillilainen Marite- Hélène jouduttuaan avioliittoon syrjäiseen kaupunkiin perinteen ja lapsilauman kahlitsemaksi. Kaupunkiin ilmestyy aviomiehen nuori veli, ministeri, jota Marie-Hélène on aikoinaan rakastanut kiihkeästi. Herää toivo paremmasta elämästä, ehkä veljen avulla uudesta virkapaikasta? Ministeri murhataan, horjuuko diktaattorin valta, onko Afrikalla toivoa paremmasta?
Guadeloupelainen Maryse Condé kuvaa uuden Afrikan kuohuvaa todellisuutta, ihmistä intohimoineen, kansaa, joka peittyy räikeiden lehtiotsikoiden alle.
- GenresFiction
230 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1981
3 people are currently reading
113 people want to read
About the author
Maryse Condé
99 books906 followersMaryse Condé was a Guadeloupean, French language author of historical fiction, best known for her novel Segu. Maryse Condé was born as Maryse Boucolon at Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, the youngest of eight children. In 1953, her parents sent her to study at Lycée Fénelon and Sorbonne in Paris, where she majored in English. In 1959, she married Mamadou Condé, an Guinean actor. After graduating, she taught in Guinea, Ghana, and Senegal. In 1981, she divorced, but the following year married Richard Philcox, English language translator of most of her novels.
Condé's novels explore racial, gender, and cultural issues in a variety of historical eras and locales, including the Salem witch trials in I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem and the 19th century Bambara Empire of Mali in Segu.
In addition to her writings, Condé had a distinguished academic career. In 2004 she retired from Columbia University as Professor Emeritus of French. She had previously taught at the University of California, Berkeley, UCLA, the Sorbonne, The University of Virginia, and the University of Nanterre.
In March 2007, Condé was the keynote speaker at Franklin College Switzerland's Caribbean Unbound III conference, in Lugano, Switzerland.
Condé's novels explore racial, gender, and cultural issues in a variety of historical eras and locales, including the Salem witch trials in I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem and the 19th century Bambara Empire of Mali in Segu.
In addition to her writings, Condé had a distinguished academic career. In 2004 she retired from Columbia University as Professor Emeritus of French. She had previously taught at the University of California, Berkeley, UCLA, the Sorbonne, The University of Virginia, and the University of Nanterre.
In March 2007, Condé was the keynote speaker at Franklin College Switzerland's Caribbean Unbound III conference, in Lugano, Switzerland.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 5, 2020
"What had they given her? Happiness? Peace? Not good one moment. She was the only one who had been punished for the crime she committed...if crime there had been. That was what women were for: scapegoats."
From A SEASON IN RIHATA by Maryse Conde, translated from the French (Guadeloupe) by Richard Philcox, 1981/1987 in English, Heinemann Educational, Caribbean Writers Series
A story of discontent, of regrets, of "what could have been", political machinations, and the tenuous bonds between family members.
One of Conde's earliest novels (1981), this story is set in an unnamed fictional African country.
The cast of characters is large and the narrative swiftly changes perspectives between the cast members, forming a large and quickly-paced mosaic of the story.
The main female protagonist, Marie-Hélène (quoted above), moved to Rihata, her husband's hometown, and is refered to constantly by townspeople - and her own mother-in-law - as a "half-caste" because she is not African, and from "over there", her birthplace in Guadeloupe. She is desperately lonely and angry about past events that led to her current place in life. She does find solace with her daughters, and the relationship with her nephew, her ward after her beloved sister's passing.
There were many threads running in this short novel - just under 200 pages - and Conde could have easily drew out 2 or 3 more times the length to tell this story. Things tied up neatly, even leading to quite a climax in the last pages of the book.
Past lovers, entangled sibling rivalries, the ever-constant struggle between honoring tradition and moving forward, with a large helping of poltical intrigue, this was a good place to begin with Conde's fiction.
From A SEASON IN RIHATA by Maryse Conde, translated from the French (Guadeloupe) by Richard Philcox, 1981/1987 in English, Heinemann Educational, Caribbean Writers Series
A story of discontent, of regrets, of "what could have been", political machinations, and the tenuous bonds between family members.
One of Conde's earliest novels (1981), this story is set in an unnamed fictional African country.
The cast of characters is large and the narrative swiftly changes perspectives between the cast members, forming a large and quickly-paced mosaic of the story.
The main female protagonist, Marie-Hélène (quoted above), moved to Rihata, her husband's hometown, and is refered to constantly by townspeople - and her own mother-in-law - as a "half-caste" because she is not African, and from "over there", her birthplace in Guadeloupe. She is desperately lonely and angry about past events that led to her current place in life. She does find solace with her daughters, and the relationship with her nephew, her ward after her beloved sister's passing.
There were many threads running in this short novel - just under 200 pages - and Conde could have easily drew out 2 or 3 more times the length to tell this story. Things tied up neatly, even leading to quite a climax in the last pages of the book.
Past lovers, entangled sibling rivalries, the ever-constant struggle between honoring tradition and moving forward, with a large helping of poltical intrigue, this was a good place to begin with Conde's fiction.
August 13, 2016
Zek and his Guadeloupean wife Marie-Hélène live in a small fictitious town of Rihata, with their six children and another due any day. Neither are happy, Zek has never been able to get over the feeling of being looked down on by his father, even though he is long dead, resentful of his brother Madou, who found favour without having to do anything.
And now Madou is coming to Rihata, he is a political Minister and coming to conduct negotiations, his presence causing many to feel uneasy, a disruption in the sleepy town where not much usually happens.
It is a novel of discontent, of the effects of selfish behaviour, which none are immune to or able to rise above. Contentedness is within their reach, but so is temptation and the effect of indulging it ricochets through all members of the extended family and the rulers of the country.
Influenced by a father who made no pretence of his preferences, Madou had soon considered Zek as a person of limited ability and in all ways inferior; although this did not exclude a certain brotherly affection.
And now Madou is coming to Rihata, he is a political Minister and coming to conduct negotiations, his presence causing many to feel uneasy, a disruption in the sleepy town where not much usually happens.
It is a novel of discontent, of the effects of selfish behaviour, which none are immune to or able to rise above. Contentedness is within their reach, but so is temptation and the effect of indulging it ricochets through all members of the extended family and the rulers of the country.
December 6, 2018
One of Maryse Condé's earliest novels (I think the second), Une Saison à Rihata is set in Rihata, a regional capital of a fictional West African country. Condé lived for a decade in West Africa, in Sénégal, Guinea, and Ghana. I don't know enough about African history to guess which of these countries the country in the book might be modeled on, although some geographical facts (a former French colony bordering on a former Portuguese one) suggest Guinea; possibly it is a composite of several African nations. The basic outline is unfortunately familiar enough. The novel takes place some two decades after Independence; the first President, corrupt and surrounded by Western advisors, was overthrown by an even more corrupt and brutal military dictator, Toumany, who has ruled for over ten years under the cover of an "African socialism" called "Toumanysm".
The novel begins with the family of Zek (sort of an African Rabbit Angstrom), his alienated and pregnant wife Marie-Hélène (born in Guadaloupe), his mother Sokamba (a representative of traditional African values), his orphan nephew Christophe, and his six daughters, who are in a sort of voluntary exile in Rihata. After establishing these characters and a little bit of their previous history (more of which is revealed in various flashbacks throughout the book), two new characters arrive, who are actually the protagonists of the political action of the novel: Zek's younger brother, Madou, who is a high-ranking minister in the Toumany government, on a secret mission (which of course everyone knows about) and Victor, a guerilla from the North of the country, who is on a mission to spy on Madou's mission. The two plots, the political and the personal, intertwine, together with many flashbacks, in a complex fashion. The two best portraits of the novel are the reformist Madou, originally a radical educated in the Soviet Union, who tries to "change the system from within" and step by step is led to become an important part of the repression he set out to oppose, and the "ultraleft" Victor, also well-meaning, but undisciplined and impulsive, who by his spontaneous individual acts of violence creates most of the disasters in the novel.
If Condé started out with a novel like this, I'm looking forward to reading her later works; I don't know why I had never heard of her before she won the fake Nobel.
The novel begins with the family of Zek (sort of an African Rabbit Angstrom), his alienated and pregnant wife Marie-Hélène (born in Guadaloupe), his mother Sokamba (a representative of traditional African values), his orphan nephew Christophe, and his six daughters, who are in a sort of voluntary exile in Rihata. After establishing these characters and a little bit of their previous history (more of which is revealed in various flashbacks throughout the book), two new characters arrive, who are actually the protagonists of the political action of the novel: Zek's younger brother, Madou, who is a high-ranking minister in the Toumany government, on a secret mission (which of course everyone knows about) and Victor, a guerilla from the North of the country, who is on a mission to spy on Madou's mission. The two plots, the political and the personal, intertwine, together with many flashbacks, in a complex fashion. The two best portraits of the novel are the reformist Madou, originally a radical educated in the Soviet Union, who tries to "change the system from within" and step by step is led to become an important part of the repression he set out to oppose, and the "ultraleft" Victor, also well-meaning, but undisciplined and impulsive, who by his spontaneous individual acts of violence creates most of the disasters in the novel.
If Condé started out with a novel like this, I'm looking forward to reading her later works; I don't know why I had never heard of her before she won the fake Nobel.
November 14, 2022
High 4. Recommend.
August 31, 2013
Sattumalöytö kirjastosta. Tarinassa ministeriksi kohonnut Madu palaa hetkellisesti veljensä luokse Rihata-nimiseen uneliaaseen kaupunkiin kuvitteellisessa afrikkalaisessa maassa. Veljesten välillä on selvittämättömiä ristiriitoja, ei vähiten liittyen vanhemman veljen Zekin viimeisillään raskaana olevaan vaimoon Marie-Hélèneen. Taustalla kuohuu diktatuurissa elävä maa sissiliikkeineen ja korruptioineen.
Tarina on sinänsä sujuva, mutta en päässyt kunnolla sen imuun. Kirjan vika ei ole myöskään se, että suomennoksen takakannessa spoilataan tarinan kannalta keskeisin tapahtuma, joka latisti omaa lukukokemustani.
Tarina on sinänsä sujuva, mutta en päässyt kunnolla sen imuun. Kirjan vika ei ole myöskään se, että suomennoksen takakannessa spoilataan tarinan kannalta keskeisin tapahtuma, joka latisti omaa lukukokemustani.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews