Boubacar Boris Diop

Fiona Mc Laughlin

"[W]hat is true of Rwanda is true in each of us; we all share in Africa." -- L'Harmattan "[This novel] comes closer than have many political scientists or historians to trying to understand why this small country... sank in such appalling violence." -- Radio France International In April of 1994, nearly a million Rwandans were killed in what would prove to be one of the swiftest, most terrifying killing sprees of the 20th century. In Murambi, The Book of Bones, Boubacar Boris Diop comes face to face with the chilling horror and overwhelming sadness of the tragedy. Now, the power of Diop's acclaimed novel is available to English-speaking readers through Fiona Mc Laughlin's crisp translation. The novel recounts the story of a Rwandan history teacher, Cornelius Uvimana, who was living and working in Djibouti at the time of the massacre. He returns to Rwanda to try to comprehend the death of his family and to write a play about the events that took place there. As the novel unfolds, Cornelius begins to understand that it is only our humanity that will save us, and that as a writer, he must bear witness to the atrocities of the genocide. From the novel: "If only by the way people are walking, you can see that tension is mounting by the minute. I can feel it almost physically. Everyone is running or at least hurrying about. I meet more and more passersby who seem to be walking around in circles. There seems to be another light in their eyes. I think of the fathers who have to face the anguished eyes of their children and who can't tell them anything. For them, the country has become an immense trap in the space of just a few hours. Death is on the prowl. They can't even dream of defending themselves. Everything has been meticulously prepared for a long time: the administration, the army, and the [militia] are going to combine forces to kill, if possible, every last one of them."

Murambi, The Book of Bones

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.

Kaveena

The Book of Bones

Murambi, the Book of Bones

The first novel to be translated from Wolof to English, Doomi Golo—The Hidden Notebooks is a masterful work that conveys the story of Nguirane Faye and his attempts to communicate with his grandson before he dies. With a narrative structure that beautifully imitates the movements of a musical piece, Diop relates Faye’s trauma of losing his only son, Assane Tall, which is compounded by his grandson Badou’s migration to an unknown destination. While Faye feels certain that his grandson will return one day, he also is convinced that he will no longer be alive by then. Faye spends his days sitting under a mango tree in the courtyard of his home, reminiscing and observing his surroundings. He speaks to Badou through his seven notebooks, six of which are revealed to the reader, while the seventh, the “Book of Secrets,” is highly confidential and reserved for Badou’s eyes only. In the absence of letters from Badou, the notebooks form the only possible means of communication between the two, carrying within them tunes and repetitions that give this novel its unusual shape: loose and meandering on the one hand, coherent and tightly interwoven on the other. Translated by Vera Wülfing-Leckie and El Hadji Moustapha Diop.

Doomi Golo—The Hidden Notebooks

The media tends to portray Africa in a manner that grossly distorts reality. The picture they paint is intended to make people of African descent feel ashamed of their past and their identity. This is unacceptable and must change. It is therefore a moral imperative for all those who can make themselves heard, to speak out. These texts reflect the point of view of an African intellectual who has selected them for this volume because they were all born out of the desire to tell the truth as it is.

Africa Beyond the Mirror

Dans une petite ville, un voyageur solitaire attend une embarcation : quelque part au-delà du fleuve, Khadidja, celle qu'il a aimée autrefois, lutte sans doute contre la mort. Pendant trois journées d'attente, l’homme chemine dans sa propre mémoire : sa rencontre avec la jeune femme dans cette lointaine ville européenne, leur vie commune au pays, la déchéance et les humiliations. Où trouver, dans les décombres du passé, « quelque chose qui ressemble à un commencement » ? Peut-être dans cet étrange contrat accepté par Khadidja, à bout de misère : s’asseoir chaque jour devant une porte ouverte sur l’obscur, et parler à un être invisible... Imaginer sans relâche de nouvelles fables, et l’identité de leur destinataire : jusqu’à sombrer dans la folie et disparaître. Le Cavalier est son ombre est tissé des récits de Khadidja et du narrateur, tantôt réalistes tantôt hallucinés, toujours porteurs du malheur d’un continent étranglé par tant de désastres. Pourtant, au milieu des flammes de la guerre civile, alors que les troupes étrangères reviennent prendre possession du pays, la quête du salut demeure, symbolisée par cet enfant mythique revenant de conte en conte, qui « n’a eu le temps ni de vivre ni de mourir ». Roman lyrique et grave, Le Cavalier est son ombre dit superbement la déchirure de l’écrivain africain, qui ne sait si ses textes s’adressent à l’abîme ou à des êtres de chair et de sang. Le Cavalier et son ombre (paru chez Stock en 1997) est le quatrième roman de Boubacar Boris Diop. Des blogs en parlent : Les mots de Pascale, In libro veritas, Vita Nova.

Le Cavalier et son ombre

Javier Martínez Reverte

Juan Bonilla

7 escritores españoles en África

África.es

pamphlet politique

Et les menteurs se tairont

le livre des ossements : roman

Murambi

A brilliant tour de force, The Knight and His Shadow tells the tale of Lat-Sukabé’s quest to find his former lover, Khadidja, who writes him to “come before it’s too late.” As Lat-Sukabé recounts his past with Khadidja, reality shapeshifts and takes on a dreamlike quality. He describes how Khadidja is hired by a wealthy stranger to sit before an open door and tell stories into an uncertain darkness, unable to see the person to whom she speaks. Like Lat-Sukabé and Khadidja, the reader feels farther from home with every page, as the world turns and morphs. With those shifts, the symbolic order, the basis of meaning and sanity, begins to tremble. Postmodernist sensibilities meet postcolonial concerns in this lyrical novel from a master of Senegalese literature.

Boubacar Boris Diop

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