Novel
Rougbêinga
Not translated into English
Norbert Zongo · 1990
Synopsis
At the time of colonisation, Soura Dakuo, a young Bwa nicknamed Rougbêinga, and his friend Balily, a Gurunsi, escape from a forced-labour camp in Bamako. Back in Bwa country, they travel the villages and markets to rally the young to an armed struggle against the French administration, which raises taxes and relies on chiefs such as the naba Liguidy of Koudougou. The great traditional hunt, which critics read as the image of resistance, carries their uprising.
Context
The novel appeared in 1990 in Ouagadougou, from the Imprimerie nouvelle du Centre, two years after Le Parachutage, the author's first novel, then was reissued by L'Harmattan Burkina. J. Segda studies its spirit of combativeness and E. Bassane, of Norbert Zongo University, the metaphor of the hunt. A collective work, Norbert Zongo, l'homme et son œuvre, appeared from L'Harmattan in 2022. Couldiati and Nombre locate Bwamu, the setting of the narrative, in the west of the country.
Who it is for
For reading a Burkinabè novel of adventure and revolt, which brings back to life in French the anti-colonial resistance of Bwa country.
Prizes and reception
Couldiati and Nombre rank it among the Burkinabè novels of the nineties that denounce colonial power.
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