Novel
Le Retour au village
Not translated into English
Kollin Noaga · 1978
Synopsis
Tinga, from Tèma, has left his village to seek his fortune in Abidjan; years of patient work leave him almost nothing, amid the bullying of officials, the contempt of the powerful and the dirty tricks of his equals in poverty. We follow him from stations to taxis, from verbal jousts to brawls, among Mr Brou the cunning landlord, Gorgui the watch seller, Anne-Marie the panther, the venal hiring chief of the port and the escape committee of the central prison; the road back is no simpler than the road out.
Context
The book was published in 1978 in Paris, in Les Classiques africains, one hundred and forty-one pages. It was not a new text: its author was reworking, in the form of a novel, a work first published as an essay on some aspects of Upper Voltan emigration to Côte d'Ivoire. Both editions were long out of print; the novel can now be read in a digital reissue by FeniXX.
Who it is for
In French. The story moves from station to taxi and from quarrel to brawl, in a picaresque tone, with a gallery of figures from the streets of Abidjan whom one must accept to follow without a tight plot.
Prizes and reception
A study by the IRD sees in it the first literary description of the living conditions and the return of Burkinabè migrants from Côte d'Ivoire.