Essay
Entre deux mondes
Not translated into English
Michel Kayoya · 1970
Synopsis
A meditation in poetic prose on the development of Burundi, addressed to his own people in the manner of a letter. The author celebrates the old values, the dignity and humanity that iteka and ubuntu name, and notes what colonial contact undid of them. He describes the “microbes of underdevelopment”: a society that measures success by possessions, a religiosity of formulas without deeds, a torpor that shuns initiative, institutions that change ceaselessly. Pages tell of village life and hunger, and salute the women of the country.
Context
The book appeared in Bujumbura from the Presses Lavigerie, in one hundred and forty-nine pages; the catalogue entries date it to 1970 or 1971, and one article says it was written as early as March 1969. It follows Sur les traces de mon père, published in 1968, in which the author was already setting out in search of the values of his country. Critics read in it a denunciation of the social, economic and political situation of Burundi, and a call for a lived faith, made of fraternity and solidarity, capable of overcoming divisions. It has been translated into Italian under the title Tra due mondi.
Who it is for
Poetic prose in French, brief, in which reflection takes on the tone of a letter; to be read as an essay as much as a poem.
Prizes and reception
Fifty years after its publication, Burundian readers still find its diagnosis relevant.
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