Novel
Chaîne
Not translated into English
Saïdou Bokoum · 1974
Synopsis
Paris, 1974. Kanaan Niane, a Guinean student enrolled in law at Nanterre, has founded with three friends a theatre troupe, the Kotéba, which revives a form of ritual theatre from Bambara villages. After a series of failed love affairs, including that with the beautiful Sana, he abandons university and wanders by day and by night through the Paris of the immigrants, in a narrative broken into fragments.
Context
The novel appeared with Denoël in 1974. Long out of print, it was taken up again in 2017 by Le Nouvel Attila, revised by the author and retitled Chaîne ou le retour du phénix, with an afterword by Nicolas Treiber, who has studied its archives: the Kotéba troupe there transposes the Kaloum Tam-Tam that the author had founded. The title makes the chain an allegory of domination, linked to the curse of Ham, whose descendant the hero declares himself to be.
Who it is for
A novel in French, with a fragmented, non-linear narrative; the revised 2017 version runs to 372 pages.
Prizes and reception
On the last shortlist for the Prix Goncourt in 1974, the year of The Lacemaker, then forgotten until its reissue in 2017.