Novel
Caprices du destin
Not translated into English
Halilou Sabbo Mahamadou · 1981
Synopsis
In the land of the Sands, under colonial administration, Kasko stands up to the commandant and his goumiers, while Zomo, a man of cunning and mischief, knows how to make the most of every situation. The white people's school arrives in the village and the families distrust it; then come the party, the candidacies and the elections, the rivalries between the clan of the elephant and that of the camel, under the gaze of the griots and the marabouts.
Context
The author was head of the Nigerien school system at the time he was writing its critique: he had been in charge of education in the government of the Supreme Military Council, and had been inspecting classes for ten years. The presses of the national printing house, in Niamey, published the book. As in his previous novel, many Hausa proverbs translated into French are incorporated into the text, a sign of attachment to the languages of the country in someone who wrote in that of the former colonial power.
Who it is for
In French, with Hausa proverbs given in translation. It is better to know that schooling remained, in the Nigerien countryside, an object of distrust rather than a promise.
Prizes and reception
Selected, together with the same author's previous novel, as an object of analysis in university studies on the Nigerien novel and the construction of national identity.