Central African Republic / All works
Novel
Le Nègre Potemkine
Not translated into English
Blaise N'Djehoya · 1988
Synopsis
Three old African riflemen, Ismaël Sarakhollé, Thiékhoro Coulybally and Samba Samb, are invited by France to march down the Champs-Élysées on 14 July with their former officer, Désiré Laplanck. In the same Paris, three young researchers, Thogo-Nini, Ki-Yi and Boris Nivakhine, are preparing a thesis on these soldiers left in the shadows, alongside a character of a thousand nicknames, Le Caze, known as Mau-Mau or Ed Makossa, who is investigating the colonial adventure, the fairs and the Black figures of advertising. An affair of elephants links the threads.
Context
Published in Paris by Lieu commun, the book gives a large place to the forgotten soldiers of the Great War who were grouped under the name of tirailleurs sénégalais, and at the same time offers a portrait of France in the early eighties, the France of the left in power, of free radio stations and of the Marche des Beurs. The writing proceeds by fragments, mixing wordplay, references and music, from jazz to makossa, and university critics have spoken of an aesthetic of fragmentation in connection with it. The title plays on the double meaning of the word nègre: the one who writes behind the scenes for someone else, and the one who is kept out of sight.
Who it is for
A teeming novel in French, full of wordplay; it requires following several threads at once.
Prizes and reception
In Études littéraires africaines, Nathalie Carré sees it as a way of writing the other side of the history of the tirailleurs.
Sources for this page 6
The pages consulted to check this page.