Democratic Republic of the Congo / All works
Novel
Bandoki
Not translated into English
Zamenga Batukezanga · 1973
Synopsis
In Moabi, a village in Kongo country, an epidemic of sleeping sickness carries off many of the inhabitants, often young ones. Unable to understand these deaths, the villagers accuse the elders of witchcraft. When Matondo, the chief's young son, dies in his turn, the chief accuses an old man, who demands the arbitration of a distant fetish priest: the body is carried to him on foot, across a river without a bridge.
Context
Published in Kinshasa by Saint-Paul Afrique, in under a hundred pages, the novel had an edition of 1983, reprinted in 1990. Stéphane Kabamba reads in it in 2019 a critique of the accusations of witchcraft levelled at those who succeed and of the elders made into scapegoats, and a defence of medicine against beliefs, malnutrition and poor sanitation explaining many deaths.
Who it is for
For reading a very popular Congolese author, who sets medicine against accusations of witchcraft.
Prizes and reception
The Ritimo catalogue sees in it a staging, almost a film, that reveals a Bantu vision of the world.
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