Novel
Le Fils du fétiche
Not translated into English
David Ananou · 1955
Synopsis
In Seva, a village east of Lomé, Sodji, a follower of the Thunder god, whose first two wives have given him no child, takes a third, Avlessi, a believer in the same cult. To undo this marriage, the first wives go to the fetish priest Agossa, who sells them a black powder to slip into the husband's meal in order to sow discord. The sacrifices to the gods remain in vain; it is a French doctor who at last enables Avlessi to bring a son into the world, Dansou, immediately dedicated to the fetish, whose trials the novel then follows.
Context
The novel was published in Paris in 1955 by Nouvelles Éditions latines, which reissued it in 1971, and it was then taken up by Akpagnon in 1999. The author, a Christian, says in his preface that he wanted only to sketch a curable ill, fetishist practices, and his epilogue links political emancipation to a revolution in manners. Each chapter describes an aspect of life in the Watchi country: marriage, birth, education, funerals and widowhood, which has led to comparisons with Camara Laye's The Dark Child; but where the Guinean celebrated the customs of his people, Ananou indicts them and pays tribute to the colonial powers, against the grain of Négritude.
Who it is for
A novel of about two hundred pages, in French, with an explicit thesis: its position on traditional religions makes it today a document as much as a work of literature.
Prizes and reception
Regarded, with L'Esclave by Félix Couchoro, as a pioneering novel of Togolese literature; somewhat forgotten since, according to critics.
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