Introduction to Dossier Kourouma

The second great vicious beast that threatens a novice chief of state . . . is to create a distinction between truth and lie. Truth is often only another way of repeating a lie. . . . Who are the individuals we call great men? They are without any doubt those who are the greatest fabricators. What are the most beautiful birds? Those birds who have the most beautiful songs. The greatest human literary works, in every civilization, will always be tales, legends . . . A man has reached his fullest measure and become a thaumaturge when he has freed himself from the distinction between truth and lie.

(Waiting for the Vote 132)

These words of political wisdom of Tiékoroni, the dictator of the Republic of Ebony, to the new president Koyaga have a special resonance throughout Ahmadou Kourouma's writings. Having modeled Tiékoroni, the fictional character, after the late Ivorian president, Félix Houphouët Boigny, the writer obliquely refers to his own coming to the field of literature as much as he provides an important clue for reading his novels. Indeed, the zero-sum approach to politics displayed through Tiékoroni's mantra led to "the quest for truth," on behalf of which Kourouma started his improbable writing career. We recall that Houphlouët had Kourouma and some friends jailed following the imaginary coup of 1963. Yet one will certainly be mistaken to consider his writings as history manuals, despite their obvious penchant for testimonial or denunciation. Having been lauded as truth teller extraordinaire by readers prompt to see in the chunky details of his writings, nuggets of African political life from the colonial era through decolonization, the Cold War, and, finally, the ever-pervasive civil wars of the last decades, Kourouma reminds us that his work remains first and foremost fiction feigning the biographical. Through the complicity of the readers, whether Africans or close observers of the African social political scene, the fictional is transformed into the national. At the same time, the derision and parody of specific cultural aspects often end up being perceived and received as authentic discourse or real occurrences by less informed readers. In skillfully blending facts and fiction, Kourouma brought his African and Western readership to a mesmerizing point.

Figure 1.

Ahmadou Kourouma. Photo by Jean Ouédraogo.

Indeed, in La langue d'Ahmadou Kourouma, the Senegalese critic Makhily Gassama, punctuating the reversal of his appreciation of Kourouma's first novel, Les soleils des indépendances (1968/1970), exclaims: "Voilà un grand livre! Kourouma est un sorcier!" 'This is a great book! Kourouma is a magician!' (20).

Most fortunately, this magical penmanship of Kourouma remained a constant through his subsequent play, Le diseur de vérité (1972) and the three novels Monnè, outrages et défis (1990), En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages (1998), and Allah n'est pas obligé (2000). With each one of these three novels the author gained in reputation, readership, and even converts from among his early detractors. As for his posthumous and fifth novel, Quand on refuse on dit non (2004), its unfinished and incomplete nature renders almost moot any hard aesthetic judgment. In so few books, Kourouma, the transplant of the Malinké oral tradition and accidental writer, was able to largely impact African letters over the last forty years, revolutionizing francophone literature in the same stride. That he attained such heights, therefore, speaks to the mastery rather than the quantity of his words. Through the former, his writings achieved new extensions, thus transforming a relatively succinct discourse into a worthy and captivating torrent of speeches. The best way to pay tribute to artists of Kourouma's stature is to reflect on the body of work they leave behind, its artistry, and its claims to continued relevance. Research in African Literatures, by providing a forum for the present "dossier Kourouma," contributes to the ongoing re-examination of Ahmadou Kourouma's literary production. The various contributions contained in this RAL cluster provide new readings and interpretations of an oeuvre already acknowledged for its originality of vision and quality of aesthetic form.

Justin...