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  • Sassine: ‘Saint Monsieur Baly’
  • Audrey Small
Sassine: ‘Saint Monsieur Baly’. By Charlotte Baker. (Glasgow Introductory Guides to French Literature, 56). Glasgow: University of Glasgow French and German Publications, 2010. iv + 52 pp. Pb £6.00.

Williams Sassine’s 1973 novel Saint Monsieur Baly is a classic of francophone African literature, and Charlotte Baker’s short introductory text presents a clear and systematic analysis of the novel and its place in Sassine’s work. The novel’s protagonist Baly is in many ways a relation of Oumar Faye in Ousmane Sembène’s 1957 novel O pays, mon beau peuple!: where Faye sets up a model co-operative farm, Baly decides to build a school for the underprivileged. Each sets out to improve the lot of ordinary people, struggles heroically against corruption, obstruction, venality, and even the mauvaises langues of those he seeks to help, and is in the end sacrificed to his cause. Saint Monsieur Baly thus draws on a certain tradition of social critique and engagement present in many earlier African novels, treating a number of the key themes of the period (further examples might include analysis of the early aftermath of colonialism and ‘alternatives to Western models for Africa’s future’ (p. 3), the relationship between European and African languages, and debates over identity, tradition, and modernity) while also displaying many of the characteristics of the more oneiric, fantastic, and formally innovative novels of the decade. Baker’s analysis, then, is particularly impressive in that it manages the trick of providing accessible, lucid, and highly engaging coverage of these well-worn African literary tropes, while also suggesting some new and thought-provoking readings. Chapters on Sassine’s treatment of education and religion in post-independence Africa are energized by suggestions of further lines of development and discussion of Baly as teacher, father figure, hero, and saint; and Baker achieves a nice balance between imparting information and leaving space for students to develop their own criticism. The final chapter, on ‘narrative structure and form’, is a little more of a mixed bag, with fascinating material on the role in the novel of nightmares and daydreams, Greek mythology, and insect imagery, but providing less focus and guidance — though perhaps, by the same token, more freedom — for the reader. With a good bibliography, a brief but informative literature review and discussion of available critical writing on Sassine, and an efficient presentation of historical, political, and cultural background, this short text is a welcome addition to critical writing on Sassine and on the West African novel generally. [End Page 276]

Audrey Small
University of Sheffield
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