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Callaloo 23.4 (2000) 1338-1348



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An Interview With Ahmadou Kourouma
(November 24, 1997) 1

Jean Ouédraogo


OUÉDRAOGO: It is often said that your writings do not leave anybody indifferent. How would you define their main thematic axes?

KOUROUMA: If my work does not leave anybody indifferent, it is perhaps because of the topics that I take on. Indeed, I do not write a novel for writing a novel's sake. I write a novel for a given reason. I must have a compelling motivation to write anything. Since, for us Africans, writing is not a lucrative occupation, one has to believe in it. It is like priesthood; something profound.

OUÉDRAOGO: What themes do you tackle?

KOUROUMA: As I mentioned before, I had to have, each time, compelling motivations. The first novel, The Suns of Independences, was written because I had friends who were imprisoned. There was a dictatorship that had to be denounced. Then came my play Tougnatigui. I came back (from exile) to a kingdom of lies, and I wanted to denounce the situation. As for Monnew, I am always shocked to see that there is a silence surrounding colonization: a silence surrounding those who died because of the colonization, a silence about the dead of slavery. Not a day passes without us being reminded of the crimes committed by communism. In France, they constantly talk of the four-year occupation. How many years have they been talking about it? For fifty years it's been talked about. As for us, we don't speak out. It was, in a way, letting it be known that we too have suffered. Now, as for the third novel, 2 which is to come out next year, the topic is the cold war. Nobody can fully grasp the impact of the cold war on the continent. All the big dictatorships that we experienced, all the crimes, the Mobutus, the Bokassas, the Idi Amins, are all creations of the Cold War. That is what I wanted to denounce.

OUÉDRAOGO: You also use various narrative techniques, all bearing the marks of oralité, in rendering the subject matter of these novels. What guided your choice? Is this the case of innovation bringing forth innovation?

KOUROUMA: No, it is not for the sake of innovation since it so happens that my goal is to be authentically African. For instance in The Suns of Independences I follow the model of the palabres. There lies the correspondence. This allows me to translate the [End Page 1338] prevailing situation. In Monnew, we are dealing with an epic, the main protagonist is a king, and in Africa, this domain belongs to the griot. Hence my borrowing of the griot's technique. With regard to my latest novel, En Attendant le Vote des Bêtes sauvages, I chose to situate the action in the midst of a hunting society. I am, therefore, using the technique of what we call the hunters' griot or sèrè. Each time, there was a correlation to the protagonist. And given the protagonist, one has to select the technique used in Africa.

OUÉDRAOGO: Could the lack of familiarity with Malinké prevent the reader from fully comprehending your work?

KOUROUMA: I would have preferred that we do not stop at Malinké. It is a fact that I present my stories the way they would be presented in Malinké, but I can say that we are dealing in fact with the African cosmogony, that the language is African. I make use of the African cosmogony. As I mentioned the other day, people are sent to prison in Côte d'Ivoire for eating someone's soul. This word cannot be translated into French. There appears to be an inherent dilemma in this situation. For people who claim French as their national language, with such fundamental needs as law, to witness others sentenced to five or six years jail terms for a word that cannot be translated into their national language, something is wrong with this picture. Being myself a malinké, I use some malinké words...

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