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Research in African Literatures 35.3 (2004) iv, 1-5


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Ahmadou Kourouma and Ivoirian Crises*

Jean Ouédraogo

State University of New York—Plattsburgh

Click for larger view		 Figure 1
Ahmadou Kourouma. Photo by Jean Ouédraogo.
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Paying tribute to Ahmadou Kourouma (1927-2003) is not an easy task when measuring the stir created by his work, from Les soleils des indépendances (The Suns of Independence) to the shockwaves of Allah n'est pas obligé (2000). While nothing in his background as an actuary predisposed him to writing, the child of Boundiali, the soldier in spite of himself in Indochina, gave us more than one surprise. With a certain brio and a sense of renewal, the author Kourouma forced himself on the African literary scene and won over, with each passing work, a francophone readership that paid him more and more attention. Indeed, many were surprised by the narrative forms, the irregularity, the diversity, and especially the density of his oeuvre. Whatever the crossroads of their initial encounter with him, Les soleils des indépendances (1968/1970),Le diseur de vérité (1972/1998), Monnè, outrage et défis (1990), or even En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages, the author's indelible marks compelled his audience to make the journey with him—sometimes after a long break, sometimes in a backaward move to retrace earlier steps—all the way to the summit: Allah n'est pas obligé (2000).

The man's vocation was to provoke discussion, to invite the master speakers, the fine talkers, the professional flatterers (griots, sora, djéli, interpreters, politicians), to join in these debates on the great evils where neither coarse words nor words of wisdom and beauty would be lacking. For as Djéliba says in Le desieur de vérité, "[T]out est dans le dire. Une chose bien dite c'est une chose plus vraie, une chose mieux faite" 'It's all in the telling. A thing well said is a thing that is truer, a thing that's better made' (Act 1, scene 2, p. 20), from which all the privileged people conclude: "Diarra tu parles le mieux, tu gagnes. Tu es toujours le diseur de vérité" 'Diarra, you speak the best, so you win. You are still the teller of truth' (Act 1, scene 3, p. 28). It was in reaction to this political situation characterized by lies erected into a form of governance that Kourouma sharpened his literary weapons to combat evil through [End Page 1] words. Thus he chose denunciation, testimony, and demythification as his war horse, his modus vivendi.

Quite early on, he was among the very first to sound discordant, dissonant notes in the literary concert where "good" French was the currency, leading us along and putting us under the spell, in the threnody of his four novels and one play. Those who had initially resisted this surplus of creativity and linguistic improvisation in the end joined in the acclaim and placed him at the head of the line of incorrigible francophones. Whether the Prix de Francité (1968), the prizes of the French Academy or the Royal Belgian Academy (1970), the Prix des Nouveaux Droits de l'Homme, the Grand Prix de l'Afrique Noire, the prize from the Association of Francophone Television and Radio Journalists (1990) awarded for Les soleils des indépendances and for Monnè, outrages et défis, or even the crescendo of recognition, extending from the Prix des Tropiques (1998), the Prix de France-Inter (1999), and the Grand Prix des gens de lettres de France (1999) to the Prix Renaudot and the Prix Goncourt des lycéens, which accompanied En attendant . . . and Allah n'est pas obligé, the author's numerous distinctions testify to his courage as well as to his talent as a highly accomplished storyteller. Carrol F. Coates is indeed correct, in giving the repertory Ahmadou Kourouma's prizes and honorary titles, when he speaks of the honored bilakoro (see Coates). A francophone in his own way, he inscribed in the minds of young Africans and...

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