Maux, mots de femmes par Gibiril A. Assia-Printemps (review)

Reviews 271 Cependant, ce qui lui échappe c’est le quotidien de la Nigériane, ses occupations, ses déambulations, ses liens avec d’autres migrants que témoigne sa participation à une manifestation de grévistes. Anne doit admettre qu’elle ne peut pas tout comprendre, que les liens qu’elle a tissés pour atteindre Destiny sont ténus, friables et seront peut- être bientôt rompus. Les sentiments contradictoires de la narratrice, sa perplexité envers les attitudes de sa protégée sont exprimés avec lucidité tout comme sa prise de conscience du destin tragique d’une humanité qu’il n’est pas possible d’ignorer. Fairfield University (CT) Marie-Agnès Sourieau Gibirila, Assia-Printemps. Maux, mots de femmes. Meaux: Plumes d’Ocris, 2015. Pp. 153. ISBN 978-2-36728-074-5. 14 a. Gibirila’s work sets up a framework of social concern. Preceded by article 5 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and a preface, Maux, mots de femmes includes a liberal use of supporting documents drawn from contemporary media, as well as a final author’s message. The work thus insists upon its social message and the author’s credentials.As both a social worker and woman, Gibirila assures her reader that she is qualified to “décrypter le rôle des femmes dans leur prise d’indépendance dans une société qui, parfois, les écrase”(142). The work’s avertissement claims, however, that the characters and situations of the thirteen first-person narrated stories that follow are purely fictional. Dedicated to three hundred innocent Nigerian high school girls kidnapped and tortured in the name of religion, the first tale viscerally relates the narrator’s moment of pleasure in the warm sun. This feeling of freedom and wellbeing is abruptly destroyed. The dark, sunless, cramped space, the odor of death and decomposition that permeate the story and the narrator’s suffering reveal the true power of Gibirila’s work—superb, concise writing creating atmosphere, culture, and believable emotions throughout, expanding across several countries in Africa to France and India. The second story“Torche humaine,”a particularly moving story, tells of a young girl’s being burned alive by a man in whom she expressed no interest. Subsequent stories reveal a diversity of situations and suffering, but also a glimmer of hope. In several stories the distinctions between arranged marriages is contrasted with forced marriage of very young girls coerced to marry and submit to older men they do not know. Other stories communicate the complications of sterility or overabundance of children, the consequences of being abandoned, of bullying, and of colonial displacement . Suffering does not only affect the indigent. “Inflexible” recounts a successful French woman’s lonely path and loss of the woman she had been. Returning to physical violence,“C’est un ami”recounts the very believable story of a woman raped and battered by her chosen man who seeks to continuously manifest his superiority over her. The transition from surprise at such behavior from a man she trusts and loves to the realization of the premeditated nature of his attacks and the nefarious effects on her spirit are particularly believable. In addition, the story convincingly conveys how a woman can stay despite the violence and violation. Despite its potentially off-putting framework and social mission, Gibirila’s fiction beautifully expresses her final message of taking destiny into our own hands. She convincingly conveys the emotions, choices, and fears of diverse women as they face many challenges—whether sexual violence, kidnapping, family restrictions, forced marriages, bullying, or social norms of beauty. In addition, in today’s politically divisive world, where women are subjugated in societies that express hatred in alarming ways, this skillfully written work proves both timely and compelling. Augusta University (GA) E. Nicole Meyer Hervy, Olivier. En bataille. Talence: L’Arbre Vengeur, 2016. ISBN 9-791091-5044-23. Pp. 141. 10 a. This is the fourth book of amusing short observations, a sentence or two at most, published pseudonymously by an information officer at the municipal library of Nantes who is said to belong to a family of writers. A resident of Cholet, he often comments on...