La gloire des imposteurs: lettres sur le Mali et l’Afrique par Boris Boubacar Diop, Aminata Dramane Traoré (review)

chapitres 13 à 16 et 22, 26 et 27 s’apparentent à de longues listes au sein desquelles se succèdent rapidement le récit d’initiatives diplomatiques et de menus complots politiques. On finit par se perdre dans ce dédale de faits trop souvent peu marquants ou captivants. De plus, l’accumulation des noms des personnes impliquées devient source de confusion.De tels chapitres auraient souvent besoin de synthèses plus fournies ou de préambules pour mieux orienter la lecture. Enfin, on rencontre un peu trop de coquilles, dont la responsabilité incombe en partie à la maison d’édition. Southwestern University (TX) Francis Mathieu Diop, Boris Boubacar, et Aminata Dramane Traoré. La gloire des imposteurs: lettres sur le Mali et l’Afrique. Paris: Philippe Rey, 2014. ISBN 978-2-84876-232-6. Pp. 233. 17 a. The “imposteurs” in this epistolary discussion of contemporary Africa include Africans as well as Western leaders, but especially the French. Diop and Traoré decry how African politicians, intellectuals, and the media sacrifice their own people for personal gain. The French invasion of northern Mali is the recurrent theme in the correspondence, analyzed from two opposing perspectives: one clearly details the manipulations and hypocrisy used by France and her allies to organize the operation (122–27); the other states that Mali had no alternative other than to ask for help from the ex-colonial power, as the brutalities and exactions of the“narcoterrorist”jihadists grew intolerable (135). The authors make clear that this military response is not a solution to the problem of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism,whose roots lie in a refusal to understand and treat Mali’s economic and ethnic conflicts. Three other threads traverse the exchanges: the role of Kaddafi, whose aid was accepted along with his eccentricities until Western interests were threatened; the Western manipulations behind the“printemps arabes,”and Cheikh Anta Diop, the great definer and defender of the identity of the Black continent. Both correspondents return to what Diop called Africa’s self-phobia: looking always elsewhere for models and approval rather than valuing and respecting her own culture. Traoré’s letters often deal with those who pay the highest price for Africa’s failings: the poor. Her anecdotes detailing individual suffering are usually linked to her personal attempts to work in local groups, building on Africa’s own resources and sense of community to construct a humane society. The catalogue of Africa’s failures is balanced by textual proofs of France’s continued heavy hand in violating Mali’s sovereignty through economic and political intervention. The subtext of this correspondence between two Muslim writers emphasizes for the Western reader that the horrors committed by the jihadists are in no way based in orthodox Islam. They touch briefly on a major imbroglio: the relation between civil society and Islam and political organizations that have not been able to mobilize majority Muslim populations. In the strongest language and speaking most powerfully to readers from 198 FRENCH REVIEW 88.4 Reviews 199 the United States, Diop denounces the summary executions of Osama bin Laden and the desecration of Kaddafi’s corpse. He laments a Black leader overseeing the dumping of a body into the sea, recalling sickeningly the human refuse thrown overboard during the triangular trade. The comparison of discreet media treatment of the corpse of an American diplomat assassinated in Libya with the repeated exhibition of mutilations of Kaddafi’s body reminds us that what is acceptable for one group of humans is not tolerated for others. The text advances by random steps as each author comments on events (Nov.2012–Oct.2013) and responds to the other’s letters.References to personal friendships and public appearances can be annoying; their insights however are trenchant , balanced, always historically grounded. Independent Scholar Suzanne Gasster Carrierre Dussault, Éric. L’invention de Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Paris: Vendémiaire, 2014. ISBN 978-2-36358-078-8. Pp. 251. 22 a. Plusieurs quartiers parisiens ont connu une période de gloire en tant que centre artistique,intellectuel et/ou mondain.Celle de Saint-Germain-des-Prés fut particulièrement brève: une dizaine d’années, celles qui suivirent la fin de...