Play the Man: Parody, Sex, and Masculinity in Sami Tchak’s Place des fêtes

Togolese novelist Sami Tchak’s Place des fêtes (2001) is a torrential narrative of sex, including rape, incest, homosexuality, and prostitution, delivered in a crude, humorous slang by its protagonist-narrator. Tchak intertwines sexual representations and a humorous narrative style in a purposeful manner. Using Judith Butler’s concept of “practices of parody” as tools against gender normativity, I argue that Tchak inscribes gendered hierarchies, normative thought, and conformist social constructions based in African migrant identity, community, and literature in his novel, and then proceeds to defile them with sexual parody, allowing its corrosive power to reveal the failure of these categories.