Ahmadou Kourouma

"Time of the Writer" Festival, sponsored by the Centre for Creative Arts of the University of Natal and the French Institute of South Africa, Durban, South Africa, March 2000

SG: How is it for a citizen of Côte d'Ivoire visiting South Africa for the first time? ¹

AK: Well, of course, I am most pleased to be here now, because during the apartheid years I would never have visited your country, even though between Côte d'Ivoire and the South African regime then there were certain agreements and accommodations. At home I was always one of the opposition to all that.

SG: There was also much opposition in francophone Africa to your first novel of 1968, translated in 1981 as The Suns of Independence, not so?

AK: Yes, it came after all that Negritude, which used rather to say that everything African was all good. But once colonization was over, that was the first book to examine the new power and the force of black people on their own, to give a critique of black government. Everything was ripped apart by independence, and everything had to be rearranged--then the dictatorships followed, the Cold War and so on. So the critique was that, having fought so hard for independence, when it came it brought us nothing--rather a severe view. But you must remember what happened to Marxists and intellectuals and writers--they were all sent to prison. At one stage I was the only one at liberty, and I felt, absolutely as a matter of principle, that I had to write something. It had to be in fictional form, as a direct criticism would have been proscribed. But as well, and this might not be so apparent in the translation, the style was also thought to be objectionable--in very bad French and all that. But I wrote it the way Africans actually do use French, especially when they come from feudal villages to the very arriviste city, to make my points stronger. Nowadays people understand that technique, readers are much more sophisticated, but at first
I had many complaints.

SG: In effect you were driven into exile.

AK: Yes, and alas I can't keep up that style anymore, because now I've rather lost that way of talking. But now of course the book is used in schools in many parts of Africa there.

SG: The title of your new novel of 1998 translates as Waiting for the Vote of the Savage Beasts. Please explain.

AK: It's really a satire on dictatorships, and my particular dictator is, let's say, somewhat like President Eyedèma of Togo. When he's asked if he might lose a certain election, he replies there is no possibility whatsoever because, even if he did lose, by magic he'd call all the wild animals out of the bush too, and all of them would vote for him unanimously. So, no problem, even if the human beings dare to let him down! He even has no danger from a coup d'état, because he has forbidden such a thing! And then it turns out of course he gets a 120% vote . . . all his countrymen, plus others who couldn't resist coming in from outside!

SG: How has the reception been back home?

AK: Unfortunately in Côte d'Ivoire there are too few readers for it to have been published there cheaply. So it's an Edition du Seuil book from Paris, and costs rather a lot there, as yet. But when the paperback comes I expect a lot of fun--even in Togo!

SG: Criticizing dictators is not dangerous?

AK: Before it was, very seriously, but recently, not at all. Within Côte d'Ivoire with our coup d'état a few weeks ago, now we writers are the ones who do the speaking. We're completely free to criticize, and also to entertain.

SG: At your age (73) you intend to continue...