Everything about Ahmadou Kourouma totally explained
Ahmadou Kourouma, (
November 24,
1927 –
December 11,
2003) was an
Ivorian novelist.
The eldest son of a distinguished
Malinké family, Ahmadou Kourouma was born in
1927 in
Côte d'Ivoire. Raised by his uncle, he initially pursued studies in
Bamako, Mali. From 1950 to 1954, when his country was still under French colonial control, he participated in French military campaigns in
Indochina, after which he journeyed to France to study mathematics in Lyon.
Kourouma returned to his native Côte d'Ivoire after it won its independence in
1960, yet he quickly found himself questioning the government of
Félix Houphouët-Boigny. After brief imprisonment, Kourouma spent several years in exile, first in Algeria (1964-1969), then in Cameroon (1974-1984) and Togo (1984-1994), before finally returning to live in Côte d'Ivoire.
Determined to speak out against the betrayal of legitimate African aspirations at the dawn of independence, Kourouma was drawn into an experiment in
fiction, his first
novel,
Les soleils des indépendances (
The Suns of Independence,
1970).
Les soleils des indépendances contains a critical treatment of post-colonial governments in Africa. Twenty years later, his second book
Monnè, outrages et défis, a history of a century of colonialism, was published. In 1998, he published
En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages, {translated as
Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote), a satire of post colonial Africa in the style of
Voltaire in which a
griot recounts the story of a tribal hunter's transformation into a
dictator, inspired by president
Gnassingbé Eyadéma of
Togo. In 2000, he published
Allah n'est pas obligé (translated as
Allah is Not Obliged), a tale of an orphan who becomes a child soldier when traveling to visit his aunt in
Liberia.
At the outbreak of civil war in
Côte d'Ivoire in
2002, Kourouma stood against the war as well as against the concept of Ivorian nationalism, calling it "an absurdity which has led us to chaos." President
Laurent Gbagbo accused him of supporting rebel groups from the north of the country.
In France, each of Ahmadou Kourouma's novels has been greeted with great acclaim, sold exceptionally well, and been showered with prizes including
Prix Renaudot in year
2000 and The
Prix Goncourt des Lycéens for
Allah n'est pas obligé . In the English-speaking world, Kourouma has yet to make much of an impression: despite some positive reviews, his work remains largely unknown outside college classes in
African fiction.
At the time of his death, he was working on a sequel to
Allah n'est pas obligé, entitled
Quand on refuse on dit non (translated roughly as
When One Disagrees, One Says No), in which the protagonist of the first novel, a child soldier, is demobilized and returns to his home in Côte d'Ivoire, in which a new regional conflict has arisen.
Bibliography
- The Suns of Independence - novel, 1968 (Les soleils des indépendances, trans. Adrian Adams, 1981). ISBN 0-8419-0747-1 book review by Danny Yee
- Le diseur de vérité - drama, 1972 (first published 1998)
- Monnew - novel, 1990 (Monnè, trans. Nidra Poller, 1993)
- Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote novel, 1998 (En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages) translated by Frank Wynne (2003). ISBN 0434008141 book review by Danny Yee
- Yacouba, chasseur africain - children's novel, 1998
- Allah isn't Obliged - novel 2000 (Allah n'est pas obligé) translated by Frank Wynne (2006)
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