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The Fortunes of Wangrin

Amadou Hampâté Bâ,

Aina Pavolini Taylor (Translator)

3.94 · Rating details · 200 ratings · 19 reviews

The Fortunes of Wangrin
Amadou Hampâté Bâ
Translated by Aina Pavolini Taylor with an Introduction by F. Abiola Irele

Winner of the Grand Prix Litteraire de l'Afrique Noire

"I think this is perhaps the best African novel on colonialism and it draws very richly on various modes of oral literature." --Ralph Austen, University of Chicago

"It is a wonderful introduction to colonial ...more

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Paperback, 296 pages

Published March 1st 2000 by Indiana University Press (first published 1973)

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Jun 09, 2010 Harry Rutherford rated it really liked it

Shelves: africa, west-africa, around-the-world

The Fortunes of Wangrin is my book from Mali for the Read The World challenge.

It’s a novel — or at least it seems to be universally described as a novel, despite the fact that Hampaté Bâ says in the Afterword:

I don’t know why, even is spite of the specific assertions contained in the Foreword, some people continue to ask themselves whether this narrative is fiction, reality, or a clever mixture of both…

I’ll repeat once more, then, for anyone who might still be in doubt, that I heard everything

I don’t know why, even is spite of the specific assertions contained in the Foreword, some people continue to ask themselves whether this narrative is fiction, reality, or a clever mixture of both…

I’ll repeat once more, then, for anyone who might still be in doubt, that I heard everything related to the life of the hero, from the account of his birth (a story told by his parents), through the relationship with the animist world, the various predictions, and so forth, all the way to the downfall caused by commercial bankruptcy, from Wangrin himself, in a Bambara often poetic, full of verve, humour, and vigour, to the soft musical accompaniment of his griot Diele Maadi. To this very day I recall with emotion Wangrin’s voice against the background of a guitar.

[…:] I rounded off the information already at my disposal by visiting everyone who had frequented him… I have made up no event or circumstances whatsoever. Every single story was told by the people in question or by someone in their circle, either griot, houseboy, or friend.

Which is interesting case. Because it does read like fiction, stylistically; I certainly read it that way and was surprised to learn that it wasn’t. It is told as a single coherent narrative with the kind of omniscient third person narrator normally associated with fiction. To use a television analogy, it is more like a dramatisation of real events than a documentary. And I don’t think it is like a biography in the standard sense, a work of history intended to establish the true events of a person’s life.

Rather, it is a work of oral history — unsurprisingly, perhaps, since Hampaté Bâ was an ethnologist and folklorist. It has the qualities of a good storyteller telling the story of their own life: not perhaps outright fabrication, but just enough massaging and selection and elision and exaggeration to turn the messiness of reality into something beautifully moulded and polished. It’s like a memoir told in the third person.

And Wangrin is certainly an interesting character; the son of a prominent family, he was sent to the colonial school to learn French and worked as an interpreter, which put him in position as the literal and symbolic intermediary between the French colonial administration and the native population, able to play off both sides against each other. Which he did, enriching himself in the process. So a bit of a crook, then, even if a likeable one.

His position between the French and the Africans makes this book a fascinating look into the functioning of colonial life; one of the more striking things for me was how thin the layer of bureaucracy seems to have been: a very small number of French administrators on their own out in the bush, in charge of a large population of people of various languages and religions with whom they share neither culture nor language. And that makes the interpreter a rather more important figure than the title suggests.

I certainly recommend the book. Like so many of these books in translation, it had a few too many endnotes for my taste, and the edition I read had some truly awful typography inflicted on it — but I can hardly blame Hampaté Bâ for that.
...more

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Jan 05, 2020 Yaya rated it it was amazing

Je suis toujours surprise par la façon dont Amadou Hampate Ba me fait pénétrer si facilement et rapidement dans l’univers de ses histoires. La façon dont il les raconte, la consistance des personnages et l’avancée du récit sont somptueux. Wangrin est un personnage fascinant et malin qui, à travers son histoire, nous permet de voir une époque autrement.

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Jul 27, 2017 Marcia Letaw rated it it was amazing

And this is what happens when a person is aggressive in the face of Destiny: doing battle, fighting the good fight. Such a man was Wangrin. To those who would say that it doesn't matter since all of us are condemned to the same ending, I would counter that endings and beginnings don't matter, rather it's everything in between; it's the legacy left in the hearts and lives of those we encounter. Wangrin touched and improved hundreds of lives in his journey through Elias Khoury's tunnel between two ...more

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Jul 07, 2017 Sidinho Diaby rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I'm writing this review with my eyes full of tears because during the time I spent reading this book, I got attached to Wangrin and his world. The story of Wangrin is truly a beautiful story which is at the same time educational, intriguing, funny, and sad, and the author does a great job introducing the reader to the world, and developing the characters while staying very entertaining. I can't count how many times I cracked up at some of stunts Wangrin was able to pull off. This is by far one ...more

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Jan 12, 2013 Elisabeth rated it really liked it

I love Hampâté Bâ's writing style, particularly when he makes it clear to his readers that he is telling his story for their benefit by interrupting the narration to insert an important piece of information. In this novel, the reader follows Wangrin through his life as he manipulates his way into powerful positions. Often, Wangrin comes across as a very selfish, self-centered man who will stop at nothing to obtain money and power. If the reader only reads the story and skips the forward and ...more

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Oct 21, 2009 Alexandra rated it it was amazing

This is an entertaining and fast-moving tale of a colonial West-African translator who uses his charm, political skills, guile and everything else at his disposal (most importantly, money and a good education) to work the system to his advantage. It beautifully and convincingly conveys the textures of spiritual and cultural life in Africa under colonialism, where political and cultural arrangements overlap and influence each other, making a strange but dynamic social environment. Like ...more

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May 19, 2012 Jamila rated it really liked it

A fascinating "true story" told to Bâ by Wangrin himself, this story is an interesting tale about a protagonist that is not necessarily a likeable character. Pay attention to the particular details about how writing and orality becomes both his path to glory and his downfall.

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May 25, 2016 David Smith rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

One of the best stories I have read coming out of West Africa - Wangrin, an enterprising young man in Afrique Occidentale Francaise learns how to work the system, to his benefit and to the benefit of those around him. Much thanks to Dr. Naino at the LCBC for the recommendation.

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Jul 11, 2007 oludamini added it

Recommends it for: Anybody interested in pre-colonial/colonial West Africa

One of Ba's finest works, a fun read too

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Aug 06, 2018 KillDevilHill rated it really liked it · review of another edition

La storia di un self made man che sfrutta la propria intelligenza per farsi strada nella società maliana e quella coloniale per il proprio interesse e la propria riccheza. Un guascone divertente e avido, generoso quando serve, ma in pace con il modo, acerrimo nemico di chi osa mettergli i bastoni fra le ruote, ma anche infantile nei desideri fino all'arroganza, manipolatore legato alle tradizioni e a ogni religione sottomano.
Un personaggio solare con pesanti ombre mostrate con leggerezza, larger ...more

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Nov 20, 2018 Salma rated it really liked it · review of another edition

L'histoire et le parcours de Wangrin en soit sont admirables et passionnants. Seulement ce qui m'a dérangé c'est le fait qu'il y ait eu beaucoup [trop] de détails superflus et le reportage de tous les éloges n'était pas vraiment nécessaire. Cependant ça reste un livre que j'ai beaucoup aimé et dont je garde un souvenir plutôt positif.

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Jun 10, 2018 Virginie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: slowly-reading-through-the-world

Reading the world in books: Mali.

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May 11, 2019 Nina rated it it was amazing

Shelves: reading-the-world

Reading World #16: Mali

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Aug 31, 2012 Val rated it really liked it

Shelves: world-tour, non-fiction

Wangrin (not his real name) was an intelligent, French educated opportunist working within the colonial administration of French West Africa. The author tells his life story in a style which uses the oral history tradition of the indigenous population rather than as a European style biography. He is not the only African author to use an oral story-telling style; he does use it better than others I have read.
There are a lot of novels and memoirs about the culture clash of colonialism and ...more

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May 07, 2015 Constance Fastré rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: africa, biography, novel, ebook

La biographie d'un Africain du début du 20ième siècle dans une colonie française, écrite par un de ses anciens amis: très original et tellement intéressant!
Je ne suis pas sûre d'apprécier Wangrin (ou en fait aucun des personnages décrit dans ce roman). Tous ces hommes ne sont guidés que par leur soif de pouvoir et/ou d'argent. Le rôle des femmes est très limité (à part en tant que mère ou objet sexuel, en gros). Mais il y a tellement de choses à apprendre sur la culture africaine! Et sur la ...more

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Sep 16, 2008 Kirk Johnson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Had a need to read stories by authors of the African continent. This was such a surprising delight.

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Jan 08, 2016 Mams rated it it was amazing

A best Book full of Life Lesson

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Oct 09, 2011 Timothee rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Magnifique roman, fantastique histoire le tout pris d'une magie africaine. Vraiment très très bon!! A lire absolument :)

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About Amadou Hampâté Bâ

Amadou Hampâté Bâ

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Amadou Hampâté Bâ was born to an aristocratic Fula family in Bandiagara, the largest city in Dogon territory and the capital of the precolonial Masina Empire. After his father's death, he was adopted by his mother's second husband, Tidjani Amadou Ali Thiam of the Toucouleur ethnic group. He first attended the Qur'anic school run by Tierno Bokar, a dignitary of the Tijaniyyah brotherhood, then Amadou Hampâté Bâ was born to an aristocratic Fula family in Bandiagara, the largest city in Dogon territory and the capital of the precolonial Masina Empire. After his father's death, he was adopted by his mother's second husband, Tidjani Amadou Ali Thiam of the Toucouleur ethnic group. He first attended the Qur'anic school run by Tierno Bokar, a dignitary of the Tijaniyyah brotherhood, then transferred to a French school at Bandiagara, then to one at Djenné. In 1915, he ran away from school and rejoined his mother at Kati, where he resumed his studies.

In 1921, he turned down entry into the école normale in Gorée. As a punishment, the governor appointed him to Ouagadougou with the role he later described as that of "an essentially precarious and revocable temporary writer". From 1922 to 1932, he filled several posts in the colonial administration in Upper Volta, now Burkina Faso and from 1932 to 1942 in Bamako. In 1933, he took a six month leave to visit Tierno Bokar, his spiritual leader.(see also:Sufi studies)

In 1942, he was appointed to the Institut Français d’Afrique Noire (IFAN, French Institute of Black Africa) in Dakar thanks to the benevolence of Théodore Monod, its director. At IFAN, he made ethnological surveys and collected traditions. For 15 years he devoted himself to research, which would later lead to the publication of his work L'Empire peul de Macina (The Peul Empire of Macina). In 1951, he obtained a UNESCO grant, allowing him to travel to Paris and meet with intellectuals from Africanist circles, notably Marcel Griaule.

With Mali's independence in 1960, Bâ founded the Institute of Human Sciences in Bamako, and represented his country at the UNESCO general conferences. In 1962, he was elected to UNESCO's executive council, and in 1966 he helped establish a unified system for the transcription of African languages.

His term in the executive council ended in 1970, and he devoted the remaining years of his life to research and writing. He moved to Abidjan, and worked on classifying the archives of West African oral tradition that he had accumulated throughout his lifetime, as well as writing his memoirs (Amkoullel l'enfant peul and Oui mon commandant!, both published posthumously).

(source: Wikipedia) ...more