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African Humanities and the Arts (AHA)
Doomi Golo―The Hidden Notebooks
The first novel to be translated from Wolof to English, Doomi Golo—The Hidden Notebooks is a masterful work that conveys the story of Nguirane Faye and his attempts to communicate with his grandson before he dies. With a narrative structure that beautifully imitates the movements of a musical piece, Diop relates Faye’s trauma of losing his only son, Assane Tall, which is compounded by his grandson Badou’s migration to an unknown destination. While Faye feels certain that his grandson will return one day, he also is convinced that he will no longer be alive by then. Faye spends his days sitting under a mango tree in the courtyard of his home, reminiscing and observing his surroundings. He speaks to Badou through his seven notebooks, six of which are revealed to the reader, while the seventh, the “Book of Secrets,” is highly confidential and reserved for Badou’s eyes only. In the absence of letters from Badou, the notebooks form the only possible means of communication between the two, carrying within them tunes and repetitions that give this novel its unusual shape: loose and meandering on the one hand, coherent and tightly interwoven on the other.
328 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
November 12, 2020
3,5*
D’abord, la langue était très belle. Ensuite,le thème était original: un grand-père qui écrit des carnets à son petit fils exilé on-ne-sait-où pour lui expliquer des choses de la vie et le tenir au fait de ce qui se passe dans son village du Sénégal. Les carnets sont entrecoupés de fictions écrites par le grand-père qui vont dans tous les sens. Le lecteur ouvert s’y plaira quelques temps et ensuite sera littéralement perdu dans tous ces voyages entre la réalité et la fiction. Il manque un fil conducteur ou du moins des petits indices que la toile d’araignée tissée a un tout cohérent. On finit par avoir une petite idée des parallèles mystiques créés par l’auteur dans les 40 dernières pages, si le lecteur se révèle persévérant.En coupant un bon 200 pages le tout aurait eu un rythme plus intéressant.
Je me suis quand même attachée au personnage du grand-père et le personnage d’Ali Kaboye est inoubliable. Le carnet de fiction des petits singes qui dominent l’homme était fascinant. Mon impression générale est que ce roman sénégalais est parsemé de perles de lectures, mais que le fil qui les tient était trop long et inégal.
D’abord, la langue était très belle. Ensuite,le thème était original: un grand-père qui écrit des carnets à son petit fils exilé on-ne-sait-où pour lui expliquer des choses de la vie et le tenir au fait de ce qui se passe dans son village du Sénégal. Les carnets sont entrecoupés de fictions écrites par le grand-père qui vont dans tous les sens. Le lecteur ouvert s’y plaira quelques temps et ensuite sera littéralement perdu dans tous ces voyages entre la réalité et la fiction. Il manque un fil conducteur ou du moins des petits indices que la toile d’araignée tissée a un tout cohérent. On finit par avoir une petite idée des parallèles mystiques créés par l’auteur dans les 40 dernières pages, si le lecteur se révèle persévérant.En coupant un bon 200 pages le tout aurait eu un rythme plus intéressant.
Je me suis quand même attachée au personnage du grand-père et le personnage d’Ali Kaboye est inoubliable. Le carnet de fiction des petits singes qui dominent l’homme était fascinant. Mon impression générale est que ce roman sénégalais est parsemé de perles de lectures, mais que le fil qui les tient était trop long et inégal.
November 10, 2024
Has many interesting themes, and I love that it was the authors first work written in Wolof (then translated to French then to English). However it’s just really difficult to follow. It jumps from past tense to present to what he think his grandson would respond (some condicional future tense?) Many seemingly unrelated short stories are sprinkled in throughout the larger jolting plot. Some of these short stories are 8 sentences long, some of them are 8 pages. There is a lack of continuity and a lack of structure. Some of the letters sharing the same title also doesn’t help with the confusion. I almost didn’t finish it, it was very boring in some sections and the short stories that are inserted just don’t seem worth paying attention to because they are so unrelated to the main plot, as well as written in a convoluted/unexciting manner. I tried to enjoy reading it, because I’m aware it is a classic and has much high praise, but it just wasn’t meant to be for me I think.
July 22, 2017
There are real jewels in this book on identity especially post-colonial identity, bringing to life the sights sounds and smells of that amazing city that is Dakar and the disappointment of post-colonial civil society BUT the narrative is so convoluted that it is sometimes too hard to follow the plot and thoughts and thinkings of the writer and his stream of consciousness style. Glad to have read it though.
November 22, 2022
Boubacar Boris Diop's Doomi Golo is a complex novel with a complicated history. It was written and first published in 2003, in the Wolof language of Senegal; the author made a translation, or perhaps more accurately, an adaptation, in French, called Les petits de la guenon, published in 2009. This book is the English translation of that French version, with a long and very interesting introduction by the translators. Written after his realistic novel Murambi, le livre des ossements about the Rwandan genocide, and before his somewhat realistic novel Kaveena, this one returns to his earlier experimental style, telling the story out of order and with much that could be described as "magical realism". As with all his novels, it is a very political book, concerned with the relationship of Black Africans to the legacy of colonialism.
Ostensibly the book consists of six notebooks (and a seventh, more secret one which is never revealed to the reader) written by the elderly Nguirane Faye and buried to be found by his grandson Badou, who has emigrated to an unknown foreign country and disappeared, if he should return to his native neighborhood of Niarele in Dakar (Niarele is fictional but according to the translators is based on the actual Dakar neighborhood of the Medina.) Selections from the various notebooks alternate through the book. The first notebook (called The Tale of the Ashes) seems to give a fairly straightforward account of events in the life of Nguirane from the funeral of Badou's father Assane Tall, a soccer-player and star of the Senegalese National Team who emigrated to Marseilles to play for a French team and died there in poverty. The body was accompanied by Assane's widow, Yacine Ndiaye, from Marseille and their twin children Mbissane and Mbissine, who take up residence in Nguirane's home. Acting French, which is to say arrogant and aloof, they are unpopular with the people of the neighborhood, with the surprising apparent exception of Assane's first wife, Badou's mother Bigué Samb.
The other notebooks are stranger. Notebook 4 is an avowedly fictional story (Ninki-Nanka, A Fiction) of a fictional country which is obviously a caricature of Senegal; there is a civil war going on between the President, Dibi-Dibi, and various unclear opponents. Dibi-Dibi is a caricature of President Daour Diagne of the "real" notebooks, who is in turn obviously based on the historical President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal. The translators' introduction refers to Jean Baudrillard's claim that the copy of a copy is hyper-real. Atou Seck, the protagonist of this story-within-a-story, is captured and tied up by a monkey and her two children, who act like human beings and spend their time watching television. This "magical realist" story turns out to foreshadow similar but even more "unreal" events in the "real" notebooks. The title of the novel, Doomi Golo, is Wolof for "the monkey's children"; the monkeys throughout the book are obviously allegories of the Senegalese who "ape" their foreign masters.
In Part Two of the novel, the notebooks are continued by Ali Kaboye, a "vagrant lunatic", treated realistically at first but who later seems to become a fantastic figure like the cavalier of Boris Diop's earlier novel Le Cavalier et son ombre who has lived many lives and can see and hear everything which happens anywhere in the world. Here the magical realist features begin to predominate over the realist aspects. It would be impossible and probably a mistake to try to make a consistent sense out of the various stories of the notebooks. As in the earlier novels, there are many allusions to real and legendary figures in African history, from Anta Cheik Diop, Patrice Lumumba and Amilcar Cabral to Thomas Sankara.
Ostensibly the book consists of six notebooks (and a seventh, more secret one which is never revealed to the reader) written by the elderly Nguirane Faye and buried to be found by his grandson Badou, who has emigrated to an unknown foreign country and disappeared, if he should return to his native neighborhood of Niarele in Dakar (Niarele is fictional but according to the translators is based on the actual Dakar neighborhood of the Medina.) Selections from the various notebooks alternate through the book. The first notebook (called The Tale of the Ashes) seems to give a fairly straightforward account of events in the life of Nguirane from the funeral of Badou's father Assane Tall, a soccer-player and star of the Senegalese National Team who emigrated to Marseilles to play for a French team and died there in poverty. The body was accompanied by Assane's widow, Yacine Ndiaye, from Marseille and their twin children Mbissane and Mbissine, who take up residence in Nguirane's home. Acting French, which is to say arrogant and aloof, they are unpopular with the people of the neighborhood, with the surprising apparent exception of Assane's first wife, Badou's mother Bigué Samb.
The other notebooks are stranger. Notebook 4 is an avowedly fictional story (Ninki-Nanka, A Fiction) of a fictional country which is obviously a caricature of Senegal; there is a civil war going on between the President, Dibi-Dibi, and various unclear opponents. Dibi-Dibi is a caricature of President Daour Diagne of the "real" notebooks, who is in turn obviously based on the historical President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal. The translators' introduction refers to Jean Baudrillard's claim that the copy of a copy is hyper-real. Atou Seck, the protagonist of this story-within-a-story, is captured and tied up by a monkey and her two children, who act like human beings and spend their time watching television. This "magical realist" story turns out to foreshadow similar but even more "unreal" events in the "real" notebooks. The title of the novel, Doomi Golo, is Wolof for "the monkey's children"; the monkeys throughout the book are obviously allegories of the Senegalese who "ape" their foreign masters.
In Part Two of the novel, the notebooks are continued by Ali Kaboye, a "vagrant lunatic", treated realistically at first but who later seems to become a fantastic figure like the cavalier of Boris Diop's earlier novel Le Cavalier et son ombre who has lived many lives and can see and hear everything which happens anywhere in the world. Here the magical realist features begin to predominate over the realist aspects. It would be impossible and probably a mistake to try to make a consistent sense out of the various stories of the notebooks. As in the earlier novels, there are many allusions to real and legendary figures in African history, from Anta Cheik Diop, Patrice Lumumba and Amilcar Cabral to Thomas Sankara.
January 22, 2018
El libro de los secretos contiene muchas historias contadas por el anciano Nguirane Faye, quien siente cercana la muerte y comienza un monólogo escrito con su nieto Badou Tall, para hablarle de misterios de su pueblo y de su familia. Con muchas capas y posibilidades de lectura, se erige como un libro ambicioso y muy crítico con el sistema y el gobierno de Senegal, motivo por el que se pueden leer estos cuadernos como una fábula política. Una crítica social muy intensa hacia los gobernantes que parte de un gran conocimiento de la historia del país por parte del autor, quien está considerado uno de los intelectuales más importantes de África, y que ha sido novelista, ensayista, dramaturgo, guionista, profesor universitario y director del periódico Le Matin de Dakar.
Reseña completa aquí: https://lecturafilia.com/2017/12/28/e...
Reseña completa aquí: https://lecturafilia.com/2017/12/28/e...
October 11, 2025
Vaig decidir llegir "El libro de los secretos", de Boubacar Boris Diop, per preparar-me pel viatge al Senegal que faré al novembre. I la veritat és que ha estat una bona elecció per conèixer millor el país.
Tot i això, hi ha aspectes que no m’han acabat de convèncer. L’actitud sovint alliçonadora del narrador em feia difícil mantenir la connexió amb la història, i els constants dobles sentits, històries dins d’històries i llegendes, m’han acabat cansant una mica. A més, hi ha diversos elements sexistes que em van treure sovint de la lectura i que em van resultar incòmodes.
En resum, "El libro de los secretos" és una obra amb força densitat simbòlica i cultural, que ajuda a entendre millor el Senegal, encara que, literàriament, no hagi estat del tot per a mi.
Tot i això, hi ha aspectes que no m’han acabat de convèncer. L’actitud sovint alliçonadora del narrador em feia difícil mantenir la connexió amb la història, i els constants dobles sentits, històries dins d’històries i llegendes, m’han acabat cansant una mica. A més, hi ha diversos elements sexistes que em van treure sovint de la lectura i que em van resultar incòmodes.
En resum, "El libro de los secretos" és una obra amb força densitat simbòlica i cultural, que ajuda a entendre millor el Senegal, encara que, literàriament, no hagi estat del tot per a mi.
August 22, 2020
It's hard to know where to start with this book. I loved how evocative it is of Senegal, without being forced. The voice (s) of the narrator are strong and believable, and the issues embedded in the story lines are interesting and - struggling for a word here - relevant? The way characters behave, the expressions and attention to detail, is very well done. I am not a huge fan of magic and mysticism, so I enjoyed those elements of the story less. Even people who know Senegal will find themselves checking history, googling this or that and reading between the lines. Overall, this was a very enjoyable read, and I will be reading more by this author.
October 20, 2017
I enjoyed part 1 a lot more than part 2. Overall a great read, though.
May 17, 2018
Some of the plot is hard to follow and is hyper-metaphorical, but it’s beautifully written.
February 7, 2023
Maybe France is bad?
November 7, 2024
Found this book on a hotel book shelf while traveling abroad - what a great find. This is interesting and thoughtful read. Definitely worth your time.
July 31, 2017
Since I have never read any African literature, I thought it was high time I did. Doomi Golo-The Hidden Notebooks is a great book that mixes fable and history to present how the nation of Senegal became brutalized by the French and then by its own Senegalese leaders.
However, the novel expresses optimism that the future will bring a better life, and that the main characters will never succumb to the forces that wish to subdue them.
The primary story involves Nguirane Faye as narrator and the letters he writes to his grandson Badou so that Faye can not only preserve the history of their town and Senegal, but can also instruct Badou of how to preserve his history and his identity, for holding on to one’s identity is difficult in Senegal. These letters seem to be simple fables, but they are actually veiled criticisms about the treachery of French colonialism, and how that colonialism denied the Senegalese their native identity and their ability to be independent in thought and action.
What seems quite simple at first is not: the first book presents the letters’ events and participants as simple stories that quickly become interconnected as history and fiction combine. The second story of Ali Kaboye, who seems to be a supra-narrator of the novel, becomes a retelling of the larger history of Senegal and Africa as Faye’s voice becomes subsumed within his.
Ali Kaboye is a mysterious character that is not only human, but a supernatural force as well (he is a man who keeps returning from the dead). Kaboye’s story overwhelms the first one in that he tells the history of Senegal from events that include the French overseers and how they attempt to overwrite Senegalese identity through making the Senegalese hate themselves, an action that he says attacks all of Africa. He takes on supernatural powers and his presence hovers over the entire narrative.
His main point seems to be that the French were quite successful in splitting the society between the “French black” and the uneducated black who spoke only the native language. The “French black” saw themselves as more French in culture and fashion as the uneducated Senegalese saw themselves as less than nothing. So, the French were not only able to inculcate this self-hatred, but also enabled the educated part of society to betray the other.
The story that exemplifies this self-hatred is the one of Yacine Ndiaye who desires to transform her identity from black to white and Kaboye grants her wish: she becomes Marie-Gabrielle. What she loses in her transformation is disastrous and heartbreaking, so the old motto that one should be careful what one wishes for rings true here. To become French and white is to lose one’s self.
What appears simple at the beginning is a snare, for this novel is quite complicated in its weaving of story and history. Yet, a single reading does enrich the reader, but a second and third reading would crystalize its meaning.
I found this passage to be emblematic of the novel:
“When he saw me getting irritated, Ousmane said with a straight face, ‘That’s terrible, Nguirane, to see how so many years after his liberation the slave in us still hasn’t managed to cast off his shackles! There really is no need for the Master to put us in chains anymore! He may as well let us roam around freely as long as we come trotting back to the plantation every night like so much cattle to their stable. Our chains are in our heads, you see. And so you, Nguirane Faye, ignorant as you are of the language of the whites, want to tell me that it’s closer to us than Swahili?’”
Even the wise narrator can become hoodwinked by the conqueror.
I’ve only touched the surface of this fine novel, and I highly recommend it.
However, the novel expresses optimism that the future will bring a better life, and that the main characters will never succumb to the forces that wish to subdue them.
The primary story involves Nguirane Faye as narrator and the letters he writes to his grandson Badou so that Faye can not only preserve the history of their town and Senegal, but can also instruct Badou of how to preserve his history and his identity, for holding on to one’s identity is difficult in Senegal. These letters seem to be simple fables, but they are actually veiled criticisms about the treachery of French colonialism, and how that colonialism denied the Senegalese their native identity and their ability to be independent in thought and action.
What seems quite simple at first is not: the first book presents the letters’ events and participants as simple stories that quickly become interconnected as history and fiction combine. The second story of Ali Kaboye, who seems to be a supra-narrator of the novel, becomes a retelling of the larger history of Senegal and Africa as Faye’s voice becomes subsumed within his.
Ali Kaboye is a mysterious character that is not only human, but a supernatural force as well (he is a man who keeps returning from the dead). Kaboye’s story overwhelms the first one in that he tells the history of Senegal from events that include the French overseers and how they attempt to overwrite Senegalese identity through making the Senegalese hate themselves, an action that he says attacks all of Africa. He takes on supernatural powers and his presence hovers over the entire narrative.
His main point seems to be that the French were quite successful in splitting the society between the “French black” and the uneducated black who spoke only the native language. The “French black” saw themselves as more French in culture and fashion as the uneducated Senegalese saw themselves as less than nothing. So, the French were not only able to inculcate this self-hatred, but also enabled the educated part of society to betray the other.
The story that exemplifies this self-hatred is the one of Yacine Ndiaye who desires to transform her identity from black to white and Kaboye grants her wish: she becomes Marie-Gabrielle. What she loses in her transformation is disastrous and heartbreaking, so the old motto that one should be careful what one wishes for rings true here. To become French and white is to lose one’s self.
What appears simple at the beginning is a snare, for this novel is quite complicated in its weaving of story and history. Yet, a single reading does enrich the reader, but a second and third reading would crystalize its meaning.
I found this passage to be emblematic of the novel:
“When he saw me getting irritated, Ousmane said with a straight face, ‘That’s terrible, Nguirane, to see how so many years after his liberation the slave in us still hasn’t managed to cast off his shackles! There really is no need for the Master to put us in chains anymore! He may as well let us roam around freely as long as we come trotting back to the plantation every night like so much cattle to their stable. Our chains are in our heads, you see. And so you, Nguirane Faye, ignorant as you are of the language of the whites, want to tell me that it’s closer to us than Swahili?’”
Even the wise narrator can become hoodwinked by the conqueror.
I’ve only touched the surface of this fine novel, and I highly recommend it.
November 17, 2020
This is translated from French and Wolof. It evokes such a strong sense of place - if you know Senegal or West Africa well, the simple descriptions are enough to fully bring back the scenes of West African towns and villages and characters. It goes a bit into what might be called "magical realism" - moving between bizarre scenes of monkeys taking over a village, to realistic "current day" scenes, with plenty of mystics, African politicians, warring opposition parties, and "toubabs" interspersed throughout. I enjoyed it, but it's not for everyone - mostly those who know a bit about West Africa.
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