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Les tambours de la mémoire
La reine Johanna Simentho du royaume de Wissombo. Fiction ou réalité ? Qu'importe puisque sa magie existe. Puisqu'elle porte le souffle de l'indépendance de la liberté et de la dignité. Fadel, le fils du milliardaire, le croît ; il quittera tout pour la servir. Son frère, Badou, le révolutionnaire, fredonnera, sans illusion, le chant de Johanna. Quant à Ismaïlia, jeune bureaucrate, et Ndella, sa femme, la mystérieuse disparition de Fadel les entraînera, eux aussi dans le sillage de la reine Johanna, point focal de l'histoire.. Pour tous, l'écho des tambours de la mémoire résonnera porté par le vent de l'Histoire..
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
26 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 19, 2022
Another of Diop's earlier novels, in French (he now writes mainly in Wolof, his native language), Les tambours de la mémoire is about a young man from a rich and powerful Sénégalese family, Fadel Madické, who becomes obsessed by the stories of Queen Johanna Simentho, a semi-mythical leader of anti-colonial resistance in the Kingdom of Wissombo (based on a historical figure who led resistance to France in the Sénégalese province of Cassamance in the 1940's; the name "Johanna" is apparently a reference to Joan of Arc.) The narrative is complexly structured and often deliberately ambiguous, although not as confusing as his first novel Le temps de Tamango.
The novel begins with Fadel's friend Ismaila and Ismaila's wife Ndella (formerly Fadel's girlfriend). Ismaila has just learned that Fadel has been brought, dead, to a hospital in Dakar, supposedly a victim of a hit-and-run accident. The official line is that he was mentally disturbed. Part one of the book is mainly about Ismaila and Ndella and their reaction to the news. They suspect he has actually been assassinated by agents of the dictator Major Adelezo. (There is no historical Sénégalese dictator by that name, and I haven't been able to learn which of the historical presidents or prime ministers is hidden under the name.) This first part ends with the funeral of Fadel. In the course of this part we learn something about Fadel's father, a rich and corrupt businessman and former politician, El-Hadj Madické, and Fadel's brother, Badou, a doctrinaire but ineffective "pseudo-revolutionary" who writes pamphlets against the government, some of which mention Queen Johanna, as well as about the relationship of Ismail and Ndella.
Part two of the novel is largely in flashbacks, giving us more background on Fadel, his growing obsession with Queen Johanna and his mania for proving that she really existed and might still be alive, as well as raising questions about his actual mental state, which despite the claims of Ismaila and Ndella remains ambiguous to the reader. He comes to insist that Johanna was actually a young domestic in his family when he was five or six years old, although no one in his family will "admit" to remembering her and the chronology is inconsistent with the known facts about Johanna (who would have been at least in her sixties when Fadel was born); and there is a thirteen-day period which appears to be a mental breakdown of some sort. In the "present" of the novel, Isamaila receives a mysterious packet which turns out to be the notebooks of Fadel, and he and Ndella decide to organize them and prepare them for publication at some point; these writings are the basis of Part three. The second part ends with Fadel's decision to travel to Wissombo to find out the reality of Queen Johanna.
Part three, which makes up more than half the novel, deals with Fadel's life in Wissombo (although there are also flashbacks to his life in Dakar.) It is ostensibly based on his papers which have been organized by Ismaila and Ndella, although the dénouement of the novel which "resolves" all the questions takes place in the last hours of his life and could not have been in his papers, so presumably is based on the imagination of the two friends, leaving everything completely ambiguous. The people of Wissombo apparently "remember" Queen Johanna, and expect her to "return" in some fashion to achieve justice and prosperity for not only Wissombo or Sénégal but all of Africa or the world. They commemorate her with plays, and it is during one of these plays that the final events of the novel begin. There are clear resemblances between the memory of Johanna and the Christian legend of Christ, although the religious world of Wissombo is definitely pagan (and the characters in Dakar are at least nominally Moslems.)
Like the legend of Tamango in the first novel, the legend of Queen Johanna is essentially a symbol for the struggle for the real liberation of Africa, in contrast to the false independence of the historical neo-colonialist regimes. Clearly, both books also deal with questions of memory and the relations of literature to history. While I had never heard of Diop before he won this year's Neustadt Prize, it seems there is a large amount of critical writing about his work and he is considered an important literary figure; I may attempt to read some secondary works after I have read his more recent books.
The novel begins with Fadel's friend Ismaila and Ismaila's wife Ndella (formerly Fadel's girlfriend). Ismaila has just learned that Fadel has been brought, dead, to a hospital in Dakar, supposedly a victim of a hit-and-run accident. The official line is that he was mentally disturbed. Part one of the book is mainly about Ismaila and Ndella and their reaction to the news. They suspect he has actually been assassinated by agents of the dictator Major Adelezo. (There is no historical Sénégalese dictator by that name, and I haven't been able to learn which of the historical presidents or prime ministers is hidden under the name.) This first part ends with the funeral of Fadel. In the course of this part we learn something about Fadel's father, a rich and corrupt businessman and former politician, El-Hadj Madické, and Fadel's brother, Badou, a doctrinaire but ineffective "pseudo-revolutionary" who writes pamphlets against the government, some of which mention Queen Johanna, as well as about the relationship of Ismail and Ndella.
Part two of the novel is largely in flashbacks, giving us more background on Fadel, his growing obsession with Queen Johanna and his mania for proving that she really existed and might still be alive, as well as raising questions about his actual mental state, which despite the claims of Ismaila and Ndella remains ambiguous to the reader. He comes to insist that Johanna was actually a young domestic in his family when he was five or six years old, although no one in his family will "admit" to remembering her and the chronology is inconsistent with the known facts about Johanna (who would have been at least in her sixties when Fadel was born); and there is a thirteen-day period which appears to be a mental breakdown of some sort. In the "present" of the novel, Isamaila receives a mysterious packet which turns out to be the notebooks of Fadel, and he and Ndella decide to organize them and prepare them for publication at some point; these writings are the basis of Part three. The second part ends with Fadel's decision to travel to Wissombo to find out the reality of Queen Johanna.
Part three, which makes up more than half the novel, deals with Fadel's life in Wissombo (although there are also flashbacks to his life in Dakar.) It is ostensibly based on his papers which have been organized by Ismaila and Ndella, although the dénouement of the novel which "resolves" all the questions takes place in the last hours of his life and could not have been in his papers, so presumably is based on the imagination of the two friends, leaving everything completely ambiguous. The people of Wissombo apparently "remember" Queen Johanna, and expect her to "return" in some fashion to achieve justice and prosperity for not only Wissombo or Sénégal but all of Africa or the world. They commemorate her with plays, and it is during one of these plays that the final events of the novel begin. There are clear resemblances between the memory of Johanna and the Christian legend of Christ, although the religious world of Wissombo is definitely pagan (and the characters in Dakar are at least nominally Moslems.)
Like the legend of Tamango in the first novel, the legend of Queen Johanna is essentially a symbol for the struggle for the real liberation of Africa, in contrast to the false independence of the historical neo-colonialist regimes. Clearly, both books also deal with questions of memory and the relations of literature to history. While I had never heard of Diop before he won this year's Neustadt Prize, it seems there is a large amount of critical writing about his work and he is considered an important literary figure; I may attempt to read some secondary works after I have read his more recent books.
February 11, 2015
Es raro... La historia no es mala pero está contada de una forma demasiado enrevesada. Eso sí, como novela negra es muy light, es más una novela de personajes.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews