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The King of Kahel

Tierno Monénembo,

Nicholas Elliott (Translator)

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Sep 23, 2015 Karen rated it really liked it

Shelves: travel-the-world

Aime Sanderval (Olivier de Sanderval) dreamed of going to Africa to find land that had never been seen by a white man before, so that he could set about improving the Negroes, and creating a new Versailles for France. He was determined to be a King. He believed that he could win over the Kingdom Fouta Djallon (Central Guinea) by enlightenment, not by fighting, and he was convinced if he could become one of the Fulas, they would make him a King.

Monenembo has written this wonderful historical fic ...more

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Nov 15, 2010 Tony rated it liked it

Shelves: translated-fiction, project-fit, own-loanable

I'm always on the lookout for new fiction from Africa, so when I saw this translation of a Guinean book was available I snapped it up. Aside from my interest in world literature, my grandparents lived in Conakry from 1960-62, so the country holds a particular interest for me. The novel as a form does not have a long history in Africa, and as a result, much of the African fiction available in the West focuses on the struggle for independence and the legacy of colonialism. This book goes further b I'm always on the lookout for new fiction from Africa, so when I saw this translation of a Guinean book was available I snapped it up. Aside from my interest in world literature, my grandparents lived in Conakry from 1960-62, so the country holds a particular interest for me. The novel as a form does not have a long history in Africa, and as a result, much of the African fiction available in the West focuses on the struggle for independence and the legacy of colonialism. This book goes further back in history to deliver a fictionalized version of the exploits of 19th-century French adventurer Olivier de Sanderval, whose personal ambitions were at least partly to blame for France's colonization of what is modern-day Guinea.

Sanderval was a prodigiously talented and wealthy man of his time, whose childhood romance with tales of exploration were the catalyst for his adult ambitions to carve a slice out of the African pie for himself (and to a lesser extent, France). He was also a prolific writer who extensively documented his travels, and the author of this novel also had access to private family archives in gathering material for the book. Unfortunately this seems like a case where having too much "true" information at one's hands actually inhibits the fiction. Far too much of the book reads like a thinly fictionalized rendering of a travelogue, in which various trials and tribulations are chronicled in a manner which becomes slightly tedious.

The book does a decent job of illustrating the complexities of Europe's colonization of sub-Saharan Africa. Rather than simply decrying European colonialism, the story illustrates the internal strife among various local potentates, as well as the policy disagreements within the French establishment. In Sanderval's attempts to lock in trading rights, right of way for a railroad, and a land-grant for his own personal fiefdom, he encounters all manner of cunning and shifty characters, both French and Fula. However, it never really manages to engage as storytelling. So, even though the author handles the colonial material with a more judicious touch than most, I kept wishing I was reading a good biographical profile of Sanderval instead. Worth a look if you've an interest in African fiction or European colonialism, but probably not a book that will interest the general reader. ...more

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Nov 10, 2008 Jennifer rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: francophone-literature

Nov 13, 2013 Jennifer rated it liked it

Shelves: francophone-literature

Jan 05, 2016 Kent Winward marked it as to-read · review of another edition

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