A decolonial novel brimming with intelligence
In the people-city of N’Zara, it is said that a German engineer offered himself to Janjanbiè, the crocodile-man Suzerain of the Waters, in order to visit the underside of the world, where the people of Night, magic, and mystery dwell. That was in 1970, during the construction of a hydroelectric project. Ever since, Night has not ceased retreating before the power of the White man’s electricity. The delicate balance between Night and Day on which the equilibrium of the N’Zara rests has been gravely compromised. The Sorcerers threaten the village, and the ancestral understanding with the trees and animals has fallen into disrepair. With peril looming, the well of wisdom that Farma, the granddaughter of old fisherman Abley, has inherited will not be one too many.
With a narrative verve as forceful as it is defiant, Radjoul Mouhamadou unfolds forty years in the life of an African village. A magical and anthropological novel that powerfully denounces the dazzling lie of the “Lumières blanches” (White Enlightenment).
