Sony Labou Tansi

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Sony Labou Tansi and His Unstable Political Figures Author(s): Emmanuel Yewah Source: The French Review, Vol. 67, No. 1 (Oct., 1993), pp. 93-104Published by: American Association of Teachers of FrenchStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/397787Accessed: 11-10-2015 12:38 UTC

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THE FRENCH REVIEW, Vol. 67, No. 1, October 1993 Printed in U.S.A.

Sony Labou Tansi and His Unstable Political Figures

by Emmanuel Yewah

WRITTEN AFRICAN LITERATURES have gone through several phases since the early 1930s. The 30s, the 40s, and the early 50s were mainly a period of what has been called "litterature de t6moignage et de reportage" in which such movements as N6gritude and African personality tried to dispel the colonial myth that portrayed Africa as a cultural wasteland, a blank dark- ness, by producing works that bore testimony to the existence of rich and dynamic African traditional and cultural values. The late 50s and the early 60s in many African countries saw the emergence of a littfrature engagee, or what Frantz Fanon calls "litterature de combat" that is, literature "[qui] convoque tout un peuple A la lutte pour l'existence nationale . .. informe la conscience nationale, lui donne forme et contours et lui ouvre de nouvelles et d'illimitees perspectives" (169).

These protest, anti-colonialist, anti-Apartheid literatures committed to the political, economic, and especially cultural decolonization of Africa have as a primary goal to prod the thinking of readers into critical consciousness so they can liberate themselves from the type of false images they have been made to internalize in order to realize freely what Rhiannon Gold- thorpe calls the "responsibility for bringing about change" (165). Jean-Paul Sartre expresses this critical consciousness in terms of reflichi to emphasize the fact that readers still have the choice after their prise de conscience. As he writes, "je dirai qu'un &crivain est engage lorsqu'il tache A prendre la conscience la plus lucide et la plus entibre d'etre embarque, c'est-A-dire lorsqu'il fait passer pour lui et pour les autres l'engagement de la spontaneite immediate au refl6chi" (98). The late 60s and early 70s gave rise to a trend of dimystification of the regime both in terms of language and culture. Some of the literatures of this period attempted a cultural critique by subverting the structures of received languages in order to express certain African realities.

The cultural and traditional conflicts in Africa have generally been blamed on the encroachment of the Other. First, it was the decimation of Africa's viable manpower by the European slave trade, then the besiege of the continent by explorers intent on unlocking its geographical mysteries, next the subjugation of its peoples, and the systematic destruction of their cultures through religious and political colonization. Today it is the exploi- tation of its economic and natural resources through neo-colonialism.

93



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Indeed, the violence, the rape of the African continent, the corruption of its satraps as depicted in political fiction, have always been blamed on the invisible hand of that Other. While such historical facts are undeniable, some African writers have turned away from that kind of partially displaced blame to an introspective critical examination of the African cultural and political structures themselves.

The trend of "Litterature engageante"

Today a new trend that Sony Labou Tansi had identified as "litterature engageante" seems to have emerged, shaped in part by such French- speaking African writers as Tierno Monenembo, William Sassine, Doumbi- Fakoli and Alioune Fantour6. This trend deals with various aspects of society in general, but its main focus is political and anti-dictatorial fiction. The texts of this trend create political figures (here limited to dictators) in the image of satraps and endow them with self-destructive qualities. Such qualities not only make them unstable but also deny them the kind of detailed physical and psychological development that would enable them to transcend their conceptual framework. In order to ensure that they remain confined to this framework, they are made static and presented as psycho- logically retarded at the crudest and most primitive stage of their conception.

This study will focus primarily on selected works of Sony Labou Tansi, who, more than any one of the writers mentioned above, has developed some of the characteristics of the new trend in his novels and plays. Labou Tansi has written extensively, posing a problem of selection for a study of this nature that does not pretend to be exhaustive. Thus the discussion will be limited to three texts representative of the various stages in his literary creativity. La Vie et demie, his first novel, was published in 1979 followed two years later by L'Etat honteux. One of his recent plays, Qui a mangi Madame d'Avoine Bergotha?, is the third work of interest. These works dramatize the bouffonnerie of such dictatorial representations as le Guide Providentiel, Martillimi Lopez and Walante in the chaotic world (with no exit) in which they have been conceived and their attempts to transcend that conceptual world to become reality. These texts best illustrate the double message that this trend seeks to communicate: first, to raise the consciousness of the reader to the fact that such concepts as dictators do indeed exist and second to underscore the fact that they must never be allowed to develop beyond the primitive stage in which they are merely mental pictures.

This trend represents a major shift from the "littCrature de t6moignage et de reportage" and especially the "littbrature engag6e" in which the narra- tor was omnipresent and the author, as a committed agent, was seen as omniscient and as having full control over the text. Texts of the earlier trends portrayed their political figures realistically through detailed moral!



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psychological and physical descriptions and also depicted them as somewhat stable, real-life, historical figures in full control of their society. Jonathan Ngate notes, relevantly, that Labou Tansi's writing "signalled a clean break with the litt&rature engag&e tradition of the colonial period to be found as well in the works of some latecomers" (132). For this new trend of "litterature engageante," emphasis must be placed on writing as a creative process, as experimentation, indeed "as a mode of invention, as a way of writing oneself into being with words that are so many pieces of one's own flesh." For Labou Tansi, Ngate continues, "there can be no other aesthetic or thematic approach in a world in which mankind seems "resolu A tuer la vie" (132).

The decentering of the author and dictators

Labou Tansi notes at the opening of La Vie et demie that "a ceux qui cherchent un auteur engage je propose un homme engageant." Here he is engaging his reader in the process of creation of the texts. With this trend, therefore, the texts no longer claim, if implicitly, to give everything to the armchair reader. They do not pretend to close all the gaps, a practice which, in the "roman realiste-naturaliste," made literary works easy tools for re- flective theorists to read them as mirroring the contexts of their produc- tion. Labou Tansi attempts to decenter the image of the omniscient author so that the texts can create their own fictional worlds. At the same time his statement is nuanced because he seems at once to be operating in the world of fiction and in the world of reality. By engaging the discourse at the conceptual level, the implied reader, the implied author, and the political figures, as participants in the creative process, can focus on the texts themselves. Moreover, the fact that La Vie et demie, L'Etat honteux, Qui a mange Madame d'Avoine Bergotha? and other writings of this new trend do not easily lend themselves to the kind of socio-ethnological, historical, and cultural readings that dominated critical approaches to earlier African fiction seems to suggest that emphasis must now be placed on the creative process itself.

This new trend focuses on the politics of writing. It is perhaps this concern with l'aventure d'une icriture rather than l'criture d'une aventure politique that has prompted such critics as Sewanou Dabla to describe the works of this trend as "le nouveau roman africain francophone." Or as Jacques Chevrier notes in reference to the new generation of writers, "le recit ne se resume plus A un sens univoque: il devient I'espace d'une v6rite A reconstruire de toutes pieces. I1 en resulte qu'on s'oriente vers une conception plus symbolique de la litterature au detriment du sociologue. A une

6criture de la politique succede une politique de l'&criture" (64). In addition to decentering the image of the omniscient author, the texts also seem to be engaged in a simultaneous process of centering and decentering of the image of their political figures. By this is meant that the texts center on



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their political creatures by endowing them with larger than life qualities while destabilizing that center by creating and making them unstable and ungraspable. In that respect, they remain mere concepts that do not and cannot have any form of existence outside their imaginary world. The political figures are, indeed, conceived as composite figures whose disparate components cannot be put together to form a whole being. Moreover, any attempts to portray them morallly and physically remain very caricatural. For example, physical qualities attributed to the Guide Providentiel make it impossible to visualize him beyond the conceptual framework. As in this description: "son menton en manche de houe, son long cou" (13), "ses petits yeux semes au hasard du visage" (15), "son corps brouissailleux comme celui d'un vieux gorille" and "son enorme machine de procreation" (54). All the animalistic characteristics attributed to him and the mythic dimension of his procreation machine only help to make him either a larger than life or a much debased figure. Neither dimension provides the reader with such physical, moral, and psychological qualities that might help in conceiving of those textual creatures as anything other than mere mental images. In other words, the qualities they are endowed with are not such that the Guide Providentiel can be thought of as a complete being.

Even the interactions of those figures with other characters remain somewhat superficial, carefully controlled, and unidimensional such that the ideas generated during the interactions cannot be used to reconstruct a complete image of them. In fact, rather than those ideas helping to build their image or to give them full personalities that could easily be applied to some political figures in Africa today, they have helped, especially in the works of Labou Tansi, to mythologize or to debase them, or in the words of Ange-Severin Malanda, to put them "au-delA du vraisemblable" (125) as in the case above. Those ideas have helped to scramble the mental picture that the reader might have made of them. It is the case in Qui a mange Madame d'Avoine Bergotha? in which Walante, the dictator, is described as being so many different things that, when taken together, do not fit into one personality or simply cancel him out. For instance, at the opening of the play, peasants describe him rather sarcastically as: a divine being, a wiseman, the ommiscient, all the qualities that help to convey his omnipotence. But he is also caca, pipi, the great inseminator, etc. Given that Walante's image is shaped in part by his own acts and conceived by other textual elements, the description above leaves the reader with a grotesquely debased conception of him. The question that still remains is: who is he really?

The conceptual framework as the dictator's prison

The question above is pertinent because this new trend raises the reader's consciousness to the existence of the concept of dictators; at the same time the trend seeks to confine them to their conceptual framework. It should be pointed out, however, that by focusing on the conceptual world I



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am not trying to draw a fine line between that world and the "quelque r6alite" that Labou Tansi refers to in the avertissement at the opening of L'Etat honteux when he writes, "le roman est parait-il une ceuvre d'imagination." He adds, nevertheless, "Il faut ... que cette imagination trouve sa place quelque part dans quelque r6alit&." One is obviously aware, as Labou Tansi is, of the role that the real world might have played in the conceptu- alization of the texts under discussion here. Labou Tansi's statement seems to suggest a symbiotic relationship between the world of reality and that of imagination. Both worlds help to shape each other. However, whereas studies have focused on the world of reality and its reflection in the world of imagination as in the "roman r6aliste-naturaliste," the study of the imaginative world in its own terms or as it informs and shapes the real world has been neglected. Given the emphasis on the work of fiction only as it mirrors the society in which it is produced, the African text, in most cases, has not been evaluated on its aesthetic value, but on the basis of its societal, historical, and political unity. Furthermore, the attempt to understand the creative process of the writer is lost in the effort to fit the work into a given historical moment or period and a given space. One of the advantages of maintaining the discourse at the conceptual level is that the link between the text and context, or the society in which it is produced, is problematized. Problematizing the link helps to disarm the censorship machine that plagued and still plagues those works that lend themselves easily to socio- logical, historical, and political readings. Thus, focusing on the imaginative world makes the text critical of itself and other textual elements without necessarily making it obvious that such criticism could apply to or is actually intended for the real world. For instance, in spite of his writings on dictatorships, Labou Tansi's works enjoy a wide readership in the Congo, his home country, and in many other African countries where oppression and censorship are monnaie courante. He still lives and writes in Brazzaville where he also directs his Ricado Zulu Th~dtre troupe.

Dealing specifically with the conceptual world is not escapist, but rather a distanciation or un cart from the real world into one where it is conceptually possible to start everything-humanity, History, or the world-from zero. As the Guide Providentiel declares, "nous devons reprendre" and the choral response from his audience, "l'homme A zero... ! l'Histoire A zero... ! le monde A zero" (40-1). At this stage of zero degree (not abso- lute!) conception, "nous" or everyone becomes a creative participant in the conception of new humanity, the creation of a new world, and the re- making of History. Chevrier points out that the concept of history has become problematic with the new generation of African writers. The past, as mentioned above, was marked by a literature of resistance to colonialism; the present, although engaged in a similar struggle against neo- colonialism, seems to have been frozen in time. Under those circumstances, the future is inconceivable. Arresting time in the present also means stag- nating history. Freezing time and space brings everything to the zero point.



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This point of paralysis, as Koffi Anyinefa notes, is also the point at which history seems to start all over again, "d'ailleurs la fin du roman laisse croire que l'histoire recommence reellement a zero pour s'emp trer dans les mlmes erreurs. Le nouvel Etat du Bampotsoata qui s'61eve sur les ruines de la Katamalanasie et du Darmellia, inaugure une nouvelle are, faite aussi de restrictions de libertes fondamantales" (130).

Confining the political figure in the conceptual world helps to distance that figure from his society. In L'Etat honteux, Martillimi Lopez attempts to distance himself from history, its despotic figures and their actions, by negating himself as he does in his recurrent use of the expression "je ne suis pas." Negating himself is a way of proclaiming his existence, even if only conceptually. In that way, the message written by the opposition to the despotism of the Guide serves our purpose. As it reads, "s'accepter est le sommet de la lachete humaine, n'existe que celui qui se refuse" (146). Negating others and their actions indirectly affirms his own existence but such an existence is merely conceptual. Even if attempts are made to know him as an entity beyond the conceptual framework, textual evidence points to the fact that Martillimi Lopez's statements cannot be used as bases for any meaningful interrogation into his identity. In addition, those figures from whom he wants to distance himself are the products of his imagination just as he himself becomes a product of the reader's imagination. His existence in the imagination makes him such an overwhelming force that the imaginative subject might unconsciously transpose him into the real world. When he declares that "je suis Martillimi Lopez, fils de Maman Nationale," we can try to understand his origins by studying his genealogy using his mother as a point of reference. But such effort is impossible because "Maman Nationale" is actually a metaphor for the whole nation which, of course, makes Lopez "fils de la nation" and ultimately "pare de la nation." In that capacity he becomes some sort of a mythic being with ubiquitous powers. His mythic existence makes it impossible to know his true identity; he remains simply an object of imagination. Even though it could be argued that his barbaric actions (he castrates his imaginary oppo- nents or forces them to eat their own "merde") are proof of his existence; such an existence is problematized by his negation of others and their actions and the lack of affirmation of self. So, in a sense, Martillimi Lopez symbolizes "l'Homme" at zero degree, "''Homme" whose acts help to destroy him.

The question of what characterizes a human is raised when Lopez declares his humanity, "je suis humain." If being human as he proclaims means having some physical, biological, social, moral, or spiritual qualities, then he certainly does not qualify since most of these qualities do not manifest themselves. Moreover, human beings do not need to proclaim their humanity; they have to act in ways that befit that humanity. Lopez seems to want to transcend that other world, indeed that primitive stage of



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confinement, in his attempt to become a reality, that is, a human. One must read his attempt to set himself apart from others or his negation of others as a mask of his inhumanity: first because, when he says "je suis humain," the statement assumes, and falsely so, that he has transcended the conceptual, the imaginative world. Second, one must go beyond the linguistic surface of the statement, as in all other statements made by him, to uncover the built-in irony that helps to destroy him. In that case, his assertion that "je suis instrument de mon peuple" must be interpreted ironically as an instrument of torture. Thus irony is used here to set the world at the zero point where humankind can begin to reshape or rather to invent history. In order to capture that point of equilibrium, that zero point, the concept of history itself has been problematized. By presenting the dictator in the image of someone not easily identifiable in history, by subverting the notion of history through tMlescopage, embrouillage, direglement du temps or stagnation at the zero point, the texts de-emphasize history and emphasize the world of imagination. Maintaining the discourse at the conceptual level also makes the concept of space fluid because the texts are set somewhere in an indeterminate space.

In Qui a mange Madame d'Avoine Bergotha? the focus shifts from a negation of others to a negation of a thought process. As Walante says, ". .. suis pas comme les nbgres qui fonctionnent A l'6motion et au sentiment Moi, je marche A la raison" (54). This is, of course, a critique of Senghor's statement proclaiming that "la raison est hellene, l'6motion est nbgre." His maxim would have us believe that the "Negro" is incapable of or completely devoid of reason while the Hellenist is all reason and no emotions. Ironi- cally, the emotional, the sentimental side of him that he tries to reject appears in full force when, following the statement above, he orders the nephew accused of plotting to overthrow him shot. Here, as with the other political figures, Walante is presented as a one-dimensional character, whose violence and retardation at the most primitive stage of his development make it impossible to reconstruct a complete image of him. It should also be noted that he expresses extremely powerful emotions when he falls madly in love with Madame Bergotha. He describes her rather sensually, "votre bouche est toute belle, elle s'ouvre, elle se ferme comme un monde de miel." Moved by excessive passion, he declares, "laissez-moi Madame, qu'un instant mes yeux mangent A la source de ce sein effrene . . . Ma- dame, je br•le d'envie de vous voir ma femme . . Je me sens amoureux ... Vous serez mon 6poushe . . Je voudrais, Madame, vadrouiller dans votre chair ... Je voudrais vous nommer mon centre du monde" (71ff.). Over- whelmed by those powerful emotions, he does not ask her to be his wife but simply imposes himself on her as if she were an object. His excessive emotions seem to have dominated the very reason that is supposedly his guiding principle. Meeting Madame Bergotha has forced him to renounce his past. As he says, "J'6tais une brute, une fripouille, une manibre de



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monstre en panne. Votre presence me redonne la saveur a une existence qui dej? s'engouffrait au fond d'un puant pourrissement" (74). It would also complete the type of majestic image that he wants to build of himself; "pour vous je suis dispose a tout apprendre: j'ai eu sur cette terre l'argent, l'hon- neur, le pouvoir, les folies; me manquait l'amour" (74).

Unfortunately for Walante, his emotional outburst, his desire to start all over cannot be fulfilled because Madame Bergotha, his object of desire, the source of the change, is actually a man in disguise. Two reasons have motivated his disguise as a woman: first, to secure the release of Walante's own daughter and nephew who are in prison accused of an imaginary attempt to overthrow him. Second, he wants to bring out the fact that Walante's life has been one of excesses, be it in love or in hate. His disguise, besides being a play on the intelligence or lack of it of Walante, is also a very intricate manceuver to foil Walante's insane plan to banish all the men from his republic. The article of the constitution of the island, for example, reads, "les hommes sont d6mis de leur fonction en tant que peuple. Moi Walante, je les remplacerai personnellement, dans toutes leurs fonctions, moi Wa- lante, je met programme et me planifie, avenir, espoir, et volonte person- nelle du peuple! Fondateur de son existence, animateur de sas raisons, g6rant et garant de ses consciences, son ins6minateur unique" (35-6). Ban- ishing all the men from his republic would give him the opportunity to inseminate all the women in order to create a new breed of citizens and thus guarantee his stay in power. Moreover, as products of his own creation, those citizens would be loyal to him and he would have dominion over them.

When Walante finally realizes the illusion of his mad love just as the illusion of banishing all the men from his republic, and that he had been betrayed by his own cook, the excessive passions of love that he had shown to Madame Bergotha earlier turn into excessive rage. As he warns his cook, "non, mon cher nkgre, je ne rigole plus et plus jamais mes dents ne seront dehors pour le plaisir d'etre dehors." Henceforth, he declares, "quand mes dents sortiront, c'est uniquement pour mordre et d6chirer . . . Jamais plus mes mains ne sortiront pour embrasser; quand elles sortiront, c'est uniquement pour donner a g6mir, saccager, 6trangler." He continues by reaffirm- ing what has been evident throughout the text, that whether in the exercise of his dictatorial powers or the expression of his love/hate, he is completely ruled by his emotions: "Walante, Ins6minateur supreme, g6rant et garant de notre avenir trou&, exercerai, avec tous les pouvoirs, mes fonctions de fou contre une soci6te tar&e, livr&e a la stupidite', au mensonge b6nevole et A la depravation!" He concludes on this awareness of his predic- ament, "Je me nomme monstre!" (107). Acknowledging that he is a monster at this point signals the closing of a full circle because, at the beginning of the play, he had already been called a monster by other characters. Inciden- tally the shape of the circle is similar to the shape of zero. This means that Walante, like Martillimi Lopez, has come to point zero just as in La Vie et



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demie in which the history of oppression and dictatorship seems to have made full circle and is starting all over again. He has gone from being called a monster and all other names to being an excessively passionate lover back to the point where he himself declares that he is indeed a monster. All through this, reason, which he claims to symbolize, is completely dominated. Just as Lopez before him, he negates everything but at the same time affirms nothing and ends up ironically with the very qualities he had negated.

Psychoanalytic reading of La Vie et demie

If L'Etat honteux and Qui a mange Madame d'Avoine Bergotha? use irony to create the point of equilibrium, in La Vie et demie the Guide Providentiel's acts of violence against his opponent at the opening of the text are indica- tions of his existence. He uses violence in its most primitive form to kill, chop the body of his opponent into pieces, have it cooked and served to or force fed his opponent's family. His appearance ex nihilo means that the only form of knowledge one has of him is through those actions, that, ironically, hinder his own development all through the text. Instead of developing himself by doing things that would build his identity, he chan- nels all his energy to fighting his invisible enemy, that is, the ghost of Martial that returns to haunt him. Killing his opponent or, as will be argued later, his alter ego, then becomes the source of his own powerless- ness. By killing Martial, the Guide Providentiel has annulled himself or actually been absorbed into Martial's body making the latter a more powerful force. For, as one of the characters observes very aptly, "tuer, c'est s'annuler dans les autres" (163).

At Martial's death, his daughter, Chaddana, joined the resistance and the Guide took her as a wife. He had been advised to share his bed with her to drive away her father's ghost. However, he had been forbidden from con- summating the marriage, "son Excellence doit absolument eviter de faire la chose-la avec la fille de Martial" (20). ChaYdana, in her role as leader of the resistance movement, represents the urge, the unstoppable quest for re- venge. She turns into an unhibited force that would use sex as her own lethal weapon against the atrocities of the Guide. Since she is forbidden from having sex with the Guide, she uses her weapon against other personalities associated with the power structure all of whom die immediately after making love to her. Martial's constant apparition and his more powerful status as a ghost have made him an inhibiting force both to his daughter's resistance or attempt to avenge his death and the Guide's exercise of any form of power. In fact, whereas Chaidana symbolizes unrestrained force, the rough equivalent of that id in all of us, her father's inhibiting acts-he appears to them at crucial moments when they are just about to break the ban on them and make love-become some sort of superego whose constant prohibitions keep us in check. Putting the argument in terms of unrestrained and inhibiting forces implies that the Guide and



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Martial could be one and the same figure. Martial seems to be the rebellious side, indeed the Guide's alter ego that he is trying to kill. If one accepts the proposition that Martial is the Guide's alter ego, what kind of link does one then make between the Guide and Chaidana who has become his symbolic wife? That link may be that Martial did not want the Guide to die an easy death by having sex with his daughter. Since the Guide's power has its base in "la politique du bas ventre," the prohibition is a way of tormenting him to death.

Prohibition is introduced here to put an end to the cycle of violence set in motion by the Guide's violent act against Martial and to act as a deterrent against what Rene Girard calls "reciprocal violence" and "violent mimesis." However, if Martial is the Guide's alter ego, then Cha'idana's relationship with the Guide shifts from husband-wife to father-daughter. In such a relationship having sex is incestuous and, therefore, legally, ethically, mor- ally, and socially unacceptable. For as Girard points out, "prohibition always covers the closest instances of consanguinity, but its outer limits are not necessarily confined to blood relations" (219). It touches on the whole society since violence on one member of the society is violence against the society as a whole. So, as part of the same personality, Chaidana might be read as the Guide's id. Consequently, her uninhibited manifestation of destructive emotions just as those of her father are symbolic of the violence of the Guide.

In a style characteristic of Labou Tansi where identities merge or are fluid, the author has created three identities out of one to show, on the one hand, that in a dictatorship everybody is reduced to a common denomina- tor and, on the other, to exteriorize the internal conflict in the Guide and to magnify the problems in a dictatorship. By creating a political figure with internal conflicts between his superego and id, the text renders the figure static and powerless. It also wants to stress that violence against others can be ironically self-destructive. In addition, such violent creatures do indeed exist, but in this context, emphasis should be placed on the fact that they are mere concepts and should not be given the chance to transcend their imaginative world and become reality. In other words, such political figures should never be allowed to come into existence because, as dictators, they can begin to dictate history or actually dictate their own story as a way to perpetuate themselves in power. The works discussed seem to suggest that political figures in the real world as well as those in fiction must be contained in their bullet-proof vests, cars, palaces, and bunkers so that they might not perform any actions which are, indeed, the only manifestations of their existence. After all, even though they might be overwhelmingly omnipresent spiritually, their physical distanciation from their societies has always made them mere concepts, mere products of the imagination of their "subjects" who, on very rare occasions, might catch a glimpse of them in their tinted window limousines.



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Conclusion

It is worth noting that once conceived, rather than contributing to the creative process and in the course of its establishing the kind of relationship with other elements of the texts referred to earlier, such characters as Labou Tansi's have often attempted to dictate the process. They have tried to transcend the conceptual framework in which they have been contained in order to manifest their existence through their actions. The energy generated by the struggle to break out of that containment has often been transformed into the kind of violence that characterizes those beings; violence that is most often displaced onto innocent victims and, in this case, other characters in the text. Unable to secure that freedom for and within themselves, it becomes impossible for them to understand the concept of freedom to a point where they can share it with others. The internal conflict in the characters and in the texts themselves has generated the kind of literature of ecstatic exuberance that one finds in the works of Sony Labou Tansi and other writers of this new trend. The tension has inspired Labou Tansi to conceive of political figures whose very psychological insta- bility, whose inability to define the self as a whole being is summed up very aptly in the old saying that "uneasy lies the head that wears the crown" or in this case the head that dictates.

After decades of writings that either directly or by way of satire, irony, allegory, or sarcasm attacked both the personalities and the inhumane policies of some African political figures and their systems of (mis)gover- nance, one would think that those writings would have generated enough energy or raised the consciousness of the elite so they could in turn educate the masses to rise up and force the dictators out of power. Unfortunately it has not been the case because while the African writers kept producing la littUrature engag&e, Ngate writes, "neo-colonialist forces and influences propped up dictatorships all over the African continent" (132). Recently, however, the masses of Africans in different countries, sick of the lethargy of single parties and lofty, unfulfilled promises, caught in the vicious cycle of corruption and mismanagement, have taken to the streets in a desparate attempt to force the satraps who would, in the words of Soyinka, "hold to the booty of power through the gourd's narrow neck to unclench the fist and save themselves" (vii) before it is too late. The works of this new trend are very timely in that they are creating a common ground, that is, a conceptual framework where both the political figures as characters, the implied author, and the implied reader would become collaborators in the same creative activity. In this, they can share what Louis Tremaine has called "virtual experience," that is, the kind of experience that is gained by becoming an active participant in the creation of the imaginative world. Once that esprit de corps has been established at the conceptual level, one would assume that such a shared virtual political experience could become a framework for a new form of relationship between l'homme engageant, that



104 FRENCH REVIEW

is, the author and the reader including the political figures "who share a world of actual experience" (154). The creative energies thus generated by the work of imagination must be transformed into a dynamic positive force in the societies in which the texts are produced and be used to contextual- ize, indeed to actualize the virtual experience gained in the texts.

Works Cited

Anyinefa, Koffi. Litt&rature et politique en Afrique noire: socialisme et dictature comme themes du roman congolais d'expression franfaise. Bayreuth: African Studies 19/20, 1990.

Chevrier, Jacques. "Naissance d'une litterature: une nouvelle race d'&crivains." Jeune Afrique, no. 1303-1304, d6c. 1985-jan. 1986. pp??

. "Roman africain: le temps du doute et des incertitudes." Jeune Afrique, no. 1469, ler mars, 1989. pp??

Dabla, Sewanou. Nouvelles &critures africaines: romanciers de la seconde gen&ration. Paris: L'Har- mattan, 1986.

Fanon, Frantz. Les Damnks de la terre. Paris: Librairie Franqois Maspero, 1968. Girard, Rene. Violence and the Sacred. Trans. Patrick Gregory. Baltimore and London: The

Johns Hopkins UP, 1977. Labou Tansi, Sony. La Vie et demie. Paris: Seuil, 1979.

. L'Etat honteux. Paris: Seuil, 1981.

. Qui a mangi Madame d'Avoine Bergotha? Bruxelles: Editions Promotion Thiatre, 1989.

Malanda, Ange-Severin. "L'Vnumbration des limites sur Sony Labou Tansi." Peuples Noirs/ Peuples Africains, 5eme ann&e, no. 30, 1982. 122-132.

Ngat&, Jonathan. Francophone African Fiction: Reading a Literary Tradition. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1988.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. Qu'est-ce que la litt&rature? Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1948. Soyinka, Wole. A Play of Giants. London: Methuen, 1984. Tremaine, Louis. "The Implied Reader in Kateb Yacine's Nedjma." Artist and Audience:

African Literature as a Shared Experience. Eds. Richard O. Priebe and Thomas A. Hale. Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press & ALA, 1979.



Sony Labou Tansi

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