The Lieutenant of Kouta African Humanities and the Arts
 First edition (French) | |
| Writer | Massa Makan Diabaté |
|---|---|
| State | Mali |
| Linguistic communication | French |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Hatier |
| Publication date | 1979 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 127 |
| ISBN | 978-2-218-04645-ii (1st ed) |
| OCLC | 6091008 |
| Dewey Decimal | 843 |
| LC Course | PQ3989.2.D44 |
| Preceded by | Une si belle leçon de patience (play) |
| Followed past | Le coiffeur de Kouta |
Le lieutenant de Kouta ("The Lieutenant of Kouta") is a 1979 novel by Malian writer Massa Makan Diabaté. Loosely based on the writer's hometown of Kita, Mali,[1] the novel tells the story of a recently returned lieutenant from the French Colonial Army, Siriman Keita, and his struggle to adjust to his hamlet'south changing community. It is the first book in Diabaté's "Kouta trilogy," followed past Le coiffeur de Kouta ("The Barber of Kouta," 1980) and Le boucher de Kouta ("The Butcher of Kouta," 1982), which feature many of the same characters.[2]
Plot [edit]
Lieutenant Siriman Keita has returned from a long service in the French Colonial Army (during which he was awarded the Croix de Guerre[iii]) to Kouta, a marketplace village nigh his smaller dwelling hamlet of Kouroula. In Kouta, he at first plots to arise to the canton chiefdom while avoiding his envious older blood brother, Faganda.[iv] However, his plans are scrapped when he humiliates himself in a horse-riding accident before the village, and he withdraws to his fortress-like "square house." After a time, he adopts a fatherless boy who he had once punished for stealing, and marries Awa, a Senegalese woman of questionable reputation. Disaster strikes the lieutenant once more, notwithstanding, when the French commandant incites him to lead a castigating trek against the pro-independence hamlet of Woudi. When the expedition fails, the lieutenant is stripped and humiliated before the people of Kouta and, after the commandant denies his ain involvement, is sent to jail in the land's capital for disturbing the peace.[5] He returns to find Awa pregnant by a immature pro-independence activist, but having changed during his incarceration, the lieutenant forgives her betrayal and adopts the coming child as his own.[6] He reconciles with the imam of the local mosque, formerly a bitter enemy, and somewhen becomes the hamlet muezzin, only to die mysteriously following an injection by his envious blood brother.[7] The imam does him the honor of burying him in the mosque, while the French administrators, concerned by the example of his conversion, hastily and posthumously honor him the Legion of Laurels.[8]
Historical inspiration [edit]
According to Mamadou Sangaré, the grapheme of Siriman Keita was inspired by the real-life figure of Mamadou Keita, a Colonial Army lieutenant who retired to Kita.[9] Though many incidents of the novel, such as the punitive expedition to Woudi, are entirely of Diabaté's creation, Mamadou Keita did finish his life by converting to Islam presently before his decease in 1959.[ten]
Criticism [edit]
The novels of Kouta trilogy are ofttimes named every bit Diabaté's finest works. The Encyclopedia of African Literatures for case, praises the novels' "colorful sense of humour and . . . style worthy of a griot."[2]
Cheick Yard. Chérif Keïta sees the novel as representative of the tension betwixt fadenya—the pull of innovation—and fasiya—the pull of tradition—in Diabaté's work. In this reading, Siriman Keita is both oppressed by tradition in the form of his ambitious (and likely homicidal) brother, but also resents the changes that the youth-led independence move are bringing to his country. Ultimately, all the same, the lieutenant comes to see that tradition "is not a monolith, but rather an edifice of which the fissures must e'er furnish an outlet for the creative energies of individuals and young innovators."[11]
The novel itself can be read equally a blending of traditions, joining the proverbs and customs of Maninka culture to the European form of the novel.[eleven] Equally Diabaté himself commented to one interviewer, "J'essaie de donner à mon français, qui north'est pas le français de France, une coloration africaine, en y mêlant des proverbes, des récits et surtout en faisant, comme je 50'ai toujours dit, "quelques petits bâtards à la langue française" ("I effort to give my French, which isn't the French of France, an African coloring, mixing in proverbs, stories, and in a higher place all in making, as I always say, 'some little bastards of the French language'").[12]
J.R. McGuire reads a similar tension in the Kouta trilogy, though using the terms fadenya and badenya. Austen argues that in this respect, the novels are highly influenced by Diabaté's early on writings on the similarly structured Ballsy of Sundiata, which he calls "an inescapable intertext" for works from Maninke civilization.[13]
References [edit]
- ^ McGuire, James R. "Narrating Mande Heroism in the Malian novel: Negotiating Postcolonial Identity in Diabaté's Le boucher de Kouta. Inquiry in African Literatures 24.three (1993): 35-57. p. 49.
- ^ a b Drame (2003), p. 195
- ^ Diabaté (1979), p. sixteen
- ^ Diabaté (1979), p. 22
- ^ Diabaté (1979), p. 106
- ^ Diabaté (1979), p. 109
- ^ Diabaté (1979), pp. 124–125
- ^ Diabaté (1979), pp. 126–127
- ^ Sangaré (1999), p. 226
- ^ Sangaré (1999), p. 232
- ^ a b Keïta (1995), p. 108
- ^ Daff, Moussa. "LE FRANÇAIS MÉSOLECTAL COMME EXPRESSION D'UNE REVENDICATION DE COPROPRIÉTÉ LINGUISTIQUE EN FRANCOPHONIE." http://www.unice.fr/ILF-CNRS/ofcaf/12/Daff.htm
- ^ McGuire, J.R. "Butchering Heroism?: Sunjata and the Negotiation of Postcolonial Mande Identity in Diabate'south "Le boucher de Kouta". In Search of Sunjata: the Mande oral epic equally history, literature and performance. Ed. Ralph A. Austen. Bloomington: Indiana Up, 1999. p. 259.
Bibliography [edit]
- Diabaté, Massa Makan (1979). Le Lieutenant de Kouta. Paris: Editions Hâtier.
- Drame, Kandioura (2003). "Diabaté, Massa Makan". In Simon Gikandi (ed.). The Encyclopedia of African Literatures. London: Routledge.
- Keïta, Cheick M. Chérif (1995). United nations Griot mandingue à la rencontre de 50'écriture. Paris: Editions L'Harmattan.
- Sangaré, Mamadou (1999). L'histoire et le roman dans la trilogie Kouta de Massa Makan Diabate. Paris: Septentrion.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_lieutenant_de_Kouta
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