Hannah Grayson
22/02/13
Contesting Space in Monénembo’s Novels
Guinean author Tierno Monénembo, winner of the Prix Renaudot in 2008 and the Prix du Roman Métis just last year, writes contested space into a number of his novels. He considers political, gendered, linguistic and transatlantic spaces, and in particular writes stories of nomadic character-observers moving between these different places. Elsewhere in Monénembo’s writing, contests for space take the shape of imperial conquest (Le Roi de Kahel, 2008), World War Two resistance in rural France (Le Terroriste noir, 2012), and gang warfare in Conakry (Cinéma, 1997). Here I will concentrate on the very physical takeover of one city.
This paper is a combination of two studies I have completed as part of my wider project on Monénembo: the first on the social and physical shifts in Guinean cities over the past three decades; and the second on the emergence of dictatorship in fiction. I will speak about Les Crapauds-brousse, Monénembo’s first novel, in which the contested space is a city suffering a gradual takeover by dictatorSâMatrak. Although the city remains unnamed, it is unquestionably a reference to Conakry under the hands of SekouTouré: Guinea’s president at independence and instigator of an extended regime of violence and corruption. Written in 1979, five years before Touré’s death, the novel goes straight to the heart of post-colonial darkness, depicting the dangerous urban topography which AchilleMbembe describes, as cities seek to ‘sortir de la grandenuit’.[1]
My choice of the term ‘space’ over ‘place’ follows Michel de Certeau in L’invention du quotidienwhere he draws a distinction between lieu and espace, describing the former as a fixed physical location featuring immobile buildings and roads, and the latter as an area lived in, conditioned and changed by those in and around it. ‘L’espace…’ he says, ‘est un lieu pratiqué’.[2] Thus although we are discussing the very physical area of a city, we will see it as a space conditioned by the ongoing contest for power, gradually reshaped by its inhabitants; for de Certeau, and for Monénembo, the city is very much ‘uneexpériencesociale’ seen through the eyes of character-observers.[3]
Set in this recently post-colonial city, Les Crapauds-brousseuses the story of protagonists Diouldé and his wife Râhi to portray the wider expérienceof the city, which in turn is Monénembo’smise-en-abyme for Guinea as a nation. Diouldé’s tranquil existence is interrupted as government colleagues entangle him in their web of corrupt activity, and he is coerced into criminal schemes before being imprisoned himself. Then Monénembo’s magnified perspective on intimate spaces reveals the horrifying physicality of the dictatorship: Râhi’s space is invaded and poisoned as two men move in and abuse her.
I will address these in turn but first would like you to keep one image in your heads, that of an octopus!Describing the ever-active scheme of the novel’s dictator SâMatrak, from the second quote on the handout, Monénembo writes:
‘C’était une énorme manœuvre, une pieuvre aux tentacules infinis, faits de milliers et de milliers d’hommes dont on arrêtait chaque jour une poignée.’[4]
SâMatrak’s reign is dissipated through a wide range of henchmen, an ever-sprawling network of agents who do his ‘leg-work’. My suggestion is that the city space in Les Crapauds-brousseis taken over by the power of an unseen dictator, and that this power emerges in many different forms. Imagine if you will, a giant octopus whose head (the silent dictator) remains hidden and whose tentacles suddenly appear one by one, out of nowhere, to violently take out their victims. This figure steadily extends its reach, in multiple directions simultaneously, acting out the poisonous commands of its head.
Following Monénembo’s tendency to tread in the footsteps of his characters, I will speak about two magnified examples of spatial contest as a means of signalling his representation of the wider contest for space in this novel and elsewhere. These can be seen as two victims, running fromjust two of the many tentacles which carry out the dirty work of the novel’s dictator.
The first arm of dictatorship to mention is that of imprisonment. There is certainly the sense in Les Crapauds-broussesof the whole city becoming a prison, shrouded in darkness and secrecy and shut off from those outside. This is embodied in the experience of Diouldé, who is embroiled in his corrupt colleagues’ schemes before being kidnapped and imprisoned himself. The shock tactics of this ‘tentacle’ are exemplified in one episode - quote 3 on your handout - where an uncooperative local chief is sprung upon in the middle of the night:
‘le bois d’Abou s’abattit sur sa nuque, avec plus de force et de précision cette fois. Là où il tomba, les quatre hommes firent un trou et l’enterrèrent.’[5]
Later, Diouldé himself is taken from his home in the middle of the night, and never seen again - two men knock at the door and silently usher him into a waiting vehicle. There is a haunting sense of inevitability leading up to his arrest, and intense darkness surrounding it.
Indeed there is a prevailing threat throughout the novel, as characters wait anxiously for arrests and attacks. Ironically, the henchmen claim to berooting out corruptcivilians, ‘les pousser à sortir de l’ombre…de les pousser à sortir de l’ombre.’[6]Instead, as the threat of capture and imprisonment spreads, more people inhabit more hiding places:
(Nextquote)
‘Des groupes se formaient au coin d’une rue, au centre d’une place, qui se disloquaient en ombres passagères derrière un mur, dans une bicoque.’[7]
The contest for space conditions how this lieu is pratiqué; there is decreasing freedom for the city’s inhabitants.More and more space is taken over and more people imprisoned throughout the book;darkness grows more intense at the points where these practices of incarceration increase. As this tentaclecreeps slyly through the night, darkness shades the horror of its crimes and its silence is incongruous with the trauma and chaos it causes.
Whisperedrumourssuggestthosekidnapped are taken to le Tombeau, at once theepitome of darkness and incarceration, and anothersymbol for the nation of Guinea:
‘Le Tombeau, c’est ce morceau de la ville ceinturé par une épaisse muraille…on entend souffler dans la ville que c’est là qu’on emmène les traîtres, les apatrides, tous ceux qui ont trahi le président SâMatrak et, à travers son honorable être, le passé, le présent et l’avenir du pays.’[8]
Nobody is seen to go in to le Tombeau, nobody is seen coming out. Its high walls induce great fear among the inhabitants of the city, and keep the most murderous activities of the dictatorship hidden.
Those characters who aren’t physically imprisoned in le Tombeau still live a confined existence: the prevailing sense of fear throughout the text means that people seek out dark corners and unseen spaces to live in hiding. Mbembeunderlinesthishiddenness as one condition of a decolonising city, where a ‘prolifération d’espaces de la clandestinité…oblige les acteurs sociaux à créer des ressources dans des conditions d’instabilité permanente, d’incertitude quasi absolue et sur un horizon temporel extrêmement court.’[9]The city space in Les Crapauds-broussecomes to be threatened by increased instability, encroaching darkness, and almost absolute imprisonment.
Imprisonment then is one tentacle, which ousts victims like Diouldé, caught unawares and then incarcerated. The other branch of dictatorship I will mention here is invasion, or trespass. It is Râhi, Diouldé’s wife, whom Monénembo uses to embody this most vividly, and who most horrifically falls victim to the power-hungry cruelty of those in authority.
Their home is initially a safe space and even once Diouldé is kidnapped, Râhi manages to maintain control over it. However, when a resident witchdoctor arrives he foreshadows the later appearance of another of the henchmen. When this figure encroaches gradually on her private space, it is clear that he will take complete control; his physical dominance of her domestic space is symbolic of his increasing and violent assumption of power. His first step is into the kitchen where he demands she make meals, supposedly for her imprisoned husband Diouldé.
Thus as well as dominating public space, this tentacle of dictatorship invades the private sphere to such an extent that it is characterised by domesticity. There is an uncomfortable familiarity in the way this character inhabits Râhi’s home. Again, what Râhi suffers in Les crapauds-brousse is symbolic of the wider experience of victims of dictatorship, whose space is invaded and whose rights are denied. But worse than this, there is a close-to-home bitterness to post-colonial dictatorship. Patrice Nganang alludes to this in hischapterdescribingle roman de la dictature:
(QUOTE)Describing the post-colonialdictator, ‘Il copule avec toute femme qui porte sur son corps la tenue du parti sur laquelle figure son visage; voilà le côté le plus poussé de son intimité.’[10]
The point to be made is that far from being distant figures, the agents of dictatorship in this case are homegrown; they are intimately connected with the homeland and its people; and thus their trespass is all the more awful.
From this communal space (in the kitchen), he makes his way into the depths of Râhi’s home, and thus sets up a pattern for each of his future visits: ‘le repasdans la petite salle à manger, le couloir, la chambre, le lit.’[11] The most horrific takeover comes then as she is raped repeatedly by Daouda (this man)and by Laramako (the witchdoctor):
(next/final quote) ‘Enlève ton slip’ répéta-t-il plus sourdement. Elle enleva son slip avec une main tremblotante. ¦ Des jours et des jours passèrent…’[12]
The absence of description and reaction on Râhi’s part points to the complete subjugation she endures: any response is silenced by the domineering, physical presence of her oppressor(s).
Râhi embodies the subjugation undergone by the city as a whole, and writing through her eyes, as she is raped repeatedly, Monénembo uses Râhi’s sexual subjugation as a symbol of the ongoing suffering of Guinea in its post-colonial period. Mbembe’s dark night, he suggests, is far from over.Where many postcolonial theorists have likened the violated female body to the experience of the colonised nation, Monénembo continues this imagery in depicting the darkness and suffering in post-independence Guinea. Although at the end of Les Crapauds-broussea small group of civilians escape the city, their freedom is ambiguous. ‘La pieuvre aux tentaculesinfinis’ has imprisoned, raped and murdered from a hidden position of dark silence. What remains clear is that the spatial contest for this city has resulted in absolute takeover for the many-armed, violent and corrupt dictatorship.
Just to finish: It is helpful to bear in mind the parallels between physical space and textual space: what insights might we gain from considering the takeover of a city, as I have discussed, and the taking-over of a text, as Sarah will consider in her paper on translation. This of course points to questions often asked about the place and form of French in the writing of authors who are not French: a persistent theme in any study of postcolonial texts, and one interrogated continually by Monénembo’s own writing.
[1] Achille Mbembe, Sortir de la grande nuit: Essai sur l’Afrique décolonisée (Paris: Découverte, 2010) p.181
[2] Michel de Certeau, L’invention du quotidien: 1. arts de faire (Paris: Gallimard, 1990) p.173
[3] Ibid., p.155
[4] CB119
[5] CB 106
[6] CB 113
[7] CB 118 This power of surveillance recalls Foucault once again, particularly his discussion of the Panopticon. Just as prisoners are in constant and full view of a supervisor, so Monénembo’s characters are pursued by Daouda’s watch: ‘La visibilitéest un piège.’ Foucault, Michel, Surveiller et Punir, p.234
[8] CB 145
[9] SDLGN, Mbembe, p.209.
[10] Manifeste, p.205
[11] 139 Such a concise list expresses Daouda’s nonchalance and impassivity, evidentalsoduring the murder of the village chief (105) ‘Ce qui le bouleversait encore plus, c’était l’impassibilité monumentale de Daouda.’
[12] CB 139