At a museum in an unnamed African city, librarian turned cotton farmer turned security guard Toby Kunta takes a hostage — a freelance journalist originally from this country, now based in Berlin. Toby begins to destroy the gallery’s photographs — which he considers a colonial misrepresentation of the local peasants, staged for the European gaze — and threatens to burn the journalist to death. In exchange for the release of his hostage, he demands 200 million francs from The Firm, the company responsible for coercing many local farmers into planting their genetically modified cotton. Widespread crop failure has ruined the livelihoods of many farmers, Toby included, and he demands reparations from The Firm. Over the course of just 150 taut pages, we witness the hours of hostage negotiations, learn details of Toby’s life story, and enter the memories of his hostage.
This is an excellent novella by Togolese Canadian author Edem Awumey, translated deftly by Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott. Though it’s tense and suspenseful, it’s far slower and more literary than a typical thriller – flashbacks, memories, and philosophical musings slow down the narrative and punctuate the high drama scenes of destruction of art, threats to the journalist’s life, and negotiations with the police and The Firm. One of the novella’s key questions is the function of representational art and its relationship to colonialism, with museums tied to the same colonial project that produced the conditions in which The Firm can exploit peasant farmers. Museums have long been critiqued as sites that consolidate and reproduce colonial power relations, and this fictional museum, with its exhibition flaunting photographs made from the myopic and patronizing perspective of a European artist with no interest in even attempting to represent reality, intersects with the predatory world of genetically modified agriculture. But Toby isn’t only bent on destruction: he also begins to create his own museum out of artifacts he’s gathered that speak to The Firm’s complicity in human suffering. As the narrative of the novel unfolds, so, too, does the narrative of Toby’s exhibit.
Both Toby and the journalist are ambivalent and compelling characters. The journalist has an attachment to the sorts of colonial art that Toby completely rejects, taught by his German grandfather to appreciate European art. To Toby, he’s the embodiment of European bourgeoisie excess, although he’s not exactly a member of the ruling class in Germany and even feels sympathy for Toby alongside his hostility. Indeed, Toby’s cause is ultimately sympathetic: he is a man pushed to the edge by forces outside of his control, struggling to regain some autonomy for his people. He’s not temperamentally extreme, but he has enacted an extreme plan out of desperation. Though the men are at odds, they have more in common than Toby might believe.
Edem Awumey represents a brilliant voice in Francophone literature, this novella is truly an achievement in both its ambition and its restraint.
Edem Awumey represents a brilliant voice in Francophone literature, this novella is truly an achievement in both its ambition and its restraint. It’s tense but never overdramatic, philosophical but not meandering. Though much of the narrative tension of course lies in the extreme act, in not knowing how far Toby will go, the most interesting tension is in the sense of moral ambiguity. As readers, as witnesses, how do we make sense of an act that we know must be wrong when its motivations feel just? While the journalist is undeniably a victim, Toby doesn’t quite feel like a villain. It is this grey area and these uneasy questions that the novel dwells within to great effect.
Edem Awumey was born in Lomé, Togo. He is the author of five previous novels. Descent into Night, the English translation of Explication de la nuit (2013), won the prestigious Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation in 2018. His other novels are Port-Melo (2006), which won the Grand prix littéraire d’Afrique noire; Les pieds sales (2009), which was a finalist for the Prix Goncourt in France; Rose déluge (2011); and Mina parmi les ombres (2018), which was translated into English as Mina Among the Shadows (2020). Dirty Feet (2011), the English translation of Les pieds sales, was selected for the Dublin Impac Award. Descent into Night and Mina Among the Shadows were translated by Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott. Edem Awumey lives in Gatineau, Quebec.
Publisher: Mawenzi House Publishers Ltd. (October 22, 2024)
Paperback 9″ x 6″ | 160 pages
ISBN: 9781774151778
Clementine Oberst is a Ph.D. candidate specializing in television studies. Born and raised in Toronto, she has lived in Montreal and Glasgow and now calls Hamilton home. When she isn't writing her dissertation, Clementine can be found knitting, trying to cultivate a green thumb, and playing with her cats. She loves nothing more than losing herself in a good book. You can connect with her on Instagram @clementinereads.
- Clementine Obersthttps://miramichireader.ca/author/clementine-oberst/
- Clementine Obersthttps://miramichireader.ca/author/clementine-oberst/
- Clementine Obersthttps://miramichireader.ca/author/clementine-oberst/
- Clementine Obersthttps://miramichireader.ca/author/clementine-oberst/
- Clementine Obersthttps://miramichireader.ca/author/clementine-oberst/
- Clementine Obersthttps://miramichireader.ca/author/clementine-oberst/
