Bound to Violence

Yambo Ouologuem

Bio-Sketch & Review

He wrote the controversial Le Devoir de violence (1968; translated in English as Bound to Violence in 1971). The book initially was widely received and well-reviewed. After winning the prestigious French literary prize, Yambo received much media attention: appeared on NBC's Today Show; interviewed and written about in many prominent publications. Then the bottom dropped out  with charges of plagiarism.

An interesting and exciting novel, Bound to Violence  incorporated passages from Graham Greene's It's a Battlefield, Andre Schwarz-Bart's The Last of the Just, and works by Guy de Maupassant. In his paper, "Yambo Ouologuem's Pastiche of Authentic Identity," Richard Serrano of Rutgers University argues, "The work is a parody of Western notions of African history, as embodied in anthropological discourse, the Negritude movement and African pseudo-nationalism, and not, as most critics would have it, an inept first novel by a hack who got undeservedly good press because he was black."

Yambo currently lives in Mopti, Mali. In the late 1970s he returned to his home country and worked until 1984 as a director of a youth center near Mopti.

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Reviews

An African Empire from the Middle Ages to our time comes blazingly alive in this black epic, hailed as the first truly African novel and awarded the Prix Renaudot.

This first novel by a brilliantly gifted young African intellectual has been hailed by critics as the first truly African novel. It fuses legend, oral tradition, and stunning realism in a vision arising authentically from black roots.

The author draws on the history and culture of the great medieval empire of Mali, Nakem, the imaginary name he gives to a country that is real, was unified in the 13th century by the Saif dynasty. Their ruthless rule is shown as a bloody, tragic adventure.

After a brief, violent fresco depicting Nakem's past, the story moves into the 20th century. The Saifs continue in power. When the French arrive as colonizers, they unwittingly become puppets in the hands of the astute native rulers who continue to dominate by witchcraft and crime. Scenes of violence and eroticism, of sorcery and black magic appear as natural parts of human activity. from this sumptuous and frightful background emerges the book's main protagonist, Raymond Spartacus Kassoumi, the son of slaves, sent to France to be educated and groomed for a political post and so to become another puppet in the hands of the Saifs.

Ouologuem, from a vantage point uniquely his own, reveals a world in which white colonialism is preceded by black and Arab colonialism, In his endeavor to demystify African history, he is kin to Frantz Fanon. In the lyrical intensity of his images -- French critics have compared him to Rimbaud -- he is powerfully himself. he is the voice of an Africa unknown to the West, articulate here for the first time.

--Publisher, Book Cover

Perhaps the first African novel that truly merits the name . . . Doubtless, along with Léopold Sedar Senghor, Ouologuem is one of the rare intellectuals of international stature to come out of black Africa.

--Le Monde

A very beautiful and powerful book . . . Violent, sensual, dramatic, pregnant with the scents of the earth and the flesh of Africa . . . His great scenes of eroticism and violence are terrifying . . . despair and passion speak at every moment their gentle or their cruel native language.

--Le Figaro Littéraire

An extraordinary book . . . The condensed history, legendary, poetic, and realistic, of black Africa.

--Le Nouvel Observateur

A revelation . . . an epic of all African history.

--Jeune Afrique

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Roger P. Smith reports that Christopher Wise, editor of Yambo Ouologuem: Postcolonial Writer, Islamic Militant (1999), has gathered updated information from friends and acquaintances of Yambo. Smith concluded that the author of Bound to Violence now believes "the worst enemies for blacks right now are racist Arabs."  Smith continues: "People who know him personally dismiss him as a madman who hates the French and has washed his hands of writing in French, and as a man who hates Jews and misguided African Americans and who says that he often speaks with Muhammad, Jesus, and the angel Gabriel. He remains bitter toward the French literary establishment."

This writer recommends that one reads the book and settle the matter for oneself. (RL)

Bound to Violence  by Yambo Ouolohuem; translated by Ralph Manhein. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. New York, 1971

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update 7 July 2008