Country: Ivory Coast Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa
Author: Marguerite Abouet (& Clement Oubrerie)
Review: Yes, yes, another coming of age novel. But I had to think about this one, because (a) it’s not All About Me, and (b) it’s a graphic novel. It’s about three young women in the Ivory Coast Côte d’Ivoire of the 1970s, three fairly ordinary young women in a working class neighbourhood (Yopougon), who are having the usual teenage girl-issues, like school and boys and what to do with what’s going on between their legs. It’s called Aya, and that’s the main character — or rather the narrator — but as Aya’s a pretty dull person really (at least at this point in her life — she’s studying too hard to generate any real drama in her life) the story really focusses on the actions of her two friends Bintou and Adjoua.
Comment: All the reviews about this book, as well as the preface, make a point of talking about the ordinariness of the story, the lack of violence and abjectness in the background, the total unAfricanness of the story (because nobody dies, no government topples, and nobody starves). To do the same thing would justify that stance and underline the idea that what happens in Africa must be very very bad. Everyone makes the point of saying that Ivory Coast Côte d’Ivoire was an exemplary African nation in the 1970s, etc, etc, rather the way Alexander McCall Smith keeps reminding us that Botswana is an exemplary African nation in the 2000s. It’s the postcolonial version of the Dark Continent myth. I don’t buy it, so I won’t say it. But for people expecting fireworks and drama in this graphic novel, and who approach it the way they might approach, say, Speigelman’s Maus, forget it. Think Archie, Betty and Veronica — only all grown up.
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 5 comments }
Did you know that “The government officially discourages the use of the name Ivory Coast in English, preferring the French name Côte d’Ivoire to be used in all languages”? (I only know because I recently got called on it..)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory_coast
Cheers, N
I myself prefer Côte d’Ivoire but was trying to be accommodating. Thanks for the note — changing it now!
It’s sad that people think this story is unAfrican. In fact, I’ve never read anything so close to the way people actually think and feel here in Abidjan. It’s not just the Ivory Coast of the 1970s but of 2008 as well. Of course news reports also have their truths but they emphasise the totally extreme at the expense of the ordinary.
If you do read French, please get this in the original because the use of local expressions is one of the book’s trump cards, which I guess is lost in translation.
John, I’m flattered and pleased you dropped by! I do read French, and had toyed with the idea of getting the book in the original. I’ll make it a point to do so in the future. I pre-ordered the English version of the second book, but as there’s a lag in the translation, getting the books in French does seem to make more sense.
I read this one too for the challenge (and re-read it a couple of days ago). I really enjoyed it; it was just a great fun, funny story. I don’t think it’s at all un-African; it seems very African to me (I say this, obviously, as someone who’s not African), and I actually like that it’s not all “ABOUT BEING AFRICAN”, if you know what I mean? Sorry, my brain is still jetlagged. Also my thoughts on the books I’ve read for the challenge are being somewhat murkily influenced by another book I’m reading for the challenge, Kwame Anthony Appiah’s “In My Father’s House,” subtitled “Africa in the Philosophy of Culture”, which is largely going a bit over my head, but is interesting nonetheless.
Comments on this entry are closed.