Extract
[...] Author, in turn poet and king of the highly prosaic formula, his violence makes him a raw and exposed person whose work cannot leave anyone indifferent. BIBLIOGRAPHY Sony Labou Tansi, Life and a Half, Seuil, 1979. Sony Labou Tansi, The Pre-People, Seuil 1983. Eugène Ionesco, Notes and Counter-Notes, Folio / Essays, 1991. Eugène Ionesco, Rhinoceros, Gallimard, 1972. Colson Whitehead, Zone Gallimard, 2014. [...]
[...] It is indeed what he writes clearly in the warning that precedes it Life and a Half : "And, as Ionesco says, I do not teach, I invent This phrase perfectly joins what Eugène Ionesco was writing in 1962: "To want to be of one's time is already to be out of date.1 Thus, Sony Labou Tansi inscribes himself in this line of committed authors who, from Rhinoceros of Ionesco (where bestiality transforms men) to Zone 1 by Colson Whitehead (where the world is overrun with bloodthirsty zombies), through the violence of their writing and their stories, remain the precursors of a post-modern literature that questions the future of Humanity. Sony Labou Tansi will never stop verbalizing this violence that reflects his anger in the face of a world in disintegration, particularly concerning his continent, Africa. A few years after the publication of Life and a Half, he will write in the novel The Pre-People : " Africa, this big crap where everyone refuses their place. A crappy, ugly crap this world Neither more nor less than a big crap market. [...]
[...] This need to reconnect with Nature is the only way for Man to truly find himself, to regain his humanity and reconnect with himself : "Loneliness. Loneliness. The greatest reality of man is loneliness. Whatever we do. Social facades. Facades of love. Deception. You are alone in yourself. Only solitude allows Man to face violence and the fear that comes with it. [...]
[...] Finally, driven out of Katamalanasie, Chaïdana settles in her country of origin, Darmellia, with all her descendants. Darmellia, which has become very prosperous thanks to them, attracts the jealousy of Katamalanasie, which tries to annihilate it. Thus, the novel ends as it began, with a war of the most bloody. History is therefore only an eternal repetition." If violence is present throughout the novel, it is to the point where it inevitably questions its utility and meaning. The story indeed begins with the unbearable murder of Martial, and the debauchery of details about his torture immediately shows a violence doubled by a pushed to their paroxysm sadism: " The Providential Guide had a very simple smile before coming to plunge the table knife [ . [...]
[...] Having contracted the HIV virus, he could not leave the country to obtain the necessary treatment and died in 1995 in Brazzaville, in the Congo Translated worldwide, his work has made him one of the greatest African authors today In an imaginary country, Katamalanasie, Chaïdana, a female character emblematic of her people, are subjected to the merciless dictatorship of the one who calls himself the Providential Guide. They live in a world where violence is omnipresent, and it's even a gentle euphemism. For indeed, surrounded by his henchmen, the Providential Guide kills as he breathes. The novel opens with the murder of Martial, Chaïdana's father. Only in this fable halfway between absurdity and science fiction, Martial refuses to die and returns to haunt the Guide, simply because he "does not want to die from this death". [...]
