BOLYA : The polyandrous (La polyandre)

The novelist Bolya Baenga passed away a little over a year ago. I promised myself to discover his work with some titles that have an explosive character "Cannibal", "The polyandrous," "The Desecration of vaginas" to name only novels. I like to think the best tribute we can pay to an author is to discover his work because, somehow, it is a way to introduce him into immortality as the reader continues to interact with the writer whom disappeared. Bolya won the Grand prix littéraire d'Afrique noire (Major literary prize of Black Africa) in 1986 for his novel Cannibal.

I try to be as honest in my reading comments, and I think that describing the conditions of reading is as important as to mention the characters, the plot, and the significance or not of the text. I myself have had great difficulty in entering the atmosphere of The Polyandrous novel published in 1998 by Serpent Noir (Black Snake). Reading interspersed with other readings in which I immersed more easily with less detonating stories, if you allow me that expression of Bolya’s novel.

History

Three corpses of blacks, of Negros in Bolya’s own words, are discovered at the Place de la Bastille. Naked. Mutilated. Emasculated. The subject makes headlines. What has happened? Should we talk about hate crimes in France that look like the 80s? Among those that the inspector Negro - whom bears his name well, even if he is whiter than porcelain - questions, there are Ouleymatou, a beautiful African lady followed closely by a people journalist, the aptly named Gruff, ready to do anything to get the breaking news that will propel his career and whom pays particular attention to the African rump. The beautiful Ouleymatou turns out to be the daughter of a polyandrous princess and perpetuates her family and cultural heritage in France. As a reminder, polyandry is this marriage system where a woman is allowed to contract marriages with several males.

Bolya offers readers an insight into a world where morals are the antithesis of a Western and even African concept of marriage; A world of undocumented African hunted by a coarse and discourteous police. It is quite difficult to follow the Congolese novelist in the portrait he made of Ouleymatou in her disconnected customs. The subject is certainly interesting and polyandry is a subject in itself particularly crisp. One has the feeling that there is a discourse reflecting a particularly ironic look and a voluntary caricature by the Congolese writer of a clandestine "Negro" community, often located in the 12th arrondissement (city division) of Paris on which he pours the most anticipated shots in the fashion black micmac (badass), with the icing on the cake being polyandry in which he wears a tasty analysis and asks the reader to make an attempt of imagining the scenario. The real matriarchal power that Ouleymatou and her clique of polyandrous belonging to ethnic "abisi" or "lele" discreetly exercise with authority raises desires and disappointments for those most on edge surrounding the beautiful princess.

This novel, which let us say is a bad thriller, is especially successful for the exercise of the mind that offers Bolya; A savate shot (kung-fu blow) carefully placed in the dominant patriarchal system; A reversal of the grand scales, a fictional striking design on the role of women in our societies. I think it is primarily the message of the first novel written simply enough.

Happy reading,

Bolya, La Polyandre

Le serpent à plumes Editions, Collection Le Serpent noir. First published in 1998, 234 pages
Crédit Photo Elise Fitte-Duval 

Article original traduit du français par Dinam T. Bigny