Pius Ngandu Nkashama: Sixty Years Of Existence And Dissidence

Alexie Tcheuyap

In the historiography of francophone African writings, there are very few figures, if any that would be comparable to the Congolese poet, novelist, playwright, scholar, and social critic, Pius Ngandu Nkashama.  His more than fifty literary productions and scholarly publications, which include literary criticism, political science, linguistics, and religious studies, have also significantly contributed to the understanding and development of African studies. The several theoretical essays that have become classics in francophone African literary criticism, and the sociological and anthropological books on Pentecostal churches, have put Ngandu among the most talented and most productive African writers and scholars. He celebrated his 60th birthday last year, which means, if one does some basic math, that he has been publishing about a book per year since the age of ten! The purpose of this short discussion is less to blow his horn (there is actually nothing wrong with that, especially for a writer and thinker of this caliber) than to give a brief overview of the works of a writer whose production has inspired three books in 2007 alone: Alexie Tcheuyap’s , Pius Ngandu Nkashama: Trajectoires d’un discours, Joachim Kadima Kadiangandu’s, Écritures et discours sur le pardon : Dialogue avec Pius Ngandu Nkashama. Hommage, and Joséphine Mulumba’s, L'envers de la liberté : l'univers carcéral dans Le Pacte de sang de Pius Ngandu Nkashama.

Presently a Professor of French at Louisiana State University (Baton Rouge, LA) Ngandu Nkashama’s fictional writing goes back to 1977 when he published the Césaire-inspired La Délivrance d’Ilunga. Apart from the fact that all his fiction deals with social criticism of post-colonial Africa and the effect of dictatorships on cultural and social experience, one of Ngandu’s merits is that he writes in all genres and for all generations. In many of his novels, like Yakouta or Le Pacte de sang, female characters are at the center of the narrative. Young characters also play a central role in all his writings. In some of the author’s novels (La Mort faite homme, Le Doyen Marri, La Maldécition, L’Empire des ombres vivantes), youths are portrayed as university students, while in others (Yakouta, Mayilena, Des Mangroves en terre haute, Les étoiles écrasées, Les enfants du lac, Yolène au large des collines), they take the form of children. Francophone literature has recently brought, with some success, the life of small soldiers to fiction. But these children-soldiers were present in most of Ngandu’s novels a long time ago, whether it is the 16-year old Manuel Pereira Songolo in Les Étoiles écrasées or the narrator in La Malédiction.  It is also very ironic that France has helped some writers discover Rwanda. The Rwandan tragedy was anticipated in Yolène, Les Enfants du lac Tana, and in an essay entitled “Y-a-t-il une tribu dans cette brousse ?” (Citadelle d’espoir, 1995, reprinted in Mariana, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2006), which was part of a memo submitted to President François Mitterand when all the signals of the genocide were being ignored. Ngandu does not pretend that his writings are fiction – this is a common strategy to avoid censorship. He has always indicated what historical events inspire his books. This kind of choice does not, as will be outlined below, help make his relationships with political leadership easy.

Almost every work of fiction by Ngandu Nkashama is “trans-generic” in that it is always very difficult to classify in a specific genre. A novel like La Mort faite homme, which is a modified version of a book that was banned from publication in Zaire, is an organized chaos that cannot be read for fun. Most of his titles are aesthetically innovative and provocative; they usually force the reader to rethink all concepts of literariness and genre. All these aspects of his work are highlighted in my book Esthétique et folie dans l’œuvre romanesque de Pius Ngandu Nkashama (1998), Mohaman Bello’s L’Aliénation dans Le Pacte de sang (1995) and M.T. Zezeze Kalonji’s Une Écriture de la passion chez Pius Ngandu Nkashama (1992) and in many essays. But apart from the aesthetic values they display, Ngandu’s excellence in writing has mostly to do with his concept of literature, the link he establishes (like Ngugi, Béti or Césaire) between literature and freedom. This quest for freedom does not only concern his native Congo; it also involves Ethiopia, Algeria and Rwanda, where some of his novels are set, hence making them trans-national: Un jour de grand soleil en Éthiopie (1992), Yolène (1995) and Des Mangroves en terre hautes (1991). The following are a few excerpts from his book covers, which clearly set the tone and rhythm of his poetics.

LE PACTE DE SANG

Un récit éclaté aux quatre coins d'un horizons de démence, dans lequel tous les personnages se relient entre eux par une seule puissance : la mort. Celle-ci aurait dû porter en elle la force du destin. Mais pour nos pays aux naufrages impossibles, l'unique visage qui leur soit rétribuable demeure la contrainte de la peur vécue, l'expérience de la haine totale. Les brutalités successives et superposées ont détruit le sens de l'homme, l'appel de la paix. Les “Seigneurs de la forêt” qui y règnent en ont construit des mythologies et des épopées meurtrières.

(A story that explores the depth, breadth and height of a state of insanity, in which all characters connect themselves through a single force: death. The latter must have carried in it the force of destiny. But for countries like ours that are prone to impossible shipwrecks, the only face which is attributable to them is the constraint of lived fear, the experience of total hatred. Repeated and sustained brutality destroyed the sense of man, the call of peace. The reigning "Lords of the forest" have transformed the forest into mythologies and deadly epic stories.) (My translation).

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