Pius Ngandu Nkashama: Sixty Years Of Existence And Dissidence

Alexie Tcheuyap

All these experiences increased his passion for writing and freedom. In a speech given  at the États généraux de la culture in 1990 in Paris, he stated: “I would like to tell you that writing instilled in us the power to face lightning’s flashes. Suffering filled our bones with unlimited energy [...] The chief of security services who used to break my fingers in Lumumbashi often screamed threateningly into my ears: you will never ever write a single line anymore.” In another speech in Bueno Aires in 1991, he was even more specific on his obsession for total freedom: “Successive dictatorships, cruel tyrannies and unyielding despotism led us to this revolt which tightens our throats. Our duty as Thinking Men involves the pursuit of the journey until the advent of a Living Ground [...] All must start with the dignity and freedom of man. Never again should an individual whatever they are, a power whatever it is, a system whatever it is, reduce us to human wrecks and regard themselves as absolute authority or even forces of totalitarianism.”  In a contribution to a special issue of Mots Pluriels, which I edited, on the phenomenon of Brain Drain in Africa, Ngandu wrote:

It now appears increasingly clear that concerted policies had been implemented in many countries, so that the most turbulent and revolutionary find themselves abroad bereft of any hope to return, thereby allowing the affluent and the oppressors to perpetuate their monopoly of horror indefinitely. All the strategies of one-party systems scrupulously observed this destructive scheme, shamelessly and without any false modesty. "Flee", yes, because life in the country meant nothing but permanent death and suffering […]. Stomach-churning fear, sudden fright for an excessive word, acts of protest or an act of rejection of established authorities. In fact, it was no longer brains that fled, but tortured bodies, heads bashed to pieces against the walls, hands that shivered from futile anger, backs covered with wounds that could not heal anymore. From time immemorial, the heroes of African tales were those that went, far, very faraway, towards the unknown. But they returned even after centuries and millennia of wandering, and they brought to the deserted kingdoms treasures, caravans laden with gold, horses burdened with gifts. Amid colonial turpitude, they returned, and, like Samba Diallo in the Ambiguous Adventure of Cheikh Hamidou Kane (1962), were assassinated by the insane. They also faced wicked courts which inflicted atrocious sentences on them: the gallows for Ken Saro Wiwa, author of Sozaboy (1998) hung in Nigeria, total misery for Williams Sassine [...], supreme shame for many others.

All the above clearly indicate that Pius Ngandu Nkashama does not only fictionalize the African predicament. He lives it and has fought for social justice throughout his life. He was one of the rare Africans who dared raise their voices when the ingredients for the Rwandan genocide were prepared.He participated in the creation of Survie, the French human rights group that has been causing nightmares for some African dictators.

Ngandu’s novels published in Ciluba are circulating very well in his country and are said to seriously impact literary creation among the youths. His work production has won many awards: Prix National de la Poésie (1966, Élisabethville); Prix de critique littéraire (Kinshasa, 1980); Prix Beaumarchais pour l’Écriture du théâtre (1990, Paris); Prix Afrikanisches Kultur und Filmfestival  (Onasbrück, 1997); Prix du meilleur livre sur les langues africaines (Groupe Interdisciplinaire de Recherches sur l’Afrique, Paris, 1998); Trophée Pohori (2000, RFI Comores), the ALA Fonlon-Nichols Prize (2003).

As stated earlier, there are very few writers whose talents and production would compare to Ngandu’s. His work radically crosses borders, generations, styles and genres to establish him as one Africa’s most gifted writers-scholars.

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