What will the writer are read this summer? Several authors were asked the books they took in their suitcase for their holidays. Today, Amadou Barry reveals his pile of books to read.
“This summer, I plan to immerse myself in Drunk on the bush of Amos Tutuola. This novel takes us into a fantastic universe where the imagination, the magic and the tale intertwine with intensity. The story takes place in Yoruba soil. Through a mastered and vibrant language, the author summons the myths and legends of this African region where speech is everywhere: alive, personified, sacred, immortal. Whenever I reread this text, I have the impression of hearing the voice of my maternal grandmother, telling me one of these many Fulani tales in which the cows know how to speak, conduct investigations, take revenge or forgive.
From the first lines, we are caught up in this founding text, of striking originality. The narrator, who is called “Santa Claus-who-well-all-and-feshered”, guides us in the great African forest with his beautiful poetry. Orality gives this novel a singular resonance: its roots plunge deep into African land, while its breath embraces the universal, because the tale is this language that we all share.
This rereading will train me, I hope, further in this fantastic universe – undoubtedly towards One hundred years of loneliness by Gabriel García Márquez et by Sony Labou Tansi – always in the same vein, where real lets itself be crossed by the wonderful. To conclude my summer readings, I will finally read Mustiks: a zambia odyssey de virgin Serpel.”
Posted in London in 1952 then in France the following year in a translation by Raymond Queneau, Drunk on the bush is the first novel by the Nigerian writer Amos Tutola who invents here a singular writing close to orality. Published in 1967 in Buenos Aires, One hundred years of loneliness has become a classic of Latin America literature and has created a genre, magical realism. This huge novel weaves a multitude of tales and stories that go up in the history of Latin America. Sony Labou Tansi (1947-1995) is a Congolese poet, playwright and novelist. Life and a halfhis first novel published in 1979 at the Seuil, is a fierce political fable which takes place in a fictitious African country, in the grip of a bloody dictatorship.
Black is the first novel by the American author born in Zambia Namwali Serpell. This extraordinary text recounts the life of one village in three generations, commented by a cloud of mosquitoes. Compared to One hundred years of loneliness In its ambition, it is also a text which approaches very current subjects such as racism and the consequences of colonialism.
Drunk in the bush of Amos Tutuola. Translated from English (Nigeria) by Raymond Queneau (Gallimard coll. L’Imaginaire 2006), 154 p., € 8.50
One hundred years of loneliness of Gabriel García Márquez. Translated from Spanish (Colombia) by Claude and Carmen Durand, preface by Vincent Message (Threshold points 2022), 480 p., € 10.20.
The life and a half of Sony Labou Tansi. Preface by Alain Mabanckou (Threshold points 2022), 176 p., € 9.90.
Mustiks. An odyssey in Zambia from Namwali Serpell. Translated from English by Sabine Porte (threshold 2022), 704 p., 27 €.
Amadou Barry, last title published: Diary of an exile (Julliard 2025)
Interview by Sylvie Tanette