Jazz and Palm Wine

Emmanuel Dongala, Dominic Thomas

Description

Jazz, aliens, and witchcraft collide in this collection of short stories by renowned author Emmanuel Dongala. The influence of Kongo culture is tangible throughout, as customary beliefs clash with party conceptions of scientific and rational thought. In the first half of Jazz and Palm Wine, the characters emerge victorious from decades of colonial exploitation in the Congo only to confront the burdensome bureaucracy, oppressive legal systems, and corrupt governments of the post-colonial era. The ruling political party attempts to impose order and scientific thinking while the people struggles to deal with drought, infertility, and impossible regulations and policies; both sides mix witchcraft, diplomacy, and violence in their efforts to survive. The second half of the book is set in the United States during the turbulent civil rights struggles of the 1960s. In the title story, African and American leaders come together to save the world from extraterrestrials by serving vast quantities of palm wine and playing American jazz. The stories in Jazz and Palm Wine prompt conversations about identity, race, and co-existence, providing contextualization and a historical dimension that is often sorely lacking. Through these collisions and clashes, Dongala suggests a pathway to racial harmony, peaceful co-existence, and individual liberty through artistic creation.

Foreword by Dominic Thomas. "Harmony and Liberty or Jazz and Palm Wine"

The Astonishing and Dialectic Downfall of Comrade Kali Tchikati
A Day in the Life of Augustine Amaya
Old Likibi's Trial
The Man
The Ceremony
Jazz and Palm Wine
My Ghost Train
A Love Supreme

Sujets

• African studies
• Short story
• Short Stories
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 03 avril 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 14
• EAN13: 9780253026750
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

andJazz
PALM WINEGLOBAL AFRICAN VOICES
Dominic Tomas, editor
I Was an Elephant Salesman: Te Past Ahead: A Novel
Adventures between Dakar, Paris, Gilbert Gatore
and Milan Translated by Marjolijn de Jager
Pap Khouma
Edited by Oreste Pivetta Queen of Flowers and Pearls: A Novel
Translated by Rebecca Hopkins Gabriella Ghermandi
Introduction by Graziella Parati Translated by Giovanna
BellesiaContuzzi and Victoria Ofredi Poletto
Little Mother: A Novel
Cristina Ali Farah Te Shameful State: A Novel
Translated by Giovanna Bellesia- Sony Labou Tansi
Contuzzi and Victoria Ofredi Poletto Translated by Dominic Tomas
Introduction by Alessandra Di Maio Foreword by Alain Mabanckou
Life and a Half: A Novel Kaveena
Sony Labou Tansi Boubacar Boris Diop
Translated by Alison Dundy Translated by Bhakti Shringarpure
Introduction by Dominic Tomas and Sara C. Hanaburgh
Foreword by Ayo A. Coly
Transit: A Novel
Abdourahman A. Waberi Murambi, Te Book of Bones
Translated by David Ball and Boubacar Boris Diop
Nicole Ball Translated by Fiona Mc Laughlin
Cruel City: A Novel Te Heart of the Leopard Children
Mongo Beti Wilfried N’Sondé
Translated by Pim Higginson Translated by Karen Lindo
Foreword by Dominic Tomas
Blue White Red: A Novel
Alain Mabanckou Harvest of Skulls
Translated by Alison Dundy Abdourahman A. Waberi
Foreword by Dominic Tomas Translated by Dominic TomasandJazz
PALM WINE
EMMANUEL DONGALA
Translated and with a foreword by DOMINIC THOMAS
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Bloomington & IndianapolisTis book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Ofce of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
English translation © 2017 by Indiana University Press
Original © 2003 Emmanuel Dongala
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by
any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publisher. Te Association of American University Presses’ Resolution
on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
Te paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-253-02669-9 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-253-02675-0 (ebook)
1 2 3 4 5 22 21 20 19 18 17CONTENTS
Foreword: Harmony and Liberty or Jazz and
Palm Wine / Dominic Tomas vii
1. Te Astonishing and Dialectical Downfall
of Comrade Kali Tchikati 1
2. A Day in the Life of Augustine Amaya 23
3. Old Likibi’s Trial 31
4. Te Man 59
5. Te Ceremony 67
6. Jazz and Palm Wine 87
7. My Ghost Train 97
8. A Love Supreme 103FOREWORD
Harmony and Li b e r t y o r J a z z
and Palm Wine
Emmanuel Dongala was born in 1941 in the Congo (Brazzaville), a
former French colony that achieved independence in 1960. Tat h- is
toric moment coincided with Dongala’s decision to study in the Un- it
ed States as one of the frst African recipients of a Ford Foundation
scholarship. Tis decision, which would ultimately shape both his
professional and his literary trajectories, was very unusual at the time
given that the vast majority of francophone sub-Saharan high-school
graduates able to pursue advanced studies abroad would traditionally
travel to France. Dongala spent time in New York perfecting English,
and then studied at Oberlin College and Rutgers University, returning
to the Congo in the late 1960s. Shortly thereafer he lef once again to
complete his doctoral training as a chemist in Strasbourg, France, only
permanently settling back in the Congo as a professor at the University
Marien Ngouabi in Brazzaville in the 1970s.
Te Congo’s political history has proved to be a turbulent one,
and the country has been witness to multiple coups d’états and coup
attempts following independence on August 16, 1960. Fulbert Youlou
served as the frst president and was followed shortly thereafer by
Alphonse Massamba-Debat (1963–68), who implemented a scientifc
socialist line. He was replaced by Marien Ngouabi in 1968, who p- ro
claimed a People’s Republic only to be assassinated in 1977. Joachim
vii
viii | Foreword
Yhombi-Opango was then appointed to head an interim government.
With the exception of a transition period between 1992 and 1997 that
included a national conference and during which time the country
held its frst democratic elections (the ofce of the presidency was held
by Pascal Lissouba), Denis Sassou-Nguesso has been the country’s -un
1challenged dictator (1979–92 and 1997 to date).
During the civil confict in the late 1990s, Dongala and his f - am
2ily were able to leave the Congo and move to the United Sta Ttesi.s
was made possible through high-level diplomatic intervention by the
U.S. State Department; a number of U.S. intellectuals and politicians
with whom Dongala had established friendships and relations over the
years also mobilized immigration eforts. He was ofered a profe-ssor
ship at Simon’s Rock College of Bard in Great Barrington, Massa- chu
setts, which was also hosting the great Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe
(1930–2013). As Dongala stated in an interview witNh ew York Time s
journalist Michael T. Kaufman in 1998, the civil war “was more h- orri
ble than I could have imagined as a novelist”; having said this, he was
eager to underscore how he had sufered not “because [he] was a writer
or an intellectual” but rather “like everybody did because the m- or
tars and the rockets we call Stalin’s organs kept fring on our house,
because anarchy spread and children with machine guns took what
3they wanted. It was not ideological H.”owever, Achebe, the acclaimed
author of the masterpiecTe ings Fall Apart (1958), immediately ident-i
fed the plight of the fellow author whose own international reputation
4preceded him. Achebe stated that “Neither of us had to leave. I came
afer my accident, and then things back home became so much worse.
Now every letter I get from home tells of ordinary people sufering,
5disappearing, being killed T.” is complex and entangled history has
shaped the man, the scholar, and the writer, and Dongala has ackn- owl
edged that “because of the time I had spent in America, I developed
a certain way of seeing things, a certain concept of freedom, a way of
6saying what one thought, of reading. T ” is fascinating life journey,
which has seen him crisscross the Atlantic for almost sixty years, lies
at the heart of Jazz and Palm Win.e
Te great Martinican poet Aimé Césaire famously writes iNo n
tebook of a Return to the Native Land (1939) that “my mouth shall be Foreword | ix
the mouth of those calamities that have no mouth, my voice the f - ree
7dom of those who break down in the prison holes of despa Wir.”hile
perhaps not fully embracing his esteemed predecessor’s position, and
writing in 1979 that “I am not a spokesman for the ‘people,’ I am no
one’s messenger,” Dongala nevertheless enjoys status as one of A- fri
ca’s most important writers and as someone whose writings have r- e
lentlessly featured ordinary people, concentrated on the tenuo-us rela
tionship between the individual and the collective, and explored the
8struggle to achieve forms of peaceful coexiste Inn tceh. e process, he
delivers piercing critiques of political authority, making extensiv- e re
course to humor and irony, exposing the contradictions and hyp-oc
risy of postcolonial leaders, subjecting these corrupt rulers to greater
scrutiny, and ultimately compelling readers to rethink the contours
of civil society. Tis occurs frst in his novel Un fusil dans la main,
un poème dans la poche (1974; A gun in the hand and a poem in the
pocket), in which Dongala turned his attention to the hopes and a - spi
rations of the anticolonial struggle and the subsequent broken dreams
associated with the failure and disillusionment of political in-depen
dence. Later works, Le Feu des origines (1987; Te Fire of Origins) and
Les petits garçons naissent aussi des étoiles (1998; Little Boys Come from
the Stars), reckon with the challenges of narrating history and e -stab
lishing shared memory in the face of the distortions associated with
dictatorial monolithic rule; Johnny chien mécha (n2t002; Johnny Mad
Dog) addresses African child soldiers, and more recently he considers
the social condition of African women iPhn oto de groupe au bord du
9feuve (2010; Group photo on the banks of the river).
Many if not all of these questions are exploreJad izz an nd Palm
Wine, frst published in France in 1982. Although the actual storie-s in
cluded in this collection were written at diferent historical moments,
compelling links are evident between the tw