The story takes place in the capital of a country where “nothing ever comes to nothing” but where, come what may, just like the majority of his fellow citizens, Zamakwé, a middle-class man, modestly tries to do their daily work. Alas, “Zam” chose to pursue the profession of journalist and, what aggravates his case, to take an interest in politics.
“Can you imagine a country, constantly in the throes of social, ethnic and political convulsions, underdeveloped moreover, where the head of state can treat himself to six great weeks of vacation abroad? “The readers and connoisseurs of Mongo Beti (1932-2001), them, imagine perfectly where this one is coming from. Trop de soleil tue l’amour (1999), penultimate novel by the brilliant Cameroonian author and thinker, is in the vein initiated from his first writings: that of an uncompromising criticism of the avatars of a “Banana Republic” of Africa post-colonization equatorial region resembling his native country like a drop of water.
Detective story ? Certainly, since the book brings together several ingredients of this literary genre. Starting, from the first pages, with the murder of a major scientist, Maurice Mzilikazi, widely respected by the international scientific community. His fame, however, did not protect him from this assassination, perpetrated like a ritual crime and which amazes the population. A second body is soon added to the picture, discovered unexpectedly in the middle of poor Zamakwé’s living room.
The latter knows he is “in the front line since he began to denounce the land spoliation suffered by village communities for the benefit of senior members of the regime or foreign logging companies that the government protects in return for payment”. Other equally disturbing events accumulate in his life, such as spinning, an explosion that destroys his house or the disappearance without trace or explanation of his companion, Elisabeth.
The novel is of the “noir” genre in its atmosphere, without being a real thriller. It is that in this country, few crimes are the subject of a real investigation, but all give rise to fabrications, interpretations and conjectures. So much so that it is easier for Zamakwé to rely on the improvised investigations of his relatives than on those of the police, for whom there is never any case or problem.
Between humor and bitterness
Moreover, the governor of the region confirms it in a playful tone: “We are all threatened by insecurity […] What to do sir? Insecurity is life. You just have to come to terms with it. Under such conditions, everyone must be content to accept the situations they face, no matter how enormity. This is what Zamakwé does, who ends up contemplating his life going down the drain, aware that “power here, sir, is a game of baseball between marmosets” and that he is on the side of the weak. .
Through the story of his antihero, Mongo Beti depicts a country plagued by corruption such that it leads to the worst abuses. He thus points, in passing, to the enslavement of public power to the former colonial powers, the censorship of the opposition, the use of torture, the rigging of elections, the ethnicization of the slightest problem, the prostitution of minors or even the blanket of silence on the historical past. It is indeed a political denunciation in order that Mongo Beti indulges, questioning himself through his narrator on the capacity of populations to invent a common destiny: “Do we have a collective future? How can one love this country, probable theater of the genocides of tomorrow, next Rwanda undoubtedly? If we were given the means to go elsewhere, who would stay? »
As if to echo the seriousness of all these questions, the construction of the novel is a bit dizzying since the adventures follow one another, each leading to another without the previous one having any resolution. But the writer wins despite everything thanks to his precise verb, his humor, his subtle irony and this way of making all situations comical, like a counterweight to the bitterness of his speech.
And as in the best thrillers, the soundtrack consists of jazz, “Zam’s” favorite music, which allows the latter to maintain despite everything the hope of a better tomorrow: “There is no reason, if our people did that in America, let us not do the same here, maybe better, after all… Imagine where they started from and contemplate where they ended up! What a wonderful and tragic adventure! Isn’t this how, by transcending the present through music and fiction, the writer manages to express the resilience of his shattered country?