In Ghana, on her way to town, a minister’s mistress turns her way to follow a bluebird that intrigues her. The bird drags her to the back of a hut where she discovers, horrified, bloody and stinking remains of an indefinable aspect. The alerted minister and lover therefore feels obliged to manage the affair that he would have preferred to stifle. A first squad of police officers dispatched to the scene proves to be incompetent? Never mind ! We force a young laboratory worker who had been uneventful until then to resume the investigation…
This is how Kayo Odamtten, the hero of Our Somewhere, the first novel by Nii Ayikwei Parkes, enters the scene. As well as from these wacky pretexts, the Anglo-Ghanaian writer starts his detective story. The young detective will have to answer some key questions about the discovery. First of all, are these human remains and therefore a horrific murder? Why do the villagers unanimously claim to know nothing, nor can they discern the smell of advanced decay that surrounds them? What witnesses and culprits does their attitude conceal?
Trained in forensic medicine in Britain, Kayo Odamtten strives to apply the scientific techniques he learned to the letter. “He took a flashlight and his UV torch out of his briefcase. He took six shots from six different angles, then tapped Garba on the shoulder: can you measure the distances between the different clues by locating them in relation to the security bollards? At the North, South, East and West ends. When this is done, you will put each clue in a bag, with its number. »
But the fussy city dweller that he is finds himself confronted with a rural culture at the antipodes of his own. In the eyes of the villagers indeed, measurements and calculations seem insane compared to the signs of the sky and nature, to the symbols and the curses to be deciphered. In addition, they traditionally attach considerable importance to conversation, the art of storytelling, because it is through these that we measure the education and true wisdom of people.
Septuagenarian hunter and fine storyteller
In this game, Kayo like his predecessors inevitably commits blunders, allowing himself for example to challenge a septuagenarian. “I just looked at it. This young man who left his education at home, who allows himself to call me Yao Poku like that, who has forgotten that I am here helping him. Now he wants to be a great policeman, so he speaks great English to me. I wanted to tell him that you don’t light a fire under a tree that bears fruit, but these young people still believe that they invented knowledge. »
The speaker is the other important protagonist of the novel, Yao Poku Opanyin, a septuagenarian hunter and fine storyteller. “Let me tell you this story before it gets cold,” he said. It was my grandfather Opoku, the one whose hands were never empty, who taught me that what the English white man calls History is above all lies in fine ink. My story is not. It is said that the mischievous weaver of the webs of the world, Ananse, did not trade in words, so I will speak. I will tell you this story. »
The originality of the book is thus revealed in the swing between Kayo and Yao Poku, the novelist using the detective plot to oppose two worlds. On the one hand, the Europe represented in his own way by Kayo, a Ghanaian by birth whose years of study in London made him hybrid and somewhat forgetful of his origins. On the other hand, the Africa of Yao Poku, who prefers explanations full of twists and turns that put people and actions into perspective rather than the cold accuracy of facts.
The first, subject to the demands of his hierarchy and hoping for advancement, wants to get straight to the point and write a report as soon as possible to elucidate the case. The second wants on the contrary to philosophize, to give time to time in order to try to explain the crime committed by phenomena ranging from life to death. And perhaps it is by finally accepting that there are many ways of seeing the world that Kayo, gradually returning to his Ghanaian roots, will discover the truth? Because “after all what right could he, Kayo, have arrived in this village and claim to sweep away with a gesture the traditions of these people, their customs, and precipitate a whole world into chaos, in the name of a science , which however was not devoid of uncertainties? »
Born in 1974, Nii Ayikwei Parkes shares his life between the United Kingdom, Ghana and the rest of the world. Poet, novelist, editor, he was a finalist for the Commonwealth Prize with Our somewhere (Tail of the Blue Bird), this tasty first novel, highlighted by the doubly award-winning translation by Sika Fakambi.