Pour une fois pas un livre mais un écrivain: Simon Leys

"400 pages of verbal pyrotechnics and animal magic" — The Times

"Bulawayo leans into exaggeration and irony to tell hard truths. *Glory* is jam-packed with comedy and farce, poking fun at an autocratic regime while illustrating the absurdity and surreal nature of a police state." — The Guardian

The cruelty and savagery of Zimbabwe’s (and Africa’s in general) "powerful animals"

Zimbabwean author NoViolet Bulawayo has written a novel that illustrates better than any documentary the complexity of colonial legacy. In doing so, she revisits George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Her novel *Glory* is a political satire about Zimbabwe—and it’s brimming with humor.

For thirty years, Zimbabwe has been stagnating under Robert Mugabe’s presidency. Human rights violations, corruption, and international sanctions have kept the population mired in poverty and oppression, while the regime exploits the meager earnings of the economy. As the 2017 elections approach, a power struggle erupts over the succession of the very elderly Father of the Nation (Mugabe). On the streets, people hope for long-awaited reforms; the people feel their moment has come.

And indeed, the army ousts Mugabe and his wife—"with her Gucci heels" (p.32)—who was positioning herself for the presidency. Hopes are dashed, however. The generals install former vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa in power; the regime merely changes faces, but the problems remain the same.

In the novel, the country is called "Jidada, with a -da and another -da" (p.1); there’s no mistaking that this fictional state is Zimbabwe.

For *Glory*, her second novel, NoViolet Bulawayo invents a whole series of codes whose strength lies precisely in how easy they are to decipher. Like George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the characters populating Bulawayo’s universe aren’t humans but horses, goats, or crocodiles with all-too-human traits. Mugabe and Mnangagwa are horses, the spiritual leader is a pig, the soldiers are all bloodthirsty dogs, while the populace consists of goats, chickens, donkeys, and cats. The shift to the animal world serves only to better grasp the laws of despotism—and to ridicule real-life models. On one hand, the animals are humanized: they tweet, torture, travel in private jets. On the other, their greed, stupidity, and brutality stem from their animal nature.

It’s the old trick of fable: dressing men in animal disguises to make them easier to recognize. That’s how Orwell, in Animal Farm, traced how the promise of liberation from the Russian Revolution turned into Stalinist terror. In his 1945 fable, George Orwell describes how the animals of a farm drive out their farmer to organize the exploitation themselves, collectively. For a time, they truly taste freedom, but a clique of pigs ends up taking control. The central figures of the Soviet story—Stalin, Trotsky, Molotov—were easily recognizable.

Yet Bulawayo departs sharply from Orwell. She’s less concerned with precision and the force of argument than with satirical exaggeration. The deposed president is a senile old man who believes he can control even the sun’s course. The new stallion in power is a greedy debaucher. His soldiers sniff respectfully at his tail and backside.

In Bulawayo’s *Glory*, things are more complicated, but her novel also tells of a failed, incomplete liberation. In the author’s Animal Farm, Jidada, the colonial exploiters are followed by new forms of oppression. Because the former liberators become tyrants themselves. And because global power dynamics persist in neocolonial structures.

Wouldn’t that be enough to fuel a deeply depressing narrative? No—Bulawayo turns it into a blazing satire, full of wit and uncompromising criticism of power, a thread running through contemporary (not just) Zimbabwean history. The old warhorses in NoViolet Bulawayo’s Jidada, who continue to act as pack leaders, are easily recognizable as caricatures of the longtime dictator Robert Mugabe and his successor, current president Emmerson Mnangagwa.

The plot kicks off in high gear with independence day festivities. From the crack of dawn, everyone waits on Jidada Square for the Old Horse, the Father of the Nation and former liberator, whose reign "was nearing all of—not one, not two, not three, but four solid decades" (p.1). Everywhere, the colors of the Jidada Party shine; everywhere, true supporters cheer. Even the scorching sun plays its part: "At this point the sun, upon seeing arrive the leader who was decreed by God himself to rule and rule and keep ruling, a leader who'd in turn decreed the very sun to head his cheerleading squad, took a deep, deep breath and thoroughly blazed to impress" (p.2).

Finally, the Old Horse’s luxury carriage approaches "with the slowness of a hearse" (p.2), and "hoping to catch a glimpse of the legendary Father of the Nation," which causes "the animals fell over themselves like intoxicated frogs" (p.2). The sovereign’s speech is delayed a moment longer: "what I really want is a nap," groans the Old Horse as he takes his seat with such care "like his backside was made of expensive porcelain" (p.6).

Meanwhile, Bulawayo parades his entourage: the president’s wife (who earns her doctorate at Jidada University faster than "you could say diss, for dissertation. Tholukuthi it was as easy as ordering from a KFC drive-through, or perhaps even easier being that it was cheaper than KFC; it in fact cost her nothing and the degree actually came with a zero-calorie Diet Coke and a purple straw" (p.41), and she’s now known as Dr Sweet Mother. The cabinet includes "the Minister of the Revolution, the Minister of Corruption, the Minister of Order, the Minister of Things, the Minister of Nothing, the Minister of Propaganda, the Minister of Homophobic Affairs, the Minister of Disinformation and the Minister of Looting" (p.9). And of course the vice-president, who will soon become interim president when the Old Horse finally kicks the bucket—and then settle in as the new long-term president, who in the novel is called Tuvius Delight Shasha, or "Tuvy" for short (p.253), none other than Emmerson Mnangagwa. It’s him Bulawayo reserves her most merciless character description for.

"New Dispensation" (p.109) is Tuvy’s slogan for Jidada, and he loves repeating it so much he even named his parrot after it ("So inspired was Tuvy by the realisation that he rechristened his new pet parrot with the name New Dispensation—tholukuthi the bird having been acquired explicitly for the purposes of tweeting eulogies and accordingly glorifying the Saviour throughout the airs and skies of the nation. Tuvy then went on to hire a lecturer in English from the University of Jidada to teach New Dispensation to say the phrase 'New Dispensation'" p.110). But Tuvy’s Zimbabwe remains a nation without free, fair, and credible elections ("#freefairncredibleelection" p.161), and the promised equal treatment applies only insofar as Zimbabweans now queue up without discrimination in endless lines—and everyone is as poor as the next in the "queuenation" (p.283). Except for the powerful. They can "yes, tholukuthi, her immeasurable riches theirs to take. And take they did—

just take—take—take—take—take—take—take—take—take—take—take—take—take—take—take—take—take—take—take—take—take—take—take—take—take—take—take" (p.249-250).

In short: Bulawayo brilliantly depicts how former independence fighters become exploiters themselves. And how the country threatens to suffocate under the weight of corruption and repression. But she also literally stages the polyphony with which the people oppose imposed obedience to the official line.

Controversial online discussions keep interrupting the narrative—dialogues and social threads (see photo below) that Bulawayo masterfully integrates. From a literary standpoint, it’s a brilliant idea. And it shows, above all, that the author’s sympathy—so likeable—goes to all those who refuse to let their dream of true freedom be stolen, not even by the corrupt elites of their own country.

In the book’s acknowledgments, the first tribute goes to "The Jidadas of the world, clamouring for freedom on many fronts—A luta continua." (p.401) This reflects the realization that, not only in Jidada-Zimbabwe but in many other corners of the world, the end of colonial domination is still far from meaning the freedom hoped for by the vast majority of people. But it also means, more broadly, that this freedom must be won "on many fronts" (see above), both domestically and geopolitically.

That’s precisely what *Glory* so vividly highlights: how complex the project behind the term "postcolonialism" really is. With *Glory*, Bulawayo also delivers a scathing critique of the persistence of colonial mindsets in the West.

In the novel, the murder of George Floyd, racist police violence, and white-supremacist ideology in Trump’s United States perfectly illustrate the persistence of racism. It’s especially in the final chapters that Bulawayo lets Jidada’s inhabitants explicitly and unflinchingly criticize a neocolonial world order:

"It was not lost on us how the West, which loved to 'save' Africa and announce every action to the whole world, did so with one limb while manipulating, looting and fleecing us with the rest of its limbs so that more money in fact poured out of the continent than trickled in." (p.376)

"It was no mistake that multinational corporations yearly reaped and shipped colossal profits from Africa back to their countries as had been the case during colonial times. Even the sticks and stones would tell you that the African earth at any given time howled and shook and heaved from the extraction of its precious minerals that rarely benefited its own miserable children." (p.376)

"(...) we vowed to wage yet another war for Africa's second Liberation from neocolonial oppression. From exploitation. From plunder. From Western dominion. From indignity. From Abuse. We wanted real freedom. We wanted greedy, thieving paws off our wealth. We wanted Justice. We wanted a new world; we wanted a brand-new world so much we didn't sleep a wink that night." (p.377)

The Jidadas of this world must fight two enemies: Western neocolonialism and the autocratic instrumentalization of that argument; the persistence of Western racism and the populist appropriation of that humiliation by tyrants from their own ranks. Neither of these obstacles to freedom diminishes the historical and current guilt of the other. But the path to postcolonial liberation must overcome all these forms of oppression. After all, the colonizers didn’t bequeath democracies to formerly dominated nations, but instability and the principles of oppression and exploitation—which the so-called liberators have also internalized. Yet the fact that a satirical novel can capture the complexity of historical relationships while remaining, despite all the darkness of the subject, hilarious—well, that’s truly astonishing.

Finally, *Glory* ties into a major trauma in Zimbabwe’s post-independence history: the so-called Gukurahundi massacres. Between 1983 and 1987, tens of thousands of civilians were murdered by Mugabe’s bloody henchmen, most of them Ndebele. The State Security Minister and head of secret services at the time? You guessed it—Emmerson Mnangagwa.

When *Glory* turns to the massacres, the novel’s tone shifts completely. The story is now told through the narrative of the goat called Destiny, who, like NoViolet Bulawayo herself, left her home country at 18 for the United States and only returned after 13 years. In the book, the city of Bulawayo becomes a village where Destiny retraces her family’s history—and learns that part of it was also brutally murdered during the massacres.

The abuse of power and life under a dictatorship, dispossession, and a fiercely proud awareness of the psychological wounds and emotional vulnerability of a uprooted and disenfranchised people who had to forge a new language—a new set of names—to express their lived experiences are at the heart of this wonderful Zimbabwean author’s literary work, NoViolet Bulawayo. Shortly after her studies, she was already writing short stories about postcolonial power dynamics in Africa. But her playful, masterful, and often unconventional approach to language also plays a key role in her work. With virtuosity, she shifts from cynical images of power-obsessed elites to compassionate descriptions of the people’s suffering, ending with a hopeful sermon on courage—the courage to break free from fear and thus gain the strength for change ("And every one of them understood that whatever they heard within those hearts was the new national anthem, tholukuthi an anthem that spoke of the kind of glory that burns eternal and glows with living light." p.400). This novel is a genuine pleasure to read. And it’s exceptional. Good, African...

Book info (original English and German translation):

NoViolet Bulawayo. Glory. Chatto & Windus, 2022. NoViolet Bulawayo. Glory. Suhrkamp, 2023.

Hery

The books (in English, in German)

Author NoViolet Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

Threads (p.164-165)

“When the Whites came to Africa, we had the land and they had the Bible. They taught us to pray with our eyes closed: when we opened them, the Whites had the land and we had the Bible.” Jomo Kenyatta (p.7)

The Maggi cube, an unchallenged hegemony, and so much more

“The hopeless continent,” headlined The Economist, a British magazine, in July 2000 about Africa. Eleven years later, the same magazine headlined “Africa rising” instead. Images of Africa in the prosperous North constantly oscillate between apocalyptic scenarios and enthusiastic projections. A key issue with such images lies in the generalization they entail. If you look at the continent, considerable contrasts emerge depending on space and time. It’s no surprise that a region of the world encompassing such diverse ecological zones, maintaining such varied ties with other continents, comprising nearly fifty nation-states in sub-Saharan Africa alone, and characterized by a great diversity of languages, belief systems, and historical paths, doesn’t share a single destiny.

And yet, for many people outside Africa, as well as for many Africans, the continent constitutes a single entity, defined by criteria such as skin color, a colonial past, poverty, and the art of survival. Until now, these perspectives were generally accompanied by the idea that Africa had to—or should have—followed a single path together, sometimes called development, sometimes modernization, sometimes liberation, then a market economy. None of these paths delivered on their promises.

The two writers Alain Mabanckou and Abdourahman Waberi—one from Congo, the other raised in Djibouti, both long settled in France and now professors at renowned North American universities (Los Angeles, Washington)—have had enough of pessimistic scenarios: “We are aware that Africa is in the world and the world is in Africa. The same goes for all other continents, as our destinies are inextricably linked for better or worse. We refuse to see Africa as a reservoir of misfortunes or a continent cursed by atavistic misfortune and characterized by ethnic conflicts. [...] It’s this passionate flame we wanted to capture in a book [...] a kind of stroll through African cultures, without any demands, each letter of the alphabet leading us to a notion, a practice, a concept, a moment in history, literature, painting, politics, economics, cuisine, etc.” (p.10-11). Africa, they write, is on the verge of “imposing a signature, a style, a way of being in the world and in relation to the rest of the world.” (p.11) To put words to the continent’s diversity and dynamism, the two authors created a “rambling ABC,” a kind of portrait—or more precisely, a mythography—that lets you see and feel the pulse of a vast continent whose cultural power is unfolding before our eyes. Once marginalized or even mocked, the voice and importance of the Continent in global affairs are now undeniable” (p.11), containing over a hundred entries, mostly concise, written in a relaxed and casual style. The optimistic, even exuberant tone is set from the brief introduction. The duo of authors wants to “sing a love song to the cultures of our continent, to its inhabitants past and present, to its exceptional resources and its spectacular globalization despite a certain pollution that still clouds our skies due to the unmatched duration of dictatorships in some of our regions.” (p.12) In doing so, they don’t want to be too distracted by today’s Afewerki-Biya-Bongo-Déby & Co. ...

Of course, you’ll find tributes to great precursors like Frantz Fanon (“[...] it was a love story and admiration that wasn’t dimmed by the four decades separating his birth from ours. Let’s add that we were born while the native of Fort-de-France had left the world’s stage four years earlier, in the prime of life” p.141), Mongo Beti (“You must read and reread Mongo Beti, a genius who used his fame to support often just causes in Africa, like defending oppressed groups. His place is already in History. His oppressors, like the dictators Ahmadou Ahidjo and Paul Biya, can’t compete in the same category” p.64), the Malian Amadou Hampâté Bâ

(“Posterity remembers him mainly as an tireless defender of African cultures. His plea for the collection and preservation of traditional African knowledge remains a major event for all men and women of good will. One day in 1960, at the UNESCO podium, the native of Bandiagara sounded the alarm: ‘[...] Since we’ve admitted that the humanity of each people is the heritage of all humanity, if African traditions aren’t collected in time and written down, they’ll one day be missing from the universal archives of humanity.’” p.51),

Kwame Nkrumah, “one of the founders of Pan-Africanism, father of Ghana’s independence” (p.239), as well as the historian Cheikh Anta Diop, the writer, poet, and politician Aimé Césaire, and the economist and thinker Samir Amin, but also very warm tributes to certain contemporary African intellectuals like Souleymane Bachir Diagne and Achille Mbembe

(“A few years ago, in dominant economic circles, a rumor often resurfaced, usually disguised as a cold and scientifically proven analysis: Africa is useless. It’s a burden for the rest of the human community. With its 2% share in world trade, it would disappear from stock market radars without anyone noticing. So? Maybe it’ll be pulled up by other continents. Wanting to surpass itself is a crazy bet for Africans, they concluded. Arrogant or clueless, President Nicolas Sarkozy declared before an audience of students and teachers at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar: ‘The African man hasn’t entered history enough [...] He only knows the eternal repetition of time marked by the endless repetition of the same gestures and words.’ That was in 2007. For decades, armed only with reason, an intellectual often steps up to debunk prejudices, lazy readings, and dishonest frameworks used as false fronts by those who, like Nicolas Sarkozy or former journalist Stephen Smith, out of ignorance, contempt, or condescension, distort African reality. This intellectual is none other than the historian and political scientist Achille Mbembe. This heir of Frantz Fanon, Amílcar Cabral, Jean-Marc Ela, and Fabien Eboussi-Boulaga was born in 1957 in Cameroon, in the Bassa region. Marked early by the upheavals of a fratricidal war, Achille Mbembe became the guardian of the memory of martyrs. After brilliant studies in Paris, he went on to teach at the best American universities, but the call of the Continent was stronger than anything else. In Dakar, he once directed CODESRIA (Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa) before joining the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Even though the author of *Critique of Black Reason* (Éditions La Découverte, 2015) spends a few months at Duke University in North Carolina, his observation post remains South Africa. From Johannesburg, Achille Mbembe scrutinizes Africa and the whole world. A lucid observer with an elegant and generous pen, Achille Mbembe knows how to blend big and small history: ‘I was born one day in July, as the month was drawing to a close. It was 1957, in that part of Africa recently named ‘Cameroon,’ a memory of the wonder that seized Portuguese sailors in the 15th century when, sailing up the river near Douala, they couldn’t help but note the presence of a multitude of crustaceans, and named it *Rio dos Camarões*, meaning ‘River of Shrimp.’ I grew up in the shadow of this nameless land, since, in a way, the name it bears is only the product of someone else’s astonishment: a lexical mistake, if you will.’ From this mistake or wound, he made leaven, a springboard to compose a rich work, recognized worldwide. To denounce barriers and barbarians too. But that’s not enough. Among his peers in circles of thought and action, Achille Mbembe passionately and consistently defends human dignity and the beauty of the world. In doing so, he fulfills the mission Frantz Fanon entrusted to him.” (p.227-229),

as well as entries dedicated to lesser-known artists and intellectuals, like the French journalist and activist Rokhaya Diallo, daughter of Senegalese and Gambian parents, or the Ethiopian filmmaker Haile Gerima, who has long lived in the United States. Other names from politics, sports, music, art, and literature: Kofi Annan, p.36; Barack Obama, p.243; Thomas Sankara, p.277; Ousmane Sow, p.285; Yambo Ouologuem, p.250; Léopold Sédar Senghor, p.282; Muhammad Ali, p.30; Nuruddin Farah, p.146; Salif Keita, p.203; Ahmadou Kourouma, p.206; Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, p.236; Winnie Mandela, p.224; Kylian Mbappé, p.226 ...

The authors, who resolutely commit to a “mythography” (p.11) of Africa, also pay special attention to local social movements, cultural events, and aspects of daily life. *Y’en a marre*, “which also meant ‘we’re fed up with sitting on our hands’” (p.320-321), emerged about a decade ago in Senegal as a citizen movement of peaceful resistance and symbolizes, the authors emphasize, the fact that African youth are increasingly fed up “with the political circus deployed in Africa since independence, as our parents would say, ‘since the White man left’...” (p.321). A full entry is dedicated to the Maggi bouillon cube, which has flooded African markets for about forty years and enjoys immense popularity (“It’s everywhere in Africa, from Dakar to Djibouti, and from Tangier to Cape Town. It’s in every pot, every stew. Little hands put it in every sauce, every local or adapted dish. An unchallenged hegemony! You’ll find it in diasporas too. The culinary strolls in Paris, in the [...] neighborhood” p.90). Critics blame it not only for impoverishing the aromatic diversity of local dishes but also for being harmful to health. And yet, “he poorest Africans, those who eat only once a day, a few spoonfuls of white beans and a ball of *foufou*, for example, are the most fervent users of the magic cube.” (p.92-93)

For *fonio*, “the new trendy cereal. [...] From the millet family, fonio is probably the oldest cereal cultivated in West Africa, and mainly in its sub-Saharan part, for millennia. [...] Easy to grow, water-efficient, fonio grows everywhere except on clay soils. Long neglected because it was considered the poor man’s crop, fonio is now a source of pride for the farmers who cultivate it and cherish it like the apple of their eye” (p.156-157), the authors immediately offer a detailed recipe, letting the reader know that “e can’t resist sharing this fonio with chicken recipe from Mali with you:

Ingredients: 1 chicken 3 large ripe red tomatoes 4 tbsp tomato paste 4 large onions 1 garlic clove 1/2 cup oil 2 Maggi cubes or salt 2 large carrots 1 turnip 1 large cabbage 2 large potatoes 1 celery stalk 1 packet pre-cooked fonio 4 okra (or okra powder) salt, pepper

Preparation: 1. Prepare the sauce: wash and cut the chicken. Peel the onions, garlic, and vegetables. 2. In a pot, fry the chicken pieces. 3. Dice the onions, tomatoes, carrots, and turnip very small and add them to the pot. 4. Add the tomato paste, salt, and pepper. 5. Simmer for 15 min, then add 2 L of water and the cooked chicken pieces. 6. Simmer for 30 min, then add the crushed garlic and celery, plus the cabbage cut into 4 and the potatoes cut in half. 7. Prepare the fonio: cover it with warm water, let it rest for 15 min, and cook it over low heat. 8. In a small pot, boil the okra and crush them. 9. Mix the crushed okra with the cooked fonio, then salt. Serve hot.” (p.158-159)

The comedy *Black Mic Mac*, released in French theaters in 1986 and addressing France’s increasingly restrictive immigration policy at the time, also gets an entry, as do *Tintin in the Congo*, the popular comic, and *Jip’s Café* (“[...] a little Africa in the heart of Paris, with passersby stopping to admire the ‘ambianceurs’ on the dance floor or attend the cultural events offered by the place” (p.194), an African establishment in Paris that Alain Mabanckou already immortalized in one of his novels.

The duo of authors also tackles thorny subjects like jihadism (p.119), the Rwandan genocide (p.272), the CFA franc (p.82), and dictatorship (p.110). While the two strike the right tone here, many entries leave a slightly bitter taste. Two examples: why doesn’t the text on Barack Obama mention the great disappointment of many people in Africa, who expected more from the African policy of the first U.S. president with African roots than just occasional warm words? Why do the comments on Winnie Mandela gloss over the fact that she was a highly controversial icon of the anti-apartheid movement due to her involvement in kidnappings, acts of torture, and murders of alleged apartheid collaborators? Instead, there’s a compassion that brings tears to the eyes: “She was often reduced to a secondary role, the wife of a great man” or “When victory came, she didn’t taste its fruits. Divorced, isolated. She would never be a ‘first lady’ in an evening gown, posing before a bed of chrysanthemums. They’d keep her far from the circles of power” (p.224-225). At this point, I would’ve liked the authors to take a slightly more critical stance...

That said, these “weaknesses” (if you can call them that) shouldn’t overshadow the book as a whole. It remains an informative, sometimes very entertaining, and often even original work in its own way.

Book information (the original French and the German translation):

Alain Mabanckou/Abdourahman Waberi. Dictionnaire enjoué des cultures africaines. Fayard, 2019. Alain Mabanckou/Abdourahman Waberi. Der Puls Afrikas. Eine Liebeserklärung von A bis Z. Reclam, 2022.

Hery

Hi, We’re going on a guided trip to South Africa. I’d love to know which guidebook is the most interesting: Routard, Lonely Planet, Michelin, Guide Vert, or Hachette’s Guide Voir. Thanks so much for your advice. Marie

Bonjour je cherche un bon guide (numérique ) Animalier et d'oiseaux pour le pays de L'Afrique du Sud. Je prépare un road trip de 2 mois dans les parcs et vers les endroits touristiques.

J'hésite avec Ducan butcher Wildlife of South Africa ou Wildlife of Southern Africa Collins traveller guide et le Newman's birds guide pour les oiseaux. Bref des suggestions autres !? Ca peu être Anglais, français ou espagnol! Merci

Durant les années 60 - 70, des milliers de voyageurs ont pris la route pour se rendre en Inde. Certains étaient des routards ou des hippies, mais pas tous. Dans ce recueil collectif d'une vingtaine de participants (dont GeorgesOz), ont peut aussi trouver des chercheurs de vérité, un couple parti en voyage de noce pour se marier au Bengale... des "fous" partis en VéloSolex...

à noter que tous les participants ont offert leurs droits d'auteurs au bénéfice du dispensaire de Céline Hegron dans un quartier pauvre de Bénarès.

Bonjour,

Voilà je cherche à regarder des films et séries avec ma copine Thaï :-) J'aurai voulu savoir si vous connaissez un site qui permet de regarder des films ou séries en Thaï ou français avec les sous titres thaï ou français ^^ On regarde de temps en temps en anglais sous titré anglais ou Thaï mais bon c'est assez difficile pour moi ^^ je dois me concentrer et ça n'est pas un plaisir.

Merci :-)

Hi there,

Nice feature on the haenyeo and the gorgeous Jeju ❤️

South Korea: The Island of Women Divers | TF1 Info

Hi there,

I have a few GEO and Grands Reportages magazines in very good condition to give away. They date from 2006 to 2011.

If you're interested, please DM me.

Bonjour,

Est-ce que qq'1 pourrais me conseiller un bon livre pour reconnaitre les animeaux que je vais croiser en Namibie???

Merci d'avance Tit&Lou

Depart prévu le 16 sep 08 !!

Bonjour, Je viens de terminer la lecture de Lettres de Barcelone de Caroline Leblanc. C'est un recueil de lettres sans destinataire que l'auteure a écrit durant ses 3 années d'expatriation à Barcelone. C'est donc une visite de la ville de l'intérieur, hors des sentiers battus, même si les hauts lieux touristiques font aussi partie du paysage. C'est plein d'humour, très ouvert sur l'actualité, l'histoire de la ville, de la Catalogne et de l'Espagne. Je me suis régalée. 🙂

Hi there, I traveled to the Sultanate of Oman last January and had the book *Oman Off Road* in digital format in English, plus a second version in French. For anyone planning their trip, if this book interests you, don’t hesitate to reach out—it’s a real bible for off-the-beaten-path travel. Here’s my email for direct contact: xavierpous@orange.fr Or through Voyage Forum, which we’re always happy to use.

Take a step back, forget your bearings, and momentarily set aside the boxes we use to categorize life: humans on one side, animals on the other. Immerse yourself in that unsettling zone where man, stripped of his humanity, and the beast—capable of emotions and sensitivity—stand face to face. Who is the predator, who is the prey? Where do fear, barbarism, or extreme violence lie, and where do compassion and philosophy reside?

In this book steeped in anthropomorphism, Stéphanie Artarit weaves a cruel plot and pushes the boundaries of darkness without ever wallowing in the grim or sordid.

A story of love and vengeance, of fierce beasts and humans, where the abominable, the unbearable, and the unthinkable are pierced by the candor and fragile luminosity of the heroine, Bambi, around whom (very) dark passions rage.

The action takes place in the Pyrenees in the mid-1970s. A dilapidated, isolated house, the theater of the unthinkable, where a shattered family ignored by social services lives—or survives: a missing father, a helpless mother, two degenerate twins, Sam and Valerien, a violent older brother, Martin, an absolute bastard, a dog... and a young adolescent, Bambi, the precarious pillar of this teetering balance. To escape this hopeless daily life, she regularly finds refuge in a nearby zoo. Caught during yet another sneaky visit, she is taken to the owner of the place, Noel Rivière, who, moved by her misery (and her ethereal, unreal beauty...), hires her as an apprentice.

This could have been the start of a fairy tale, redemption through love, the bastard permanently neutralized... and a breather for the reader.

But no.

The zoo serves as the backdrop for the second part of the story, which introduces new characters... a little girl, Feline, and a chimpanzee, Adam, placed in an isolated enclosure upon arrival because he was aggressive and unable to live among his own kind.

Humans with primitive animality, animals with astonishing humanity... a deranged, fierce, and heartbreaking Jungle Book. A noir novel with fluid, poetic writing.

A breathless read, almost devoured in one go (in two sittings) because it’s impossible to catch your breath before finding out how far the author will push the limits and what fate she has in store for her characters...

You Don’t Eat Cannibals Stéphanie ARTARIT Belfond Noir

Hi there, Planning a trip to AOTEAROA in Feb 2026, I’m starting to gather info. After several attempts searching in local bookshops and online, it seems this guide is no longer published—meaning it’s impossible to find a new French copy. You can find used ones online, but only in English... Lonely Planet has released a new "version" of their New Zealand guide, but it’s not really a "Guide" anymore—it’s called "Best Itineraries."

So, my question: Does anyone have a French-language Lonely Planet New Zealand guide from a not-too-old edition? For sale second-hand?

Or

Any recommendations for another guidebook-style book from a different publisher?

Thanks in advance!

Claude

Mountain chronicle from the Hautes Vosges radio station. The last broadcast before summer. It won’t be about long-distance hiking or alpine feats, but rather an equally astonishing adventure that involved thousands of airmen supplying China as it fought against Japan during World War II: the air bridge over the Himalayas.

https://www.resonance-fm.com/podcast/2706%20chronique%20montagne%20The%20Hump%20la%20liaison%20a%C3%A9rienne%20Inde%20Chine%20au%20dessus%20de%20l'Himalaya%20.MP3

Il semblerait qu'il soit difficile de trouver le livre Compagnon de Safari qui est un guide sur les animaux de la Namibie et du Botswana. En fait, il peut être commandé directement auprès de l'auteur, Caroline ORIOL. http://guide-faune.voyage-namibie.fr/

Cela est rapide, on le reçoit par courrier en 2 jours !

Hi there, As a follow-up to the exhibition "Royal Bronzes of Angkor" organized by the Guimet Museum (Paris), France 5 is airing a documentary called "Angkor, The Mystery of the Bronze Temples." You can already watch it on replay. https://www.france.tv/documentaires/documentaires-science/7241768-angkor-le-mystere-des-temples-de-bronze.html All you need to do is create an account. It’s free and no commitment required.

Parfois un voyage, une envie de voyage, un rêve de voyage... commence entre les pages d'un livre. Ces trois là invitent en Écosse, sur l'île de Lewis. Et s'ils sont publiés chez Babel noirs, la collection d'Actes Sud dédiée aux romans policiers à l'ambiance sombre, s'il y a dans chaque opus un crime à élucider, ces trois histoires vont bien au delà du genre.

Le personnage central, Fin, un homme qui n'a pas reçu la légèreté et la fantaisie en cadeaux de naissance, a été flic. Il ne l'est plus, ayant quitté la police à la suite d'un drame personnel... Un crime au modus operandi similaire à une affaire dont il avait la charge le ramène à Lewis... Il y restera. Car le moment semble venu pour lui de retourner sur les traces de son histoire... histoire profondément ancrée dans cette terre à la géographie mélancolique, cette île battue et rebattue par les vents, figée dans le passé, où les croyances, les traditions se perpétuent en défiant le temps.

Cette île austère où son âge tendre s'est cabossé. Cette terre rude qui se referme sur les morts... et les rend aux vivants des années plus tard, lorsque le moment semble venu pour eux de ranger leur enfance, en affrontant les figures et les fantômes qui l'ont traversée.

Passé et présent s'entremêlent, les réminiscences de l'un expliqueront et dénoueront, peut-être, les zones d'ombres de l'autre... et ce n'est qu'en se confrontant à l'ombre, qu'il trouvera une force qu'il ne se connaissait pas, qui lui permettra peut-être, sans doute, de surmonter l'indicible.

Dans chaque ouvrage, Peter May à la manière d'un historien doublé d'un anthropologue explore une page du passé, soulignant certains chapitres sombres de l'histoire de l’Écosse : l'omniprésence de la religion, l'opposition entre protestants et catholiques, les rituels qui marquent le passage à l'âge adulte, le sort terrible réservé aux orphelins... les recoins sombres de l'âme humaine.

Une écriture poétique, dense et minimaliste, qui va à l'essentiel, des mots très justes pour décrire l'enfance, la solitude, les secondes chances -ceux qui les offrent et ceux qui les saisissent-, le poids des choses... et le bonheur parfois tout près mais qu'on ne se donne pas toujours le droit d'attraper.

Trois histoires intenses dans un même paysage, la nature omniprésente, l'humidité glacée, le machair glissant, la tourbe sèche qui alimente les feux... et le gaélique, cette langue, aux sonorités âpres ? Gutturales ? Rocailleuses ?... qui ne se prononce pas exactement comme elle se transcrit.

Peter May La Trilogie Écossaise, L'intégrale aux Éditions du Rouergue Ou En poche, éditeur Acte Sud, collection Babel Noir 1/ L'île des chasseurs d'oiseaux 2/ L'homme de Lewis 3/ Le braconnier du lac perdu

Ce soir sur la 5 Échappées belles au SENEGAL

https://television.telerama.fr/tele/magazine/echappees-belles,6640, emission162356169.php

Hi there, I’m looking for links to the five episodes of the excellent 2014 France Culture podcast series called Pages from Nicolas Bouvier’s *The Way to the Orient*. The episodes are: 1) Belgrade, 2) Tehran, 3) Afghanistan, 4) Ceylon, 5) Japan. Unfortunately, they’re no longer available on France Culture. Here’s the (expired) link to episode 1: https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/fictions-le-feuilleton/belgrade-9795251. Maybe someone on this forum has downloaded these episodes or shared them on other platforms—like a blog, social media, or elsewhere. Thanks so much in advance for any help! Aude

Pour les enfants et/ou pour nous, avez-vous de bons conseils de livre pour reconnaitre et connaitre les animaux de Namibie (ou d'Afrique Australe ) ?

Bonjour à tous les amoureux du voyage! Je pars pour plusieurs semaines accompagner des groupes en Namibie (je suis aux anges). C'est un pays que je connais car y ai déjà passé trois mois. Je vais parler culture, géo, histoire... mais cependant j'aimerais aussi voir mes "clients" touchés par la faune, peut-être plus particulièrement les oiseaux; malheureusement je suis un piètre ornithologue. :-p Ainsi, si vous pouviez me conseiller un livre sur l'univers des volatils que nous nous apprêtons à voir, ce serait... chouette! pour ceux qui sont dans le même démarche que moi et pour éviter des doublons, voici ceux que j'ai trouvé (mais pas encore acheté): - Compagnon de safari, de Oriol (2003) ?? - Les oiseaux de l'ouest africain, de Serle et Morel (2005) ?? - Guide des mammifères d'Afrique, de Kingdom (2013) ?? (non, le oiseux ne sont pas des mammifères!!) - et puis...... ça ne fait pas beaucoup 😕 Rien de trouvé de spécifique à la Namibie. Donc voila, merci à vous, et je vous souhaite une très joyeuse route également!!

Moi qui vient rarement sur le forum, j'ai bien parlé (enfin... écris), merci de votre attention! :-)

Nathaniel. (pour ceux que ça intéresse, je pourrais leur donner le lien vers les photos de mes précédents voyages.)

Beace!

In this charming open-air library, I came across a novel by Perumal Murugan, a Tamil writer and professor of Tamil literature, sometimes controversial because he’s accused of advocating too strongly for women’s rights. It’s a harsh novel about love and caste. The love between Kumaresan and Saroja in today’s rural India. The title: *The Pyre*

(A belated tribute on this forum)

Abdulrazak Gurnah, an author with a unique journey and identity (Tanzania)

Big surprise in Stockholm: the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah. The Tanzanian author, who writes in English, is best known for his novels Paradise (1994) and By the Sea (2001). He was recognized for his "uncompromising and compassionate portrayal of the effects of colonialism and the fate of refugees caught between cultures and continents", according to the Nobel Committee.His work moves away from "stereotypical descriptions and opens our eyes to a culturally diverse East Africa that is little known in many parts of the world".

Gurnah is the first African author since 2003 to win the prestigious prize, and the fifth from the African continent overall—following Wole Soyinka (1986), Naguib Mahfouz (1988), Nadine Gordimer (1991), and J.M. Coetzee (2003). Once again, the prize passed over Kenyan Ngugi wa Thiong’o, who has long been among the favorites for the award.

Born in Zanzibar (now part of Tanzania) in 1948, Abdulrazak Gurnah grew up in an Arab family originally from Yemen. He sought refuge in the UK in the late 1960s, a few years after independence, at a time when the Muslim minority there was being persecuted. He wasn’t able to return to Zanzibar until 1984.

Since 1987, he has published around ten novels and several short stories in English (his native language is Swahili). None have become bestsellers, but his body of work as a whole offers a different perspective on issues like immigration and cultural diversity. His work sheds light on the effects of colonialism, exile, and the plight of refugees, "speaking" of his love for Africa and his fight against neocolonialism. Though Gurnah’s stories aren’t explicitly autobiographical, they’re inspired by his life as an immigrant in the UK.

Gurnah was also a professor of English and postcolonial literature at the University of Kent in Canterbury until his recent retirement.

Does this award bring more attention to African literature? Who knows? At the very least, it might give it a boost. If African literature is less visible in the West, it’s partly because it isn’t widely accessible: Gurnah is rarely translated into French or German, and not at all into Arabic.

In Tanzania and its Zanzibar archipelago, he’s being celebrated with joy. "This means a lot for Zanzibar’s struggle for self-determination," says Ismail Jussa, a literary critic from Zanzibar. "It helps put Zanzibar back on the map." The Swedish Committee acknowledged that his work has helped understand "the divisions caused by colonialists, but also the heartbreak of being torn between the homeland one comes from and the life of exile one is forced into."

By the Sea. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2001 (Fr.: Près de la Mer. Galaade Éd., 2006)

Paradise. Bloomsbury Publishing, 1994/2004 (Fr.: Paradis. Motifs, 1999)

Desertion. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2005 (Fr.: Adieu Zanzibar. Galaade Éd., 2009)

Afterlives. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020 (Fr.: Les vies d’après. Denoël, 2023)

Hery

I just read this introduction

https://www.isabelleetlevelo.fr/2024/11/27/les-archives-de-lucien-peraire-enfin-prises-en-charge/

Then I went to the site created by La Maison des Sciences de l’Homme.

https://peraire.huma-num.fr/

It’s a scholarly site, an inventory of all the documents from his journey.

I read the presentation of his travel journals.

https://peraire.huma-num.fr/introduction.php

I was immediately won over by the man and the excerpts from his travel journals. What he writes feels like documentation of the peoples and societies he encountered, along with reflections that lead to broader thoughts on our humanity.

It really whets the appetite. Unfortunately, Éditions Garnier gave up on publishing his account. Péraire self-published it under the title *À travers le monde à vélo et en espéranto*, but it seems impossible to find.

The French journals are readable on the site, but they’re facsimiles. They’re handwritten and in an uncomfortable format—PDF. Plus, the ink has faded in parts.

Happy travels

Hello,

Some travel to the ends of the Earth to climb Everest, but I set off more modestly to take on a challenge just as beautiful and demanding: walking the entire coast of Brittany.

Four months on the land of my ancestors... Four months with my thoughts... Four months living an adventure that changed my life...

No mountain to climb, no extreme weather conditions—just following the ocean and putting one foot in front of the other for 2,100 km to connect Saint-Nazaire to Mont Saint-Michel along the Customs Officers' Path.

I’d never walked that many days in a row. No performance to achieve, no record to break—just a path I followed. More than a path, I’d say it was a journey. I let my steps carry me, gradually letting go of the plan I’d set for myself to truly embrace the moment. I lived one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. An unforgettable adventure filled with encounters, joy, tears, and powerful moments etched into my memory. How could I not be touched by the warmth of the Bretons who opened their doors—and above all, their hearts—to me?

I cried tears of happiness. It felt so good. I felt alive, present, connected to myself and to others. I celebrated life. Everything reminded me of the luck I had to be on Earth. Everything amazed me—from the sound of the waves to the songs of birds, the endless colors of the sea, and the wind rushing through the trees, not to mention all the little signs life sent my way. I loved all those "chances" (were they really just coincidences?), all those unexpected encounters. Yes, life is beautiful! This path reminded me of the luck I have to be alive and here on this Earth. When you wake up every day to the sound of nature, how can you not appreciate your existence?

Everyone walks for a reason, whether it’s the Camino de Santiago or the Customs Officers' Path—it’s first and foremost a personal journey. I wanted to experience long-distance walking to discover new things. I got my share of answers, but also new questions. I wrote in my travel journal every day to remember every moment, every sensation, every encounter, every thought.

Now, it’s time to share this adventure with as many people as possible through a book I’ve been working on for two years... Readers’ feedback has been unanimous: "It’s simply a brilliant book."

I truly hope it will inspire you and give you the desire to pursue your own dreams too.

The book is available in bookstores, on Amazon, and on my website GR34 Aventure if you’d like a signed copy.

Thank you

Je viens de tomber sur une revue incroyable: America. Près de 200 pages par numéro. Ce trimestriel qui ne sera publié que pendant la durée du mandat de Trump donne la parole aux plus grands écrivains français et américains pour tenter de comprendre l’Amérique au temps de Donald Trump à travers des reportages et des enquêtes, des grands entretiens et des chroniques.

Le numéro 5 (america.aboshop.fr/...n/product-article/11) est entièrement consacré à ce qui nous passionne tous ici et s'intitule "Que reste-t-il de l'Amérique sauvage?". Il parle des grands espaces, de la nature, des parcs nationaux, et montre que Trump s'est lancé dans une entreprise de démolition systématique de l'héritage environnemental américain. Je pense acheter toute la collection car cette revue est réellement extraordinaire.

Hello everyone. Colombia is a country that has been plagued by clichés for decades—often unflattering ones—that, of course, don’t reflect (or only in a very caricatured way) the realities. Having lived in Cali for eight years, where I worked, I discovered a land full of life, colors, and diversity. If you're planning to explore this country that gave birth to the myth of El Dorado (which, by the way, is the name of Bogotá’s airport), you can certainly pick up the various guides published about it. For my part, I’d like to recommend one of the rare "beautiful books" (photos and text) dedicated to this country. It’s just been released by Géorama and is titled *Colombia, Magia de la Vida*. Click here to learn more by browsing the official site. I’m the author, and I’m happy to answer any questions or comments about Colombia or this book. Thanks, and happy travels!

A fascinating documentary about a Khmer treasure discovered in the Savannakhet region. The documentary places this discovery within the cultural environment of the Khmer era, from Wat Phu (Champassak - Laos) to Angkor (Cambodia). https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/116856-000-A/laos-le-tresor-oublie-de-la-civilisation-khmere/

Bonjour à tous,

Je compte voyager en Grande-Bretagne (quand cette crise sera finie) et voudrais savoir quels livres vous me conseilleriez pour la découvrir en termes d'histoire, de culture, de politique, etc. ; et je recherche des œuvres littéraires comme des romans, des récits de voyages ou des essais, pas pas des guides de voyages.

Merci,

Caro

Je vous invite à découvrir mon récit de voyage publié chez BoD : https://www.bod.fr/librairie/les-immensites-secretes-matthieu-stelvio-9782322236336

Vous pouvez consulter des illustrations sur cette page : https://atlae.blogspot.com/2020/09/parution-du-livre-les-immensites.html

J'espère qu'il intéressera au moins l'un d'entre vous...

Matthieu