The Abidjan International African Book Fair (SILA) celebrated its 13th edition last May, paying tribute to the Republic of the Congo, home of the dandies known as the Sapeurs, basketball player Serge Ibaka and renowned authors such as Alain Mabanckou, Sony Labou Tansi, Emmanuel Dongala and Henri Lopes . But this SILA was mainly dedicated to women. Tanella Boni, local writer, teacher and philosopher, winner of her country’s Excellence Award in 2019 and whose work can hardly be read in Spanish, was responsible for the opening conference at the Bernard Dadié Palace of Culture; and he starred in a literary encounter at the Abidjan French Institute with French-Ivorian writer and illustrator Véronique Tadjo.
Another woman, Malagasy Michèle Rakotoson, won the African Book Award from the Orange Foundation (POLA) – a multi-million dollar organization promoting French-speaking culture in Africa – for her Ambatomanga, Le silence et la douleur (Ambatomanga, Silence and the Pain) . ). 38 titles from 29 publishers from 12 African countries competed for the award and among the five finalists were two women: the winner and Anzatta Ouattara from Ivory Coast.
The leading role of women in this SILA is an example of the dynamism that a large number of African literary initiatives in general, and Ivorians in particular, have taken on under her leadership. Some examples are the publishing house Éditions Éburnie, founded in 2001 by Marie-Agathe Omoikon-Fauquembergue; the Ivoire Prize, sponsored by editor Isabelle Kassi Fofana; the black women’s library, 1949, opened in the Yopougon district (Abidjan) by the writer Edwige Dro, who will translate into English the last volume of Aya de Yopougon by Marguerite Abouet; or the Eulis Center founded by Tchonté Silué, blogger and cultural animator, in the same district.
Fofana, also director of Massaya Publishing, points out that there are many other women-run publishers in Côte d’Ivoire. “Women are everywhere. Also at the level of infographics and printers. For example, a woman runs the printing works of the Fraternité Matin [el mayor periódico del país]. There is no male profession in the industry. “In Massaya we receive more manuscripts from women than from men,” she said when asked about the role of women in African literature. And he goes on to mention Madame Agathe Amoikon, an entire publishing institution in the country; herself and her 15-year-old Ivoire Prize, with the majority of women on the prize list, and her star author Fatou Keita, queen of children’s literature in West Africa.
There is no job in publishing that is reserved exclusively for men
Isabelle Kassi Fofana, Ivorian Editor
Laure Blédou, Bayard Afrique’s editorial and commercial director, agrees: “Women play a central role in the Ivorian literary industry, they develop it, carry it forward and make it shine.” He gives the same names as his colleague and adds adding a few more: “I’m thinking of Sarah Mody at Nimba, who also helps talented writers grow.” Blédou is well acquainted with the country’s literary scene, having been part of the Avant-Première team for two years, one Cultural program on Canal+ Afrique, broadcast weekly in 26 countries. In addition, his contribution has been instrumental in projects such as the launch of TEDx in Ivory Coast, the founding of the “literary activism” collective Abidjan Lit, and the birth of La Malle aux Livres (the tribe of books) in Mali. a combination of a mobile library and a circulation circle.
The facts seem to support both. The Ivory Coast Writers’ Union has a President, Hélène Lobé, and its Communications Officer, Marjolaine Dolores Goue, was her visible face at SILA. The local publishers association (ASSEDI) sent another industry woman, Sabine Mady, to represent them, and the stands and tents were packed with readers chasing after established writers like living cultural and feminist icon Cameroonian Werewere Liking.
Next to Boni, Tadjo or Liking sat lesser-known authors such as Professor Zinié Ella Diomandé, from the Spanish department of the Félix Houphouet Boigny University and author of children’s books. Diomandé is no stranger to the Ivorian publishing scene: like her colleague Michelle Tanon-Lora and many other educators, she dedicates some of her time and energy to writing and promoting reading during childhood. It was probably a woman too. the influencer Emma Lohoues, the most renowned pen of SILA, Appointment to which she hid behind her youth book Les yeux d’Emma (Emma’s eyes) and was followed by the screams of the female youth audience.
Michèle Rakotoson, Rounds with Memory
Michèle Rakotoson, POLA Award 2023. Angeles Jurado
It also became clear at SILA that in recent years, African letters seem to have been imbued with an apparent vocation to recover the hidden, distorted or unspoken history of the colonized, often armed with orality passed on almost in secret, placing women at the center of history . This trend is also not unknown in Spain, where bookshops offer current titles translated into Spanish and signed by African authors such as Petina Gappah, Maaza Mengiste or Hemley Boum.
Michèle Rakotoson, a Malagasy author who published her award-winning novel Ambatomanga, Le silence et la douleur (Ambatomanga, Silence and Pain), just got into this car. It is a work that dates back to the last breaths of the 19th century and on its island when the French invasion and the banishment of its queen were felt. Rakotoson shared with Senegalese Ibrahima Hane (also a candidate for POLA 2023) an interest in recovering the forgotten history of Africans: in fact, Hane presented a work on the odyssey of a compatriot who was a gunner during the First World War, Les dieux de la brousse ne sont pas invulnerables (The gods of the jungle are not invulnerable).
Colonization was not a blessing. It was terrible. Abominable atrocities were committed
Michèle Rakotoson, Malagasy writer
“I was interested in writing about how a people might experience an invasion,” Rakotoson said during the presentation of his book and SILA. “About a poor population who were sent to war without being asked.” She states that her research led her to question the deeply racist system that gave rise to a form of government that still survives and which Categorizing much of humanity into “subhumans offered arrogance in order to become men”. The author recalls that colonization reduced her people’s knowledge to folklore, brought down entire societies and exacted an exorbitant price in blood. “Colonization was not a blessing. It was terrible. Cruel things have been done that make you sick.
Defining her novel as a book full of stories about women and their silence, the Malagasy author confessed her constant fear of war, her interest in capturing how colonial violence is experienced in an impoverished country, and her alienation in the face of the ban on storytelling. The story itself. She recounted how her grandmother described how the last Malagasy queen, Ranavalona III, greeted her with bitter dignity before she was deported to Réunion by the French. She died in Algiers, hidden in a corner of history, dethroned and in exile, and her story became taboo. Michèle Rakotoson soaked it up at home between misunderstandings and ellipses to later compose it using oral tradition, anthropology, ethnology and popular culture as crutches.
You can follow PLANETA FUTURO on TwitterFacebook and Instagram and subscribe to our “Newsletter” here.