Batouala

Rene Maran, the first black writer to win the Prix Goncourt back in 1921, was born to parents from French Guiana. He spent years in French Equatorial Africa during the zenith of European imperialism. His father served in the French colonial administration, which he also did. However, Maran sought to ameliorate some of the worst abuses of the colonial regime in French Equatorial Africa.

Reading Batouala from a 21st century lens, the novel hardly seems anti-colonial or radical at all. Indeed, the novel's main characters, a community of Bantu-speaking peoples of what is now the Central African Republic, carry on their old traditions, rituals, and beliefs in spite of their colonial overlords, who are depicted as cruel alcoholics who use excessive force. The Africans, such as their chief Batouala, however, are arguably portrayed as happy 'savages' who resist the change that comes with modernity, preferring long days of idleness and not too interested in attaining literacy or the technological advances made by the Europeans. Batouala retains his power and influence as chief of their small community, but his authority and the authority of all African leaders prior to the arrival of the whites is under siege.

Surprisingly, Maran does succeed in establishing the worldview of the community he describes. The short novel is full of songs, folktales, rituals, and perspectives on the natural world from the African' point of view. Moreover, this portrayal is neither wholly negative or positive, so all the flawed aspects of Batouala and his community are shown as well as their strengths, including their rules for murder, polygamy, slavery, and their circumcision and fertility rites. Animals, such as Baoutala's pet dog, the panther, and others, also appear as strong characters due to their symbolic role in folklore and hunting, or for providing another lens through which one discovers the world of Batouala and the extreme suffering that results from their way of life.

Perhaps because he so vividly depicted the world of Africa from an African perspective, Maran was scorned and rebuked in France for decades after the publication of Batouala. The simple act of giving Africans humanity at a time when they were conceived of as untutored children and savages in need of Europe's saving grace was inevitably going to spark anger and opposition from some French. Hemingway, however, immediately understood the novel's power and agreed with the message, hence his accolades for Batouala.