Cruel City

Оглавление

Mongo Beti. Cruel City

CRUEL. CITY. A Novel

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

ROMANCING AFRICA

“FRANCE AND THE BLACKS” BY JEAN GUÉHENNO6

L’ENFANT NOIR

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

EPILOGUE

Отрывок из книги

GLOBAL AFRICAN VOICES

Dominic Thomas, EDITOR

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It turns out that the bourgeois and the colonizers ask their scribes to cheat, to write in the name of their glory, to sing their praises. What happens then? If the scribe is a White man, he won’t have the least compunction about writing the reactionary and racist books to which bookstores have habituated us: “Stick to your own kind [Va-t-en avec les tiens],” “Knives were drawn [Les couteaux sont de la fête],” etc.

If the scribe is Black, the operation becomes a little more difficult, since this Black person has to take into account the world from which he comes, his friends, his family. Besides, there resides in a Black person a kind of demureness; he’s always loath to take a path that leads to prostitution; it’s only once he has finally set out on that path that everything goes smoothly. Besides, one never knows; one day there could be a little revolution in his native country. And if he were there, even accidentally, might some not hold against him the fact that he had collaborated with the colonial enterprise?

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