NARRATING THE PAST TO WRITE THE PRESENT: VERONIQUE TADJO's REINE POKOU: CONCERTO POUR UN SACRIFICE

Résumé En

Francophone African literature has been progressively characterized by a shift from realistic writing of anthropological and sociological topoi to a more articulate narrative critique of the dialogic relationship between the subject and the powers that have concurred to shape its history. In this sense, Franco-Ivorian author Véronique Tadjo represents one of the most innovative examples of a polymorphous artist who relies on diverse forms of expression (painting, poetry, children’s literature, essays, and novel) to interrogate how the language of power has molded the past as well as the present of her native Cộte d’Ivoire. Tadjo’s novelistic narrative, most often situated at the crossroads between fiction and autobiography, is especially focused on the question of identity formation (be it personal or collective) and on history, politics, and culture as master narratives whose language needs questioning. Her 2006 short novel La Reine Pokou: Concerto pour un sacrifice revisits the founding myth of the Ashanti kingdom and of the birth of the Baoulé people, the first ethnic group to settle in the southern part of Cote d’Ivoire and from which the country originated. Tadjo’s rendition of Queen Pokou’s legend deconstructs and rejects the linear language of the original myth transforming the primary text into a concerto of variations on the original theme. By creating multiple new accounts that negate the univocal linguistic and ethical foundations of the hypotext, Tadjo produces a multifaceted literary discourse that better represents the country’s ethno-cultural variety as well as its present condition of socio-political disorder.