The Curse of the Sons or the Betrayal of the Fathers? Rethinking the Family in Contemporary Malian Literature

THE CURSE OF THE SONS OR THE BETRAYAL OF THE FATHERS? RETHINKING THE FAMILY IN CONTEMPORARY MALIAN LITERATURE Alioune Sow " Bènbeli so bonya o bonya , don kele tumum don " (Bamanan proverb) "However large is the family where discord prevails, it will only take one day to ruin it" WeFilsMoussacanobserveduBissan'schaosstrong,UnMandésimilaritiesmariageAlphadeinraisonMoussaDiarra',andKonaté'sAmadousLaLeNièceSow'sPrixdeLesdel'sacrifiésâmel'imam,and Fils du chaos , Mandé Alpha Diarra' s La Nièce de l'imam, Moussa Bissan's Un mariage de raison , and Amadou Sow's Les sacrifiés d 'A lama. These five Malian novels were all publshed in a period of dramatic political activity, the transition to democracy in 1991, and were written by authors who also shared a similar 'literary experience.' They have all lived through the political transition from dictatorship to democracy; they are all based in Mah with no strong links with France, and for the most part their r works are published in Bamako. This specific context of production is also complemented by another coincidence: all these narratives are concerned and structured around one identical theme: the politics of the family. Is such emphasis on the depiction of the family accidental? Can the supremacy of the politics of the family in narratives be explained by political liberalisation? Read against the background of the political transition and the interrogative mode adopted by the writers to examine the functioning and the constitution of the family, these narratives offer a literaiy treatment of the family that raises other questions: have the writers invested the novel with a more individualistic perspective on the changes brought by the transition period? Does the focus on a private axis mean that the contemporary Malian novel distances itself from the collective reflection on the evolution of Malian society? The aim of this article is to examine literary representations of the family in Malian literature in relation to the dynamics of democratic transition. My purpose is also to draw from the dramatic changes transpiring in the depiction of the family, and to consider, what I regard as a new and distinct approach to the father-son relationship. The Political and Literary Context We can start considering the emphasis on the politics of the family by looking at the political and literary context surrounding the years of democratic transition in order to understand how the literary production has been induced. As El-Kenz has noted, discussing the political transition in Mali, the changes that led to democracy in 1991 allowed a 'new political space' and at the same time created new expectations and anxieties. El-Kenz sees this specific period as a critical phase where hopes of the transitional period cohabit with "chronic Mande Studies 4 (2002) pp. 171-185 172 Alioune Sow instability" which "exacerbates the se fabric of society itself begins to deca Such uncertainties produced by the tr and social environment have also led to démocratisation ofMalian society, the fa most indicative elements of the contrad transitional period. There are several suggests, the first is the ambiguous po "crisis of trust between the society and the democratic movement" (Drame 199 the failure of the democratic state to being and social justice. The other reas impact on the family, leading to what W the multigenerational family" and to "t viability, the dispersion of family me xix). The anxiety characterising the socio-political space extends to the literary domain. The period of democratic transition has seen writers examining and questioning, as never before, past and contemporary literary production. For instance, Moussa Konaté did not hesitate to talk about "the crisis of the Malian novel" trapped, according to him, in a "period of uncertainty."1 Referring to the political transition, Seydou Badian added that "we writers do not know what to do, we sterilise ourselves" (Interview in Bamako, 1996). For Moussa Konaté there is no doubt that these uncertainties, these literary restrictions and "the crisis" of the novel are explained by the specific historical contingencies: Maintenant nous nous trouvons à un point de transition... période de démocratisation comme au moment des indépendances et des coups d'états. Moment de flottement et de transition qui se constate dans la littérature africaine...