A novel that takes you hostage in the first lines, that that readers who seek only need to be captives of the claws of an author, a reading time.
Black Injuries features two people who are somehow on a ring: a Black, White Mamad, and White, Lawrence Kala. One notices immediately curious names which are like inverted. The Black is known as''White''and the White name any African, like the hero of the Deadlock , Daniel Biyaoula. Congolese language, this name means precisely''coal''is to say''black''. One has tried to sacrifice all his own, winning the Eldorado European and Boubakar as Soleiman, characters from the novel by Laurent Gaude, because it takes the family out of poverty. He almost lost his life. The other was achieved without too much trouble to leave the project in his native France to settle in the lands of "those people" blacks. This France which represents only''gray''and that''stress''since the death of his father.
One is an employee of another, his handyman. Tied to a chair, it is struck blows, he is virtually''KO'', which are not mutually exclusive, amateur boxing, continue to bang, releasing all his frustration, all his fears, spilling all over the Black rage for years. He wants to impose all the humiliations, and this is the worst of them:
The first rays of sunlight illuminate the room in soft light. Of flat foot, the white on the reverse side, while leaving the sex of her pajamas. Mamad just the reflex to close their eyes and mouth. He felt the hot liquid and salty cum on her face continuous spray that revives his wounds raw. Le Blanc would drank the whole river as he could not urinate. Once drained and put away his sex, the White grabs Mamad, re-establishes the difficulty in sitting position, and wedged in a corner of the room he takes care to lock it with a sofa.
(Black injuries, p. 103)
At this time of reading, the reader is a block of indignation, especially when, just minutes after his crime, the white is "moved to tears "because the song of birds in the forest that seems to echo the gospel choir that escapes its disk drive. Who is this man who shows a shocking inhumanity and, at the same time, letting us move from the nature around him? That's when Lawrence Kala begins to tell.
The novel is composed of two parts, separated by interludes supported by an external narrator, where each character runs the thread of her life: her childhood, her frustrations, failures, hopes, motivations. Wounds of a people. Childhood injuries, which often explain the disorders in adults. Very good novel. Everything weighs his weight : The words, tone and construction. It also blends into a harmonious whole: history, music and sport.
Very nice discovery of the author, whom I knew only by name, and Haitian literature with which I had previously flirted only through a few works by Dany Laferrière.
Louis-Philippe Dlembert, Black Injuries , Mercure de France, December 2010, 226 pages, € 16.50. A novel to read!
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