[In the following essay, Nicholls explores the historical aspects of Le Devoir de violence, and likens Ouologuem's writing approach to that of Albert Camus.]

It was to be hoped¹ that the views expressed by, amongst others, John Erickson² and Aliko Songolo³ might have allowed the charges of plagiarism to be dropped and have encouraged Le Seuil to reprint Le Devoir de violence; but the 1968 Prix Renaudot remains unavailable in its original form. This is to be regretted since the English translation, Bound to Violence,⁴ in several places seems to have obscured Ouologuem's intentions, and in ways which are important here. Some of these places will be mentioned below. Songolo shows that Ouologuem's borrowings are neither gratuitous nor an indication of creative penury, but that they fit into a context of identifiable and valid narrative intentions. He sums up one aspect of the debate:

Le discours polyvalent du Devoir de violence mène dans des directions multiples et inattendues; mais il acquiert en cours de route son identité propre, qui est autre que la somme des textes imités, parodiés ou violés.⁵

The presence of Le Dernier des Justes and of It's a Battlefield is now plain enough, and the mere fact of their presence has tended to cause critics to cry plagiarism instead of to reflect on how and why structures and passages from Schwarz-Bart and Graham Greene have been absorbed into the structure of a remarkable and individual book. The further list of what Songolo refers to as Ouologuem's modèles is quite extensive.⁶ The purpose of the present note is not to continue the debate about Ouologuem's use or misuse of his sources, but to suggest an addition to them, Camus, whose work may appear less as a modèle to be imitated in the novel than as an influence on the thinking behind it; and to offer in the light of that influence another interpretation of this polyvalent book. As a result of the scandal attendant upon its early years, and of the strong emotions that parts of it have aroused, Le Devoir de violence has not attracted the mature attention that it deserves. Published opinions have ranged from the thoughtful to the frankly thoughtless, and some of them will be mentioned here. It must be said at the outset that the whole question of the meaning of Ouologuem's novel demands reconsideration. The latter part of the present note will suggest one line of investigation.

While any interpretation shorter than an original is likely to miss something, yet some critics have been almost perverse in their concentration on one or another section of the novel to the exclusion of others. Thus, for example, by almost entirely disregarding the final chapter, and by entirely disregarding major parts of the third, Yusufu Maiangwa was able to conclude that Ouologuem's message “is that violence, in all its ramifications, is a necessary evil, if true and lasting political freedom is to be achieved”;⁷ and even a critic of the stature of Mohamadou Kane sees the book as principally a satirical and historical novel.⁸ Satirical it may well be, but consideration of the final chapter shows that if Ouologuem uses history it is to be able to reject history as a model for behaviour, and especially as a model for violent behaviour; in the same way, in fact, as Camus uses history in L'Homme révolté. It will be as well to review the construction of Ouologuem's novel.

The first chapter of Le Devoir de violence, “La Légende des Saïfs,” has drawn a lot of attention because of its perceived dependence on the first chapter, “La Légende des Justes,” of Le Dernier des Justes; and the attacks of Eric Sellin and the gracious reaction of André Schwarz-Bart are well known. It is the story from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century of the imaginary kingdom of Nakem and of its ruling dynasty. But Nakem, as the anagram should have suggested before now, is much less imaginary than has been assumed. Ouologuem has only slightly disguised and embellished the history of the Kanem empire (the Kanem is first mentioned as a province in the eleventh century, and elements of the empire survive) and of the Bornou empire which succeeded it in 1389, and of which the Kanem remained a province. The dynastic rulers of the Kanem-Bornou were the Sefouwa of Béni-Sef, taking the title Maï in Bornou, whence perhaps the Saïf of Le Devoir de violence.

The parallelism between the recorded history of the Kanem-Bornou and the history of Nakem as recounted by Ouologuem is striking, embracing dates, administrative details, and names.⁹ It is certainly not unique for an African writer lightly to disguise a character or a country by a gentle anagram or a wordplay (cf. “La Côte des Ebènes” of Les Soleils des Indépendances); but the necessary authenticity of the historical element of Ouologuem's novel seems to have gone unnoticed. It is not really until the nineteenth century that Ouologuem begins to simplify. The last Sefouwa Maï was killed in 1846, but to underline the thesis of inherited historical violence Ouologuem prolongs the line, choosing as models first El Kanemi (prince of Kanem, a member of the Sefouwa, but not in direct line, who had taken the title Sheik early in the century, being the effective ruler of Bornou), and his son and grandson. Ouologuem hints at this change in inspiration by referring to “la branche maternelle des Saïfs.”¹⁰ He has to simplify again, because in 1893 the grandson of El Kanemi, whose accession in 1881 coincides with the accession of Ouologuem's Saïf of the last three chapters, Saïf ben Isaac El Heït (“dix-huit ans avant l'arrivée des Blancs”), was conquered by Rabah, who, in turn, in 1900, was obliged to cede to the French, as was Saïf ben Isaac El Heït, and in the same year.

A general remark should be made about the historical inspiration for this first chapter. It seems clear that Ouologuem has not been concerned to follow in a servile fashion the history either of the Kanem-Bornou or of the Sefouwa dynasty. It can be shown that he has sometimes adopted details, characters, and incidents from the history of other Sudanese kingdoms: from the Mali, especially, and from the Songhay. The point has been made by many observers that this first chapter is meant to present the history of a “typical” kingdom (and the last paragraphs of the book could be adduced in support of this); but they have all been speaking of kingdoms which were fictifs. Ouologuem's generalization from a well-documented historical reality—the Chronique de Kano being unique amongst such texts in having escaped the Peul destruction of the early nineteenth century—increases the power of part of the message of the first chapter, that the considerable levels of violence that are a feature of the later sections of the novel are not the result purely of the colonial situation, but have historical antecedents. This historical perspective is central to a Camusian interpretation, especially to one invoking L'Homme révolté, in which the legacy of history is basic to the argument. At the same time, by lifting his story beyond the realms of detail, Ouologuem is inviting his readers to see the problem he is dealing with as a human question, or as an African question, rather than as an historically racist or racial one.

The short second chapter, “L'Extase et L'Agonie,” is a link between the distant past and the more immediate past; between the extase of the past and of the resistance and the sempiternelle agonie that colonization seemed to have in store for the négraille, and between the history of a country, or, generalized by its disguise, of a continent (or perhaps of the human race itself), and the story of several individual characters. It serves also to introduce the colonial situation; and in its last paragraph heralds the third chapter. “Crépuscule des dieux?” it asks.¹¹ Night follows twilight, and the giants of today replace the gods of the past. “La Nuit des Géants,” the third chapter, will be followed, naturally and for Camusian reasons, by “L'Aurore.”

The third, long, exploratory chapter, as it displays a change in technique, calls for a change in approach. Since Ouologuem is now presenting a largely unreal story, however more realistic, the identification of historical detail can only answer a limited number of questions. Who or what, for instance, are the “géants”? The colonial powers and Africa? Opposing religious movements? Raymond-Spartacus Kassoumi and Saïf? Possibly all of these. Ouologuem seems to be saying that the great movements, political, ideological, historical, do not offer real solutions. There are parts of this chapter for which historical identification might be sought and which might add an element to the comprehension of the novel; but they now figure more as part of the embellishment. Schrobenius is a good example. It is easy enough to identify him as Leo Frobenius, and the date of his visit to Nakem confirms it. F. J. Kapilenski cites A. N. Mensah as regarding the Schrobenius episode as an obvious satire in which is to be seen “a skit at Senghor as well as Frobenius,”¹² a reasonable view given the extreme enthusiasm with which Senghor greeted Frobenius' work.¹³ There are indications as well in Le Devoir de violence that Ouologuem is extending Schrobenius beyond a simple historical reference to represent a certain form of ethnologie engagée, as, for instance, when he speaks of “la littérature schrobeniusologique salivant […] la splendeur de la civilisation nègre.”¹⁴ Mohamadou Kane has said that Ouologuem “se rit tranquillement des nouveaux mythes africains, de la Négritude, de la redécouverte des civilisations africaines, de l'Africanisme insensé et bavard, de l'unité africaine …”;¹⁵ but it should be added that he is tilting at these things in passing. Historical identification of Henry might be sought, but whether he represents a real figure or not his presence in the novel, it will be argued below, is due to other considerations. Historically based or not, the third chapter is used to illustrate a wide cross-section of people who take the legacy of history as the directing influence in their lives and as the justification for their actions—major, even dominant, elements of L'Homme révolté. The serious purpose of the third chapter is to be found in the actions of some of its characters, rather than in their identification.

An interesting approach would be to analyse the scenes of erotic coupling. They all take place in this chapter, and occupy a considerable proportion of it. They illustrate many permutations and combinations and explore a variety of racial and social situations, some of which have fired the imagination of critics. Maiangwa was able semiotically to interpret some of them and to arrive at the remarkable conclusion that Ouologuem was advocating the continued use of violence in the struggle for political freedom,¹⁶ a view for which there is no evidence in his prurient references, nor anywhere else. Kern distinguishes between the love of Tambira and Kassoumi and all the other relationships:

Although only briefly described, their love is the only sane, healthy, enduring relationship in the whole novel. It contrasts greatly with the erotic bestiality which takes place in Chevalier's bedroom, and the sickness of other relationships, including even the love-hate Raymond comes to feel for his wife. […] Only Tambira and Kassoumi present an intra-racial relationship, warm and straightforward. […] Even his [Raymond-Spartacus Kassoumi's] homosexual affair […] all these relationships are inter-racial. This must obey Ouologuem's purpose in that, insofar as he set out with the theme of violence, he deliberately chose to highlight such relationships which by their nature have a potential of violent conflict.¹⁷

But this view does not take into account that there is in fact a strong element of violence in the Tambira/Kassoumi relationship, from overtones of rape at the beginning of it to the scene of the recovery of Tambira's body, which, although described in terms of the purest tenderness, still depends on rape and violent death. Nor is it easy to see that the mere fact of their being inter-racial gives to the other relationships “a potential of violent conflict.”¹⁸ It is not the present purpose to investigate systematically the various love-scenes (to use the term loosely) of the third chapter, but to observe that, as a group, they are part of another question which this chapter and the final chapter investigate, the multifaceted question of self-knowledge, of self-affirmation, of the search for one's identity and for communication.

Le Devoir de violence examines these things through the destinies and lives principally of two of its characters, Raymond-Spartacus Kassoumi and Saïf, and investigates to what extent these two characters can come to grips with their destiny. The reader is made aware of Saïf's destiny from the beginning of the book. Raymond-Spartacus Kassoumi's destiny becomes apparent as the third chapter unfolds, and we see that his conception and perception of himself are always related in some way to Saïf. Even when they are related to the Europeans, it is via Saïf. That Raymond-Spartacus Kassoumi is concerned with the search for his own identity is more clearly shown in Le Devoir de violence than in Bound to Violence, in which, for example, “sa gigantesque soif de s'affirmer”¹⁹ becomes “its gigantic hunger for self-destruction”; and in which the “[…] c'était lui, Kassoumi […] occupé à bien naître”²⁰ of the original is clouded in the translation with the extra element of rebirth. Both texts agree on Kassoumi's concern for “le vide immense et silencieux au-dedans de son inquiétude.”²¹ It is this “vide immense,” this absurd and what to do about it, that is the concern of the book and some of the similarities between its treatment in Le Devoir de violence and its treatment in L'Homme révolté will be returned to below.

Particular prominence is given, in Raymond-Spartacus Kassoumi's quest, to politics and to love. Perhaps the most important of the relationships in the book, other than that between Henry and Saïf, is that between Raymond-Spartacus Kassoumi and Lambert, and Ouologuem shows it as much more than a homosexual love affair. It is described in universal terms. For a long while Lambert has no name. He is l'homme or l'autre, and the reader is implicitly asked to treat the episode in existentialist or philosophical terms. The relationship seems to offer, in its intensity and its purity, the best chance of them all for self-knowledge and communication. It is described as “l'apogée de l'ordre naturel de l'amour.” But the problem lies precisely in its intensity. Speaking of Le Don Juanisme in Le Mythe de Sisyphe, Camus says:

Là encore, il y a plusieurs façons de se suicider dont l'une est le don total et l'oubli de sa propre personne. […] ceux qu'un grand amour détourne de toute vie personnelle s'enrichissent peut-être, mais appauvrissent à coup sûr ceux que leur amour a choisis. […] Un seul sentiment, un seul être, un seul visage, mais tout est dévoré.²²

And it is at the point where Raymond-Spartacus Kassoumi understands his need to lose himself in the other that the other becomes particularized as Lambert, and the relationship begins to disintegrate.

Towards the end of the third chapter and throughout the fourth the influence of Camus, especially of L'Homme révolté, is very pronounced. That Ouologuem often looks at things, initially at least, from the point of view of Africa and of the négraille no more detracts from the human universality of his book than does Camus' use as a premise of the Second World War and the situation of post-war Europe. Le Devoir de violence may to a certain extent be seen as an illustration, in an African context, of some of the ideas of L'Homme révolté, and as such underlines the general applicability of Camus' essay. The arguments of both texts are, in broad, the same, from the initial question, the legitimacy of legal murder, through some ways of looking at this question (in particular the rôle of history in the justification of legalized violence), to the rejection of nihilism, the insistence on the nous sommes of “Je me révolte, donc nous sommes,”²³ and the positive ideas of solidarity, complicity and communication.

Raymond-Spartacus Kassoumi is shown as being unable to control his own destiny, and reference to L'Homme révolté explains his échec. His desire to revolt against Saïf, against the inherited devoir de violence, to be “maître de l'ancien maître,”²⁴ is bound to fail because of his inability to identify himself in other terms than those imposed upon him by Saïf, and, which amounts to the same, by history. Thus, not being in control of his own destiny (he remains the product of history and a piece in Saïf's game, even in the apparent independence of his political future),²⁵—he is incapable of saying no, of being a révolté. The bourgeois-servile implications of his name condemn him, imagined revolt or not. As long as he defines himself in Saïf's terms he remains an esclave; no solution to human or African problems is to be had through Raymond-Spartacus Kassoumi. Camus expresses it clearly:

Il n'y a rien de commun en effet entre un maître et un esclave, on ne peut parler et communiquer avec un être asservi. Au lieu de ce dialogue implicite et libre par lequel nous reconnaissons notre ressemblance et consacrons notre destinée, la servitude fait régner le plus terrible des silences. […] La complicité et la communication découvertes par la révolte ne peuvent se vivre que dans le libre dialogue.²⁶

Which explains as well the rôle of Henry. Defining himself in his own terms, he is the only person in Nakem who can understand and reject the legacy of history as a basis for behaviour; who is, if not before, then certainly after watching the film, a révolté, and who is able to confront Saïf in this libre dialogue. Camus continues:

Tout révolté, par le seul mouvement qui le dresse face à l'oppresseur, plaide donc pour la vie, s'engage à lutter contre la servitude, le mensonge et la terreur et affirme, le temps d'un éclair, que ces trois fléaux font régner le silence entre les hommes, les obscurcissent les uns aux autres et les empêchent de se retrouver dans la seule valeur qui puisse les sauver du nihilisme, la longue complicité des hommes aux prises avec leur destin.

Le temps d'un éclair. Mais cela suffit, provisoirement, pour dire que la liberté la plus extrême, celle de tuer, n'est pas compatible avec les raisons de la révolte.²⁷

Le temps d'un éclair. In the first part of “L'Aurore” there is scarcely a sentence without its parallel in L'Homme révolté. Even the vocabulary of the texts is the same: absurde, histoire, politique, liberté, solitude, solidarité, complicité. As the chapter progresses, as Saïf becomes aware that Henry understands him, Camusian complicity and solidarity become increasingly imminent, and are finally achieved: “Ce fut en un éclair une déchirure sur le visage de Saïf.”²⁸ Here again, Bound to Violence does a grave disservice to its readers by glossing the éclair, translating this sentence as: “Suddenly Saif's face erupted.” It is in this éclair of complicity that Saïf realizes that he does not have the droit to kill Henry,²⁹ and it is to be remembered, in view of the title of the novel, that Camus links “le droit ou le devoir de tuer.”³⁰ He is more explicit:

[…] il s'agit de décider s'il est possible de tuer celui, quelconque, dont nous venons enfin de reconnaître la ressemblance et de consacrer l'identité.³¹

To stress the fact that Saïf and Henry are now engaged in a libre dialogue Ouologuem modifies his narrative technique. After Saïf's “Je n'ai pas le droit” the narrator largely withdraws and the characters, speaking in direct dialogue form, continue to seek each other until Saïf, definitively renouncing murder, throws the bamboo containing the snake into the fire:

Saïf: Vous voyez … il y a trop de contrainte.

Henry: Forcément, sourit-il, c'est un jeu; et il ajouta d'une voix différente: et qui a ses règles.

Saïf: C'est qu'il n'y a pas de choix.

Henry: Si! Vous devenez libre parce que vous n'avez pas le choix. (Les deux hommes alors se regardèrent, se souriant, et, pour la première fois, acceptèrent de parler le même langage.)³²

They have recognized in each other a révolté and have embarked on the “longue complicité des hommes aux prises avec leur destin.” Neither Ouologuem nor Camus sees a general complicité as a simple, rapid, or even as a necessarily achievable outcome, but a start has been made. Ouologuem, in the final paragraphs of Le Devoir de violence, suggests that the history of Nakem is a recurring thing; and Camus, speaking about Europe, says:

Elle voulait entrer en communauté et elle n'a plus d'autre espoir que de rassembler, un à un, au long des années, les solitaires qui marchent vers l'unité.³³

“Au cœur de la nuit européenne,” says Camus,³⁴ “la pensée solaire, la civilisation au double visage, attend son aurore”; the “Aurore” that follows Nakem's and Africa's “Nuit des Géants” might only be a small step, but it is identical to Camus' in that it involves precisely these “solitaires qui marchent vers l'unité,” and who, in their complicité, go beyond nihilism. Camus:

Au bout de ces ténèbres, une lumière pourtant est inévitable que nous devinons déjà et dont nous avons seulement à lutter pour qu'elle soit. Par-delà le nihilisme, nous tous, parmi les ruines, préparons une renaissance. Mais peu le savent.³⁵

Just as, given common elements in their themes, more might be said about the relationship between the work of Ouologuem and Graham Greene than simply that Ouologuem has made rather free use of descriptive passages from It's a Battlefield, and bearing in mind that Ouologuem's Parisian studies included English Literature and Philosophy, there is more to be said about the relationship between Ouologuem and Camus; and several approaches open themselves to us. We might see, for instance, Ouologuem's novel as an illustration of the rule proposed at the end of L'Homme révolté: “apprendre à vivre et à mourir, et, pour être homme, refuser d'être dieu”; or note the active rôle of the novel itself in Camus' thinking:

Le roman naît en même temps que l'esprit de révolte et il traduit, sur le plan esthétique, la même ambition.³⁶

Toute création nie, en elle-même, le monde du maître et de l'esclave.³⁷

That Le Devoir de violence is such a création, one of outstanding importance in an African and a universal context—one, to use Songolo's term, with an identité propre—seems beyond doubt, and seemed beyond doubt at its publication. That it continues to be unavailable in its original form is very much more to be regretted than the supposed misuse of some of its sources, which, presumably, has kept it out of print. As one of the first African novels to cast off the bondage of négritude, and in its own right as a work of great individuality (and the Prix Renaudot for 1968), it deserves wider and continuing attention.

Notes

1. As a tribute to Grahame Jones, this subject seemed especially appropriate. Grahame coordinated the French West Indian and West African courses at the University of New England. He was extremely enthusiastic about André Schwarz-Bart, as about so many authors, including Camus and Greene, and was kind enough to take my enthusiasm for Yambo Ouologuem seriously and to acquire one of the last available copies of Le Devoir de violence, which, at the time of his death, he had not had time to read. The comments of such a perceptive literary critic and a great friend would have been invaluable.

2. John Erickson, Nommo: African Fiction in French South of the Sahara, York, South Carolina, pp. 228–9; quoted in Zell, Bundy and Coulon, A New Reader's Guide to African Literature, 2nd ed., London, H. E. B., 1983, pp. 455–7.

3. Aliko Songolo, “Fiction et subversion: Le Devoir de violence,” Présence africaine, 120, 1981, pp. 17–34.

4. London, H. E. B., 1971.

5. Songolo, op. cit., p. 32.

6. ———. p. 24.

7. Yusufu Maiangwa, “The Duty of Violence in Yambo Ouologuem's Bound to Violence,” in Kolawole Ogungbesan, ed., New West African Literature, London, H. E. B., 1979, pp. 76 and 79.

8. Mohamadou Kane, “L'Actualité de la littérature africaine d'expression française,” Présence africaine, Numéro spécial: Réflexions sur la première décennie des indépendances en Afrique Noire, Paris, s. d., pp. 233–5.

9. See, passim, Basil Davidson, Old Africa Rediscovered, London, Longman, 1970, and R. & M. Cornevin, Histoire de l'Afrique (des origines à la 2e guerre mondiale), Paris, Payot, 1964.

10. Yambo Ouologuem, Le Devoir de violence, Paris, Le Seuil, 1968, p. 29.

11. ———. p. 44.

12. F. J. Kapelinski, “The ‘Coming-of-Age’ of African Literatures,” Actes du VIIIe Congrès de l'Association Internationale de Littérature Comparée, Paris, 1980, p. 254.

13. Senghor talks about the reception of Frobenius' work in the Foreword to Leo Frobenius (1873–1973), an Anthology, Wiesbaden, F. Steiner, 1973.

14. Ouologuem, op. cit., p. 189.

15. Kane, op. cit., p. 234.

16. Maiangwa, op. cit., p. 76.

17. Anita Kern, “On Les Soleils des Indépendances and Le Devoir de violence,” Présence africaine, 85, 1973, pp. 223–5.

18. That inter-racial relationships interested Ouologuem, and in terms used in Le Devoir de violence, is apparent from the second letter in Yambo Ouologuem, Lettre à la France nègre, Paris, Edmond Nalis, 1968; but to say, as Kern does: “Only Tambira and Kassoumi present an intra-racial relationship …” in this novel is not the case. There are several intra-racial relationships. The racial question is irrelevant to Ouologuem's thesis.

19. Le Devoir de violence, p. 175.

20. ———. p. 178.

21. ———. p. 179.

22. Albert Camus, Essais, Paris, N. R. F., Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1965, pp. 154–5.

23. ———. p. 432.

24. Le Devoir de violence, p. 191.

25. A tour, in fact. Ibid., p. 204.

26. Op. cit., p. 687.

27. Loc. cit.

28. Le Devoir de violence, p. 205.

29. ———. p. 206.

30. ———. p. 420.

31. Op. cit., p. 685.

32. Le Devoir de violence, p. 206.

33. Op. cit., p. 684.

34. ———. p. 703.

35. ———. p. 707.

36. ———. p. 662.

37. ———. p. 677.