In the belly of the Congo - Blaise Ndala (Translator Amy B. Reid, 2023)

Translation by Peguy Nguetcho

By Peguy Nguetcho Posted in Peguy Ngassam, RDC, Roman on 12 juin 2023 0 Comments

Traduction anglaise de Peguy Nguetcho de l’article original en français de Sonia Le Moigne-Euzenot.
Blaise Ndala, Dans le ventre du Congo, Paris, Le Seuil, 2021 – Montréal, Mémoire d’encrier, 2021 – Abidjan, Vallesse, 2021, In the belly of the Congo, Canada, Simon & Schuster, 2023, New York, Other Press, 2023, translation by Amy B. Reid

Blaise Ndala’s latest publication Dans le ventre du Congo is a novel. From the outset, its sonyan title, links it to other novels in the Congolese literature. Its dual geographical and aesthetic filiation places it in a particularly fertile cultural dynamic. It is in line with texts that have become a legacy. We are in 2021, the book has just been published, so this title could seem outdated. But it is not. On the contrary, the narrative that the author develops tends to broaden the scope of inquiry of his thinking: it is not only about delving into ‘le ventre du Congo’ but also into ‘le ventre de la Belgique’, and ultimately into ‘le ventre du roi Baudouin’.

Ndala takes up a literary challenge: telling a story. That of the unfortunate Princess Tshala, between Congo and Belgium, by placing it in the very painful socio-political context of the colonisation and independence of the current DRC. Starting his story with the ‘CHRONOLOGIE LIBRE DE L’EX-CONGO BELGE (1885 – 2005)’ (FREE CHRONOLOGY OF THE FORMER BELGIAN CONGO (1885 – 2005) he makes sure to give it a temporal setting that will punctuate the whole book. Dans le ventre du Congo is set between the time preceding the 1958 and 2005 Brussels World’s Fair. 2005 is the year of the death of King Kena Kwete III, Tshala’s disconsolate father. Nyota, his granddaughter, investigates the fate of her aunt, Princess Tshala Nyota Moelo. She tries to fill in the gaps in her biography. She will report on her investigation and will translate it into a story. The story is not smooth. Elements arise, characters are added, they disappear and return. Reading it requires a certain level of concentration. But the greatest success of this book is that it manages to erect a real and coherent edifice, where every digression is always justified, where points of view are unbridgeable without ever being decontextualised. It is impressive! Dates opening chapters serve as milestones that anchor the events evoked in reality. At the same time, they do not follow one another chronologically, but rather interlock the past with the present. The back-and-forth effect used is particularly effective. For example, the episode where Tshala finds herself in a ‘Congolese village’ in the centre of the Heysel pavilion: we are in 1958… but… are we only in 1958? Our short-term memory has not forgotten a similar event in France.

‘During a school visit, teenagers from a Flemish Brabant athenaeum threw bananas behind the fence of the village, shouting « Eet de bananen, kleine negertjes, anders zullen we de handen afsnijden23 », also in French. Visitors equally began to shout like monkeys, miming gestures that left little to be imagined. Perceived as a declaration of warm, these actions triggered strong protests from the villagers. The show was interrupted. The small colony held a council around one of the two women in the colony: Tshala Nyota Moelo.’

2005. 2021. The dates interlock, they are reflected without anachronism because, to achieve such a historical fresco, the author takes the time to introduce his characters to us, each Congolese or Belgian in his or her complexity. He makes them move in their daily lives, he observes them in their human relationships, he shows us individuals who are not heroes, some capable of the worst, others of the best. The writing style is very well chosen, very elaborate, often lively, never, never tearful or pontificating. The author likes precision, surely because he’s concerned about remaining faithful to what led him to write such book. B. Ndala is a Congolese, and has been nourished by Marcel Ntsoni’s literature (page 107); a writer like him and as him, resolved to ‘name’, determined to ‘say’. The words he shares here are undoubtedly those of a man of the 21st century. Tshala is insubordinate, her voice is discordant, it is still audible in 2005, intelligible in 2021. The spatial and temporal setting presented in Dans le ventre du Congo sets up a new literary memorial nurtured by all the Congolese and Belgian resistances.

The end of the book obviously seeks to avoid engaging in polemics that are presented as no longer relevant. Princess Tshala is dead and lies far from the Congo. The words of the dying Congolese king, a paragon of forgiveness, is pregnant with meaning: ‘ This is so because memory is not a court: it is an antidote for the future. But an antidote whose effectiveness heavily depends on how much a person claiming it is ready to invest for the same future.’ (p. 246). Nyota understood this and she felt a physical need to own the narrative:

‘Une voix me disait qu’il fallait que j’étudie l’histoire. Je voulais et je veux que de toutes mes aptitudes je plonge au plus profond des âges, pas seulement dans le ventre du Congo belge, mais également, dans toute la mesure du possible, dans les recoins tant obscurs que lumineux de notre histoire, celle des peuples de ce qui devint un jour l’État indépendant du Congo. L’histoire qui ne raconte pas que Diego Cão, David Livingston, Henry Morton Stanley, Léopold II, Tippo Tip, Baudouin 1er, Lumumba, Mobutu et Kabila. Il me fallait, il me faut apprendre et peut-être un jour enseigner l’histoire qui remonte à plus loin que notre aïeul Woto le Preux Souverain, qui embrasse aussi bien Kimpa Vita que d’aucuns continuent à appeler la Jeanne d’Arc Noire, que le prophète Simon Kimbangu et son martyre dans les chaînes de Bula Matari. Je ressentais et je ressens ce besoin de fouiner dans la mémoire broussailleuse d’un monde où le mystère côtoie l’évidence, ce que mon modeste parcours scolaire, de même que les quelques manuels d’histoire que j’ai lus au gré de ma curiosité, ne m’ont guère permis de cerner.’ (page 228)

(A voice was telling me that I had to learn history. I wished and I want that among all my skills, I could be able to dive into the farthest ages, not only in the Belgian Congo’s belly, but equally as far as possible into the dark and bright corners of our history. That of the peoples of what became the independent State of Congo. A history that does not only tell of Diego Cão, David Livingston, Henry Morton Stanley, Leopold II, Tippo Tip, Baudouin I, Lumumba, Mobutu and Kabila. I needed and I need to learn and perhaps teach one day the history which dates far back to our ancestors Woto the Fearless Sovereign, which talks about both Kimpa Vita, whom some people continue to call the Black Jeanne d’Arc, and the prophet Simon Kimbangu and his martyrdom in the chains of Bula Matari. I was feeling and still feel the need to dig through the bushy memory of a world where mystery rubs shoulder with the obvious. Something that my humble schooling, as well as the few history textbooks that I have read at the whim of my curiosity, have hardly allowed me to grasp. (Page 228))

Other issues are more current, and the novel addresses them. They are: the rise of racism in stadiums, the influx of migrants forced to leave their country… Facts are undeniable, but since Tshala’s grandniece as well as the son of the organiser of the 1958 Congolese pavilion are bearer of values that turn the DRC towards the future. And since they refuse to ignore the past, it seems like Dans le ventre du Congo is the novel of reconciliation.

Peguy Nguetcho