Bofane In Koli Jean - Congo Inc.: Bismarcks testament

CONGO INC.

GLOBAL AFRICAN VOICES

Dominic Thomas, editor

I Was an Elephant Salesman: Adventures between Dakar, Paris, and Milan

Pap Khouma, Edited by Oreste Pivetta

Translated by Rebecca Hopkins

Introduction by Graziella Parati

Little Mother

Cristina Ali Farah

Translated by Giovanna Bellesia-Contuzzi and Victoria Offredi Poletto

Introduction by Alessandra Di Maio

Life and a Half

Sony Labou Tansi

Translated by Alison Dundy

Introduction by Dominic Thomas

Transit

Abdourahman A. Waberi

Translated by David Ball and Nicole Ball

Cruel City

Mongo Beti

Translated by Pim Higginson

Blue White Red

Alain Mabanckou

Translated by Alison Dundy

The Past Ahead

Gilbert Gatore

Translated by Marjolijn de Jager

Queen of Flowers and Pearls

Gabriella Ghermandi

Translated by Giovanna Bellesia-Contuzzi and Victoria Offredi Poletto

The Shameful State

Sony Labou Tansi

Translated by Dominic Thomas

Foreword by Alain Mabanckou

Kaveena

Boubacar Boris Diop

Translated by Bhakti Shringarpure and Sara C. Hanaburgh

Murambi, The Book of Bones

Boubacar Boris Diop

Translated by Fiona Mc Laughlin

The Heart of the Leopard Children

Wilfried NSond

Translated by Karen Lindo

Harvest of Skulls

Abdourahman A. Waberi

Translated by Dominic Thomas

Jazz and Palm Wine

Emmanuel Dongala

Translated by Dominic Thomas

The Silence of the Spirits

Wilfried NSond

Translated by Karen Lindo

IN KOLI JEAN BOFANE

CONGO INC.

Bismarcks Testament

Translated by MARJOLIJN DE JAGER

Foreword by DOMINIC THOMAS

INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS

Published with support from the John Gallman Fund for New Directions

This book is a publication of

Indiana University Press

Office of Scholarly Publishing

Herman B Wells Library 350

1320 East 10th Street

Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA

iupress.indiana.edu

Original publication in French

2014 Actes Sud

English translation

2018 by Indiana University Press

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.481992.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-0-253-03190-7 (paperback)

ISBN 978-0-253-03191-4 (ebook)

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to the young girls, the little girls,
and the women of Congo

to the UN

to the IMF

to the WTO

The new state of Congo is destined to become one of the most important enforcers of the work we intend to accomplish

Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, at the closing of the Berlin Conference, February 1885

Contents

by Dominic Thomas

Foreword

In Koli Jean Bofanes Congo Inc.: Bismarcks Testament: The Limits of Empathy and the Postcolonial Scramble for Africa

Dominic Thomas

In Koli Jean Bofanes first novel, Mathmatiques Congolaises (2008), transported his readers on a journey into the confusion and disorder that have become so endemic to depictions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The two Congosthe Republic of the Congo (capital Brazzaville) and the DRC (capital Kinshasa)sit face-to-face on the banks of the eponymous Congo River. The Global African Voices series has already published (or will be publishing) several works by Sony Labou Tansi (Life and a Half and The Shameful State), Alain Mabanckou (Blue White Red, The Tears of the Black Man, and The Negro Grandsons of Vercingetorix), Wilfried NSond (The Heart of the Leopard Children, The Silence of the Spirits, and Concrete Flowers), and Emmanuel Dongala (Jazz and Palm Wine), authors who hail from the Republic of the Congo. In Koli Jean Bofanes Congo Inc.: Bismarcks Testament, first published in France in 2014, will therefore be the first novel in the series focusing on the DRC. Thanks to Marjolijn de Jagers truly remarkable translation and uncanny ability to capture the essence of the original text, readers will be able to appreciate why different juries, having awarded In Koli Jean Bofane the Grand Prix littraire de lAfrique noire for his first novel, also selected Congo Inc.: Bismarcks Testament for the Grand Prix du Roman Mtis and the prestigious Prix des Cinq continents de la Francophonie.

The subtitleBismarcks Testamentin what is a hypnotizing, mesmerizing, daring, and deeply disquieting novel, harkens back to the era when Germanys first chancellor, Otto von Bismarck (18151898), convened the Congo Conference (also known as the Berlin Conference) in 18841885. It was of course at this conference that the fourteen signatory powers negotiated the terms of the General Act, an initiative that triggered what became known as the scramble for Africa. However, the General Act also simultaneously granted legitimacy to the ambitions of King Leopold II of Belgium, who imposed his rule over the Congo Free State from 1885 until 1908, at which point it became the Belgian Congo up until political independence in 1960. This territory also comprised the northern region along the equator and the city of Mbandaka, where In Koli Jean Bofane was born in 1954. Adam Hochschilds book King Leopolds Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa highlighted the brutalization and exploitation of the native population in the relentless and unchecked drive to extract the countrys resources.1 Similarly, in his monumental study Congo: The Epic History of a People, David Van Reybrook underscored how today, the Congo Free State is notorious not so much for its vague borders as for its crushing regime. And rightly so. Along with the turbulent years before and after 1960, the year of independence, and the decade between 1996 and 2006, that period is seen as the bloodiest in the nations history.2

In Koli Jean Bofane does not shy away from controversy; he makes a concerted effort to provide the reader with a near exhaustive inventory of the damning history of the region while emphasizing its key geostrategic importancebeginning with the Berlin Conference and then straddling both world wars, on to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Vietnam War, the sanguine history of decolonization and genocide, and culminating in the nefarious activities of multinationals:

The algorithm Congo Inc. had been created at the moment that Africa was being chopped up in Berlin between November 1884 and February 1885. Under Leopold IIs sharecropping, they hastily developed it so they could supply the whole world with rubber from the equator, without which the industrial era wouldnt have expanded as rapidly as it needed to at the time. Subsequently, its contribution to the First World War effort had been crucial, even if that warmost of itcould have been fought on horseback, without Congo, even if things had changed since the Germans had further developed synthetic rubber in 1914. The involvement of Congo Inc. in the Second World War proved decisive.