12 - Monkeys from Hell, Toubabs in Africa

Summary

The Autochthonous

There are two critical pieces to retain while reading Doomi Golo, The Hidden Diaries by Boubacar Boris Diop: the condition of Africans who have migrated to Europe, and the Rwandan genocide of 1994, which served as the occasion for Diop's novel Murambi: The Book of Bones. Bones, genocide, and the horror stories of what migrants have had to endure are not very far from much of what transpires in this novel. The “Hidden Diaries” of the title are ostensibly the notebooks written by Nguirane, an elderly grandfather living in the quartier of Niarela in Dakar. He is writing to Badou, his grandson, who has migrated to Europe, following the path of his father Assane Tall.

The novel opens with Nguirane receiving the news that his son Assane has died in Marseilles, and that his widow and two children will be returning for the burial. As Assane's departure had entailed leaving Badou's mother, Bigué Samb, Badou shuns his father's funeral, and shortly thereafter heads to France himself. Eventually he ceases to write home and is lost from sight. His fate, like his life abroad, is recounted via the rumor mill, as those back home live only in the uncertainty of the fate of those who have crossed over into Europe. “In Niarela they say nobody knows where he is, nor whether he is still alive. However, says a reporter, according to reliable sources, Alioune Badara Tall, alias Badou, has drowned near Arrecife on the island of Lanzarote in the Canaries when a boat full of illegal migrants capsized. I know the evil tongue that leaks these rumours to the journalist.” This dire rumor follows the initial references to Badou, who had been seen as abandoning his beloved grandfather and quartier. Rumor, loss, pain—the migrants’ story recapitulated from father to son:

And now there are those who claim you have travelled east. Rumour has it that you are in Algeria, in Morocco, or perhaps even further away—in Lebanon. Everybody here is dreaming up places where you may be living in exile, without rhyme or reason.