7 - The Criminals & the Corrupted

Summary

Mohamed Suleiman's works show how people are always caught by a reality that they want to escape. One of the tasks of the popular novel is to explore the depths of a social reality, which is the polar opposite of the task of the fable with its ideal character-types. Thus, the criminal takes the role of the hero in novels which allow no room for fables and whose plots unfold in the bowels of the social system.

The police v. the criminals

The Swahili popular novel develops the fantasy theme of a society ravaged by crime. Under the guise of an ordered social organization lies a network of violence, as described in the novel. The popular novel tends to position the world of crime as under police control. The enormous success of a novelist such as Godfrey Levi is due to the reassuring plots in which crimes will be duly punished thanks to the effectiveness of the police. In his novels, police methods are very violent and justice equally rough. In Mpelelezi hodari na genge la wahalifu (The courageous detective and the band of thugs) murderers confess their crimes after being tortured and they all swing for it. The three thieves in Fedheha ya fedha (Money of shame) are shot dead and thrown to the crocodiles. Indeed, Godfrey Levi's novels invite readers to a world of legalized lynching as if society had no other means of fighting crime but violence.