La Mélancolie des barbares

In a strange city, a middle-aged man has been appointed komissari to restore order amidst all manner of illicit trade. He marries Monique, a woman much younger than himself, whom he renames Baby Mo and forces to wear a veil to shield her ‘from the defilement of the world’. Under the thumb of this ‘protector’—as loving as he is violent—she nevertheless continues to work for Zac, a young drug dealer with whom she is secretly in love, and who has become the spiritual son of this paradoxical policeman. 

Koffi Kwahulé lays bare all the driving forces behind contemporary violence to construct a dramatic build-up forged by lyrical yet raw language, leading readers and actors towards an inexorable tragedy. All social classes are targeted and affected by this tension: the author delights in throwing readers off the scent to better shatter clichés. And far from seeking to aestheticise everyday barbarity—which would risk trivialising it—he uses the conventions of the crime novel, laced with humour, to deliver a powerful and rare dramatic poem.