Central African Republic - Batouala

Book 31: Batouala - Rene Maran

The Central African Republic is a land-locked country in, well, the center of Africa. It was colonized by the French in the 1890s, and gained independence in 1960. It has been engaged in an ongoing civil war since 2012. As of 2019, it ranked 188th out of 189 countries on the Human Development Index (HDI). 

Batouala was originally published in 1921, and it won the prestigious Prix Goncourt. It is thought to be one of the first works in the Negritude movement, a literary movement of the 1930s-50s that began among French-speaking African and Caribbean writers living in Paris as a protest against French colonial rule. 

The novel centers on the the lives of the chieftain, Batouala, and his nine wives. While there is certainly commentary about colonization - Batouala has much to say about the strange and lazy white people - most of the story focuses on his rivalry with Bissibingui, a young man in the village. Bissibingui is quite the ladies' man, and has gotten attention from all of Batouala's wives, but particularly favors Yassiguindja - who is also Batouala's favorite. Basically, this book is a soap opera, which isn't exactly what I was expecting.