Safe Return Doubtful

(translated by 

Marjolijn De Jager)

This was the first book I’ve read from a series from the Indiana University Press called Global African Voices.
26 year old Isookanga, from the Ekonda clan, who are unkindly and demeaningly referred to as ‘Pygmies’, leaves his family deep in the forest of the Congo to explore the world of commerce and technology in Kinshasa. Initially he struggles to make any money or friends, and settles amongst a group of street children; due to his small stature he is mistaken as a child. Though Isookanga, his enterprise of selling bottled water, and other themes of globalisation exploiting the Congolese, provide the backbone to the novel, the real interest is in the street children, or shégués who have experienced military raids on their rural villages, domestic abuse, and prostitution. After one of them is killed on the streets, the awful character of the entirely unreformed warlord Kiro Bizimungu is introduced. He is of Rwandan Tutsi origin, one who fled the genocide towards the Democratic Republic of Congo (a few were left alive to tell the story of the horrors) and then began to hunt down Hutus who fled from post-genocide Tutsi-dominated Rwanda into the Congo which in turn led to genocide-style activities similar to which they had been subjected themselves. In scenes that flashback to those times Bofane’s writing is some of the most horrific and powerful that I have ever read. Unsurprisingly, the main storyline of the novel becomes of much less interest than that of the fate of Bizimungu.
This is a very impressive work on the heart of contemporary Africa; vivid in its description, in some places disturbingly so, and giving a fascinating insight into life in Kinshasa, aswell as the country’s recent history, and what the population has had to deal with.