Narratives of excision: master- and counter-narrative in Ahmadou Kourouma’s The Suns of Independence
-
Sylvie Patron
Abstract
This article examines the forms taken by master- and counter-narratives in fiction through a case study of Ahmadou Kourouma’s first novel, Les soleils des indépendances (1968), published in English as The Suns of Independence in 1981. It focuses specifically on the third chapter, which contains the narrative of the genital excision and rape of Salimata, the main protagonist’s wife and second protagonist of the novel. As Michael Bamberg and Molly Andrews remind us, “[c]ounter-narratives only make sense in relation to something else, that which they are countering” (2004: x). First, I shall examine the relation of countering in the chapter in question: it contrasts the glorious narrative of excision presented by Salimata’s mother with Salimata’s traumatic experience as recalled by the character herself. Then, I shall consider the master- and counter-narrative of excision from the perspective of narrativity and tellability: contrary to the mother’s master-narrative, which features a relatively low degree of narrativity and tellability, the counter-narrative centered on Salimata contains all the elements making it possible to speak of an individual, prototypical narrative, therefore a counter-narrative in the proper sense. Finally, I shall ask what fiction brings to counter-narrativity: in particular, a distinctive account of “what it is like” to undergo the operation of excision. Overall, the aim of the article is to show that the interpretive frame of master- and counter-narratives allows in some cases to shed new light on what is loosely called the “message” of a fictional narrative: in this case, the denunciation of traditional practices harmful to women, with the active or internalized participation of women themselves.
References
Asaah, Augustine H. 2007. Of pacts, trickster, ethos, and impact: A reading of Ahmadou Kourouma’s “Les Soleils des indépendances”. Journal of Black Studies 38(2). 177–193. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934705285568.Suche in Google Scholar
Bamberg, Michael & Molly Andrews. 2004. Introduction to the book. In Michael Bamberg & Molly Andrews (eds.), Considering counter-narratives: Narrating, resisting, making sense, x–xi. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/sin.4.01bamSuche in Google Scholar
Bekers, Elisabeth. 2010. Rising anthills: African & African American writing on female genital excision, 1960–2000. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.10.2979/reseafrilite.2011.42.1.190Suche in Google Scholar
Bekers, Elisabeth. 2013. The critical power of Salimata’s disenchantment: A gendered rereading of Ahmadou Kourouma’s Les Soleils des indépendances. Research in African Literatures 44(2). 91–104. https://doi.org/10.2979/reseafrilite.44.2.91.Suche in Google Scholar
Corinus, Véronique. 2013. Salimata ou le féminin dans la cité [Salimata, or the female gender in the city]. Textuel [Textual] 70: Sous les Soleils des Indépendances. À la rencontre d’Ahmadou Kourouma [Under Les Soleils des Indépendances: Meeting Ahmadou Kourouma]. 107–123.10.3406/textu.2013.2062Suche in Google Scholar
Courtois, Maurice. 2003. La langue métisse, ambiguïtés de Césaire à Beggag [The crossbred language, ambiguities from Césaire to Beggag]. Cahiers d’études hongroises [Hungarian Studies Journal] 11: Visages de la Hongrie et métissages culturels européens [Faces of Hungary and European Cultural Crossbreeding]. 17–21.Suche in Google Scholar
Dakouo, Yves. 2010. Les pratiques rituelles dans Les Soleils des Indépendances d’Ahmadou Kourouma [Ritual practices in Ahmadou Kourouma’s Les Soleils des Indépendances]. In Jean Ouadrego, L’imaginaire d’Ahmadou Kourouma. Contours et enjeux d’une esthétique [Ahmadou Kourouma’s imaginary: Contours and challenges of an aesthetic], 111–132. Paris: Karthala.10.3917/kart.oued.2010.01.0111Suche in Google Scholar
Derive, Jean. 2013. Le jeu du dedans et du dehors: les ruses de la posture malinké dans Les Soleils des Indépendances [The game of inside and outside: The tricks of the Malinké posture in Les Soleils des Indépendances]. Textuel [Textual] 70: Sous les Soleils des Indépendances. À la rencontre d’Ahmadou Kourouma [Under Les Soleils des Indépendances: Meeting Ahmadou Kourouma]. 63–78.10.3406/textu.2013.2059Suche in Google Scholar
Diagne, André-Marie. 1999. Qui donc arrêtera la course de Salimata? [Who will stop Salimata’s race?]. Présence Africaine [African Presence] 106. 89–99.Suche in Google Scholar
Herman, David. 2009. Basic elements of narrative. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.10.1002/9781444305920Suche in Google Scholar
Hyvärinen, Matti. Forthcoming. Reconsidérer la théorie des contre-récits: contestation narrative, canonicité culturelle et racontabilité [Revisiting the theory of counter-narratives: Narrative contestation, cultural canonicity, and tellability]. Trans. Sylvie Patron. In Sylvie Patron (ed.), Les contre-récits: un nouveau paradigme pour l’étude du récit et de l’agentivité narrative [Counter-narratives: A new paradigm for the study of narrative and narrative agency]. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses universitaires du Septentrion.Suche in Google Scholar
Hyvärinen, Matti. 2021. Toward a theory of counter-narratives: Narrative contestation, cultural canonicity, and tellability. In Klarissa Lueg & Marianne Wolff Lundholt (eds.), Routledge handbook of counter-narratives, 17–29. London & New York: Routledge.10.4324/9780429279713-3Suche in Google Scholar
Kassi, Bernadette. 2007. Représentation(s) de l’excision dans le roman ivoirien: des Soleils des indépendances (1968) d’Ahmadou Kourouma à Rebelle (1998) de Fatu Kéita [Representation(s) of excision in Ivorian novels: from Ahmadou Kourouma’s Les Soleils des indépendances (1968) to Fatu Kéita’s Rebelle (1998)]. In Ada Uzoamaka Azodo & Maureen Ngozi Eke (eds.), Gender and sexuality in African literature and film, 177–188 (Editor’s recapitulation, 189–196). Trenton: Africa World Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Kölbl, Carlos. 2004. Blame it on psychology!? In Michael Bamberg & Molly Andrews (eds.), Considering counter-narratives: Narrating, resisting, making Sense, 27–32. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/sin.4.05kolSuche in Google Scholar
Kourouma, Ahmadou. 1981 [1968]. The suns of independence. Trans. Adrian Adams. New York: Africana Publishing Company.Suche in Google Scholar
Kourouma, Ahmadou. 1995 [1968]. Les Soleils des Indépendances, 2nd edn. Paris: Le Seuil. Reprint “Points”.Suche in Google Scholar
Mäkelä, Maria. 2021. Through the cracks in the safety net: Narratives of personal experience countering the welfare system in social media and human interest journalism. In Klarissa Lueg & Marianne Wolff Lundholt (eds.), Routledge handbook of counter-narratives, 389–401. London & New York: Routledge.10.4324/9780429279713-36Suche in Google Scholar
Mégevand, Martin. 2013. Approche postcoloniale des Soleils des Indépendances [Postcolonial approach to Les Soleils des Indépendances]. Textuel [Textual] 70: Sous les Soleils des Indépendances. À la rencontre d’Ahmadou Kourouma [Under Les Soleils des Indépendances: Meeting Ahmadou Kourouma]. 25–36.10.3406/textu.2013.2056Suche in Google Scholar
Meretoja, Hanna. 2021. A dialogics of counter-narratives. In Klarissa Lueg & Marianne Wolff Lundholt (eds.), Routledge handbook of counter-narratives, 30–42. London & New York: Routledge.10.4324/9780429279713-4Suche in Google Scholar
Mortimer, Mildred. 1990. Independence acquired – hope or disillusionment? Research in African Literatures 21(2). 35–57.Suche in Google Scholar
Patron, Sylvie (ed.). 2013. Sous les Soleils des Indépendances, à la rencontre d’Ahmadou Kourouma [Under Les Soleils des Indépendances: Meeting Ahmadou Kourouma]. Textuel [Textual] 70.10.3406/textu.2013.2055Suche in Google Scholar
Phelan, James. 2005. Living to tell about it: A rhetoric and ethics of character narration. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Ryan, Marie-Laure. 2006. Avatars of story. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Scarry, Elaine. 1987 [1985]. The body in pain: The making and the unmaking of the world, 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Shuman, Amy. 2015. Story ownership and entitlement. In Anna De Fina & Alexandra Georgakopoulou (eds.), The handbook of narrative analysis, 38–56. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.10.1002/9781118458204.ch2Suche in Google Scholar
World Health Organization. 2025. Female Genital Mutilation (31 January 2025). https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/female-genital-mutilation (accessed 27 February 2025).Suche in Google Scholar
© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Interview
- “Every war is a war of words and images”: an interview about Gaza with W.J.T. Mitchell
- Special Issue: Counter-narratives: A concept for narratology and the study of fiction?; Guest Editors: Per Krogh Hansen, Matti Hyvärinen and Sylvie Patron
- Introduction: counter-narratives: a concept for narratology and the study of fiction?
- Vicarious voices and positioning in marking counter-narratives in fiction
- Roadmaps for saving the world? Construction and use of master and counter-narratives in programmatic climate fiction
- Analyzing master and counter-narratives in the multilayered narrative communication of literary fiction
- Novel/nation: counter-narrative fiction, Israel-Palestine, and the politics of form
- Doubly hidden, doubly exposed: master-narratives, counter-narratives, and the ethics of “passing” in The Human Stain
- Generation storytelling: (Counter-)narrative identity in Douglas Coupland’s Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture
- Narratives of excision: master- and counter-narrative in Ahmadou Kourouma’s The Suns of Independence
- The counternarratives of Ulysses
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Interview
- “Every war is a war of words and images”: an interview about Gaza with W.J.T. Mitchell
- Special Issue: Counter-narratives: A concept for narratology and the study of fiction?; Guest Editors: Per Krogh Hansen, Matti Hyvärinen and Sylvie Patron
- Introduction: counter-narratives: a concept for narratology and the study of fiction?
- Vicarious voices and positioning in marking counter-narratives in fiction
- Roadmaps for saving the world? Construction and use of master and counter-narratives in programmatic climate fiction
- Analyzing master and counter-narratives in the multilayered narrative communication of literary fiction
- Novel/nation: counter-narrative fiction, Israel-Palestine, and the politics of form
- Doubly hidden, doubly exposed: master-narratives, counter-narratives, and the ethics of “passing” in The Human Stain
- Generation storytelling: (Counter-)narrative identity in Douglas Coupland’s Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture
- Narratives of excision: master- and counter-narrative in Ahmadou Kourouma’s The Suns of Independence
- The counternarratives of Ulysses
