OBOC - Equatorial Guinea

“Shadows of your black memory” by Donato Ndongo is often described as a coming of age story.  An unnamed protagonist’s story is told in alternate chapters in first person and the unusual second person narrative (like a story telling Vs stream of consciousness technique - a style that I am becoming painstakingly familiar as I am struggling to read Joyce – will save that for another post).  Set in the waning period of Spanish Colonialism this is also the coming of age story of Equatorial Guinea as it moved towards Independence.

When the story begins we come to know that the protagonist who is now a young man has decided not to pursue priesthood but go to law school. The rest of the novel is the protagonist’s reflection of his childhood and formative years as he tried to navigate the tribal culture and religion on the one hand with the dominating isms of his life – Colonialism and Catholicism under the towering presence of two strong patriarchs – his father who has embraced the Colonial way of modernism and his uncle Tio Abeso still strongly entrenched in traditionalism rejecting the white man’s religion and his ways.  Inexplicably, the father despite embracing modernism doesn't sever ties with Tio Abeso and in fact lets him lead his son into traditional tribal rituals thereby amplifying the conflict. On the shoulder of this hero falls the burden of bridging the chasm between the two. 

The third important patriarchs in the novel are the catholic priests who appear to the young boy as the most powerful beings on the earth. He is constantly reminded of the greatness and the power of the white man’s God and therefore the white man himself who has invented countless things in the world, in contrast to the black man who has not invented anything.

Despite Tio Abeso’s determined attempts to preserve the tribal knowledge and culture, the boy understands that Father Oritz’s way of life was arriving to dominate Tio Abeso’s world. Witnessing the clash of these 2 big traditions in the verbal duel between Tio Abeso and Father Oritz he understands that he can never completely embrace or abandon one over the other but will always have a mixed identity….. “convinced that although you would one day cross the ocean and go beyond, you would always have the spirit of the tribe within you, the blood of the tribe, you would always hear the tribe whispering to you”

Almost all of the African novels that I’ve read have this element of a journey/ transition from the traditional to the “modern” world and this question of one’s identity and the conflict arising from this mixed identity is at the heart of these stories. Ndongo’s achievement is describing these conflicts and pangs so beautifully with an almost neutral tone. As Africa itself struggles to break free from the shackles of the past the poetic words of the protagonist as he explains his decision to not pursue Priesthood seems to apply to the entire continent. "I need you to understand me. I dont aspire to be anything but a man among others, to find peace, without mystifications. Neither half a man nor a superman. I don't want veneration or dishonor; I don't need to feel guilty about anything, and I don't want anyone to laugh at me."