“In the shadow of the city Rimbaud”, a shocking book to end the taboo of female circumcision, in France as in Africa
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It is a fiction that has all the truth. The author, Halimata Fofana, does not hide it, but she prefers to blend into the decor and into her character, Maya, who represents “all the girls who are raped, excised, forcibly married. All the girls, their mothers before them, and their brothers too, from whom everything is hidden”she explains.
In the shadow of the city Rimbaud (ed. du Rocher), which appears this Wednesday, August 24, is therefore a novel. Between recomposed testimonies and autobiographical narrative, the book tells the itinerary of a child born in France of Malian parents, whose innocence will switch “in violence” after her excision at the age of 5 during a family trip to Bamako. A ” treason “ led by her mother and her aunt, Sosso, in whom the little girl had complete confidence.
A mutilation told with an attention to detail that freezes the reader in terror. But no complacency or voyeurism in the writing of Halimata Fofana. Rather, an urgency, and a requirement, that of exposing the facts engraved in the memory and the flesh of a little girl in order to open the consciences and “overcoming the taboo of female circumcision”unambiguous subtitle of the book.
To this trauma on which no one puts words or looks will succeed all the others like a rosary from which no “African” seems to have to escape, whether she was born in France or on the continent. It is in any case what the adults claim, when the revolt rumbles. “Who do you think you are to run away like that? You, because you have studied, do you think you are superior to escape your destiny as a woman? », launches an uncle to Maya who has come to take refuge, exhausted, with her parents who had married her a year earlier to a cruel and violent man.
“Flayed Alive”
Because Maya, after having been “skinned alive” – title of the author’s first novel published in 2015 by Karthala editions –, suffered throughout her childhood the beatings of her parents who knew no other way to educate their three daughters, then a forced marriage at 22 after having succeeded to gain time through university studies, and finally the endlessly repeated rape of a husband, ” the wolf “who also does not hesitate to knock.
But the book is also sometimes funny and poetic, takes us back to those moments of childhood touched by the grace of friendship, the little disobediences that lead to great inner revolutions, the irreplaceable affection of a sister, the intelligence of two teachers who will make the difference. To lead to rescue, repair, in the surgical and psychological sense of the term. Because Maya will find the strength to flee, a place to take refuge, and the help to rebuild herself.
A trajectory that also tells of life in the city “Rambo”, where a gallery of sometimes desperate characters meets, such as this doctor who, in the 2000s, finds nothing wrong with the practice of excision and even encourages parents; sometimes tracing a possible path to the narrow escape. Like Iris, this student friend that Maya believed “condescending” because coming from a privileged environment but who will encourage and welcome him in his flight.
Or Louise, decided to go through reconstructive surgery at 62 years old. She bears witness to her life as a wife to whom we have “sewn up the penis three times”because her husband “loved that the hole was tiny”the birth of her four children, “a real torture”.
Evening Star
Finally, in the midst of these gangs of young “who are constrained to an unsurpassable horizon and who must be constantly reminded that nothing is in fact impossible for them”, a voice will be his evening star. That of Celine Dion, which runs through the whole novel, and supports little Maya from her discovery on television at the age of 8. There, no more question of distance with fiction.
“Without his voice, I would no longer be on Earth talking to you. She is for me the embodiment of the divine. There are times in life when it takes something bigger than yourself to pull through. This is also told by the life of Celine Dion, who succeeded when she was the youngest of a sibling of fourteen children, from a very poor family. My dream would be to meet her,” simply says the writer.
As a tribute to popular songs that emancipate in the same way as literature. To both, Halimata Fofana clung on like a lifeline to emerge from all this violence. “The violence that takes place in France, in the Paris region, she writes. With us, the laws of the Republic do not enter the hearth. »
It is to put an end to excision, which has been banned in France since the law of April 4, 2006, that the government launched a major plan in June 2019. Public Health France estimated that year that between 60,000 and 125 000 circumcised girls and women lived in France. Without being able to distinguish between those who, like Maya, made their way back to Africa to be mutilated against their will and those who are mutilated on French territory. One certainty, however, like rape and sexual assault, these figures are largely underestimated.
A documentary on Arte
Halimata Fofana, whose parents are from Senegal and Mauritania, also wrote and co-directed a documentary on the subject with director Anne Richard. To our excised bodieswhich focuses on the life of the author without the mask of fiction, was released on Arte at the end of June and can be viewed for free until 2023.
“The film tells how the last taboo of the family breaks thanks to conversations that Halimata will manage to lead with her mother, who manages to understand her daughter’s suffering, explains Anne Richard. The long road to recovery. It’s a very courageous step, because Halimata has this time agreed to expose herself without hiding behind a character. » Her presence on the screen, striking and luminous, speaks of the irreducible power of femininity, of the desire to live.
“I hope that this last book and the film will circulate in Africa so that this practice will cease definitively”wishes Halimata Fofana. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 200 million young girls begin their life as women by being mutilated. The overwhelming majority are in Africa, despite the ban on genital mutilation in two-thirds of countries on the continent.
In the shadow of the city RimbaudEditions du Rocher, 2022, 16.90 euros.
To our excised bodiesa documentary by Halimata Fofana and Anne Richard directed by Anne Richard visible on Arte TV.
Mariama, the skinned aliveKarthala editions, 2015, 15 euros.
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