Initially, I found “Bound to Violence” difficult to enjoy and I persevered out of duty but gradually I was absorbed and fascinated. I became enthralled by the beauty of the descriptive language, amused by the sarcasms and engrossed in trying to penetrate the intentions behind Ouologuem’s writing.

The novel is in four parts relating the history of the imaginary African kingdom of Nakem from medieval times through to the eve of its independence from France. Parts one and two are written in a chronicle or griot style, about the history of the ruling Saif family. The frequent religious interjections in the text match this style but are inserted sardonically and lighten the horror of some of the brutal episodes recounted in the history of this imaginary country.

“For in his infinite compassion the Eternal sent an epidemic of yellow fever which in less than a month destroyed all hopes…”

“On the twelfth day of Ramadan the worms began to eat him alive and on the twentieth day of the same month he died … A prayer for him.”

The longest section is Part three which recounts the “modern” history of Nakem through the life of a poor man, who is educated in the colonial schools and goes to continue his studies in France. However, there are numerous other characters with their own stories and anecdotes that are interwoven within the narrative.  The underlying theme is interplay between the French colonisers who believe themselves to be charge, whilst the current ruling Saif manoeuvres Machiavellian-like to keep his own position and influence.

Part four is very short and is a philosophical debate about power and fate, between Saif ben Isaac al-Heit and a French Catholic bishop.

I enjoyed the way Ouologuem parodies the injustices of society in an almost exaggerated manner. Nakem is a web of horrific exploitations and misogynistic acts as the characters’ destinies play out – they do terrible things or, occasionally good things, and either way terrible events tend to befall them. Ouologuem mocks the colonists and the Church and exposes their racism and its hypocrisies and makes some interesting comments – through Saif, he says,

“No one denies the constructive aspects of colonization, but … one cannot help wondering whether these benefits are not due rather to a beginning of decolonization than to colonization itself. Universal suffrage, labor laws, self-determination, a more equitable distribution of the profits between the colonizers and the colonized, are the fruits not of colonialism but of the struggle against colonialism.”

But no one is exempt from Ouologuem’s derision. He holds the Negritude movement up to ridicule by emphasising inglorious aspects of African history, in particular the slave trade within the continent. He pokes fun at the art and anthropological world’s pretentious and money grabbing interactions with African culture. He shows up the injustices of the position of women and the practice of Female Genital Mutilation. He describes the academic world scornfully – “taking refuge beneath the dead tree of academic complacency, a mage of knowledge without hearth or home, living amid the dead carcasses of words…” He does not hold out hope for the future either, describing Saif as “forever reborn to history beneath the hot ashes of more than thirty African republics.”