Novel
Adama ou la Force des choses
Not translated into English
Pierre-Claver Ilboudo · 1987
Synopsis
Since leaving Zamsé, his native village, to settle in Ouagadougou, Adama has known every degree of poverty. An exemplary accountant, he is dismissed after a colleague's embezzlement and discovers that one now has to be recommended; the father of the family then runs from one precarious little job to another, running up against influence peddling, greed and mismanagement. The disappearance of his work bicycle, carelessly parked in an alley, strikes him as the height of misfortune.
Context
The manuscript had won first prize at the fourth Semaine nationale de la culture, in the early eighties, before being published in June 1987 in Paris by Présence africaine, one hundred and fifty-four pages. It was its author's second book, after a novel brought out three years earlier by a Parisian publisher. It was later reissued in pocket format by the same house, in its series of classics.
Who it is for
In French, a little over one hundred and fifty pages. The narrative advances by drops, in a tone of restrained irony, and assumes familiarity with the lower-grade salaried workers of Sahelian capitals.
Prizes and reception
The book remains its author's most widely read, the only one of his titles reissued in paperback. Burkinabè textbooks place it among the novels of the generation after the pioneers.