Mali, la légende des siècles

On the occasion of the Franco-African literacy Festival "Étonnants voyageurs" (Surprising travellers), organized every year in Bamako and in several large cities of Mali (including Tombouctou), we left to find Yambo Ouologuem, Renaudot’s Award in 1968, for Bound to violence, republished in 2003 by the French publishing house Le Serpent à plumes. The novel tells the story of a century’s old legend. Bound to violence evokes bloody conquests, chronic slavery, royal incest, splendid twisted. We travel from the powerful libraries of Tombouctou to the borders of Guinea where a man in love with books (a retired French bookseller) took us in the steps of the legendary Soundiata Keïta, founder of Mandino’s empire. The Centuries’-Old Legend of Mali, unfolds like a rich culture on shifting sands.