Literature: Felwine Sarr's diaries
Felwine Sarr.
© Antoine Tempé
Text by: Sabine Cessou Follow |
Sabine Cessou Follow
5 mins
From his peregrinations, linked to the conferences he gives around the world since the publication in 2016 of his essay Afrotopia, Felwine Sarr has drawn travel diaries, The flavor of the last meters, published by Philippe Rey.
An intimate journey in a global South.
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“
Africa has no one to catch up with.
She should no longer run on the paths indicated to her, but walk quickly on the path she will have chosen,
”wrote Felwine Sarr in
Afrotopia,
published by Philippe Rey.
Whose act… Ten years after
Dahij,
published by Gallimard (2009), a meditation on his decision to leave Orleans to return to Senegal, Felwine Sarr takes the reader on a new intimate journey.
It starts from its roots, the Saloum Islands in Senegal, to explore the streets of cities where it is in demand everywhere, for conferences and discussions, from
Afrotopia
.
Kampala, Lisbon, Mexico, Douala, Dakar, Rome, Port-au-Prince, Istanbul, Cairo appear in this order, but also out of order, because the 26 chapters of the book, often written in telegraph style, do not follow a chronological order.
Like many travelers, Felwine Sarr goes above all to meet himself.
Kampala inspires him these lines: “
A cracked red clay path that rises.
A capricious sun.
A security guard with a wooden butt rifle (AK-47) that doesn't look good.
A phone that doesn't ring.
Long nights of sleep.
Mental space regained.
A fatigue that I cure and that I extract from my most intimate folds.
The inner voices coming up.
Those, distant, outcrop.
Kampala returns me to myself
.
"
Moments of life
The child of the Serer country escapes in his own bolongs, the twists and turns of his life, far from the themes imposed by the eternal tunes of Françafrique.
At the turn of a sentence, the author points out that Europe has "
somewhat lost
" the sense of hospitality.
It only retains its southern slope - Lisbon, Rome, Cassis, Mantua.
He also notes, in passing, that African authors have written little about the world as they see it, “
while their European friends, when they arrive somewhere, take notes, write monographs, sketch, capture and appropriate the place
”.
In Lisbon, a city "
which does not shine
" and of which he feels "
the slow drift towards the twilight
", he explains what founds his gaze: "
I am not attracted by places, when I arrive in a city, I do not run to visit must-see places.
I follow it through the people I meet there.
(…) All over the world, women and men of good will are working to keep the light on
.
"
There is hardly any question of restitution of African works of art, a mission entrusted to him by Emmanuel Macron and of which he signed with the historian Bénédicte Savoy a report which caused a stir.
The only scratches from the book of the book are also addressed to a cultural action officer and French Ambassador to Cameroon.
The first irritates: "
In a few minutes, downpours of condescension and negativity flow from his remarks on this country 'corrupt where nothing works'
".
The second indignant, by affirming that "
the interest of the traditional chiefs for their inheritance was aroused by them, the French
".
There is no anger in Felwine Sarr, who sends the ambassador in three lines: “
What to say?
The eternal art of appropriation.
In fact, nothing good is done, it seems, on this earth without their learned intervention.
The famous Enlightenment complex
”.
Contemplation in Manhattan
With a pen more contemplative than militant, with no other pretension than sharing moments, we find the author in the intoxication of Manhattan, in full inner ecstasy.
In Times Square, facing the colorful crowd and a Michael Jackson lookalike who turns down passers-by for a show, he writes: “
Enstase.
At the heart of this serene solitude, suddenly arises the desire for a meeting which I immediately know will not take place.
My stomach deepens, I go to a restaurant where I have lunch on a table at the back, to the right.
On the menu: a large steak, big daddy and baked tomatoes.
I buy some city caps and T-shirts, walk into a store on Broadway and get a legendary Levi's 501, size 36-32.
"
After all, Felwine Sarr is neither “Mister Restitution” nor “Mister Workshops of Thought”, despite this biennial meeting which he has been organizing in Dakar since 2015 with Achille Mbembe, and which takes more and more time. 'magnitude.
Former professor of economics at Gaston Berger University in Saint-Louis, moved to Duke where he now teaches.
His travel diary, in which he shares his passion for running, like the Japanese Haruki Murakami before him, shows above all that he remains himself.
A man who “
with age
” and despite success, “
sinks into solitude
”.
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