One day, when I will seriously consider my option of doing more literary videos, Fatou Diome should be one of the first authors to interview.
Her collection of essays Le Verbe Libre ou le Silence - in my approximate translation, The free word or the silence - is ironically but firmly taking a serious and elaborate stance against all the non-literary traps that do limit and distort the act of writing. From the insistence on identity politics to the search for commercial/sometimes sensationalist takes: your novel must ´sell´, your style needs to be polished to answer some specific expectations the ideal buyer may have, and definitely, if you are born in Senegal or outside the ´Western world´, remember the traumatic experiences as a child.
Editors and their likes are killing the freedom the writer dreams of. The freedom one needs to exist as a writer. Hopefully, we have nowadays the chance of self-publishing, but Diome doesn´t have a take on this.
My relationship with this book evolved as I was advancing through reading. She writes so freely and I am sometimes so much into traditional literary frameworks that at times was feeling that her writing is too heavy with metaphors and style twitches. But, it was only me and once I really matched the pace and ideas, I couldn´t stop reading and thinking and smiling as well.
It is so important to be reminded what and especially why to stand for. Le Verbe Libre...
Rating: 4.5 stars
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