Le roi de Kahel

Le roi de Kahel is based on biographical sources. The "King of Kahel" was Aimé-Victor Olivier, who lived from 1840 to 1919 and made five visits to the mountainous Fouta-D'jalon region (in what is now Guinea). Olivier had wanted to go to Africa since childhood, to find a country that could take over the civilization that he felt would disappear from northern climes with the coming of a new Ice Age. He was a rare nineteenth-century colonial adventurer who grew to have respect for Africans. In presenting a Frenchman in many ways the opposite of the typical colonialist, Tierno Monénembo has written one of the very few novels by an African told from the point of view of a European. Filled with detailed descriptions and ironic comments on both Europeans and Africans, it is an excellent portrait of a moment in the encounter of the two continents.