THEME 1

Nous roulons sans cesse. De jour comme de nuit. Toujours vers la mer. Je me perds dans des terres
que je ne connais pas. J’imagine Jamal en train de faire la route dans l’autre sens. Il repasse la
frontière, sans joie cette fois, sans embrassade, retrouvant sa vie laide d’autrefois. Comme une bête
qui, après s’être échappée, retourne de son propre chef à l’étable.
Je me suis trompé. Aucune frontière n’est facile à franchir. Il faut forcément abandonner quelque
chose derrière soi. Nous avons cru pouvoir passer sans sentir la moindre difficulté, mais il faut
s’arracher la peau pour quitter son pays. Et qu’il n’y ait ni fils barbelés ni poste frontière n’y change
rien. J’ai laissé mon frère derrière moi, comme une chaussure que l’on perd dans la course. Aucune
frontière ne vous laisse passer sereinement. Elles blessent toutes.
Dans la voiture qui roule toutes fenêtres ouvertes, j’essaie d’imaginer la vie qui m’attend mais je
n’y parviens pas. Je ne peux penser qu’à ce que je laisse. Comme j’ai vieilli, tout à coup. Il n’y a
plus de joie et le monde me semble laid. La solitude prend possession de moi. Je vais devoir
apprendre à la laisser m’envahir. Je serre, du bout des doigts, le collier de perles vertes de mon
frère. La voiture roule. Je pense à toi. Je ne t’oublie pas, Jamal. Je vis pour toi.

Laurent Gaudé, Eldorado

VERSION 1

I was nine years old when I first met Kumi. He used to be one of our neighbors on Zongo
Street, a densely populated section of Kumasi, Ghana’s most prosperous city. Kumi was tall, lanky,
handsome, and always well dressed: clean white shirt, black tie, and neatly pressed khaki trousers.
He wore black shoes, and his strides were long and slow. His hair was nicely combed and he shaved
every morning before he left home for the Central Post Office in the town proper, where he worked
as a mail clerk.
Kumi lived by himself in an unadorned two-bedroom house that was located at the dead end
of Zongo Street. A low bamboo fence surrounded the house, to keep pedestrians away. The fence
was painted black, and so were the shutters of Kumi’s building, but for reasons known only to
himself, Kumi left the rest of the building unpainted. He was probably the only person on our side
of the street who liked flowers; the hibiscus were his favorite, and he planted them all over his little
compound.
Books were stacked everywhere inside Kumi’s living room – small books, large books, old
books, and even antique manuscripts that were written entirely by hand. The windows of the house
were always shut, and the only source of light in his living room was an old, rusty hurricane lantern
that sat on his study table. This always left the living room in half-darkness, which he seemed to
prefer. A large portrait of his children –two boys of about the ages seven and nine – hung on the
wall of Kumi’s living room, though he never talked about them. There was speculation that his wife
had tried for months to seek a divorce from him without any success and that he had come back
home from work one afternoon to an empty house. She had run away, taking along their two sons.

Mohammed Naseehu Ali, The Prophet of Zongo Street (2005)