The Cat's Whiskers - Sayouba Traoré

The story takes place in a completely ordinary village. Life goes on slowly in Bookin, Burkina Faso. There, as elsewhere, Gara, a dyer by profession, must comply with the rules of the community, dictated by the king, by tradition. But insubordination lies dormant. An event will plunge the village into war and force Gara into exile. Later, in town, the immutable rules catch up with her daughter, Marguerite. She is in love with Didier, but their union is forbidden because of the young girl's origins. The old forces resurface in a modern context. Didier and Marguerite will have only one radical solution to force their destiny. When the original culture has been rejected, and one is abandoned in the middle of nowhere, one sometimes joins the territory of the new barbarians...

Sayouba Traoré traces here the fate of men and women with a completely ordinary destiny, who take the path of their lives, motivated by love, hate, ambition and the desire to defy authority and prohibition. He brilliantly depicts the thirst for power and success, the reasons that lead to it, the compromises, the scruples that must be silenced, and the stuff of which dictators are made...