Author Maryse Condé. Her novel Segu is now a Penguin Modern Classic. Philippe Giraud / Getty Images
Author Maryse Condé. Her novel Segu is now a Penguin Modern Classic. Philippe Giraud / Getty Images

Book review: Segu tells tale of an epic journey through pre-colonial Africa



“Segu wasn’t made for peace,” says one of the characters in Maryse Condé’s sprawling, stunning third novel. “Segu loves the smell of gunpowder and the taste of blood.” The book charts the turbulent history of the West African kingdom of Segu, and the plight of its people, the Bambara. At the same time it zones in and traces the mixed fortunes and internal struggles of key members of the aristocratic Traore family.

First published in France in 1984, then the United States in 1987, Guadeloupe-born Condé’s masterpiece is now available to a wider readership after joining the ranks of Penguin Modern Classics. In an age when publishers are quick to anoint an author and bestow classic status on any bestseller, it is refreshing to come upon a title worthy of the honour by a writer deserving of praise.

Segu begins in 1797 with a series of singular incidents. A white man is spotted approaching the gates to the kingdom. Dousika Traore, the king's most trusted court advisor, is summoned to the palace. His concubine Sira goes into labour. And Samake, a fellow council member and Dousika's arch-enemy, devises a plot to destroy him.

Condé expands on each incident and explores its consequences, and as we read on we realise how much those initial happenings serve as foreshadowing for what lies ahead.

Over the coming years, more white men appear, either with new religions or plans to plunder and colonise; Traore men give judgements and lead the way or are themselves judged and led astray; Traore women give birth to new generations; and lives are wrecked by fear, betrayal, rivalry and hostility.

After dealing with the fate of the Traore patriarch, Condé turns her attention to the trajectories of his four sons. Appalled by Segu’s endemic violence, first-born Tiekoro covertly embraces Islam, moves to Timbuktu to attend a Quranic school, then becomes an authority on Muslim affairs. Siga, the son of one of Dousika’s slaves, heads to Fez, becomes a merchant, then returns home to run his own tannery. Naba is kidnapped by slave traders, manhandled until “he no longer counted as a human being”, and shipped off to a plantation in Brazil. Youngest son Malobali rapes, loots and kills his way through the Ashanti kingdom, before finding redemption of sorts in Christianity.

These four sons and their descendants are caught up in the currents of change in Segu and buffeted by equally formidable forces outside the realm. Some are baffled at being mocked or condemned for their skin colour: “A black skin made you a creature apart. But why?”

One is sceptical of the mission his seminary is training him for: “To Christianise and civilise Africa. In other words, to pervert it?” Many are victims of war, neglect, misunderstanding, regime change or just casual cruelty. One is sentenced to death for being “a sorcerer, or a Muslim, it hardly mattered which”.

But Condé places more demands on her readers when her characters are not victims of bad deeds but perpetrators. We empathise with Tiekoro when he falls desperately for the beguiling Ayisha and doubts his love can be requited. On the next page, however, we learn he has been physically intimate with his father’s young slaves since he was 12. A couple of pages later he rapes a girl.

Malobali’s unchecked desires and brutal sprees are just as unsettling and it becomes hard to root for such “noblemen”, even when they do develop a conscience or atone for their crimes.

Fortunately, Condé’s epic novel is so well populated and so wide-ranging that we do not linger long over a sole character, a single episode or a moment of madness.

Segu is a saga, one whose many plot strands and family lines take us in and out of Africa and whose diverse and exotic secondary cast includes fetish priests and griots, lion-hunters and soothsayers, marabouts and mercenaries.

Equally varied is Condé’s prose. Harsh matters are described in correspondingly tough, terse, uncompromising language. Quieter, more contemplative scenes unfold in lyrical bursts – such as these airy phrasings: a departing soul “floated above rivers, soared over hills, breathed in without a tremor the thick mist that rose from the marshes”; above a town “floated a sort of mist, made up of the breath of the faithful praising Allah”.

Unlike Joseph Conrad's Costaguana (Nostromo) or Gabriel García Márquez's Macondo (One Hundred Years of Solitude), Condé's Segu is a real place and her novel is based on historical events. What makes the book "classic" is her seamless blend of hard fact and mesmerising fiction.

Malcolm Forbes is a freelance writer based in Edinburgh.

Hidden killer

Sepsis arises when the body tries to fight an infection but damages its own tissue and organs in the process.

The World Health Organisation estimates it affects about 30 million people each year and that about six million die.

Of those about three million are newborns and 1.2 are young children.

Patients with septic shock must often have limbs amputated if clots in their limbs prevent blood flow, causing the limbs to die.

Campaigners say the condition is often diagnosed far too late by medical professionals and that many patients wait too long to seek treatment, confusing the symptoms with flu. 

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Name: HyperSpace
 
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Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
 
Based: Dubai, UAE
 
Sector: Entertainment 
 
Number of staff: 210 
 
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
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Company: Justmop.com

Date started: December 2015

Founders: Kerem Kuyucu and Cagatay Ozcan

Sector: Technology and home services

Based: Jumeirah Lake Towers, Dubai

Size: 55 employees and 100,000 cleaning requests a month

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How The Debt Panel's advice helped readers in 2019

December 11: 'My husband died, so what happens to the Dh240,000 he owes in the UAE?'

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November 26:  ‘I owe Dh100,000 because my employer has not paid me for a year’

SL, a financial services employee from India, left the UAE in June after quitting his job because his employer had not paid him since November 2018. He owes Dh103,800 on four debts and was told by the panellists he may be able to use the insolvency law to solve his issue. 

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MS, an energy sector employee from South Africa, left the UAE in August after losing his Dh12,000 job. He was struggling to meet the repayments while securing a new position in the UAE and feared he would be detained if he returned. He has now secured a new job and will return to the Emirates this month.

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Date of Birth: April 25, 1993
Place of Birth: Dubai, UAE
Marital Status: Single
School: Al Sufouh in Jumeirah, Dubai
University: Emirates Airline National Cadet Programme and Hamdan University
Job Title: Pilot, First Officer
Number of hours flying in a Boeing 777: 1,200
Number of flights: Approximately 300
Hobbies: Exercising
Nicest destination: Milan, New Zealand, Seattle for shopping
Least nice destination: Kabul, but someone has to do it. It’s not scary but at least you can tick the box that you’ve been
Favourite place to visit: Dubai, there’s no place like home

The Sand Castle

Director: Matty Brown

Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea

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German intelligence warnings
  • 2002: "Hezbollah supporters feared becoming a target of security services because of the effects of [9/11] ... discussions on Hezbollah policy moved from mosques into smaller circles in private homes." Supporters in Germany: 800
  • 2013: "Financial and logistical support from Germany for Hezbollah in Lebanon supports the armed struggle against Israel ... Hezbollah supporters in Germany hold back from actions that would gain publicity." Supporters in Germany: 950
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Source: Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution

Other workplace saving schemes
  • The UAE government announced a retirement savings plan for private and free zone sector employees in 2023.
  • Dubai’s savings retirement scheme for foreign employees working in the emirate’s government and public sector came into effect in 2022.
  • National Bonds unveiled a Golden Pension Scheme in 2022 to help private-sector foreign employees with their financial planning.
  • In April 2021, Hayah Insurance unveiled a workplace savings plan to help UAE employees save for their retirement.
  • Lunate, an Abu Dhabi-based investment manager, has launched a fund that will allow UAE private companies to offer employees investment returns on end-of-service benefits.
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