I started this book in August for Women in Translation Month, but it turns out that historical epics take a while to read and even longer to process. Segu by Maryse Condé (translated by Barbara Bray) follows one family in the city state of Segu, in what is now Mali. Though they don’t all stay there, allowing the family saga to become epic in what it encompasses.

The story begins in 1797. Dousika Traore, trusted adviser to the king, has four sons by his various wives and concubines. (I have already forgotten whether he also has daughters, which I think speaks to how generally the women in this book are barely mentioned, though a few do get a bigger role.) They are wealthy, with a large home and money to pay the fetish priests to ensure the continuation of their good fortune.

The first dent in that fortune is the oldest son Tiekoro, who is intrigued by the newly arrived religion Islam – and in particular the access to knowledge that is provided by learning to read and write, a necessity in Islam that is forbidden for the rest of the Bambara (who make up the majority of Segu’s population). Most Bambara – including the king and his other advisers – are deeply suspicious of Islam and look down on Dousika when his son’s secret is revealed, but Dousika sees an opportunity to make strategic alliances through his son. The decision will reverberate through generations and Condé makes no clear statement as to whether Dousika’s choice was right, wrong or inevitable and therefore no choice at all.

The other major force of change is European colonialism. In 1797 the Atlantic slave trade is at its peak but soon Europeans will abandon it one by one and turn to other means of stripping resources from West Africa. Condé depicts the ways in which slavery was part of daily life for many West Africans, and how that is different from the industrial-scale torture introduced by the white men. She doesn’t depict the “local” slavery as good or acceptable, simply shows that it was a part of life at the time.

Among all this there are local historic rivalries and personal grievances. The writing is gripping and evocative, bringing to life a swathe of history I didn’t know about. From the end notes and references, more of this novel is based on historical fact than I realised while reading it, including some of the minor characters.

“For Siga, love was like the first showers of the rainy season. The dry season seems as if it will never end. The earth is cracked and crumbled. The grass is scorched. The sap has dried up in the trees. And the clouds gather over the fields. Soon they burst. Naked children run out to catch the first drops of rain, still hot and few and far between. And then everything grows.”

Some reviewers have accused Condé of Islamophobia and I will admit I did have moments when I wondered if that might be true, but she brings the same scepticism to her depictions of Christianity and fetishism, so I think she might actually be anti-religion. With all three religions there are characters who are saved by the religion and people fooled by it; there are true believers and there are hypocrites. It perhaps doesn’t help Condé that in the time and place she is writing about, wars were being waged in the name of Islam, so the question of whether it was a force for good or bad was inevitably on the minds of the people of Segu.

Another accusation levelled at this book is misogyny, and that one I come closer to agreeing with. I certainly have a problem with the number of women who are raped and then fall in love with their rapist, a situation that would be bad enough happening once in a novel. And women are generally in the background, their fates often not revealed. That said, much of the misogyny depicted in this novel must surely be true to its time and place, and there are a few women characters Condé follows whose stories reveal the precarious position so many women were in. Even when born into a rich family, highly skilled and intrepid, or lucky enough to find a good man who loves her, women’s fates still tend to be terrible. She might be claimed as a slave or kidnapped; be the “wrong” race or religion; be infertile or only have daughters; be “too” outspoken or clever – society, and especially men, will find a way to punish her.

As with most epics, there were some characters I loved while others annoyed me. Some I despaired for when they met calamity, others I shrugged and moved on. There were also some sections that felt very slow moving and others where the years flew past and events with them.

“In streets and coffeehouses all conversation would stop, and hundreds of pairs of unbearably bright eyes – grey, blue and green – would stare at him. People touched his skin to see if its colour was painted on. They felt his hair. As soon as he opened his mouth they cried, ‘He can talk! And he speaks English!’ Was this the behaviour of civilised people?”

There is apparently a sequel, The Children of Segu, which continues the story of the Traore family further into the 19th century, and specifically the French colonisation of the region. I’m certainly intrigued.

I bought this book based on a list of recommended reads by African women. Condé is not herself African, but she is a highly celebrated Black Caribbean author who has lived in Guadeloupe, France, several West African countries and the US. Her novels have been set in roughly the same variety of locations, often though not all historical. Her 1995 novel Windward Heights is a reworking of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights set in Cuba and Guadeloupe, which interests me very much.

Ségou: les murailles de terre published 1984 by Editions Robert Laffont.
This translation published 1987 by Viking Penguin.

Source: Blackwells.