San Francisco Frontiers - Guinea's Tierno Monenembo: stolen words and diehard critic of military rule

In the lush garden of a Conakry bar he frequents, Monenembo -- one of Africa's most highly regarded Francophone writers -- spoke to AFP about a life enmeshed in politics.

Monenembo's columns in Guinean satirical newspaper Le Lynx and French weekly Le Point offer astute observations about African political life and regularly denounce corruption across the continent.

The passage of time has done nothing to dull the 78-year-old writer's knack for speaking truth to power.

After a short depressive episode following the theft of a manuscript from his home in the suburbs of Conakry, the award-winning author of "The Bush Toads" ("Les Crapauds-brousse") and "Scales of the Sky" ("Ecailles du Ciel") has picked up the pen once more.

Monenembo's affable smile suggests an easygoing man, but just under the surface is an intractable determination to hold Guinea's ruling junta accountable.

The junta seized power in 2021, overthrowing president Alpha Conde from office.

Monenembo says the constitutional referendum on Sunday, September 21, is junta chief General Mamady Doumbouya's way of "legitimising his putsch and holding onto power for as long as possible".

Presidential and legislative elections are expected in the coming months and a return to constitutional order has been promised.

But all the signs suggest that Doumbouya will run for election despite an earlier commitment not to do so.

- Scorning power -

"In Africa, there is nothing new about leaders using the law to serve their own agenda," Monenembo said.

"Dictatorship is the ultimate form of injustice. Life is under threat every day. There are no rights."

Monenembo is one of the last people in Guinea to openly criticise the powers that be: voices of the opposition have been reduced to near-total silence.

Since the military coup, several political parties have been suspended, protests were outlawed in 2022 and have suffered fierce repression, and numerous opposition leaders have been arrested, convicted or forced into exile.

Forced disappearances and "almost daily" crimes are becoming the norm, Monenembo said. "We don't even know where people are, or whether they are alive or dead."

"They are stopping everything, even the course of history."

Monenembo received the Prix Renaudot, a French literary award, for his novel "The King of Kahel" ("Le Roi de Kahel") in 2008.

Now, he is disappointed with France's "silence, if not complicity" regarding "dictatorial trends across Africa, notably in Guinea".

Only the "brave people of Guinea", who have "always fought but have not yet won" against post-independence repression, seem to find favour in his eyes.

- 'History's natural course' -

Ever the optimist, the writer is adamant that democracy is "inevitable".

"It is history's natural course. No one has ever asked for a dictatorship."

Having fled Ahmed Sekou Toure's regime in 1969, Monenembo has "decided never to flee a dictatorship again".

The author was profoundly influenced by a period of exile with stretches in Senegal, France and Ivory Coast. "It is the very source of my literary conscience," he said.

While studying biochemistry in France in the 1970s, he wrote his first novel, which he describes as an "attack" on Sekou Toure's rule.

The experience "enticed" him into the literary world and was followed by more than 10 publications.

As forced disappearances and media crackdowns gather pace in Guinea, the internationally renowned author is fearless and defiant.

"If they want to kill me, they can kill me," he said. "To die for your ideas is a beautiful way for a writer to die."

- Stolen manuscript -

But the author considers the recent theft of his latest manuscript an ordeal worse than death.

During a robbery of his home in May 2024, only one item was taken: Monenembo's "old, good-for-nothing computer" that was storing three years' worth of writing on the brink of being sent to his editor.

A group of his young supporters searched the neighbourhood for the stolen manuscript to no avail.

The author accuses the Guinean authorities of engineering the theft.

"A small-time thief wouldn't be able to resist a 5,000-euro ($5,871) reward," he said, comparing the incident to a "desecration".

"Take something else. Throw me in prison or kill me. But why steal my manuscript?"

After months of "blackout", the author found the will to continue writing and hopes to finish his new novel before the end of the year.

Although the theme -- his childhood at the moment of Guinean independence in 1958 -- has not changed, Monenembo is emotional because he "cannot replicate the (stolen) novel... You don't swim in the same river twice."

N.Wilson--SFF