Narratives of excision: master- and counter-narrative in Ahmadou Kourouma’s <i>The Suns of Independence</i>

Abstract This article examines the forms taken by master- and counter-narratives in fiction through a case study of Ahmadou Kourouma’s first novel, Les soleils des indépendances (1968), published in English as The Suns of Independence in 1981. It focuses specifically on the third chapter, which contains the narrative of the genital excision and rape of Salimata, the main protagonist’s wife and second protagonist of the novel. As Michael Bamberg and Molly Andrews remind us, “[c]ounter-narratives only make sense in relation to something else, that which they are countering” (2004: x). First, I shall examine the relation of countering in the chapter in question: it contrasts the glorious narrative of excision presented by Salimata’s mother with Salimata’s traumatic experience as recalled by the character herself. Then, I shall consider the master- and counter-narrative of excision from the perspective of narrativity and tellability: contrary to the mother’s master-narrative, which features a relatively low degree of narrativity and tellability, the counter-narrative centered on Salimata contains all the elements making it possible to speak of an individual, prototypical narrative, therefore a counter-narrative in the proper sense. Finally, I shall ask what fiction brings to counter-narrativity: in particular, a distinctive account of “what it is like” to undergo the operation of excision. Overall, the aim of the article is to show that the interpretive frame of master- and counter-narratives allows in some cases to shed new light on what is loosely called the “message” of a fictional narrative: in this case, the denunciation of traditional practices harmful to women, with the active or internalized participation of women themselves.