Six readings to discover authors from Africa and Haiti who tell a completely different story, far from our daily lives and realities. For this 11th edition, RFI proposes to discover the winner of the RFI Theatre 2022 Prize, the Haitian Gaelle Bien-Aimé, who recounts a daily life of violence and threats in Port-au-Prince, as well as writers who describe an African continent struggling with the demons of modernity. Finally, it is an opportunity to rediscover a text by Kossi Efoui, winner of the 1990 Inter-African Theatre Competition organised by RFI at the time. A prize that "saved his life", according to his own admission, when he was arrested and tortured as a student activist in his country, Togo. For all of them, theatre is both a weapon and a shield, a vital gesture where the urgency to say can be heard in every line. Six texts recorded in Avignon and broadcast around the world on international radio.
Kossi Efoui is the author of some fifteen texts, novels and plays and, as such, a fellow traveller with the Compagnie Théâtre Inutile. Born in the Gulf of Guinea (Togo), he was forced to leave his country in 1990 because his political activism was under threat. Le carrefour is his first play, which won him first prize in the Inter-African Theatre Competition. An award that "saved his life", as he recounts in his latest novel: Une magie ordinaire (Éditions du Seuil).
Le Carrefour
It is a scene that repeats itself under the eye of the Blower: a crossroads where a lamppost marks the time of night. The Woman waits. The Cop prowls. The Poet returns after a failed attempt to get away. Here, being outside or being inside, in the open air or in a cell, merge into a single concentration camp reality.
Le carrefour is published by L'Harmattan.
Distribution
The Ça va, ça va le monde ! series is designed and coordinated by Pascal Paradou
Reading by Ibrahima Diokine Sambou, Josué Ndofusu, Sabine Pakora and Basile Yawanké
Reading directed by Armel Roussel
Assisted by Alex Sartoretti
Musical creation by Pierre-Alexandre Lampert
Production
Coproduced by RFI, Compagnie [e]utopia
With the support of the French Institute, SACD for its radio cultural action, Wallonie-Bruxelles International
Live on RFI's Facebook page Recorded on RFI and rfi.fr