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To appreciate the full power of Marc Alexandre Oho Bambe, one must see how he recites his poems and sometimes even improvises, as if possessed by a power much greater than himself. The Cameroonian poet and slammer, who lives in France and calls himself Captain Alexandre on stage, René Char’s code name during the Resistance, has just published something Remember not to die without having loved (Calmann-Lévy), a hybrid literary object in which prose and poetry mingle in a song so rhythmic that when you read it you almost believe you are hearing it.
The story of one “Half nigger”as she was called by her maternal grandparents, who never forgave her daughter for marrying her “a colored man” who one day receives a package in his mailbox containing audio cassettes, a record, Mo’ Better Blues, and a photo of a man who looks strikingly like him. So this jazz madman who was near death from an overdose decides to delve into his past, his present and maybe even his future to understand it. And tell everything to his daughter Indira, his passion.
Remember not to die without having loved, Marc Alexandre Oho Bambe, Calmann-Lévy, 280 pages, €19.50
The extract
I grew up as best I could with it all, the anger in my heart in shreds, torn between contradictory commandments and diametrically opposed visions, talk of race that reduced me to the pain of my skin, my brown Negro skin, my escaped skin, my skin saved by jazz, music, whose rhythm and freedom have inscribed and reconciled me into myself. Thanks to music, this music, I was no longer human Bastard coffee with milkThanks to music, this music, I would discover who I was, discover that I was.
Son of.
Cyclones.
And from.
Volcanoes.
Demiurge.
Creator.
Of beauty.
And magic.
child of.
The moment.
Free.
Like the wind.
