Blue White Red. Alain Mabanckou

presumptuous and who gave the best of myself. That’s what I expect.

      It’s difficult for me to step back from this. Things are happening fast. Tonight? Tomorrow? Day after tomorrow? I have no idea what day it is. My reminiscence is an unavoidable internal examination to ease my conscience, freed from the sludge of remorse that crushes my thoughts . . .

      With perseverance and dogged determination for a shovel, I’ll take whatever time it takes to exhume all those moments that catapulted me from near and far, all the way to this place, more than six thousand kilometers from the land where I was born.

      PART ONE

      The Country

       It is better to dream one’s life than to live it, though even living it is to dream it.

      —Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time

      MOKI AND HIS RETURN

      MOKI’S SHADOW

      MOKI’S FATHER

      GENERAL DE GAULLE

      THE WHITE VILLA

      TAXIS

      THE TALE OF ARISTOCRATS

      THE NEWBORN

       PARIS IS A BIG BOY