NOTE FROM THE FRENCH PUBLISHER

We recently received a notebook entitled The Negro Grandsons of Vercingetorix. Our editorial board made the decision to publish it. The text is signed by a certain Hortense Iloki.

According to Léopold Mpassi-Mpassi, who submitted the manuscript to us and who resides in France, at present the author is supposedly somewhere in the forests of southern Vietongo.

A separate sheet of paper, serving as a preface to the account, indicates that Hortense Iloki wished the reader to know something about her country from the beginning, before learning the facts that she relates. We include this note by way of introduction:

A former French colony in central Africa, the Republic of Vietongo numbers more than 2.6 million inhabitants and covers an area of 342,000 square kilometers. Its people, the Vietongolese, are mostly concentrated in large urban areas, including Mapapouville, the political capital, and Pointe-Rouge, the financial capital. The literacy rate is one of the highest in French-speaking Africa. Mapapouville was previously the capital of French Equatorial Africa (FEA) and of Free France under General de Gaulle.

The country is inhabited by several different ethnic groups; political power is held by the Northerners, a minority population. The economy is reliant on oil, which brings in about 90 percent of state revenue. This wealth, however, has not resulted in viable economic development.

Since 1958 Vietongo’s mosaic of ethnicities has been a source of friction orchestrated by political figures.

The current head of state is General Edou. He previously ruled for thirteen years, then was defeated by His Excellency Lebou Kabouya in the first democratic elections held in our country. It was the first time someone from the South had led Vietongo. General Edou went into exile in Europe during the five years of his southern rival’s term of office. He returned to power after driving out His Excellency Lebou Kabouya . . .

By the time people read this notebook, I may no longer be of this world.

My name is Hortense Iloki, and I am a northerner. I ought not to have had any reason to worry, really, since on that day my people, meaning those of my ethnic group, had come to power. But things are not so simple as that.

I had married Kimbembé, a southerner who was a native of the same region as Vercingetorix and His Excellency Lebou Kabouya, two characters the reader will meet very soon. The facts I relate here concern what without any doubt has been the darkest period of our country’s history. I’ve also included details from my own life and those of the people around me. But does my life not resemble the lives of all Vietongolese?