The author signs a new text, satirical and universal, which deserves to be heard far beyond the borders of his country.
Imagine a city in which two twin clocks, in the heart of the main square, show two different times. Five minutes difference. And an entire city tearing itself apart over this trivial difference, dividing into factions, each fiercely defending its time. It is into this absurd and terribly familiar universe that Joseph Mbarga draws us with "The General Estates of Time". Following this first novella, the Cameroonian author also offers "The Space of an Election". Both texts have been on display since this year.
Two novellas, two mirrors held up to our societies. In the first, an interim principal discovers that a bilingual high school is divided into rival camps based on their conception of the exact time. The satire culminates in a delirious assembly where each delegation brings its personal clock, transforming the room into a cacophony of cuckoos, gongs, and chimes.
Joseph Mbarga's Observation
In the second, a social science researcher files a complaint against a noisy bar. The closure of the establishment triggers viral controversies on social networks and the attention of a political party that sees in him an ideal candidate for the municipal elections.
What is striking in these two stories is the surgical precision of social observation. Joseph Mbarga does not denounce, he describes. He does not judge, he stages. And it is precisely this restraint that makes his satire so formidable. Every detail: the censor who slips a perfidious "Mr. Provisional" instead of "Mr. Principal", the activist who calls a stranger he meets in front of a restaurant "comrade" — is a flash of truth.
The language is rich, sprinkled with tasty wordplay and inventive turns of phrase. In 80 dense pages that can be read in one sitting, the author paints a striking portrait of our African democracies in the digital age: online manufactured popularity, instrumentalized indignation, the thoughtful individual caught up in collective dynamics that overwhelm him.
