The Last of the Arts by Fary Ndao is a modern tale around the fight between good and evil, with the theme of politics and its abysses. This story takes place in a West African country which is extremely reminiscent of the author’s native Senegal. From the first pages, the reader is plunged into the sludge of an ongoing presidential campaign. Scandals, betrayals, tensions, tug between idealism and moral compromises. This gives a carefully constructed story, with a consummate sense of economy of means and an astonishing maturity of words. Fary Ndao, remember this name, because you will hear about it.
RFI : Where is FaryThe Last of the Arts is your first novel. What does this novel say?
It’s the story of a presidential candidate in a West African country. The man finds himself in the second round, facing an outgoing president. And he inadvertently realizes that people in his close circle have committed an act that is morally wrong, but which may allow him to win. He is consumed by this dilemma. Does he remain pure, but he loses or does he take responsibility for this act because perhaps it allows him to win. The whole dilemma is there. Is what we do in politics worth it, but also the cost? What human cost, what moral cost, it costs us to commit ourselves to the community, this is for me the big question that I wanted to address in this book. I’m not sure I have the answer, but at least I tried to look deeper into the question.
In fact, if I understand you correctly, it is politics that is the “last of the arts”?
In fact, the title of the book, The last of the arts is the result of a misappropriation of a saying by Voltaire, who said that politics is the last of professions and the first of arts. By saying this, Voltaire implies that politics has a form of absolute nobility compared to other arts. But what I wanted to bring out was a bit of the chiaroscuro of politics. The fact of saying that politics is the ultimate art, an art where one must have acquired knowledge, work on one’s files, be eloquent, even be a tribune sometimes, but it is also an art where anything goes, where we sometimes betray our morals for greater goals, or just for the sake of having power. It is both the last in moral terms, it is the last in class among the arts, but it is also the last that we master, therefore the ultimate art. And so for me, it is the “last of the arts”.
However, the protagonist of your novel is an idealist…
Yes, but he is quickly overtaken by reality. That, I think, was the point of this book, was to say that somewhere we are all interested in politics. But we all also have a slightly pejorative image of it because we only see the actions of politicians and not the dilemmas they face. It was important for me to present these dilemmas, knowing that these dilemmas arise for me, because somewhere I am considering political engagement in the future. This form of questioning was very present in my mind. It had to be taken out. Maybe there are other, easier ways to get it out than writing a novel, but that’s the route I chose.
We will read your novel for your talent for creating particularly memorable and inspiring characters such as, for example, the figure of the communist leader Demba Diassé.
Demba Diassé was inspired by a significant figure in Senegalese political life who is Joe Diop, trade unionist, football coach and Marxist, who fought all his life for the cause of the people. He is still alive, going on 85 years. He had an incredible life of commitment: he traveled around the world, he found himself in communist resistance, met Mao, Fidel Castro. This character represents for me a form of radicality and a form of joy assumed in combat. He embodies what Camus says in The rebellious manwe must keep “ the grueling intransigence of the measure “. Joe Diop, that’s it, he’s someone who is radical, who expresses all his love for the people, especially someone who manages to remain joyful in this radicalism: he is not consumed by his fight. Moreover, he is not the only communist leader who has marked the imagination in my country. I pay a little homage to the entire Senegalese left through the character of Demba Diassé.
It’s difficult to miss the female characters who illuminate the pages of your novel. I’m thinking in particular of the protagonist’s wife, Zeynab, a truly powerful woman, a mix of Lady Macbeth and Michelle Obama. Who was your model for Zeynab?
There was no real role model so to speak for Zeynab. It is true that she constitutes more of a tandem than a “wife of”. She is a woman of great intelligence and great finesse. We can say that beyond the carnal or other passion that her husband devotes to her, the latter respects her from an intellectual and human point of view. On this female character, a little digression which will enlighten you on my approach. In reality, when I first wrote about Zeynab, my intention was to tell the story of the condition of “women of”, of “wives of”, particularly in political life. Then it happened to me, which often happens in fiction. By rereading the first pages that I devoted to her and the snatches of dialogue in which Zeynab reproaches her husband for his absences from home, I became aware of her individualism, her potential strength of character. So I wanted to give him a more important role in the plot, which readers will discover when reading the book. In a way, this character led me to change my perspective, telling me that we could not reduce women to their status as “woman of”. Zeynab has her own character, her own aspirations, her passions which distinguish her from her husband. I was careful not to overly tie the aspirations of my female characters to their spouses or their male friends. This is why regarding the character of the outgoing president, Aminata Sophie Cissé, we do not know if she has a husband or not. The president’s husband is never mentioned in the novel.
The Last of the Arts is a rich, complex novel, but its readers will be surprised to learn that its author comes from a rather scientific background.
Yes, absolutely. So I am a scientist, I am an engineer, a geologist by training, with studies that I carried out partly in France and another part in Senegal. I subsequently resumed studies in oil, gas and energy economics at the French Petroleum Institute. But apart from that, I have a special history with letters. I have often written, contributed, on blogs etc. I had a career as a slammer artist for 11 years, 12 even, where I did poetry shows on stage. I even tried to restore this aspect in the work where I even included a few extracts from my poetic texts, taking great care to hide them.
Can we say that you came to literature through slam?
Slam helped me work on language, particularly my relationship with wordplay, double meanings, alliteration, and assonance. As for fiction, I think I got there through contact with friends like Abdoulaye Sène, Elgas, Mbougar Sarr, Hamidou Anne, and a few others. This is how I gradually got into writing, with a growing desire to write a novel. My first attempt, which dates from 2018, was aborted, before I took up the pen again in September 2021, this time, to construct a plot based on the theme of politics which is, I admit, an obsession of mine.
The novel closes with an open ending, an ending that is anything but a resolution to the drama that runs through the novel. Why did you make such a choice?
I chose to have an ending that leaves the moral of the story open in reality. The moral choices that are made during the work could not be justified or sanctioned at the end of the book. For me, we had to give readers the freedom to continue thinking about the moral choices that were made by the protagonists.
The Last of the Artsby Fary Ndao. Editions Présence Africaine, 350 pages, 17 euros.
