This was an interesting read about the Ebola epidemic that ravaged West Africa in 2013-2016. The author was born in France, the daughter of an Ivorian civil servant and a French artist, brought up in Côte d’Ivoire, and has lived in many places in Africa. The deadly outbreak began in Guinea, spread to Liberia, and then to Sierra Leone two months later. There were officially 28,646 suspected cases recorded with a final death toll of 11,323 and a case fatality of 40%, although these numbers were probably significantly higher in reality.

The story begins with two young boys hunting in the forest who catch and eat a bat, and die shortly afterwards. Tadjo uses multiple perspectives to tell her story, that of a grave-digger, a dedicated nurse, an exhausted doctor, a grieving mother. She even uses the perspective of the majestic baobab tree, the voice of the virus itself and the bat its host. The tale is engrossing, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, with the hardships of isolation, the toll on families and the difficulties enforcing the behavioural shifts needed to beat the rampant spread of disease. There are also comments on foreign aid and systemic issues within the medical system. I found this a short but powerful read. ( )

I read this because it won LA Times Book Award for fiction. Usually, award winners are great to read but not this. We get lectured by a tree, bat, and the Ebola virus. Interspersed with chapters on individuals, such as doctors, nurses, family members, and survivors, we get a view of the devastation of the Ebola outbreak in Africa. I usually am interested in such medical issues, but this book didn't do it for me. ( )

Je me souviens de l’épidémie d’Ebola qui a touché l’Afrique de l’Ouest en 2014. Je me souviens de l’impuissance que j’ai ressentie, et aussi de l’étonnement à la panique qu’on ressentait dans les médias occidentaux. Je me souviens d’une personne interrogée par la radio française qui disait sa peur de toucher la barre du métro. J’avais trouvé cela un peu ridicule et dénotant une bien mauvaise information sur le virus. Puis le Covid est passé par là, et la panique est revenue, pourtant ce virus est bien moins grave qu’Ebola. Que se serait-il passé si nous avions eu en France (et dans le monde) un virus aussi contagieux et létal qu’Ebola ?
Je ne sais pas, et ce livre ne répond pas à cette question. Ce livre est une sorte de tombeau (au sens d’hommage) aux différentes personnes qui ont été affectées par l’épidémie, ou qui s’y sont retrouvées mêlées, volontairement ou non. Chaque chapitre est une voix différente, un point de vue différent. Les survivants, les médecins, les autorités, les fossoyeurs, et même le baobab et la chauve-souris.
J’avais envisagé de lire ce livre à sa sortie, en 2017, puis cela ne s’était pas fait. J’en ai entendu à nouveau parler à la faveur de sa traduction en anglais, et cette fois j’ai franchi le pas. Ce n’est pas pareil de lire ce livre avant l’épidémie de Covid ou après, et je n’ai pu m’empêcher de comparer. Une comparaison qui met en évidence surtout des similitudes, et bien peu de différences. On se gausse beaucoup de l’incurie des pays africains, mais les questions ont été les mêmes, les hésitations aussi, les erreurs même. Et les mythes quand à des traitements possibles, ou des façons de se protéger.
Le style du livre est assez plat, je n’ai pas été emportée par la plume de l’auteur, mais les personnages sont poignants. Ils se livrent entièrement, sans fard, et les angoisses, les doutes, les hésitations, les peurs sont là. Et parce que l’on sait que c’est une épidémie réelle, on sait que de telles personnes ont existé. Je ne sais pas comment Véronique Tadjo a pu donner la voix à tant de points de vue différents, elle qui n’a pas pu être tout cela à la fois, mais chaque témoignage est criant de vérité. La dédicace m’avait touchée : « Aux victimes de la Guinée, du Liberia et de la Sierra Leone. A tous ceux qu’Ebola a touchés de près ou de loin, c’est-à-dire à nous, les hommes. », le reste du livre aussi.

This was a pretty beautifully written book, at least in translation; Tadjo manages to move from point of view to point of view in ways that explore the humanity or non-humanity of her narrators yet also feels cohesive and holistic in their tone. The chapter from the virus itself was I think the most powerful to me as we live through a pandemic and think about our relationship to viruses. Just a beautiful book with a lot to chew on. ( )

One of the interesting aspects of the way readers have responded to the pandemic is that some were so discombobulated that they said they couldn't read at all; some resorted to 'comfort reading'; some devoured books about plagues such as Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks and The Plague by Albert Camus; and others like me went out of their way to escape into other times and places where pandemics had no place. So I am not quite sure what motivated me to buy a recent release from poet, novelist, academic and artist Véronique Tadjo from Côte d'Ivoire...

In the Company of Men is, in the words of blurber Christopher Merrill:

A spellbinding narrative about the roots and ravages of an Ebola outbreak and a reminder that deadly new diseases spreading from humankind's encroachment on the natural world recognises no borders, political parties or faiths...essential reading.

Anyway, the book arrived from Readings, and it went on top of the T pile that has burst its banks on the shelves, and in a feeble attempt to stave off the threat of the pile toppling onto the floor, I took the first book from the top and started reading without really intending to read it now.

Sometimes, it's really good to be wrong about things, and I'm glad I didn't defer reading In the Company of Men. Yes, there are distressing scenes, but they are not the entire focus of the novel, which is more about the issues that arise when highly transmissible diseases spread out of control.

Still, it's confronting to read in Chapter II about the innocence of two boys larking about in the forest, who hunt and kill a bat and eat the bushmeat over a log fire, and are at death's door a month later. Most confronting of all is the response of the nurse:

He said to the father: "Whatever you do, stay away from your children. Don't touch them, don't dry their tears. Don't take them in your arms. Keep your distance from them. You're in serious danger. I'll call in my team." He scribbled a brief report in his notebook and hurried away to alert his superiors. But the mother didn't budge from her children's bedside. She wept as she caressed their faces and gave them sips of water to drink. (p.6)

This novella was first published in 2017 in the wake of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa (2014-16). Although there had been outbreaks of catastrophically infectious diseases such SARS (2003) in China and MERS (2012) in the Middle East, for most of us the horror of this scene is something that happened somewhere else. But now we are all familiar with reports of people dying alone, or nursed without human touch by people shrouded in plastic. We have seen the grief of those unable to hold their loved ones and comfort them as they die. We have learned that risking infection is not a matter of personal choice; preventative behaviours are mandated by law.

The novel, however, is not just a melancholy narrative about suffering and grief. It explores the way people respond to events like this. Part of the novel is narrated by Baobab, the first tree, which keeps the memory of centuries gone by, whether bruised or blessed by the gods. It witnessed the damage done to nature and the way mankind has altered the equilibrium of the world. It witnessed the way the rest of the world did it best to stay away while the epidemic wreaked devastation on Africa, a cradle of untold suffering. It saw courage too, men, women and children determined to fight for their own survival and that of others [...] people who did not think twice about offering help. The narratives also include an exhausted doctor, haunted by the death of a child; and a nurse who recognises that it's women who are the worst affected [...] because it usually falls on them to care for the sick and they're the last to leave home and seek treatment. She makes the connection between government choices and her ability to practise her profession:

I can't say exactly how it happened. How it was that my colleagues and I slowly, gradually, let our standards slip. We started to compromise. We began turning a blind eye to negligence. We had no choice but to let our patients know that there was no more cotton wool, no more alcohol disinfectant, no more syringes, no more suturing thread. It was up to them to buy those things, to send their family members to the nearest pharmacy in order to get what was needed. At the same time, we knew perfectly well just by looking at them that they'd never be able to pay for even half of it. They'd go to the pharmacy, but once they got to the cash register, they'd end up buying just the minimum, or just the cheapest items.

We took to the streets, staging public protests in order to force the government to adopt reforms. All in vain. (pp.47-8)

Here in Australia at the advent of C_19, we were shocked to learn that we did not have enough ventilators and that we might not even have enough beds. We no longer had the capacity to manufacture vaccines. We were unprepared, we did not have what we needed, and there were delays in getting supplies. After years of economic rationalism, it was the same all over the world.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2021/05/15/in-the-company-of-men-by-veronique-tadjo-tra...