Mali, O Mali

MALI, OH MALI Would you like the latest news from Mali? A guide you are familiar with, Madame Bâ, would like to take you there. If you remember, she was refused a visa and had to explain who she was to the French republic. Then she crossed a few deserts and the Mediterranean to try to find her grandson who was snared and later abandoned by recruiting agents in Paris-Saint-Germain.Ten years later, grandmother and grandson return to their own country, now threatened by Jihadists. Following in their footsteps, you'll meet women who have narrowly escaped the horrors of Sharia law. In a camp to the north of Nyamey, you can play with 3,000 refugee children. You'll see the thriving but totally illegal economy affording some a wealthy existence. You'll get to know low-ranking officers, puppet soldiers terrorised by combat. You'll come under the spell of their predatory wives. You'll see how and why bandits and Jihadists are as thick as thieves. You'll reach Timbuktu just in time to witness the French soldiers arriving. You'll watch the general jubilation but fail to raise a sceptical protest: Nicolas Sarkozy's expedition in Libya merely drove the gangsters into Mali. Hollande's expedition sent them back to Libya... so they are still around, and will be back. So long as the ever-increasing numbers of young men have no other prospects but to enlist with Aqmi or with traffickers. Ten years after the publication of Madame Bâ, Erik Orsenna (a member of the Académie Française) returns to the woman who gives readers the clearest picture of Africa, its beauty and its wounds, and its complex relationship with France.