I’m Carlos Battaglini and I left everything to become a writer. Here you will find posts about my curious life in Liberia and other African countries. It is also where I immerse myself in the burning light of African literature through brutally honest book reviews. Welcome to your home and thanks for joining me on this adventure.
I left everything to become a writer, join me on this adventure.
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WHAT SHOULD I CALL IT? Jungle? Rainforest? Forest? Wilderness? Luxuriant foliage? There is definitely no word that can precisely define where I am heading to in Liberia. Countryside could be an option, but that doesn’t quite do it for me either. Jungle? No, impossible, I can’t call it the jungle. That would be over the…
There’s a certain military feel to the air, and people who come and go, smiling all over the place. To be exact, we are in the room that is trying to be a bar, surrounded by garish flags that hang from the ceiling, humus on the bar, more smiles and on the TV Jerry Lee…
“I have typhus, not today.” “Cool, come and watch the match then.” The first message is from Jacques, implying we will not be playing our usual game of tennis at the Ocean View compound at Mamba Point today. The second message is from Gilberto after finding out that I no longer have any plans. Rousseau…
AT FIRST I THOUGHT THAT THE BODY THAT LAY THERE MUST BE THAT WOMAN WHO LOVES THE GENERATOR. That woman who usually spends the whole day stuck to the powerful diesel engine that spurts out burnt smoke into her face. And warmth into her soul. Warmth. That woman who almost always ends up fast asleep…
IN GHANA, RELIGIOUS CONCENTRATIONS HAVE A POWERFUL STRONGHOLD. ‘Empowerment’, as the phenomenon is called, is full of clergymen whose faces are shown on many street walls announcing the next encounter and encouraging people to join the movement, to adhere to the cause. Near Independence Square some children play football on a scrap of wasteland where…
As we return to the car, I share with Fred and Alex what Kapuscinski once wrote about Liberia in his masterpiece, The Shadow of the Sun. How he’d be decapitated if he didn’t hand over money to the boys who watched over him whilst he slept. Fred can’t contain his laughter while Alex recoils in…
I HAVE HAD A FEW DRINKS TOO MANY, and shit, now I forgot what I was going to say. Eeerm, basically with today’s post I intend to talk about those who leave Liberia. About those people you meet in this country and that some day or another will disappear into thin air, swish swish. That’s…
Things Fall Apart is a classic piece of African literature, and why not, of world literature. The story portrays a typical African rural reality (Nigerian in this case), where the relationship between religion, white man and the colonisation of the African continent is explained. Certainly, back in the day in Africa (as on other continents…
IT’S FULL OF PIGS. That’s what we found upon arrival at the next village, Green Hill Quarry, in Liberia. The village is shaped like an L-shaped slide. It’s so inclined that it feels like we are sliding, wheeee. The dirty pigs, which are emaciated with protruding bones, are scurrying all over the village. They eat a lot,…
“BECAUSE IF NOT, I’LL DIE”. Sitting at a round, plastic table. We drink some Club Beers. Our pupils dilate and take on the form of small sugared ovals. That go up and down. Kevin comes closer to us and tells us, “Because if not, you die… So this weekend I went to Buchanan. You have…
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“If you go to Kindia, you know: go up Gangan and go and see my Guinean family”, said Monique, my Belgian friend in Liberia. Despite the fact that Monique had left Guinea with a bad taste in her mouth, she thought a lot about her “family”. So, Samory made a phone call and nodded his…
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ON THE UNSTOPPABLE ROAD TO INSANITY that stems from any mental insistence (please keep reading). Now. That I have just got back from Europe – from the “white world” – I want to scream out the following: In third place: when one is reunited with the land where one grew up after a considerable journey,…
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Heart of Darkness narrates the story of a sailor named Marlow, who one day decides to join a naval company that takes him from London to Africa. There he discovers how exotic the African continent is. The narrator refers to it as ‘the darkness’ – the obscure, the indefinable. It is not long before Marlow…
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VICTOR, ANESA AND I TAKE UP THE CENTRE OF THE ROOM AT BLACK AND WHITE FORMING A TRIANGLE. We start dancing with energy. Here, in Buchanan, in Black and White you have to crouch to dance, almost kneel down and kiss the floor. Take a look. This guy in green, without bones he crouches so…
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The granite tiles at the Zaventem airport in Brussels are a stranger colour every time I see them. The marble I slowly discover increasingly adopts an expression that I cannot decipher. I walk past the gates and then more gates, Gate 3, 24, 55, 77, 91… there are fewer and fewer people at this end.…
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I HAD JUST BEEN TO EUROPE. I HAD JUST BEEN TO SPAIN. I HAD FELT THE HEAT. I had felt the heat. I had felt the cold. Loads of iPhones, brother. Is it impossible to enjoy the present these days? Thousands of heads all looking downwards and pushing buttons. Hey, those hamburgers with onion are…
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Regarding the novel’s title, one wonders why beautyful and not beautiful? It seems probable that this has been a slip in the English spelling, which is not uncommon in Africa. In fact, in Ghana the main language is Twi and English is not as fluent as one could expect. It would not be unreasonable to…
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THE WATERFALL DROPS SPECTACULARLY ONTO THE LAKE and can be observed from two wooden hammocks that almost enter the water as if they were airbeds. This is undoubtedly a privileged enclave, where you can let yourself go with the soundtrack of the water, the colour of relaxation and the fumes of winding down. You could…
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I AM WRITING FROM ACCRA, GHANA, AND I CAN SCARCELY BELIEVE THAT I AM FINALLY HERE. I am writing with bloodshot eyes, with several days’ stubble and pronounced bags under my eyes, but I want to tell you my story. So off I go. I leave from Liberia by aeroplane and land at Kotoka airport…
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I SLEEP IN GBENEQUELLEH IN A TINY ROOM with no mosquito net, hoping malaria in Liberia doesn’t recognise me. Deep into the night, an overwhelming silence alternates with the roar of generators. I am tired and can hardly sleep. The next morning, Fred springs straight up, so he has obviously had a good rest compared to…
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CONSISTENT WITH THE IDEA THAT HUMAN BEINGS ARE ANIMALS who usually have dinner at night, I logically attended the collation at the Korean restaurant at Bushrod Island, Monrovia, in the evening. As you do. I walked up the entrance stairs and joined…
WE LEAVE GBARNGA BEHIND. It hits us that this time we are going for good and we are suddenly overwhelmed with sadness: the green and red has got under our skin by now. But before leaving Gbarnga, we have to…
I SLEEP IN GBENEQUELLEH IN A TINY ROOM with no mosquito net, hoping malaria in Liberia doesn’t recognise me. Deep into the night, an overwhelming silence alternates with the roar of generators. I am tired and can hardly sleep. The next…
Africa
The word Party encapsulates the meaning of the universe. The idea of a party offers an opportunity to escape from the powerful and dictatorial god by the name of Routine. When the lungs breathe out “party”, the possibility of possibility…
FEAR IN BLACK AND WHITE. Some people have started leaving the bar, forming a scary, irregular line. “This bar is mine and I want to tell you loud and clear that over there by the bar, there are some guys…
Things Fall Apart is a novel that narrates the story of Okonkwo, an Igbo farmer and warrior who settled in the fictitious village of Umuofia…
Despite a number of negative consequences, Powers also discovers that these same development projects are sometimes capable of providing real help and happiness to local…
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“If you go to Kindia, you know: go up Gangan and go and see my Guinean family”, said Monique, my Belgian friend in Liberia. Despite…
I COULD BARELY SEE IT. But, according to Samory, the tall, skinny building rising up behind us had been the Presidential Palace. I turned around…
Helene Cooper tells us that she had ancestors on the colonisation ships coming from the United States, specifically Elijah Johnson, a man with a lot…
Going back to Helene Cooper’s life, it became considerably more complicated when the Liberian civil war broke out, a factor that forced her to move…
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Click, click. We have several photos taken with the people at the organisation and with the whole village. Those photos immortalise a great moment. Then…
THE TELEPHONE IN MY BEDROOM RINGS AT HALF PAST SIX IN THE MORNING. Irritated, I place the receiver to my ear, and the receptionist tells…
