When Black Men’s Teeth Speak Out – Yambo Ouologuem

The poem When Black Men’s Teeth Speak Out by Yambo Ouologuem is included in the poetry anthology entitled The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry, edited by Gerald Moore and Ulli Beier – a collection which was released by Penguin publishing house, in 1984.

Yambo Ouologuem (August 22, 1940 – October 14, 2017), a member of Dogon ethnic group, from Mali of West Africa, has been one of the most important writers of the 20th century. During his stay in France, he wrote only three books and these in the French language:

1. The amazing novel Le Devoir de Violence (English title: Bound to Violence, 1968)
2. The charming provocative Lettre à la France Nègre (1969)
3. And the pornographic masterpiece Les Mille et Une Bibles du Sexe (1969)

He received the Prix Renaudot for his book Le Devoir de Violence, becoming the first black writer to win this French prize.

In this fiction book, which covers a period from the 13th century to the end of Colonialism, Yambo Ouologuem in turn deconstructs African Emperors, Islamic Monarchs, European Colonists, and the widespread ideology of his time, the Négritude.

In relation to his poetic work, this remains scattered, as there has not been a consolidated version of all his poems to date – and of course When Black Men’s Teeth Speak Out doesn’t belong in any original collection.

Yambo Ouologuem left France in the mid-1970s and returned to his hometown.

He did not write anything again – reminiscent of Rembo here – and lived until his death as a faithful Muslim.

A Muslim whose own Islam had nothing to do with the Islamic regime of those barbarians, who banned the music in Mali, smashed the tombs of muslim saints in Timbuktu, and destroyed the homonym Manuscripts.

Christopher Wise’s interview was given at the studio of the Africa No 1 Radio in Paris on February 27, 2019, on the occasion of his essay ‘A la recherche de Yambo Ouologuem‘.