Rimbaud fictions: Victor Kathémo

Swaying ship

the novel Le descendant Africain d'Arthur Rimbaud Victor Kathémo's 2012 novel tells the story of Racho, a first-person narrator born in Ethiopia, specifically in Dirédoua near Harar. His life takes an unexpected turn when his identity papers are stolen and the thief dies in an accident. Based on the address on the stolen documents, Racho's family believes the deceased to be Racho himself and holds a funeral that is detrimental to his character. Misunderstood and feared by his relatives as a "revenant" or "malevolent spirit," Racho leaves his village and embarks on a perilous journey he calls his "Stations of the Cross." These events form the basis of a play entitled Le Train de Bellevie, whose premiere Racho attends as "guest of honor" and which allegorically represents his misfortune.

During his odyssey, Racho discovers that he is a distant descendant of Arthur Rimbaud. His great-great-grandmother, an Amhara woman and spice trader, had a "brief and discreet liaison" with Rimbaud in Harar, which resulted in a child after Rimbaud's sudden departure. Racho, himself a sculptor from Cotonou (called Cototrou) in the Gulf of Guinea, who earns his living transforming scrap metal into works of art, decides to emigrate to Europe, specifically to the Rhineland. He travels as a stowaway in a shipping container. After arriving in Le Havre, he attempts to reach Germany via Strasbourg but is apprehended by the German police and handed over to the French police, where he is forced to apply for political asylum. His situation as an asylum seeker is marked by uncertainty and a loss of autonomy. In France, he marries Catherine, a former prostitute, to legalize his residency status. At the same time, he keeps his relationship with his first wife, Rahel, and their son, Tesfaye, secret. He brings them to France under the pretext that they are his sick sister and nephew. When Catherine discovers his deception, Racho leaves her, but is also rejected by Rahel, who has since entered into a new relationship. The novel ends with Racho having started a new life in Aurillac, where he reflects on the role of fate, other people, and "combine" (cunning, adaptation) in shaping one's life.

Questions arise such as these: In what way does Arthur Rimbaud's ancestry shape Racho's identity, his destiny, and his self-perception, particularly in the context of his own existential crises and life as an immigrant? How are Rimbaud's life—his travels, his creative periods and his withdrawal from poetry, his physical suffering, and his death—reflected and reinterpreted in Racho's story? How is the "Train to Bellevie," as a central motif of the play, to be interpreted in the novel, and what parallels exist with Rimbaud's idealized or dashed hopes? What final message or interpretation does the novel offer regarding Rimbaud's legacy and human existence in the face of alienation, suffering, and adaptation?

Theses on the novel as Rimbaud fiction

The deconstruction of identity and the Rimbaud legacy as both burden and driving force

Racho's supposed descent from Rimbaud is the central driving force of his life and his search for a "paradise" in Europe. Initially, this lineage is a source of pride and hope for "a divinely inspired life" and "treatment like princes." But in France, the land of his ancestor, this identity is increasingly deconstructed. Racho's own reflection appears to him "deformed, vanishing, cross-hatched" and "far, very far removed from the image of this man." The rejection of his asylum application, on the grounds that the "transgenerational dilution of Rimbaud's blood" is too great to justify legal privileges, is a direct metaphor for the devaluation of his heritage in the eyes of bureaucracy and society. The identity that drew him to Europe becomes a burden that, paradoxically, closes the door to a privileged life. The statement that "when you no longer resemble yourself, you no longer resemble anything" becomes a painful reality for Racho, who loses his original identity in Europe and wonders if he has fallen into an "imposture." His Rimbaud legacy is thus not only a source of fame but also a catalyst for a profound identity crisis and alienation.

The journey as an existential escape and search for the ideal (Bellevie)

Racho's arduous escape from war and famine in Ethiopia and his odyssey to Europe form a direct parallel to Rimbaud's abandonment of poetry and his extensive travels through the Orient and Africa. While Rimbaud's journeys are often interpreted as an escape from himself or a quest for material gain, Racho's "call of the wide" ("l'appel du large") is a search for an idealized "land of his ancestor," a "paradise," a "radiant, rich, generous" existence, a "Bellevie." The play's central motif, the "train to Bellevie," symbolizes this unattainable ideal. It is a "unique train" that comes only once in a lifetime, traveling at night to "break through the darkness." Yet, despite all efforts and hopes, the train does not stop, underscoring the illusion and unattainability of paradise. The realization that paradise in Rue Kléber, a red-light district, is unattainable, even with money, and that “hell is a realm of the living, since day breaks there too,” underscores the disillusionment. Racho’s crossing in a dark container, compared to a grave, and his “season in hell” (“une saison en enfer”) in France, filled with fear, loneliness, and bureaucratic hurdles, mirror Rimbaud’s own “Season in Hell,” but from the perspective of a modern African descendant experiencing the “hell” of migration.

Intertextuality as identification and subversive dialogue

The novel uses direct quotations and allusions to Rimbaud's work to establish a deep connection between Racho and his ancestor, while also allowing for a subversive interpretation.

Kathémo places Racho's painful experiences in Europe and his moral dilemmas within this famous literary tradition, thereby sketching a modern, migrant "hell" that is distinct from and complements Rimbaud's existential and spiritual struggle.

Perhaps the most prominent example is Racho's spontaneous exclamation of the verses from Rimbaud's poem "Oraison du Soir" (Evening Prayer) during the theatre performance. In a moment of supreme existential dread, when he is in a kind of state of shock and appears to be moving from his seat, he recites lines like "O, suprême Clairon plein de strideurs étranges, / Silences traversés des Mondes et des Anges / O juste! Il faut gagner un toit. Dis ta prière, / La bouche dans ton drap doucement expié ; / Et si quelque égaré choque ton ostiaire / Dis: Frère, va plus loin, je suis estropié ! / ​​Et ça me fait pleurer sur mon ventre, ô stupide / Je suis maudit, tu sais ! donc, / “Juste, je ne veux rien à ton cerveau torpide.” This identification is so strong that he believes Rimbaud’s spirit is coming to his aid. The quotation, which reflects Rimbaud’s own youthfulness, rebellion, and suffering, becomes Racho’s own expression of alienation (“estropié,” “maudit”) and despair, blurring the lines between poet and descendant. It is an act of appropriation and updating.

Subversion of homosexuality and the complexity of family bonds

The novel not only depicts Rimbaud's (at least temporary) homosexuality but also subverts it in an interesting way. The Captain claims that Rimbaud, whom he calls a "eunuch," was unable to father children. This assertion, however, is refuted by the existence of Racho as a direct descendant. Rimbaud's liaison with Racho's great-great-grandmother is described as "brief and discreet," perhaps alluding to the historical uncertainties surrounding Rimbaud's sexual identity in Africa or creating a counter-narrative to the Verlaine relationship. Racho's own relationships are complex: his bigamy and the concealment of Rahel and Tesfaye's identities as "sister" and "nephew" can be interpreted as a kind of "perverted" family structure born of necessity and survival during migration. This contrasts sharply with the traditional norms that Rimbaud's homosexuality also defied. Tesfaye's concept of the "mulatto half-brother" at the end of the novel symbolizes the further mixing of cultures and lineages, undermining the idea of ​​fixed, pure identities.

Death, rebirth, and the burden of physical suffering

The novel takes up Rimbaud's themes of death and physical decay and expands upon them. Rimbaud's amputation is briefly mentioned, and Racho's own experiences in the container are marked by mortal fear: he feels "paralyzed" and fears an "unexpected collapse" or a "malaria crisis." The "angel of death" threatens to devour his soul. Yet the novel also offers a perspective of metamorphosis: "To know several lives requires several deaths, but wouldn't death be beautiful if it could lead to a resurrection?" This thought is central to Racho's repeated new beginnings and his adaptability. The experiences that bring him to the brink of death, such as the crossing in the container or the "near-death experience" in Catherine's bathtub, are catalysts for deeper self-reflection and a kind of rebirth. Just as Rimbaud underwent a transformation in his suffering at the end of his life, Racho, too, repeatedly experiences existential crises that force him to redefine himself.

Rimbaud's poetic style in the novel – imagery and surreal perception

Kathémo's novel is stylistically influenced by Rimbaud's poetry, particularly in its rich, often surreal and dreamlike imagery. The prose is full of metaphors, personifications, and unexpected similes that reflect the narrator's inner world and distort reality.

Examples of surreal imagery include plane trees that bend their branches in a threatening manner, cars that transform into giant crocodiles, and poodles that mistake Racho's legs for tree trunks and try to urinate on them. These images create a menacing and alienating atmosphere in Paris, reflecting Racho's inner turmoil and paranoia.

The description of the crossing in the container with the flame performing an “initiatory dance”, or the thoughts being rummaged through like garbage to find “lost messages”, is reminiscent of Rimbaud’s ability to find poetic depth in the ordinary and even the repulsive.

Rue Kléber becomes a “hell” where prostitutes look “like rosy prawns on a grill,” ready to be “devoured.” This mixture of vulgarity and aestheticized description is typical of Rimbaud’s revolutionary use of language, which combined the sublime with the profane.

The narrator himself is a sculptor who “polishes, files, cuts, and welds rusty metals” to give them an “artistic expression.” His “words were the forms, the reliefs, that I impressed into a used canister with the blowtorch.” This is a metaphor for Rimbaud’s own “alchemy of the word,” which aimed to transfigure reality and give new meaning to the ordinary.

The novel seamlessly shifts between objective reality and Racho's subjective perception, often distorted by fear or wishful thinking, reminiscent of Rimbaud's tendency to blend dream and reality and to push the boundaries of rational perception.

Survival through “la combine”

The novel ends with Racho's "new start" in Aurillac, where he has managed to reorganize his life and prioritize "the essential over the superfluous." He realizes that fate depends not only on ourselves but also on others and on "unyielding" nature, which "despite everything, resists the satisfaction of our primary needs." This realization leads to "cunning" ("la combine") becoming our "mode of operation." "La combine" represents the necessity of adapting, compromising, and sometimes even deceiving in order to survive in a complex and often hostile world. Racho's life is a chain of such "combinations": identity theft, a marriage of convenience, and concealing his family.

The ending is far removed from the triumphant "Bellevie" he had dreamed of. Instead, it is a survival fraught with moral ambiguity. The final lines quote a song: "Thus, there, on the muddy floods of love, the consecration of darkness will still be heard celebrating." This is an ambivalent conclusion. It suggests that the search for happiness and light (Bellevie) is often shaped by the dark and "muddy" realities of life (betrayal, survival, compromise). The "darkness" is not merely an obstacle, but also a place where love and life manifest themselves in unconventional ways. The novel suggests that Rimbaud's legacy, teetering between genius and abyss, between idealism and disillusionment, takes on a new, profoundly human, and often somber meaning in the modern world of migration and existential struggles. It is a continuous “season in hell”, but one that teaches survival and adaptation.

Kathémos Roman adopts a unique perspective for his Rimbaud fiction, not merely quoting the poet's life and works, but actively integrating them into a contemporary narrative about identity, migration, and survival. He forges an intertextual relationship that casts Rimbaud's legacy in a new, often painful, but ultimately resilient light.