Summary

Ibéa Atondi uses the story of a return to his home country, Congo-Brazzaville, to adopt an unusual viewpoint on the wars of contemporary Africa. Fascinated by the bloodthirsty madness of Mignon, a Cobra fighter destroyed by alcohol and drugs, the female narrator attempts to grasp the mechanisms that drove him and his companions to abandon all human dignity. No images of violence are used to evoke the horrors of war; this is done through use of metaphor to underpin the statements of victims and executioners.