Book Review #11
Yeama reads 'Adikou'
A young black woman somewhere between New York and Paris in search of herself. Join Yeama in her latest review for #Vorzeichen and follow the protagonist of Raphaëlle Red's debut novel Adikou on her journey.
I’d like to follow Adikou on her “search for a tangible origin.”
A wall of heat in Lomé yields to the “Mississippi breeze, full of blood and brimstone,” carrying me from the streets of New York City to Paris. We may be on the road, but it doesn’t take much time before we realize our entanglement in memories much deeper, capable of saying far more than the words on the page. They tell of the mosquito bites Adikou experiences each day as a young Black woman. Memories that spin a web of resilience across the continents. A web of transgenerational trauma, telling of shame, the desire to belong, and so much more.
Raphaëlle Red’s debut novel, Adikou, takes my breath away. Originally published this January in French, Raphaëlle Red’s artistic language uncovers new words along its search for self-discovery, and this seeking movement is reflected formally in the novel’s text. As readers, we are confronted by a narrative voice who switches between a first-person and omniscient narrator. Initially, I was a bit confused, but page by page, I noticed that Adikou was actually speaking with herself, contending with her inner conflicts: an innovative aesthetic means for tackling topics like arrival and returning home. I wanted to continue following Adikou on her journey, shaped as it was by her search for a language of her own. A language capable of always taking on new forms, of tracing its own inheritance—at times desolate, at others, tender in its meticulous observations, its descriptions of the most intimate emotions.
Through artful formulations, Raphaëlle Red sketches out scenarios that reveal vivid power dynamics. Will Adikou find herself? Will we find her? Does she find what she seeks?
A wall of heat in Lomé yields to the “Mississippi breeze, full of blood and brimstone,” carrying me from the streets of New York City to Paris. We may be on the road, but it doesn’t take much time before we realize our entanglement in memories much deeper, capable of saying far more than the words on the page. They tell of the mosquito bites Adikou experiences each day as a young Black woman. Memories that spin a web of resilience across the continents. A web of transgenerational trauma, telling of shame, the desire to belong, and so much more.
Raphaëlle Red’s debut novel, Adikou, takes my breath away. Originally published this January in French, Raphaëlle Red’s artistic language uncovers new words along its search for self-discovery, and this seeking movement is reflected formally in the novel’s text. As readers, we are confronted by a narrative voice who switches between a first-person and omniscient narrator. Initially, I was a bit confused, but page by page, I noticed that Adikou was actually speaking with herself, contending with her inner conflicts: an innovative aesthetic means for tackling topics like arrival and returning home. I wanted to continue following Adikou on her journey, shaped as it was by her search for a language of her own. A language capable of always taking on new forms, of tracing its own inheritance—at times desolate, at others, tender in its meticulous observations, its descriptions of the most intimate emotions.
Through artful formulations, Raphaëlle Red sketches out scenarios that reveal vivid power dynamics. Will Adikou find herself? Will we find her? Does she find what she seeks?
