Embracing the Horizon

Borders and their crossings play an immensely important part in our lives, in every aspect - as they do in literature. The main character in Tchicaya U Tam'si's novel Ces fruits si doux de l'arbre à pain (1987) is a judge, that is, a professional guard of boundaries of a specific kind: those between good and evil. As a judge, he stands for the need to uphold boundaries and for the survival of the community, indeed, of the species. But, as Judge Raymond Poaty soon finds out, it is impossible to maintain the clarity of the domain he serves. This confusion is an allegory for the state of the contemporary world.