On the Contrary

Inteendeel sounds the death-knell of colonialism. The fact that the novel is presented as a confession from death-row to the slave Rosette, who was maltreated by Barbier and becomes the embodiment of the fate of Africa, gives added credibility to his feeling of guilt and his desire to make amends. Barbier creates a fictitious world in which truth and illusion are no longer distinguishable. But why would his imaginary account be less truthful than the manipulated, so-called factual, renderings of history which, in the first part of the novel were unmasked as wilful manipulations? Inteendeel makes it abundantly clear that the storyteller’s interpretation of reality is much more accurate and believable than the historian’s.