Distributed for Seagull Books
The Continent of Everything and Practically Nothing
A Togolese novel that delivers a rich, intimate portrait of a scholar whose life is inextricably bound to Africa.
For French ethnologist Maurice Boyer, Africa is more than a place—it’s a dream, a puzzle, a mirror reflecting his desires and doubts. His years of fieldwork in Tèdi, Togo, where he lived among the Tem people and tried to illuminate their customs and rituals, marked him profoundly. Who was friend and who was foe? Which stories were true and which were illusions? As the years pass and the roles of Aurélie, his wife, and Safi, his former student, come into sharper view, Boyer finds himself wrestling not only with his own choices but with the legacy of knowledge itself.
In a novel framed as a profound postcolonial quest, Sami Tchak explores Africa’s rich, complex reality through this intimate story of a scholar wrestling with his own understanding of culture, knowledge, and history. The Continent of Everything and Practically Nothing grapples with whether assembling more data can truly capture the complexity of a continent, exposing how academic ambition, history, and emotion shape scholarship.
For French ethnologist Maurice Boyer, Africa is more than a place—it’s a dream, a puzzle, a mirror reflecting his desires and doubts. His years of fieldwork in Tèdi, Togo, where he lived among the Tem people and tried to illuminate their customs and rituals, marked him profoundly. Who was friend and who was foe? Which stories were true and which were illusions? As the years pass and the roles of Aurélie, his wife, and Safi, his former student, come into sharper view, Boyer finds himself wrestling not only with his own choices but with the legacy of knowledge itself.
In a novel framed as a profound postcolonial quest, Sami Tchak explores Africa’s rich, complex reality through this intimate story of a scholar wrestling with his own understanding of culture, knowledge, and history. The Continent of Everything and Practically Nothing grapples with whether assembling more data can truly capture the complexity of a continent, exposing how academic ambition, history, and emotion shape scholarship.
Table of Contents
0. Prologue: “Daddy the Ethnologist!”
The Golden Age of Impregnating and Impregnated Minds
1. Thanks to Georges Balandier
2. Safiou, My First Black Friend . . .
3. The Others We Love . . .
4. Lomé: Brief Notes
In the Heart of This Village
5. And I Became Morou . . .
6. The Converts
7. The Blessing
8. Adultery
9. The Billy Goat and the Heifer
10. Close Enemy
11. The Imam and Me
12. Between Two Men
13. The Blood Stain
14. Delusions of Elephants
15. The Confession
16. The Thief and the Outsider
17. God Does Not Exist
18. The Imam’s Crime
19. “What Do They Need?”
20. The Theft, the Qur’an, and the Fire
21. The Yam and the Needles
22. The Toad and the Trial
23. Letters from Georges Balandier
24. The Betrayal of the Body
25. The Beauty of the Night
26. The Man Who Saw Everything
27. The True Night Is Death
Lives and Speeches: Fermented Africa
28. Tèdi in All My Dreams
29. Safiou to the End of the Night
30. The Anthropologist and the Poet
31. Safiatou Kouyaté
32. Local Anesthesia
33. The Broker
34. Unending Vassalage
35. Speeches at Le Rostand
36. The Laugh of GauZ’
37. Aurélie and Me
38. Safi’s Talk
39. Jacques and Maïmouna
40. Without Beating around the Bush
41. My Future Bears Safi’s Face
42. Fermentation Theory
43. “Trashcanning”
44. Babacar Ndiaye
45. Safi, the Sun of My Twilight
The Golden Age of Impregnating and Impregnated Minds
1. Thanks to Georges Balandier
2. Safiou, My First Black Friend . . .
3. The Others We Love . . .
4. Lomé: Brief Notes
In the Heart of This Village
5. And I Became Morou . . .
6. The Converts
7. The Blessing
8. Adultery
9. The Billy Goat and the Heifer
10. Close Enemy
11. The Imam and Me
12. Between Two Men
13. The Blood Stain
14. Delusions of Elephants
15. The Confession
16. The Thief and the Outsider
17. God Does Not Exist
18. The Imam’s Crime
19. “What Do They Need?”
20. The Theft, the Qur’an, and the Fire
21. The Yam and the Needles
22. The Toad and the Trial
23. Letters from Georges Balandier
24. The Betrayal of the Body
25. The Beauty of the Night
26. The Man Who Saw Everything
27. The True Night Is Death
Lives and Speeches: Fermented Africa
28. Tèdi in All My Dreams
29. Safiou to the End of the Night
30. The Anthropologist and the Poet
31. Safiatou Kouyaté
32. Local Anesthesia
33. The Broker
34. Unending Vassalage
35. Speeches at Le Rostand
36. The Laugh of GauZ’
37. Aurélie and Me
38. Safi’s Talk
39. Jacques and Maïmouna
40. Without Beating around the Bush
41. My Future Bears Safi’s Face
42. Fermentation Theory
43. “Trashcanning”
44. Babacar Ndiaye
45. Safi, the Sun of My Twilight