In the footsteps of Commissioner Kouamé, an incorruptible cop from Abidjan in Angoulême | EUROtoday

On Apr 24, 2025

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Lhe Kouamé Commissioner takes up service. In this third a part of her adventures, Marguerite Abouet leads her favourite character within the margins of Abidjan, the place the state not goes. Two jail guards had been discovered useless whereas escorting an inmate throughout a banking permission. “Métis tattooed”, a infamous trafficker, has vanished. To discover him, the duo that Kouamé and his assistant Arsène trains in a Wanch, a underground smoker managed by “patterns” able to drawing the visitors strings from their Maca cell, the abidjan remand heart.

Marguerite Abouet, creator of the well-known collection Aya de Youpougonindicators right here a black, tense cartoon, crossed by an sad social criticism. Behind the police intrigue, it reveals the ravages of precariousness within the interstices of the Ivorian capital – beneath the bridges, behind the palisades, very near the upscale districts. She tells of this diffuse violence, this world the place the sources flirts with crime. Interview.

The Africa level: What are the attribute options of Commissioner Kouamé and his assistant, Arsène?

Marguerite Abouet: For this police collection, I needed characters who say the whole lot that shocks me, particularly in Côte d’Ivoire but in addition in Africa. I wanted a spokesperson, and it’s Commissioner Kouamé. It’s a little bit of my avatar. I needed somebody incorruptible. I’ve seen a lot corruption, a wound that performs this nation, a lot in order that I needed to discuss it and discuss it otherwise. Who higher than an incorruptible and proper commissioner, a person, a superhero, loyal, father and liked husband?

And by his aspect, Arsène, his assistant. There are a variety of whites in Africa, some got here from the DGSE (Directorate General for External Security) and labored in reference to the Ivorian police. I imagined the assistant of the commissioner, a white man who had been somewhat unsuitable. Abidjan is a metropolis that may make you lose your head. And we don’t but know the way Arsène landed in Abidjan!

Little by little, my characters take the place, they evolve and inform me somewhat what I have to say about them. Arsène, he’s the handyman of the commissioner. A relatively particular hyperlink unites them, with nice tenderness and respect. They perceive one another and complement one another. While the commissioner has a household life, a toddler, a lady, Arsène is single, fairly alone.

In this quantity 3, readers plunge into the Wanchs of Abidjan. Fuunoirs the place the marginalized and junkies land. How did you docume? What was your purpose?

A number of years in the past, this nation crossed a civil warfare. In Abidjan, many individuals got here from the 4 corners of the nation and even elsewhere. Since 2009, I’ve opened youth libraries in Abidjan and Irobo. In these libraries, I requested the groups to not let youngsters hang around exterior. They don’t must be educated to be welcomed, the necessary factor is that they arrive. Many youngsters had been inappropriately hung up on the street. We thought they had been more likely to find yourself, in medicine, in prostitution. Hence this reflection left.

From the second we permit ourselves to make a thriller, create characters, commissioners, police, inevitably, we’ll deal with drug traffickers, macros, prostitution … All that is a part of the town. Abidjan is an open and globalized metropolis with its lot of all types of visitors. Inevitably, it impacts the inhabitants, it impacts households, it impacts younger folks.

All households, in any case these I do know, in Youpougon, a preferred district, in Adjamé, or elsewhere, are confronted with these social issues. It was regular and crucial that I communicate. These characters that I created permit me to essentially get into the underside. Even if it is darker, it’s also a part of life.

The commissioner conducts a double investigation in Abidjan and Angoulême. Why did you select Angoulême?

During the cartoon competition in Angoulême, I used to be with the designer Donatien Mary and within the tail for a dedication, there was the commissioner of Angoulême. He is a fan of Commissioner Kouamé. I used to be so stunned. He informed us about his job and invited us to go to his police station. I discovered it so fascinating, open and human that, when this story started to germinate with the niece of Commissioner Kouamé which is eliminated in worldwide visitors, I believed why not Angoulême. This additionally permits me to deal with the issue of immigration which is leaning on human milking trafficking additionally linked to drug traffickers. I can thus evoke the case of those younger women who’re taken, who assume they’re helped by accepting job proposals, and as soon as arrived on website, they’re put in brothels or prostitution networks. I exploit this commissioner, I make a fiction.

But hey, Commissioner Kouamé is much less identified thana

I hope ! In AyaI method on a regular basis life, I prohibited myself from speaking about all these nice evils that have an effect on Africa. With this Kouamé Commissioner, I can discuss it. I imagine in my characters, I attempt to make them credible, to humanize them as a lot as attainable. In this difficult story of investigation, there are nonetheless human beings behind. I attempt to dose these human elements and this darkish aspect. So, I give them a household, doubts, emotions, so that folks establish. If we speak like that about medicine, it would not contact folks. When it’s a household searching for her daughter, folks cling to way more. We handle to enter folks’s lives intimately.

I believe that the drawing, eliminated and dynamic, helps historical past rather a lot. And humor, anyway, I can not do in any other case, it is in my DNA. In Côte d’Ivoire, we’ve got this aspect … Verbal jousting that’s there. It is even a part of schooling, as a result of these are weapons that we’ve got to maneuver ahead. We have this means to have the ability to snort at the whole lot.

This story ends with a horrible suspense. When will quantity 4?

I inform you a secret: myself, I do not know. In reality, after I end a narrative, I want time. I want returns, that my readers inform me what they thought of it.

To uncover

The kangaroo of the day

Answer

Commissioner Kouamé. We don’t make fireplace beneath a flower tree (quantity 3)from Marguerite Abouet and Donatien Mary (Ed. Gallimard, 102 p., € 22))

https://www.lepoint.fr/afrique/bande-dessinee-dans-les-pas-du-commissaire-kouame-flic-incorruptible-d-abidjan-a-angouleme-24-04-2025-2588130_3826.php