Véronique Tadjo Quotes

We were here to last. We were here to spread our shade over the remotest lands. We were here so our foliage would murmur the secrets of the four corners of the world. But human beings have destroyed our hopes. No matter where in the world they are, they wage war on the forest. Our trunks crash to the ground with a sound like thunder. Our naked roots mourn the end of our dreams. You cannot destroy the forest without spilling blood.

I would say that although the monarchy has sometimes been challenged, it is nevertheless firmly rooted in the social fabric.

Here there are no griots, only poets. You think that you are leading an extraordinary life and that people see you as you would like them to. You adorn yourself with your writing. It becomes your identity, your bread and butter, and your reason for living. You begin to believe in what people say. You become locked up in your creation, become submerged in words, and sentences suffocate you in the solitude of your retreat. They make you forget the blood and the dust.

I think of my country, far away, and my eyes open beyond space.

It's only when we work together that we can defeat such threats to humanity. So I think that I would really, really like to see more solidarity within each country and across countries.

He left his vast country inAfrica. Now he lives in the big city of stone. And it isbetter for him, this exile. An exile where the inhabi-tants have respect for a white stick, where the stateensures his wellbeing and where facilities enable himto read and write

It is definitely a century that hangs its head in shame. Our elders have been called impotent, and we are accused of being ‘limp’…

I check to see if there is any mail for me. Stamps from my coun-try. I pick up the newspaper. Here, there is a great dealof talk about South Africa

Pour libation, summon the gods,utter sacred words, assemble diviners and sorcerers recapture the present, make peace, return to the earth,the spell

It is a matter of infrastructure and superstructure. The problem must be analyzed in the specific context of the country. A lot of progress has been made. We are no longer the way we used to be.

Of course, it is fiction. It’s a style that I like. It’s not a very nice term but it is called faction. So you come from reality and fictionalize it.

As the dream of my country, which obsesses me all the time. I carry it with me all day. At night, it lies next to me, making love to me.

You fly to another place. Home, to a big city ofstone. You leave as one does. One alwaysleaves. But you do not know if you will everreturn. I am leaving, I am leaving, will I everreturn? I am leaving you today. Yesterday, Ihad left you

Many people have mistakenly believed that military coups can have a progressive aspect to them. This is because, in the face of the power grab, the option of legality is no longer possible.

I'm a trespasser in the Kingdom of Death. This is his private domain, his empire, where he rules with absolute power. I feel like an astronaut floating in space, a thousand miles from earth. The slightest tear in his spacesuit and he’s lost. The slightest tear in mine, just like him, I’m lost too.