Story: That's "Comrade" Thief

For two weeks from late April to early May, Oaxaca, Mexico, enjoyed the presence of over fifty writers from the United States, Spain, Brazil, Angola, and all around Mexico. They were here to participate in the Second Annual International Meeting of Writers, an event put on by folks in town with a love for literature and the resources to celebrate it.

Something for kids, like youth rock band Yucatan a Gogo, kicked things off on some days, while a performance by the State Symphonic Orchestra closed the festival. In between were the grand opening of a new fine arts building, the performance of a play called The Worst Woman in the World based on the book by Francisco Hinojosa, and a series of talks with titles like, “Instructions for Killing Your Cat: Literature of Violence in Mexico” and “Rawness vs. Technique: A Debate between the New Narrators of Mexico”. In addition, a panel of five independent-magazine editors discussed their trade, and six authors presented their latest books.

One of those authors was the Angolan writer, Ondjaki. Born in 1977, he has already published four novels, two collections of short stories, a book for children, a book of poems, and a documentary movie called, Hope the Pitanga Cherries Grow, in which he hits the streets to find out what the people of his hometown—Angola’s capital of Luanda—think the future holds for them by asking them to talk about their worries, hopes and fears after thirty years of civil war and the exit of the Cubans who tried to remake Angola in their image. Already with an impressive list of countries in which he’s responded to invitations to speak, the upbeat, sincere author with an eye always out for comic relief was here to discuss his novel, Good Morning, Comrades, which depicts Luanda around 1990 as seen through the eyes of a young, humorous and insightful narrator.

During the question and answer period, he talked about the libraries in Luanda, how there is such a hunger for the few books inside. He said lines form everyday just to get at them, and because people come from afar, they do not go home until they’ve gotten their chance, camping out in line until the doors open the next day. Meanwhile, he said, he goes to Switzerland and finds a large, beautiful library full of books, and just a few children inside—even though it’s freezing outside and the library has an excellent heating system.

When asked what he thought was the legacy certain militant leftist leaders had left behind for young people striving for change today, he took a moment and said, “I’m going to do something I don’t usually do. I’m going to talk about politics here in Oaxaca.” He said that as someone on the left, he wants to see the left become modern as the right has done. The right has adapted well to the changing world and seized the seats of power, and it’s up to the left to renew itself, to become organized, just, humane and modern. He then said he prefers to bypass leaders like Che Guevara as models, asking instead, “What about Gandhi?” referencing Gandhi’s ability to unite people of different religions and lead a movement without the use of violence. “What about Mandela?” he asked. “Where are the Gandhis and the Mandelas of today?”

Asked why he thought it necessary to use the word comrade so much in Good Morning, Comrades, he told the story of a thief in Luanda who was caught by the cops. The cops said, Let’s get this thief off to jail. Off to jail with you, thief! And the thief looked at them and said, Wait, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call me thief, I mean I am a thief and it is right that you call me that, but as I am part of this country too, it is only correct to call me comrade thief. And the cops looked at each other and realized he was right. And that’s how it was in those days, Ondjaki said. Even the thieves had to be called comrade because it showed the solidarity of the system. If you called a waiter by Senor, he would insist you called him comrade waiter. Now it’s exactly the opposite, they insist on being called by Senor, and if you call them comrade, they say, What’s with this ‘comrade’ business, I’m not part of that.

As his lively, humorous prose and spellbinding stories have caught fire with readers in the places he’s visited, translations into several languages have starting coming out. Two of the novels—the aforementioned as well as The Whistler, about a man who enters a church and enchants the dynamic cast of characters there present with his whistling—are in English and can be found at amazon.com, and soon, one imagines, a regular bookstore near you.