In her latest novel, “Premier sang”, Amélie Nothomb recounts her father and his gesture of heroism in Stanleyville, in 1964, where he saved hundreds of lives, taken hostage by the rebels. For the Belgian writer, heroism today is a Ukrainian word.
By Jean-Claude Vantroyen
P
remier sang, the thirtieth published novel by Amélie Nothomb, received the Prix Renaudot last year. The Belgian writer tells about her father Patrick, who died in 2020. He represented Belgium all over the world, Japan, China, Bangladesh, New York.
But before that, he was a diplomat in the now independent Congo. Where he was also taken hostage and played the mediator to get out. A role for which he was probably not made, he who would have preferred to become a station master or a writer than a soldier in the former colonies, and who was afraid of blood. Hence the title of his daughter’s novel. This heroic attitude of her father against the Simba rebels in 1964, Amélie Nothomb finds it among the Ukrainians against the Russian army.
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