Lieutenant of Kouta

Massa Makan Diabaté (1938–1988) was a Malian author and griot. His trilogy of novels—Le lieutenant de Kouta, Le coiffeur de Kouta, and Le boucher de Kouta—won the 1987 Grand prix international de la Fondation Léopold Sédar Senghor.Shane Auerbach is a PhD candidate in economics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a visiting instructor at Carleton College. His research focuses on microeconomic theory and industrial organization.David Yost received his PhD in English from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. His short stories have appeared in more than thirty magazines, including Ploughshares, The Southern Review, and The Sun, and he is an editor of the anthology Dispatches from the Classroom: Graduate Students on Creative Writing Pedagogy.

“A tragicomic classic rippling with insights into colonialism, masculinity, and the intricate weave of daily life in one Muslim village in Mali, Diabaté’s work appears here in a crisp and clean translation that is true to the original and a joy to read.”—Gregory Mann, Professor of History, Columbia University, and author of Native Sons: West African Veterans and France in the Twentieth Century

• Introduction The Lieutenant of Kouta Principal Characters 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. Notes