GLR September-October 2024

the world, eating the right foods, using utensils in a certain way, reading the right books. But above all he has to adopt a new men tality. The most dramatic act is the official change of his name from Eddy Bel legueule to Édouard Louis, effectively repudiating his parents and background. Given that class con sciousness is at the core of the book, it’s not surpris ing that Louis draws con stantly on sociological

Daring to Speak Its Name

M ONICA C ARTER

THESE LETTERS END IN TEARS ANovel by Musih Tedji Xaviere Catapult. 240 pages, $27. C AMEROONIAN WRITER Musih Tedji Xaviere’s debut novel, These Letters End in Tears , focuses on the illicit love affair between two women who are willing to risk their lives to be together. Bessem is Christian and Fa tima, or Fati, is Muslim, and they meet on the eve of entering college. As the title suggests, the book opens with a letter and an impending sense of tragedy that lingers throughout. This is a moving story set in the present day that illustrates the toll of anti-LGBT attitudes in Cameroon. A former colony of European powers (first Germany, then England and France after World War I), Cameroon condemns homosexuality as part of its colonial legacy. Indeed, Cameroon is one of the most dangerous countries for queer people in the world. Homosexuality is punishable by imprisonment, often with large fines, and someone who’s convicted loses many civil rights. Writing this novel was a brave political act, and pub lishing it endangered the author’s life. In the novel, Bessem is a university professor who is still mourning the loss of her first love, Fati, who disappeared thir teen years ago while they both were still in college. She goes in search of Fati, joined by her gay friend Jamal. After several dead ends, Bessem knows she will have to engage with Fati’s brother Mahamadou, who had beaten and jailed Fati for her les bianism. He is now a respected and married imam. Though he still sparks fear in Bessem, she decides to visit his mosque and engage him by telling him that she would like to become Mus lim. Despite memories of his abuse towards Fati, which con tinue to haunt her, and even knowing that he could report her, she continues meeting with him ostensibly about the proposed conversion. Bessem reveals many of these memories in the letters she writes to Fati, which refer to harrowing details about what Fati had to endure at the hands of her family. By associating with Mahamadou, Bessem understands that her own sexual identity could have negative consequences, that he could force her to present herself as heterosexual. Jamal himself has had to for swear his queer identity in favor of heterosexual marriage after his job was threatened by a student’s accusation that Jamal had sexually harassed him. The ending is not unexpected, but it doesn’t detract from the powerful and moving final chapters. There are few Cameroonian queer novels, and the bravery it takes to identify as LGBT in a country that persecutes this community is a bold act of queer courage. _______________________________________________________ Monica Carter, the national program director for LGBTQ Writers in Schools, is based in Bennington, VT.

Édouard Louis.

sources to trace his social ascendancy. In this sense, he in scribes the work in a long line of French authors interested in the intersection of sociology and autobiography, such as Annie Ernaux—who was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Litera ture—and Didier Eribon, one of the main characters in Change , who acts as a mentor and intellectual model for Louis. In fact, class structure is so insidious that it permeates every fiber of Louis’ being: “my body was the hardest part of me to control, the one I couldn’t force to lie, the concrete materialization of my past, my past made blood, flesh, and bone.” Photos show casing his transformation pepper the narrative with veridical sources, thus highlighting the autobiographical nature of the work. At the same time, the memoir as genre rooted in indi vidual truth is undermined throughout, as details are left out or memories questioned. When meeting Didier for the first time, Louis writes that he went with Elena to hear the lecture only to negate this memory in a footnote: “In fact I didn’t go to the lec ture with Elena but with another friend. … I prefer to substitute Elena for him in the story, for the sake of coherence.” The con stant interplay of fact and fiction mirrors the reality of Louis, whose journey through the class system in France reflects the same ambiguity and imposture. Louis’ sexuality plays a pivotal role in his metamorphosis as he conflates his passing from one class to another with his quest for sex with men: “In making love with a man I rejected all the values of my milieu. I became bourgeois.” The intersection of a gay lifestyle and a bourgeois ethos is placed front and center throughout the autobiography, as if gay men could exist only outside of the lower class. Some of his sexual partners in fact belong to the upper echelons of society, which makes them par ticularly attractive to Louis: “I realize now that I always singled out the men who looked the most distinguished, the ones who seemed the richest; my social desire blended with my sexual desire.” The work ends literally where The End of Eddy begins, with the latter’s publication featured in Change as the culmi nation of Louis’ emancipation from the his working-class background. And yet, despite the triumphs he describes, he still wonders: “Am I doomed always to hope for another life?” The hard lesson learned in Change is that change is never what it’s cracked up to be: As we fulfill our dreams, the elusive goalpost of happiness keeps receding further toward an un reachable horizon. 38

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