In an unnamed African nation, the people are subject to a state of perpetual warfare and to an Orwellian abuse of language that strips from language its meaning and renders life senseless. And in a bare room lit only by moonlight, a young man hides, waiting for the mysterious crocodile-men to come and help him escape from the violent tyranny of the state. While he waits, he tells his story.
This is Kossi Efoui s catastrophic and carnivalesque dreamscape, the dark setting of "The Shadow of Things to Come." Here, men and women are taken in the night, spirited away from their families and...