Amina Abdoulaye Mamani

On 2 January 1899, starting from the French Sudan, a French column under the command of the captains Voulet and Chanoine is sent against the black Sultan Rabah in what is now the Cameroon. Those captains and their African mercenary troops destroy and kill everything they find on their path. The French authorities try to stop them sending orders and a second troop but the captains kill the emissaries who reach them. Sarraounia, queen of the Aznas, have heard about the exactions. Clever in war tactics and in witchcraft, she decides to resist and stop those mad men.

Suicide bombers are chosen by chance and their funeral rites accomplish the work of God. On this particular day the envoy of God is twelve -year-old Fatima. She is left in a village market, wearing an explosive belt with ten minutes until she kills the enemies of God. But this is the market where Fatima’s mother works and where she rediscovers life. For ten minutes we accompany her on the nail-biting journey of a martyr from the present to the past. With one minute left on the clock, she faces her mother. Confronted by her own helplessness, will time stop?

“Abdoulaye Mamani, a militant and trade unionist, journalist, engaged writer, led a lifelong struggle for people’s freedom and the independence of his country, Niger. Retracing the footsteps of my father, twenty-three years after his death, I gradually rediscover not only his story but also that of my country.”