La vie et demie (Life and a Half) is a novel by Sony Labou Tansi, published in 1979.
The novel is set in a post-colonial fictional country in Africa, Katamalanasia,[1] [2] Providential Guide, reigns there. But the leader of the opposition, Martial, is a dead man who refuses to succumb to the assassination attempts, and who takes refuge in the body of his daughter, Chaïdana, leading to conflict.[3]
It is a visionary fable which, satirizes the politics based on torture, murder and the cult of personality. The text is also full of parody, like Rabelais Gargantua Thus, despite the hell and the horrors that it describes, the book is also carried by hope and strength.[4]