Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction : silhouette of the unknown woman -- For a common ascension in humanity : the intellectual's mission in the Great Lakes Region -- Life, 'life' and death -- Violence of details and details of violence in novels by V-Y Mudimbe -- Representations of violence in V-Y Mudimbe's novels -- Making visible and eradicating Congo's history of violence : maiming the Female/National Body -- A phemonenology of violence -- On the banality of violence : state, power and the everyday in Africa -- Postcards from the postcolony -- Debitores Sumus ... on ways of exhausting our question on violence -- Coda : violence and the sublime.