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Captured in Africa, he is sent to Europe to be sold. Locked up in a cage in
the holds of a ship, he knows that the only way to escape imprisonment is to
disavow his monkey nature and adapt to the world of men. Survival depends
on him showing respect, doing as he’s told, and closely watching man so that
he can imitate them. He will have to mimic them in every way, right down to the
smallest flaws and imperfections… until one day he becomes human.
“The absolute rule that I imposed on myself was to renounce all obstinacy: I, a
free monkey, imposed this burden on myself. And little by little the outlines of
my primitive past faded away.”
Mahi Grand adapts here a short story by Kafka (“A Report to an Academy”)
with intelligence and humor, a text that asks us to reflect on our own condition…
