The history of mankind is the history of malaise. Melancholy, discomfort, anxiety or grief are just a few names and examples of this phenomenon. The heroes created by Georges Perec and Anne Godard experience the deep malaise of depression and grief disorder. However, this is not the only common feature of the characters – they are both described by the pronoun “you”. Due to its properties, the second‐person narration seems to be an effective tool of description of minor and major mental disorders. It helps to situate the heroes between life and death, and it is naturally associated with the concept of the Other, who plays a significant role in creation of a suffering Human being.

In the name of a certain theory of race inferiority, the imperialist powers have instituted the slave trade which will annihilate the countries of the Third World, and mainly those of the African continent. They will impose their vision of the world through the universalization of a Cartesian philosophy which has considerably encroached on the local histories of subordinate peoples. Even today, categories of people continue to suffer from the depreciative stereotypes constructed by the settler. For African novelists, the historical truth must be recognized. They therefore write with the aim of restoring the authentic values of these peoples. It is in this perspective that Seydou Badian inscribes his work entitled Sacred Weddings where he magnifies an African tradition which only asks to be recognized as an absolute and autonomous value, through a decolonial writing.