At the start of Bound to Violence it is the 1400's. As time progresses slave-taking and cannibalism are described. The advent of Chrisitian missionaries and the French at the beginning of the twentieth century give rise to other stresses and strains. There is religion in the region already in black Jewish figures and in Muslims. It is an uneasy brew. Violence and eroticism are intertwined. Next to arrive in this French colonial territory are German anthropologists and art dealers. As the twentieth century takes hold, this novel comes to focus more intently on individual characters enabling the reader to follow the story more easily. The four years of World War I bring some of the fighting into the area. Under the Treaty of Paris of 1919 eastern Nakem is ceded to England.

In 1924 a boy from the village, Raymond, received permission to study in France. He was supposed to be part of the first generation of native administrators. France fascinated Raymond Kassoumi. He lost his appetite for study for a time when he learned that in his absence family members had become dead or enslved. He led an obscure and unglamorous life while pursuing his gradute studies. He 1933 he married a French woman. Kassoumi from Nakem-Ziuko fought in World War II. He fought on the Rhine, at Cassino, and then in Provence. In October 1945 he made his way to Paris where his wife found him. In 1947 there is a return to Nakem and the prospect of involvement in the leadership of a free country. This is a strange and interesting work. This reader was confused in trying to follow it, but was moved by the intense and artful recounting of different sorts of experiences.