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Raymond is a European historian who has lived and taught in Africa for many years. Though he’s a pioneer in the field of African history, his reputation as a mentor to the President has proven most influential for his career. Now in his fifties and supervising the polytechnic institute at the Domain, Raymond has fallen out of favor with the President. Even so, Raymond remains stubbornly loyal to his former pupil, championing his politics and laboring to edit a selection of his public speeches. Desperately longing to regain his former relevance, Raymond continues work on his grand history of the unnamed African country. Yet questions about his methods and the value of the work interrupt his progress, and his increasingly uncertain status in the country results in the indefinite delay of publication. Raymond ends his time in Africa by giving up his historical work. Before escaping the continent altogether, he briefly returns to the President’s service, in which he performs degrading and dangerous work. Taken together, Raymond’s ultimately unimpressive historical work and his pitiable downward trajectory symbolize the failure of European influence in Africa.

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