In 1938, Doguicimi, a long historical novel centered on the precolonial kingdom of Dahomey, was published in Paris by Paul Hazoumé who had worked on it in Cotonou. Despite several awards, Doguicimi rapidly fell into oblivion. Hazoumé was considered too entwined with the colonial project and his novel did not fit well in the metanarrative of « négritude », which will soon gain ground but is centered on poetry. Since the 1990s, Hazoumé have been rediscovered ; several historical studies have shed light on his ambivalent position within colonial Dahomey and on his trajectory as member of the « African native elite ». But very little has been said about the 500 pages of Doguicimi itself, an ambitious and singular work which remains, in many ways, unreadable to us today. We shall wonder how Doguicimi can be read, in other words how to understand the novel – both as a text and as personal project – as well as the distance which continues to maintain its foreignness to us.