Ny Rabe takes place in Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, the real city of today, in a working-class neighbourhood called Ambalavato. Ambalavato was created for the series: it gathers what readers in Antananarivo live every day, without being any one particular street.
The city of the stories
Everything happens in Antananarivo, and the stories speak first to the people who live there. Readers find their own city in them: the power cuts, the traffic jams, the taxi-be minibuses, the markets, the art of getting by, and young graduates looking for work. Some stories step out into real places of the capital, such as Anosy or the market.
The places of the series
| Place | What happens there |
|---|---|
| The Rabe house, in Ambalavato | The heart of the series: the kitchen, the living-room sofa, the courtyard, Tsiky's bedroom-office in her own wing of the house, and Njaka's workshop corner. Zézé the zebu lives here too. |
| Fara's grocery, in Mahamasina | A tiny neighbourhood shop, where Fara works. |
| Datoa's taxi | Where Datoa drives and philosophises, under his Saint Christopher pendants. |
| Bebe Dety's yard and house | Next door, the home of Bebe Dety, the healer with a witch's reputation. |
| MadaPneu | The tyre shop of Paoly, Datoa's younger brother. |
| The street gargote | A small street eatery of the neighbourhood. |
| The streets of the neighbourhood | Where everyone crosses paths, and where many gags begin. |
Seen from the inside
Ny Rabe is made by Malagasy people, for Malagasy people, and its places are drawn the way the people who live there see them: precise, familiar, full of humour, never a postcard.
More about the people who live there on Who are the characters of Ny Rabe?