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"e;To attain some sort of universal value,"e; Veronique Tadjo has said, "e;a piece of work has to go deep into the particular in order to reveal our shared humanity."e; In Far from My Father, the latest novel from this internationally acclaimed author, a woman returns to the Cte d'Ivoire after her father's death. She confronts not only unresolved family issues that she had left behind but also questions about her own identity that arise amidst the tensions between traditional and modern worlds. The drama that unfolds tells us much about the evolving role of women, the legacy of polygamy, and the economic challenges of daily life in Abidjan. On a more autobiographical level, the author depicts a daughter's efforts to come to terms with what she knew and did not know about her father. Set against the backdrop of civil strife that has wracked the Cte d'Ivoire since the turn of the century, this story shows Tadjo's remarkable ability to inhabit a character's inner world and emotional landscape while creating a narrative of great historic and cultural dimensions.CARAF Books: Caribbean and African Literature Translated from the French

Gabon's first female novelist, Angele Rawiri probed deeper into the issues that writers a generation before her-Mariama B and Aminata Sow Fall-had begun to address. Translated by Sara Hanaburgh, this third novel of the three Rawiri published is considered the richest of her fictional prose. It offers a gripping account of a modern woman, Emilienne, who questions traditional values and seeks emancipation from them.Emilienne's active search for feminism on her own terms is tangled up with cultural expectations and taboos of motherhood, marriage, polygamy, divorce, and passion. She completes her university studies in Paris; marries a man from another ethnic group; becomes a leader in women's liberation; enjoys professional success, even earning more than her husband; and eventually takes a female lover. Yet still she remains unsatisfied. Those closest to her, and even she herself, constantly question her role as woman, wife, mother, and lover. The tragic death of her only child-her daughter Rkia-accentuates Emilienne's anguish, all the more so because of her subsequent barrenness and the pressure that she concede to her husband's taking a second wife.In her forceful portrayal of one woman's life in Central Africa in the late 1980s, Rawiri prompts us not only to reconsider our notions of African feminism and the canon of francophone African women's writing but also to expand our awareness of the issues women face across the world today in the workforce, in the bedroom, and among family and peers.

The celebrated and highly versatile writer Leila Sebbar was born in French colonial Algeria but has lived nearly her entire adult life in France, where she is recognised as a major voice on the penetrating effects of colonialism in contemporary society. The dramatic contrast between her past and present is the subject of the nine autobiographical essays collected in this volume.

Winner of the prestigious Prix Carbet--an award won by such distinguished authors as Maryse Cond Jamaica Kincaid, and Raphal Confiant-- Memory at Bay is now available in an English translation that brings to life this powerful novel by one of Haiti's most vital authors, velyne Trouillot.Trouillot introduces us to a bedridden widow of a notorious dictator (in effect, a portrait of Papa Doc Duvalier) and the young migr who attends to her needs but who harbors a secret--the bitter loss she feels for her mother, a victim of the dictator's atrocities. The story that unfolds is a deftly plotted psychological drama in which the two women in turn relive their radically contrasting accounts of the dictator's regime. Partly a retelling of Haiti's nightmarish history under Duvalier, and partly an exploration of the power of memory, Trouillot's novel takes a suspenseful turn when the aide contemplates murdering the old widow. Memory at Bay was praised by the Prix Carbet committee for the way it treats the enigmas of destiny and for a pairing of characters whose voices bring the narrative to the edge of the ineffable.CARAF Books: Caribbean and African Literature Translated from French

October 15, 1793: the eve of Marie-Antoinette's execution. The Reign of Terror has descended upon revolutionary France, and thousands are beheaded daily under the guillotine. Edmond Coffin and Jonathan Gravedigger, two former soldiers now employed in disposing of the dead, are hired to search the Parisian neighborhood of Haarlem for a mysterious mixed-race "e;leopard boy,"e; whose nickname derives from his mottled black-and-white skin. Some would like to see the elusive leopard boy dead, while others wish to save him. Why so much interest in this child? He is rumored to be the son of Marie-Antoinette and a man of color--the Chevalier de Saint-George, perhaps, or possibly Zamor, the slave of Madame du Barry, mistress of Louis XV. This wildly imaginative and culturally resonant tale by Daniel Picouly audaciously places black and mixed-race characters--including King Mac, creator of the first hamburger, who hands out figures of Voltaire and Rousseau with his happy meals, and the megalomaniac Black Delorme, creator of a slavery theme park--at the forefront of its Revolution-era story. Winner of the Prix Renaudot, one of France's most prestigious literary awards, this book envisions a "e;Black France"e; two hundred years before the term came to describe a nation transformed through its postcolonial immigrant population.CARAF Books: Caribbean and African Literature Translated from French

The first novel available to English readers by Fawzia Zouari, one of the most important North African authors writing today, begins with an emergency crew's arrival at a Parisian apartment. Two emaciated young women, sisters, are brought out on stretchers. To the crowd of onlookers the women's condition is mystifying; for the two sisters, this is the inescapable end to a tragic series of events.Inspired by an actual news story from the French headlines, I Die by This Country introduces us to Nacera and Amira. Casting her mind back in the midst of the opening pages' upheaval, Nacera pieces together her fragmentary knowledge of her parents' lives in rural French Algeria and their immigration to Paris in the years following Algeria's war for independence. Her memories of how both she and Amira struggled to find their place as children of immigrants reveals the enormous stress of social exclusion and identity conflicts facing immigrant youth. Nacera and her family yearn for acceptance, but the reader sees this dream becoming increasingly unattainable.Zouari's frank prose and penetrating storytelling deftly relates the multigenerational experience of Franco-Algerian immigration during the last quarter of the twentieth century. As France continues, like so many western countries, to struggle with questions regarding national identity, immigration, and its colonial past, the experiences depicted in this novel resonate more than ever.

This new translation brings together two of Algerian author Ma'ssa Bey's important works for the first time in English. Do You Hear in the Mountains... is a compelling piece of autofiction in which three destinies meet dramatically on a train moving through France. The eleven diverse tales that follow exemplify some of Bey's recurring themes.

Possessing one of the most vital voices in international letters, Maryse Conde added to an already acclaimed career the New Academy Prize in Literature in 2018. The fourteenth novel by this celebrated author revolves around an enigmatic crime and the young man at its centre.