Batouala (African Writers Series)

Batouala (African Writers Series)

Product Description French African prose can be given a beginning with the publication in 1921 of the novel Batouala . . . its sensitive portrayal of African life, with its evocation of the natural environment, could not but make a profound impression upon its African readers and offered a vivid example of what an African novel in French could be. -Abiola Irele Review You smell the smells of the village, you eat its food, you see the white man as the black man sees him, and after you have lived in the village you die there. That is all there is to the story, but when you have read it, you have seen Batouala, and that means that it is a great novel. Ernest Hemingway About the Author Rene Maran was the first black writer to win the renowned French literary prize, the Prix Goncourt. He was born in Martinique and spent many years of his early childhood in Africa. After receiving his formal education in France, he joined the French colonial service and spent over twenty years in Black Africa. Batouala was born out of this experience, and was first published in French in 1921. This translation is, however, based upon the franker 1938 edition. He wrote seven other books including Le Livre de la Brousse (1934) and an autobiographical novel Un Homme pareil aux autres. He died in 1960.