The Heart of the Leopard Children - Couverture souple

N'Sondé, Wilfried

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0253021901 ISBN 13 : 9780253021908

Editeur : Indiana University Press, 2016

Synopsis

A nameless young man lives in the housing projects outside of Paris. When he was a child, his parents moved with him from the Congo to France, hoping in vain to escape poverty and violence. His best friend, Drissa, is in a psychiatric hospital and now Mireille, his girlfriend, the woman with whom he has shared his childhood and hopes, has left him to reconnect with her Jewish roots in Israel. During a night out to drown the pain of his heartache, there is a fight with a policeman, the policeman dies, and the young man is arrested and taken to jail. Between police beatings and abrupt interrogations, his memory becomes his sole ally to escape from the exiguous space in which he is confined. Half-conscious and delirious, he reflects on his journey from the land of his ancestors to his life in the projects with Drissa and Mireille. In The Heart of the Leopard Children, N'Sondé explores the themes of love and pain, belonging and uprooting, desire and fear--all with an implacable and irresistible accuracy. Wilfried N'Sondé's first novel awakens the reader with an urban symphony of desire and lost love, attuned to the violence that accompanies the struggle for social ascension and a sense of belonging, and the paralyzing sentiment of betrayal that inhabits a young man caught between traditions and cultures. Awarded the Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie and the Prix Senghor for the originality of his work, the author captures the sounds, rhythms and pleas of a young man who pulls on the alarm from his prison cell to warn against the multiple barriers of confinement that risk the future of certain sectors of French youth today.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Wilfried N'Sondé was born in 1969 in the Congo (Brazzaville) and grew up in France. He is widely considered one of the shining lights of the new generation of African and Afropean writers. His work has received considerable critical attention and been recognized with prestigious literary awards, including the Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie and the Prix Senghor de la création littéraire.

Karen Lindo is a scholar of French and Francophone literatures and currently teaches and translates in Paris.

Dominic Thomas is Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Indiana University Press
• Date d'édition: 2016
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0253021901
• ISBN 13: 9780253021908
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 100
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible