When the Plums Are Ripe - Couverture souple

Nganang, Patrice

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1250619610 ISBN 13 : 9781250619617

Editeur : Picador USA, 2020

Synopsis

The second volume in a magisterial trilogy, the story of Cameroon caught between empires during World War II

In Cameroon, plum season is a highly anticipated time of year. But for the narrator of When the Plums Are Ripe, the poet Pouka, the season reminds him of the "time when our country had discovered the root not so much of its own violence as that of the world's own, and, in response, had thrown its sons who at that time were called Senegalese infantrymen into the desert, just as in the evenings the sellers throw all their still-unsold plums into the embers." In this novel of radiant lyricism, Patrice Nganang recounts the story of Cameroon's forced entry into World War II, and in the process complicates our own understanding of that globe-spanning conflict. After the fall of France in 1940, Cameroon found itself caught between Vichy and the Free French at a time when growing nationalism advised allegiance to neither regime, and was ultimately dragged into fighting throughout North Africa on behalf of the Allies.

Moving from Pouka's story to the campaigns of the French general Leclerc and the battles of Kufra and Murzuk, Nganang questions the colonial record and recenters African perspectives at the heart of Cameroon's national history, all the while writing with wit and panache. When the Plums Are Ripe is a brilliantly crafted, politically charged epic that challenges not only the legacies of colonialism but the intersections of language, authority, and history itself.

A propos du livre

À propos des auteurs

Patrice Nganang was born in Cameroon and is a novelist, a poet, and an essayist. His novel Dog Days received the Prix Marguerite Yourcenar and the Grand Prix littéraire d'Afrique noire. He is also the author of Mount Pleasant (FSG, 2016), When the Plums Are Ripe (FSG, 2019), and A Trail of Crab Tracks (FSG, 2022). He teaches comparative literature at Stony Brook University in New York.

Amy B. Reid is an award-winning translator who has worked with Patrice Nganang on multiple projects. In addition to A Trail of Crab Tracks, she translated Nganang's novels Dog Days, Mount Pleasant, and When the Plums Are Ripe. Her other translations include Queen Pokou and Far from My Father, both by Véronique Tadjo, and The Blunder by Mutt-Lon. She is a professor of French and Gender Studies at New College of Florida.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Picador USA
• Date d'édition: 2020
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1250619610
• ISBN 13: 9781250619617
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 368
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible