ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
A searing novel exploring the construction of masculinity in sub-Saharan Africa.
After beating his girlfriend and leaving her for dead on the street, Amok retraces his steps. Frightened by his act, which reproduces the violence of his father, he hopes to save the woman. But it is too late when he arrives at the scene; two women are already carrying the injured woman. Overwhelmed and not daring to reveal himself, he decides to find his father in order to learn how to rid himself of the dark force that he believes runs through the men of his lineage. He embarks on a journey that will be, more than anything, an inner one, forcing him to understand his story and choose a healthier way of being in the world. This second volume of Twilight of Torment is both intimate and political. Through the story of a man and his family, we discover an African bourgeoisie and its many social wanderings in a contemporary Africa whose future seems nebulous.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Léonora Miano was born in 1973 in Doula, Cameroon. She is the author of nearly twenty works of fiction and nonfiction. Her writing has won numerous literary awards, including the Prix Femina in 2013 for Season of the Shadow, published by Seagull Books in 2018. Gila Walker is the translator of more than a hundred books and articles from French, including texts by Jacques Derrida, Tzvetan Todorov, Maurice Maeterlinck, and Shmuel Trigano.
REVIEWS
Praise for Season of the Shadow:
‘Reading Miano’s brilliant, pitiless novel is like treading water in an undertow. The approaching wave — more than four centuries high and tens of millions of victims long — is invisible from within the story’s deliberately confined perspective. But the omission only enhances its force. . . . Narratively thrilling [. . .] profoundly original.’—New York Times
Praise for Season of the Shadow:
‘This work of historical immersion drops readers into the heart of an isolated African community devastated by the arrival of European slavers. Léonora Miano’s novel, in Gila Walker’s translation, dramatizes an unfathomable catastrophe, and its captivating portrayal of the lost world’s rites and customs makes it a vital act of restoration.’—Wall Street Journal, Best Books of 2018
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.MoodSwing
2.Royalty jam
3.Resurrection blues
4.Negro Spirit
5.Glossary