Books in the CARAF Books: Caribbean and African Literature translated from the French series

"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

This is no ordinary zombie novel. In the hands of the great Haitian author known simply as Franketienne, zombification takes on a symbolic dimension that stands as a potent commentary on a country haunted by a history of slavery. Now this dynamic new translation brings this touchstone in Haitian literature to English-language readers for the first time.

This is no ordinary zombie novel. In the hands of the great Haitian author known simply as Franketienne, zombification takes on a symbolic dimension that stands as a potent commentary on a country haunted by a history of slavery. Now this dynamic new translation brings this touchstone in Haitian literature to English-language readers for the first time.

A collection of poems by the Martinician poet Aime Cesaire, who was read as a poet of revolutionary zeal during the Black Power movement of the 1960s. This collection is the first English edition to include "And the Dogs Were Silent" and "i, laminaria". There is a critical introduction.

'Two men died the last week of June 1944.' 'Actually, three died...' 'But the third one didn't die, miraculously perhaps. Who knows? The three men were, of course, acquainted... When I say that the third one didn't die, I mean not the same week. How and why? If I told you now, you wouldn't understand this strange case any better....

Winner of the coveted Grand Prix de Litterature d'Afrique Noire, this novel has been seen as a story about the struggles of nation-building in Africa, as a fierce depiction of dictatorships in the Third World, and as a profound meditation on the nature of pwer everywhere.

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.