Novel
Le Mal de peau
Not translated into English
Monique Ilboudo · 1992
Synopsis
In a West African colony, Sibila is raped by the district commandant. Her daughter Cathy, born of this rape, suffers from her difference and dreams of finding her biological father. At twenty, she leaves to study in France, discovers Paris, its suburbs and the university, and falls in love with a young white man. From mother to daughter, the novel follows the traces of colonisation, colour prejudice and the condition of people of mixed race.
Context
Published in 1992 by the national press, in Ouagadougou, the book earned its author praise in the press as the country's first woman novelist. Le Serpent à Plumes took it up in Paris in 2001, in its Motifs paperback series. A study by B. Couldiati counts it among the Burkinabè novels which, in the last decade of the century, call the colonial order into question, alongside Norbert Zongo's second novel. The author's interview with the review Amina returns to the genesis of the book.
Who it is for
For reading, in French, a Burkinabè novel on mixed race, the colonial legacy and the bond between a mother and her daughter.
Prizes and reception
The novel received in 1992 the Grand Prix of the Imprimerie nationale for the best novel, in Burkina Faso.
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The pages consulted to check this page.