Poetry
Orphelin des collines ancestrales
Not translated into English
Jacques-Prosper Bazié · 1984
Synopsis
A single long poem, in which Burkinabè critics have studied the question of cultural identity. Neither its lines nor its movement are known.
Context
The collection appeared in 1984 in Ouagadougou, from the publisher Dasl, and was reissued in 2005 by Kraal, the publishing house its author had founded. It was his first book, Césairean in tone and threaded with quotations from Frantz Fanon; it was followed by two other collections of poems, in 1987 and 1992. Burkinabè academics studied it in a volume of posthumous tribute published in 2020.
Who it is for
In French. A single long poem rather than a series of short pieces, written in a lofty language, and which assumes familiarity with the poetry of négritude to which it responds.
Prizes and reception
First prize for poetry in the national grand prize for arts and letters in 1983; as early as 1988 it was included in the first course on Burkinabè literature at the University of Ouagadougou.