Poetry
La Prophétie de Joal
Not translated into English
Samuel-Martin Eno Belinga · 1970
Synopsis
Songs that start from Joal, Senghor's birthplace, which has become the symbol of Black culture, to celebrate the cultural values of Africa. The Black woman is the eternal mother there, guardian of the continuity of the race and its culture, and the authority of prophecy falls to her. The poet calls on Africans, and their leaders first of all, to draw on the continent's deep traditions to make modern political institutions lasting, and to know their own values, failing which disorder follows.
Context
The collection was published in Yaoundé by Éditions CLE in 1970, the year its author published his chantefables in Paris, and it was reissued in 1975, followed by Équinoxes, in a 61-page edition introduced by Max F. Dippold. Tié Emmanuel Toh Bi places it within post-négritude: the book draws on the mvet, the sung epic of Central Africa, and its dedication, which makes the Black woman the lady of négritude, answers Senghor's poem on the naked woman, Black woman. In the seventh canto, a refrain recurs thirteen times.
Who it is for
In French, a slim collection. It helps to know that Senghor's négritude serves it both as a starting point and as an interlocutor.
Prizes and reception
No prize found. Its author subsequently published other poetry collections, in 1972 and 1974, with the same publisher.