Poetry
Les Barbelés du matin
Not translated into English
Paul Dakeyo · 1973
Synopsis
The first collection of a Cameroonian poet who has lived in Paris for four years. Slavery appears in it as the painful awakening to a racial history, and the voice of the poems seeks an identity on the side of Kilimanjaro. In “Recuerdo”, the speaker goes off to fight: he tells of his departure, the suffering of the people that causes it, and the armed intention that drives him.
Context
The collection was published in Paris in 1973 by Saint-Germain-des-Prés, in 76 illustrated pages; the same publisher then brought out Chant d'accusation, followed by Espace carcéral, in 1976, and J'appartiens au grand jour in 1979, while Soleils fusillés appeared in 1977. Anne Cillon Perri, for Africultures, sees in it the beginning of a poetry turned towards liberation from political and social oppression; Claude Dokam, in 2015, already reads in it the theme of return linked to that of struggle, which then runs through the whole body of work.
Who it is for
In French, short poems. It is worth knowing that their author writes them from exile, as an activist for African liberation.
Prizes and reception
No prize for this collection; its author received the Léopold-Sédar-Senghor International Poetry Prize in 2023.