Novel
Kocoumbo, l'étudiant noir
Not translated into English
Aké Loba · 1960
Synopsis
Kocoumbo lives peacefully in his African village when his father decides to send him to study in France. He makes the crossing in the hold, while the whites occupy the cabins. In Paris, he suffers from the cold, hunger, loneliness and anonymity, struggles at the lycée, comes up against racism and joins other African students in the Latin Quarter who are as destitute as he is, torn between two cultures that dispute his identity.
Context
The Ivorian Minister of Culture Maurice Bandama, paying tribute to the author on his death, recalled that this novel is nourished by his own life. Mineke Schipper-de Leeuw showed the accuracy of the picture it gives of the condition of African students in Paris; in 2014, Leonor Martins Coelho read it as a novel of formation, in which the hero and a few comrades, Douk, Nadan or Mou, come to complete their studies in the metropole. Sara Mouici studied in it in 2021 the home and the elsewhere.
Who it is for
A novel in French of about two hundred and seventy pages, reissued in paperback by J'ai lu in 1983.
Prizes and reception
In 1961 the book won its author the first Grand prix littéraire d'Afrique noire ever awarded.
Sources for this page 9
The pages consulted to check this page.