Narrative
Histoire d'un enfant trouvé
Not translated into English
Robert Zotoumbat · 1971
Synopsis
The great famine of 1905 leaves Ngoye an orphan. A child of the famine, he is taken in by Mboula, a rich and kind-hearted merchant, who raises him as his son, much to the displeasure of his wife, who sees in him only a slave. On Mboula's death, a tragedy breaks out: Issombo, Ngoye's half-brother, dies of poisoning, and suspicion falls on the foundling.
Context
The text appeared in 1971 in Yaoundé, from CLE, in fifty-nine pages, and at first passed almost unnoticed; the Maison gabonaise du livre reissued it in Libreville in 2007. It presents itself as autobiographical, and its genre is debated: Ludovic Emane Obiang sees in it a text hesitating between the short story and the tale, Jean-Léonard Nguéma Ondo a narrative borrowing mainly from the devices of the tale. In 2019, the éditions Raponda Walker published Terre d'espérance, a tribute of two hundred and sixty pages.
Who it is for
In French, a short text of about sixty pages, in its first Cameroonian edition, which can be read in one sitting.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the first Gabonese novel or as its precursor, the brevity and form of the text fuelling the debate.
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