Novel
53 cm
Not translated into English
Bessora · 1999
Synopsis
Zara, both Gabonese and Swiss, an apprentice "Gaulologist" who studies the customs of the Gauls, lives in Paris without identity, papers or job. For herself and for her daughter, Marie, she plunges into the jungle of prefectures and counters, in search of a residence permit and a simple right to exist, facing bureaucratic racism and everyday intolerance.
Context
The novel came out in Paris in 1999 from Le Serpent à plumes, in the Fiction française series, and was reissued in 2011 by Margouline. The author's first book, it turns the ethnologist's gaze back on France and denounces, in an absurdist mode, bureaucratic racism. Bessora has since been likened to Raymond Queneau and Nathalie Sarraute for her play with language. The book has not been translated into English.
Who it is for
For laughing, sometimes wryly, at French administration and its counters, from the pen of an anthropologist turned novelist.
Prizes and reception
In 2000, Afrik.com presented the author as a young Swiss-Gabonese voice and enjoyed the tribulations of her "Gaulologist".