Poetry
Löbëla
Justo Bolekia Boleká · 1999
Synopsis
A collection in three parts, “Gritos plegados”, “La ondina Löbëla” and “Versos furtivos”, whose central figure is the water nymph Löbëla, mother goddess and lover of a matriarchal world in which woman holds an essential place. The poems, written in Spanish with passages in Bubi, return to the ancestral culture of the Bubi of Bioko, to their gods and their ancestors, to respect for the elders and to water.
Context
The collection appeared in 1999 in the Madrid publisher's Casa de África series, at the same time as a manual of the Bubi language by the same author; it is his first book of poems. According to Ineke Phaf-Rheinberger, his project is to bring the Bubi past into literature, and his central fear is the death of the language. Soon out of print, the book was reissued in 2019, enlarged with a prologue and new poems; a bilingual English edition, translated by Michael Ugarte, had appeared in 2015.
Who it is for
For hearing a Bubi voice from Bioko, between Spanish and the language of its ancestors; the collection exists in a bilingual English edition.
Prizes and reception
The critic Trujillo regards it as a classic of Spanish-language African literature; its publisher awards a prize in the author's name.
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