Novel
Love in Ebony
Charles E. Cooper · 1932
Synopsis
A West African love story, if we go by the subtitle under which the book appeared. We do not know what it tells: no summary, no characters, no setting of the action are known. We know that it runs to three hundred and sixteen pages, that it was read in England on its publication, and that it bears on its title page an Africanised assumed name instead of its author's name.
Context
The book appeared in London from John Murray in 1932, with a preface by an English journalist, and was reviewed the following year by a scholarly journal of African studies. An encyclopaedia places it among the first English-language works of the region, alongside a Ghanaian novel of 1941. Nothing of its content has been taken up since: histories of African literature cite it by its title, its date and its subtitle, then move on to the next book. A country without edition or criticism thus lets a book's rank survive and its content disappear.
Who it is for
Three hundred pages in English from the thirties, unobtainable outside the major libraries. It is no longer read, it is cited.
Prizes and reception
It is regarded as the first Liberian novel and one of the very first English-language novels of West Africa.