Novel
L'Homme de ma colline
Not translated into English
Joseph Cimpaye · 1971
Synopsis
In rural Burundi in the late thirties and during the war, under Belgian administration, the young Benedikto grows up in a hill family. Classed as an able-bodied adult man, he owes forced labour and suffers a corrupt and tyrannical local hierarchy, subservient to the colonizer. Supported by his family, he stands up as best he can, until the day he is accused of having made a bicycle pump disappear: he then flees to Uganda, like his companion Kariyo, in the hope of a wage and of an advancement that his country denies him.
Context
Completed in April 1971, the novel remained unpublished for more than forty years: it appeared in 2013 in Brussels, co-published by the Archives et Musée de la littérature and M.E.O., with a preface by Marc Quaghebeur, testimonies and an afterword by the author's eldest son. It is regarded as the first novel of Burundian literature in French. Its characters do not set off of their own accord towards the lights of the city: colonial society pushes them into exile. Critics have praised its poetic use of Kirundi proverbs.
Who it is for
A short novel in French, steeped in Kirundi proverbs; it reads as a chronicle of a hill under colonisation.
Prizes and reception
Unpublished in its author's lifetime, it is now presented as the founding novel of the letters of its country.
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