Novel
Sur la terre en passant
Not translated into English
François-Borgia Marie Evembé · 1966
Synopsis
Iyoni, whose name means shame in the language of Kribi, arrives in Yaoundé hoping for a job in the civil service. He falls ill soon afterwards, sometimes goes without enough to eat and depends on his friends: Abelekongo, Marie-Chantal, and Nkilviagah, his protector. Shy and proud, anxious to appear dignified, he hides that he is out of work and is ashamed of depending on others as of his own body. At a lavish party in Nkilviagah's villa, he feels out of place in his worn clothes and goes to eat alone in the kitchen.
Context
The novel was published in Paris in 1966 by Présence africaine, in 112 pages. According to Richard Bjornson, who devotes a study to it in 1980 on the poetics of shame, the first edition quickly sold out and the book had still not been reprinted at that date. Bjornson reads in it the portrait of a man whose shame makes him lucid about the hypocrisy of those around him, and about a society less human than he had hoped. The following year the book received the prize that the Association of French-Language Writers awards to the best African fiction of the past year.
Who it is for
In French, a short novel. It is worth knowing that the book is made up of the daily humiliations of a poor man in the capital.
Prizes and reception
Grand prix littéraire d'Afrique noire in 1967, shared that year with Kondo le requin, by Jean Pliya.