Novel
The Sun Hath Looked Upon Me
C'est le soleil qui m'a brûlée
Calixthe Beyala · 1987
Synopsis
In a shantytown in Douala, Ateba, nineteen, abandoned by her mother and by a father she does not know, lives under the roof of her aunt Ada, for whom she does the housework, docile in appearance. After an outing with Jean Zepp, her aunt beats her and has an old woman subject her to a humiliating virginity test. Her friend Irène disappears, and Ateba searches desperately for her place in a society that wants women silent and always sides with the man.
Context
The novel was published in Paris by Stock in 1987, in 173 pages; it is its author's first book. It was reissued in paperback by J'ai lu as early as 1988, then by Librio in 1997, and Marjolijn de Jager translated it into English in 1996 under the title The Sun Hath Looked Upon Me, in Heinemann's African series. Critics see in it a systematic challenge to the conventions of the French-language African novel; Mildred Mortimer reads in it the deconstruction of the nurturing mother and the protective home, and Régina Odjola, in 2022, a discourse denouncing male domination.
Who it is for
In French, a short novel in raw language. It is as well to know that it shows rape and prostitution without flinching.
Prizes and reception
No prize for this first novel; feminist critics welcomed its attack on patriarchy.
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