Poetry
Le Crépuscule des silences
Not translated into English
Pierre-Edgar Moundjegou · 1975
Synopsis
Poems that take silence as their theme: what a Gabonese society living under the one-party state keeps quiet about, and what the poet tries, timidly, to lay bare there, as one performs an autopsy. Disillusion dominates, and freedom is at the centre; one line speaks of history as “closed like a fist”. The critique works through the image, not through the slogan.
Context
The book was published in 1975 in Paris, in eighty-three pages, by Pierre Jean Oswald, under the name Magang-Ma-Mbuju Wisi. The history of Gabonese poetry makes it the first title of a current that, between 1970 and 1990, replaces open protest with symbol. The next collection, Ainsi parlaient les anciens, was published by Silex in 1987 and, through its title, points towards Zarathustra.
Who it is for
In French, a short collection; it helps to know that Gabon was then living under a single party.
Prizes and reception
Its author is regarded as the leader of the poetry of concealment and as the herald of Gabonese committed poetry.
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