Novel
Una lanza por el Boabí
Not translated into English
Daniel Jones Mathama · 1962
Synopsis
Gue tells his life, starting from his childhood in San Carlos, on the island of Fernando Poo, where his father, the petty king Boabí, reigns. The narrative dwells on the customs of the Bubis, down to their dishes, on the clash between two ways of life and on the attraction exerted by the new town of Santa Isabel; it does not spare the machismo of the men of the country. Then Gue leaves for Spain; scenes of the island are then mingled with reflections born of a stay in Barcelona.
Context
The book appeared in Barcelona in 1962, from Casals, which presented the author on the cover as the first writer of Spanish Guinea; it is now known that Leoncio Evita's novel had preceded it by nine years. Boabí is a double of the author's own father. Critics place it in a literature of consent, which proclaims Spain's great task on the island, while acknowledging that the book treats the indigenous cultures with respect and gives images of them that few other sources preserve.
Who it is for
A long costumbrista narrative in Spanish, for readers interested in the Bubis of Bioko and the ambiguities of the first Equatoguinean writings.
Prizes and reception
Long regarded as the country's first novel, it is read today as a document on life on the island at the turn of the century.
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