Novel
El párroco de Niefang
Not translated into English
Joaquín Mbomío Bacheng · 1996
Synopsis
Arrested under Macías and believed dead by everyone, Father Gabriel leaves prison after the fall of the dictator. He regains his strength at a mission, between Father Matanga, trained in Rome, and Father Nkang Nzama, who gets everything at half price from the market women, then slowly takes the road back to his parish of Niefang, doubting his vocation. At each stage he meets villagers broken by the years of terror and a faith mingled with the customs of the ancestors, even to the healers who make the dead speak.
Context
The author's first novel, the book appeared in 1996 from the Centro Cultural Hispano-Guineano in Malabo, which also published the next one two years later; this second novel was translated into French in 2015. It offers a reflection on the meeting of the colonizer's culture and the colonized's, and on an African Catholicism unlike that of Europe. The author co-founded the Equatoguinean literature week at the University of Vienna.
Who it is for
A short novel in Spanish, between chronicle and fable, for readers who want to see what the dictatorship left in the Fang villages.
Prizes and reception
Casa África, in Madrid, presents it as a masterly reflection on decolonisation.
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