Poetry
Ceiba
Not translated into English
Raquel Ilombé · 1978
Synopsis
Poems written between Madrid and Bata over about ten years, and arranged in the order in which they came. Love is their first subject; nostalgia for native Africa, the quest for origins and self-questioning run through them, and African values sit alongside Catholic faith. The title names the kapok tree, a sacred tree and the national tree, which appears on the country's flag.
Context
This first book made its author the first woman published in Equatorial Guinean literature, even if it is now recalled that Sister Teresa Juliana de Santo Domingo, known as Chicaba, had preceded her. She then produced in 1981 a collection of legends regarded as the country's first children's book. Now almost impossible to find, the 1978 collection was followed in 2015 by a posthumous volume of unpublished poems, published by Verbum, which takes its title.
Who it is for
Lyrical poems in Spanish, for those who want to hear the first female voice of Equatorial Guinean poetry.
Prizes and reception
Now a collector's item, it can hardly be consulted except in libraries, notably the National Library of Spain.
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