Novel
Ekomo
Not translated into English
María Nsué Angüe · 1985
Synopsis
Around the fifties, in the midst of Spanish colonisation, a young newly married Fang woman, Nnanga Aba'a, accompanies her husband Ekomo through the forest, seeking a cure of body and spirit for the ailment that has suddenly seized her leg. In a language where prose mingles with poetry, her voice denounces both the prohibitions of traditional society and the disorder that colonisation brings to it, and questions the place of women.
Context
The novel appeared in 1985 with the presses of the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, in Madrid, and was reissued in 2007 by Sial. Several lists make it the first novel published by a woman from the country and the first Equatorial Guinean work translated, into French, in 1995. It is probably the book from the country on which academics have written most, from Tours to Mount Holyoke. The author, whom the Real Academia Española had named a corresponding member in 2015, was preparing a preface for an English translation.
Who it is for
A lyrical novel in Spanish, for readers who want to enter Fang culture through a woman's voice.
Prizes and reception
Praised for its lyricism, it remains the most studied work in the literature of this country.