Poetry
Песна на црната жена
Not translated into English
Aco Šopov · 1976
Synopsis
A collection born of the years the poet spent in Senegal as an ambassador. At its centre stands the figure of the Black woman, through whom the poems speak of the land, culture and history of the country. Far from exoticism, Africa appears there close and familiar: the poet recognises in it an origin common to all men, and looks at it without the disdain that colonial Europe held for those it dominated.
Context
The collection was published in Skopje, by Misla, in 1976, and received the Brothers Miladinov Prize, awarded each year by the Struga Poetry Evenings. A Croatian translation followed in 1977. It belongs to the last manner of its author, with Дрво на ридот, of 1980. Macedonian critics reread it in 2023, at the Štip colloquium for the poet's centenary, as a work that joins the movement of decolonisation, although this was not the poet's first intention.
Who it is for
In Macedonian, with no French translation. It is better to know the poet's earlier, darker work in order to gauge what this African stay changed in it.
Prizes and reception
Awarded a prize at Struga in the year of its publication, and studied today as one of the first non-colonial views of Africa in its literature.
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