Democratic Republic of the Congo / All works
Novel
Between Tides
Entre les eaux
V. Y. Mudimbe · 1973
Synopsis
Pierre Landu, an African Catholic priest who studied in Rome, doubts his faith and sees the Church implicated in colonial injustice. Despite his friend Father Howard, who urges him to endure rather than take revenge, and his mother, who accuses him of betraying his own people for the God of the whites, he joins a group of Marxist rebels, where he debates religion and revolution with a lettered commander, without ceasing to be drawn to theology, Vivaldi and Latin prayer.
Context
Published in 1973 by Présence africaine, the novel received in 1975 the grand international prize for Catholic literature and was translated into English in 1991 under the title Between Tides. The author then published Le Bel Immonde, in 1976, and L'Écart, in 1979. Publishers Weekly, severe on the hero, granted the author that he had shown there could be no easy solution either for Landu or for Africa.
Who it is for
For reading, by a philosopher of Africa, a novel of faith and political commitment.
Prizes and reception
The Modern Novel sees in it a very fine book on religious faith, which offers no easy answer.
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