Republic of the Congo / All works
Poetry
L'Envers du soleil
Not translated into English
Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard · 1970
Synopsis
Poems that go out to meet those who, for various reasons, prefer to turn their backs on the sun: the poet brings back from the depths of the night the outcasts and speaks of the weight of their sufferings. We meet the fisherman who faces a treacherous sea every day, and the unemployed who wander the streets at night, whose “names are missing from the register of work”. Death and anguish run through the collection, in which the sun nevertheless leaves a few patches of hope and love.
Context
The collection was published in 1970 in Honfleur, illustrated by Guy-Léon Fylla, by Pierre Jean Oswald, the publisher of the author's second book. Arlette Chemain groups the first three collections into a trilogy nourished by nostalgia for the homeland, felt during his studies in Bordeaux. According to a study in La Revue des ressources, the title answers Kourouma's Soleils des indépendances, whose disappointment it also expresses. L'Harmattan reissued it in 1978.
Who it is for
Poems in French, of a musical lyricism. They can be read without preparation, but gain from being read alongside the two collections that precede them.
Prizes and reception
Reprinted in the poetic works of 2007, it is for Yves Mbama-Ngankoua the collection in which the poet's bitterness is most strongly felt.
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