Poetry
Poèmes africains
Not translated into English
Annette Mbaye d'Erneville · 1965
Synopsis
Short poems, made to be sung, in which recur the nostalgia for Mother Africa, her traditions and her taboos, the euphoria of brand-new independence and death. One hears a circumcision song, a night psalmody, a requiem; the kora and the single-string guitar answer the pestles of the women who set the rhythm of the country's march, and the moon becomes a woman. Suffering, revolt and love are spoken there from the women's side, between hope and anxiety.
Context
The collection appeared in Dakar in 1965, from the Centre national d'art français, running to about twenty pages, and was reissued under the title Kaddu, a Wolof word meaning speech, first in the same year and then by Les Nouvelles Éditions africaines in 1966. The author assembled it after her return home, while she was running a women's magazine and working at the national radio. Critics note a musical poetry that plays on the rhythms of the language and on repeated formulas, and see in its author the one who opened the way for her women peers.
Who it is for
Twenty pages in French, with no difficulty of language. The only obstacle is a practical one: the book is now hard to find, and one is reduced to anthologies.
Prizes and reception
Its author is regarded as a pioneer and a source of inspiration for African women writers in French.
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