It seems that time has stopped waiting for Dream Countthe new novel that the Nigerian writer has announced will be published next spring. However, the publications by African authors that have reached us translated into Spanish in recent months do not leave us indifferent, with several novels that focus on human reality and existential crises. Little gems written by established authors that help you see life through the eyes of those who write from the African continent with a universal vocation.
In the field of essays, some very interesting books have also been published that delve into Spanish colonial history in Africa, black musicians or the women who set the rhythm of the continent.
Fiction
In the company of men, from (Books of Bad Companies, 2024. Translation from French by Leandro Calle). “Men should sign a pact of good understanding with nature. We must live together and preserve the well-being of the planet,” defends the Ivorian writer in this work, which functions as a call for peaceful coexistence between human beings and nature. Using the situation in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia (2014-2016) as an excuse, Tadjo reflects on what the destruction of the environment and the . A dialogue led by the wise tree, the baobab, in which animals, plants and man intervene. A book full of poetry that flows and captivates the reader and addresses issues such as the differences between white immigrants who work in Africa and can be repatriated to their countries and Africans who face strained health systems and lack resources. .
Cotton Weddings, by Edem Awumey (Baile del Sol, 2024. Translation from French by Pilar Altinier). The Togolese writer begins with the kidnapping of a German journalist by a cotton farmer, Toby Kunta, in a museum exhibition hall. As a ransom he asks for compensation of several million francs for himself and a group of farmers ruined by the production of . In the tension that is created during the negotiations with the police chief, Kunta begins to burn the museum’s works and threatens to do the same to his prisoner if he does not get justice. Awumey uses this story as an excuse to take the reader along the cotton route, from the African lands to the southern United States and so many other parts of the world. A book that narrates the struggle of the planet’s farmers against the dictates of large multinationals, silenced for so long and now wanting to be heard.
Just as we exist, by Kaoutar Harchi (Ediciones del Oriente y del Mediterráneo, 2024. Translation from French by Inmaculada Jiménez Morell). Harchi is a French-Moroccan writer and professor and researcher in sociology. This novel moves between those two worlds, that of literature and that of sociology. In it, paternal-filial love and the awakening of political consciousness accompany the childhood and adolescence of a girl of immigrant origin. Themes such as the place of belonging, race or the postcolonial issue are intertwined in this story, which also contains some autobiographical flashes. A book that does not leave you indifferent either for its theme or for the way in which it is written.
Rehearsal
, from (KO Books, 2024) In this book, Casielles dismantles all the heroic and patriotic myths of the Spanish colonization in Morocco and Western Sahara. It delves into the reasons that led to those conquests, the propaganda that those possessions served, the legends that the different political regimes, especially the Franco dictatorship, created from them and how far away all that was for the majority of Spaniards. . It denounces the outrages, abuses and human rights violations that the Spanish troops and rulers committed in those lands. It shows a part of the history of Spain, which like so many others is not at all glorious, and is unknown to the majority of citizens. A much-needed work in which the author travels to the former protectorate of northern Morocco, Sidi Ifni and Western Sahara.
A good complement to the previous work is the novel When the mountains walk, by Youssef El Maimouni (Roca editorial, 2021), which tells the story of the Spanish civil war from the perspective of the Moroccans who participated in it. Pushed by the poverty that sweeps the Spanish Protectorate, they enlist in the coup Army and move to the peninsula, where they are mistreated and despised by the Spanish soldiers. The war turned out not to be the lightning war they imagined when they enlisted looking to change their lives. In the end, Franco betrayed them, abandoning them after having used them as cannon fodder. Why did they go to fight in Spain instead of uniting and expelling the oppressor who had usurped their lands and had them subjugated in their own country?
, by Tania Safura Adam (Malpaso, 2024). This book is a review of African popular music (to distinguish it from traditional music) from its emergence to practically the present day. Safura’s great contribution is the contextualization of the different styles and rhythms, how and where they emerge, what social role they play and the resistance they represent to colonization, or the role they represent in the struggles for independence and in new States. Music is much more than an element of leisure, it is loaded with meaning and can be used by dictators to manipulate their people or by them to combat tyrannies.
(Editorial Mundo Negro, 2024). This book, which is born from the section African from Mundo Negro magazine, compiles the profile of 50 contemporary African women who are globally relevant in their professional field.
and an autobiography
, from (Amazon, 2024). Samb was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. He grew up in front of Las Canteras beach. And at the age of eight, his parents sent him to Senegal, to his grandmother’s house. In this book, the young man tells of his arrival in a new country about which he knew nothing, his adaptation to a new culture and completely unknown customs, his learning of new languages (Wolof and French at school) and his attempts to adapt to everything. it. He missed the afternoons surfing, the cartoons he saw on television, the Sunday paellas in Agaete and the love of his host family. He paid tribute to her in his first book, dedicated to the woman who so lovingly cared for him. Now, in this second part of his story, he tells of his desire to return to Spain to achieve his dream of being an actor. In the end he does it. Despite the difficulties and by working, first as a street vendor and then in hospitality, he is able to pay for his dramatic art studies and start acting. His last appearance was in the television series .
