This is a tour de force - original, irreverent, brutal, funny, poetic - in which history and myth are brilliantly evoked – Margaret Busby * Independent *
A brilliant, often hilarious, political satire * Daily Telegraph *
A thoroughgoing indictment of the African way of leadership * Guardian *
Witty and wholly authentic chronicle of black African atrocity… Spellbinding * Spectator *
One of the most powerful, funniest and richest novels written in French this decade * Le Nouvel Observateur *

Ahmadou Kourouma

Ahmadou Kourouma was born in the Ivory Coast in 1927. Hailed as one of the leading African writers in French, he died in 2003.

Frank Wynne

Frank Wynne is an Irish literary translator, writer and editor. He has translated more than a hundred French and Hispanic novels by authors including Michel Houellebecq, Patrick Modiano, Javier Cercas and Virginie Despentes. Over a career spanning more than twenty-five years, his work has twice earned him the Dublin Literary Award, he has been awarded the Scott Moncrieff Prize on three occasions and the Premio Valle Inclan twice. Most recently, his translation of The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers Guild by Mathias Enard won the 2024 French-American Prize. He was the first translator to chair the jury for the International Booker Prize.

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