The Radiance of the King
$35.63
- Paperback
312 pages
- Release Date
15 September 2011
Summary
At the beginning of this masterpiece of African literature, Clarence, a white man, has been shipwrecked on the coast of Africa. Flush with self-importance, he demands to see the king, but the king has just left for the south of his realm. Traveling through an increasingly phantasmagoric landscape in the company of a beggar and two roguish boys, Clarence is gradually stripped of his pretensions, until he is sold to the royal harem as a slave. But in the end Clarence’s bewildering journey is the occasion of a revelation, as he discovers the image, both shameful and beautiful, of his own humanity in the alien splendor of the king.
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781590174555 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 1590174550 |
| Author: | Camara Laye, James Kirkup |
| Publisher: | New York Review Books |
| Imprint: | NYRB Classics |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 312 |
| Edition: | Main |
| Release Date: | 15 September 2011 |
| Weight: | 320g |
| Dimensions: | 126mm x 203mm |
| Series: | New York Review Books Classics |
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Critics Review
“A classic work of modernism-a signal work in the African canon
Laye’s dreamlike, sinister, erotic setting is worthy of Kafka. Sunday Telegraph Has been described as a journey towards native African wisdom. It is perhaps better read as a cutting reworking of European books about Africa and its ‘mysteries’, which are only redeemed for civilisation through the European hero. Times Literary Supplement
Camara Laye
Camara Laye (1928-1980)
Born in Kouroussa, a large village on the river Niger in the French West African colony of Upper Guinea, Camara Laye was a member of the Camara clan, one of the oldest clans of the Malinke people. His father, a goldsmith, held considerable local authority. The eldest of seven children, Camara Laye received his early education in Koranic and French elementary schools. He later won a scholarship to study automobile engineering in Argenteuil, outside Paris.
His first book, the autobiographical novel The Dark Child, was published in France in 1953 to great acclaim. It was followed a year later by his masterpiece, The Radiance of the King. In the late 1950s, Camara Laye returned to Africa and worked in various official capacities for the government of newly independent Guinea. However, he was forced into exile due to his political outspokenness. Despite facing illness and poverty in his final years, Camara Laye completed two additional major works: Dramouss, a continuation of The Dark Child, and The Guardian of the Word, a French rendering of the great Malian epic Soundiata.
Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison is the author of nine novels, including The Bluest Eye, Beloved, Jazz, and Paradise. Born in Ohio, she is a graduate of Howard and Cornell universities. She held the Robert F. Goheen Professorship at Princeton from 1989 to 2006 and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.
James Kirkup (1918-2009)
James Kirkup was a prolific English poet, translator, and travel writer. In 1962, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
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