Drawing on real accounts of the Ebola outbreak that devastated West Africa, this poignant, timely fable reflects on both the strength and the fragility of life and humanity's place in the world.
Two boys venture from their village to hunt in a nearby forest, where they shoot down bats with glee, and cook their prey over an open fire. Within a month, they are dead, bodies ravaged by an insidious disease that neither the local healer's potions nor the medical team's treatments could cure. Compounding the family's grief, experts warn against touching the sick. But this caution comes too late: the virus spreads rapidly, and the boys' father is barely able to send his eldest daughter away for a chance at survival.
A powerful poetic ode to life in a country of ancient customs, ravaged by death..A magnificent and essential text' Le Figaro;'A powerful poetic ode to life in a country of ancient customs, ravaged by death. A magnificent and essential text' Le Figaro; '[Tadjo] intertwines facts, well-known songs, legends, poems, fictionalized testimonials, and documentary prose in the stirring orality of this novel to give voice to the humanitarian disaster.Realistic, painterly and poetic, the impeccably structured polyvocal novel registers the urgency, despair, commitment, dedication and solidarity that Ebola provokes and leaves one shivering' World Literature Today
Veronique Tadjo is a writer, academic, artist and author of books for young people. Born in Paris, she grew up in Abidjan (Ivory Coast) where she attended local schools. She began writing and illustrating books for children in 1988 with her first book Lord of the Dance. Veronique Tadjo has lived in Paris, Lagos, Mexico City, Nairobi and London. After 14 years in South Africa where she was Professor and head of French and Francophone Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, she now lives in London.
Two boys venture from their village to hunt in a nearby forest, where they shoot down bats with glee, and cook their prey over an open fire. Within a month, they are dead, bodies ravaged by an insidious disease that neither the local healer's potions nor the medical team's treatments could cure. Compounding the family's grief, experts warn against touching the sick. But this caution comes too late: the virus spreads rapidly, and the boys' father is barely able to send his eldest daughter away for a chance at survival.
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