Shadows of Your Black Memory

by Ndongo, Donato

• ISBN13: 9780974888125
• ISBN10: 0974888125
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-12-15
• Publisher: Swan Isle Pr

Summary

Set during the last years of Spanish rule in Equatorial Guinea,Shadows of Your Black Memorypresents the voice of a young African man reflecting on his childhood. Through the idealistic eyes of the nameless protagonist, Donato Ngongo portrays the cultural conflicts between Africa and Spain, ancestral worship competing with Catholicism, and tradition giving way to modernity. The backdrop of a nation moving toward a troubled independence parallels the young man's internal struggle to define his own identity. In this bildungsroman, Donato Ndongo masterfully exposes the cultural fissures of his native land. "Spanish Guinea" is a heated, sensual landscape with exotic animals and trees, ancient rituals, ghosts, saints, and sinners. We come to know the narrator's extended family, the people of his village, merchants, sorcerers, and Catholic priests; we see them critically at times, even humorously, yet always with compassion and a magical dignity. Michael Ugarte's sensitive translation captures the spirit of the original Spanish prose and makes Ndongo's powerful, gripping tale available to English-speaking readers for the first time.

Author Biography

Donato Ndongo is visiting scholar in the Department of Romance Languages at the University of Missouri–Columbia. He was born in Equatorial Guinea and has published novels, poetry, and essays on postcolonial Africa.

Michael Ugarte is professor of Spanish at the University of Missouri–Columbia.

Table of Contents

Translator's PostscriptNote on Translation

Glossary

Names of Places

For Further Reading

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