Bøker av Linus Asong

The novel remains the most popular genre in the African literary landscape. In the very large body of criticism that has been devoted to the craft of African fiction, this very stimulating study of six African novels will hold its own distinctive place for a long while. It brings to African critical thought not only an exceptional acumen of interpretation and analysis, but something much more important to most of the previous serious literary study than mere technical dissection - a keen sense of the experience and imaginative truth that make Asong's selected African texts living books as well as authentic record of human and moral values. Many of Asong's perceptions are not only critically shrewd but humanly searching, alert to aesthetic quality and invention. No one interested in creative criticism of African fiction will read this book without finding its approach a challenge to his or her own reading of African fiction, and a stimulus to understanding the growth and enduring richness of the best of the African novel. The book balances nicely in its choice of three texts in English and three in French, the two dominant colonial languages in Africa South of the Sahara. Even more interesting is the fact that although all the French texts have been translated into English, Asong opts to treat the three in the original language in which they were conceived and executed, a decision which keeps the reader as close as possible to the original idiom.

The extremely irritable and quick-tempered chieftain, Akendong II has 14 children, all girls, and is saddened by the fact that he has no chopchair, a male heir to his throne. Then news comes to him that his favourite wife has given birth to a pair of twins, boys. He is even more angered by the fact that he has two heirs, a source of trouble for his kingdom. To avoid his wrath, his councillors change the story, sending away one of the boys to grow in hiding. Learning of the truth about his birth 15 years afterwards, the prince in hiding returns, kidnaps the palace prince and demands his full share of the kingdom. His will is done, but at a very great cost to the chief's peace of mind and relationship with his people. This is by far the shortest of Asong's novels and the least complicated by comparison. But the conflicts, the hallmarks of his art are still there, so also is his breathtaking suspense.