The Heart of the Leopard Children
Publisher
:
Leméac
Parution date
:
EAN
:
9782742790050
Number of pages
:
130
Description
How often can a man be uprooted, separated from everything he knows and loves, and lose all direction in life before his journey ceases to have any meaning?
A nameless young man lives in the housing projects outside of Paris. When he was a child, his parents moved with him from the Congo to France, hoping in vain to escape poverty and violence. His best friend, Drissa, is in a psychiatric hospital; and now Mireille, his girlfriend, the woman with whom he has shared his childhood and hopes, has left him to reconnect with her Jewish roots. She has become passionate about Israel and no longer has any interest in the problems of the “banlieue,” in the man, or his friends.
As night falls, the man drinks heavily and descends into alcoholic debauchery. Gaining no relief from his pain through drink, he uses violence to override his suffering. There is a fight with a policeman, the policeman dies, and the young man is arrested and taken to jail. There he is battered by the police in retaliation for the death of their friend and colleague as they cannot cope with the murder of one of their own. Half-conscious and delirious, he reflects on his journey from the land of his ancestors to his life in the projects with his lost friend Drissa, and the woman who left him.
In The Heart of the Leopard Children, N’Songé explores the themes of love and pain, belonging and uprooting, desire and fear—all with an implacable and irresistible accuracy.
Author
Wilfried N'Sonde : Wilfried N’Songé was born in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo. In 1973, he moved with his family to France and spent his childhood in an impoverished and overcrowded neighborhood on the outskirts of Paris. As an adult, he left France for Germany, became a famous musician, and then an educator. He now lives in Berlin and teaches children with special needs. The Heart of the Leopard Children is his first novel. His second, Le silence des esprits, was published in 2010, also by Actes Sud.
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