Description
Poetry. African Studies. Translated by Todd Fredson. "Josué Guébo's MY COUNTRY, TONIGHT offers English-language readers their first sustained encounter with one of the important contemporary poets of the Ivory Coast and Francophone Africa. Translated with superb nuance and verve by Todd Fredson, who also provides an insightful introduction to the collection, Guébo's poems present a stirring, condensed and often ironic vision of his country's long colonial and post-independence struggle for cultural, political and economic sovereignty, against the power-plays of the neoliberal West and global capitalism. Both lyric and polemic, MY COUNTRY, TONIGHT, by 'tear[ing] the names open for us,' adds new depth to our post-colonial understanding of recent Ivorian history and enriches our appreciation of African poetry today."—John Keene
Author Bio
Josué Guébo is the author of five collections of poetry, the most recent of which, Think of Lampedusa, won the 2014 Tchicaya U Tam'si Prize for African poetry. Guébo is the president of the Ivorian Writers' Association.
Author City: Abidjan IVC