Tchicaya U Tam’si: Les Phalènes [The Moths]

The latest addition to my website is Tchicaya U Tam’si‘s Les Phalènes [The Moths]. This is the third in his trilogy and we follow the same family we met in Les Cancrelats [The Cockroaches]but World War II has finished and things are changing, symbolised by the young women dancing in their Charleston dresses. Prosper is involved in politics, in a political party aiming for independence but he also has a messy love life. His son goes to France to study and his cousin trains to become a doctor. He himself gets the baccalaureate. In short things are not as there were, with more rights and opportunities for the African population. But politics are messy and. complicated as is his love life.

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