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The Radiance of the King
At the beginning of this masterpiece of African literature, Clarence, a white man, has been shipwrecked on the coast of Africa. Flush with self-importance, he demands to see the king, but the king has just left for the south of his realm. Traveling through an increasingly phantasmagoric landscape in the company of a beggar and two roguish boys, Clarence is gradually stripped of his pretensions, until he is sold to the royal harem as a slave. But in the end Clarence’s bewildering journey is the occasion of a revelation, as he discovers the image, both shameful and beautiful, of his own humanity in the alien splendor of the king.
Camara Laye published his first novel in 1953, the autobiographical L'Enfant noir (The African Child, also published under the title The Dark Child). It follows his own journey from childhood in Kouroussa, his education in Conakry, and eventual departure for France. The book won the Prix Charles Veillon in 1954. L'Enfant noir was followed the next year by Le Regard du roi (The Radiance of the King).
Camara Laye published his first novel in 1953, the autobiographical L'Enfant noir (The African Child, also published under the title The Dark Child). It follows his own journey from childhood in Kouroussa, his education in Conakry, and eventual departure for France. The book won the Prix Charles Veillon in 1954. L'Enfant noir was followed the next year by Le Regard du roi (The Radiance of the King).
279 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1954
About the author
Camara Laye
20 books99 followersDuring his time at college he wrote The African Child (L'Enfant noir), a novel based loosely on his own childhood. He would later become a writer of many essays and was a foe of the government of Guinea. His novel The Radiance of the King (Le Regard du roi) is considered to be one of his most important works.
He was born Malinke (a Mandé speaking ethnicity) into a caste that traditionally worked as blacksmiths and goldsmiths. His family name is Camara, and following the tradition of his community, it precedes his given name—Laye. His mother was from the village of Tindican, and his immediate childhood surroundings were not predominantly influenced by French culture. He attended both the Koranic and French elementary schools in Kouroussa. At age fifteen he went to Conakry, capital of Guinea, to continue his education. He attended vocational studies in motor mechanics. In 1947, he travelled to Paris to continue studies in mechanics. There he worked and took further courses in engineering and worked towards the baccalauréat.
In 1953, he published his first novel, L'Enfant noir (The African Child, 1954, also published under the title The Dark Child), an autobiographical story, which narrates in the first person a journey from childhood in Kouroussa, through challenges in Conakry, to France. The book won the Prix Charles Veillon in 1954. L'Enfant noir was followed by Le Regard du roi (1954; The Radiance of the King, 1956). These two novels are among the very earliest major works in francophone African literature.The Radiance of the King was described by Kwame Anthony Appiah as "One of the greatest of the African novels of the colonial period."
In 1956, Camara returned to Africa, first to Dahomey (now Benin), then Gold Coast (now Ghana) and then to newly independent Guinea, where he held government posts. In 1965, he left Guinea for Dakar, Senegal because of political issues, never to return. In 1966 his third novel, Dramouss (A Dream of Africa, 1968), was published. In 1978 his fourth and final work was published, Le Maître de la parole - Kouma Lafôlô Kouma (The Guardian of the Word, 1980), based on a Malian epic, as told by the griot Babou Condé, about the famous Sundiata Keita (also spelled Sunjata), the thirteenth-century founder of the Mali Empire.
Camara died in 1980 in Dakar, Senegal of a kidney infection.
He was born Malinke (a Mandé speaking ethnicity) into a caste that traditionally worked as blacksmiths and goldsmiths. His family name is Camara, and following the tradition of his community, it precedes his given name—Laye. His mother was from the village of Tindican, and his immediate childhood surroundings were not predominantly influenced by French culture. He attended both the Koranic and French elementary schools in Kouroussa. At age fifteen he went to Conakry, capital of Guinea, to continue his education. He attended vocational studies in motor mechanics. In 1947, he travelled to Paris to continue studies in mechanics. There he worked and took further courses in engineering and worked towards the baccalauréat.
In 1953, he published his first novel, L'Enfant noir (The African Child, 1954, also published under the title The Dark Child), an autobiographical story, which narrates in the first person a journey from childhood in Kouroussa, through challenges in Conakry, to France. The book won the Prix Charles Veillon in 1954. L'Enfant noir was followed by Le Regard du roi (1954; The Radiance of the King, 1956). These two novels are among the very earliest major works in francophone African literature.The Radiance of the King was described by Kwame Anthony Appiah as "One of the greatest of the African novels of the colonial period."
In 1956, Camara returned to Africa, first to Dahomey (now Benin), then Gold Coast (now Ghana) and then to newly independent Guinea, where he held government posts. In 1965, he left Guinea for Dakar, Senegal because of political issues, never to return. In 1966 his third novel, Dramouss (A Dream of Africa, 1968), was published. In 1978 his fourth and final work was published, Le Maître de la parole - Kouma Lafôlô Kouma (The Guardian of the Word, 1980), based on a Malian epic, as told by the griot Babou Condé, about the famous Sundiata Keita (also spelled Sunjata), the thirteenth-century founder of the Mali Empire.
Camara died in 1980 in Dakar, Senegal of a kidney infection.
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June 29, 2019
The POV here is third-person limited. We are never far from the musings of Clarence, the destitute white man. We enter into the thoughts of no one else.
The phantasmagoria here reminds me of Ben Okri’s fabulous Booker Prize Winning The Famished Road, and the idea of a white man adrift among Africans of Saul Bellow’s funny and moving Henderson the Rain King. Though here the author’s white man—Clarence—is disenfranchised and trying to finagle his way out of his poverty, Bellow’s Henderson is rich but just as lost, just as peripatetic.
All three novels share Africa as their setting. Moreover, though Radiance deploys a different kind of comedy, it nevertheless reminds me a bit of the rollicking madcap humor of John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces with its company of oddballs and innocuous boobs.
Clarence is the down and out white man being escorted to the South (where he believes he will be granted a post by the king) by the obstreperous beggar and the two mischievous boys, Noaga and Nagoa. To get to the South they must cross through the forest. Naturally Clarence has no conception of the sheer malice of the forest, of its mythic sentience. As in The Famished Road, and Chinua’s Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, the forest is a capricious magic force all its own. “‘Don’t talk of that here!’ says Nagoa urgently. ‘Not in the forest.’ Clarence sees him [Nagoa] cast a frightened glance at the walls of the tunnel.” (p. 111)
I have one problem in the prolonged equivocations in the dialogue; they becomes tedious. Moreover, the so-called cultural superiority that Clarence uses to criticize the Africans is just so much Western hypocrisy. He is not sympathetic; he is a querulous know-nothing; he gets more hysterical as the novel proceeds, always falling in and out of wild hallucinations.
So they make it through the forest to the South. Clarence is ebulliently received in the township of Ariana. Here the beggar continues with his journey and we see no more of him. But before he goes he introduces Clarance to Samba Baloum, a eunuch in the naba’s harem. In a district near the palace, Clarence gets his own hut and his own woman, Akissi. But because he cannot see African women as individuals – they all look the same to him – he is unable to understand what the African natives are up to, which is not without interest.
The phantasmagoria here reminds me of Ben Okri’s fabulous Booker Prize Winning The Famished Road, and the idea of a white man adrift among Africans of Saul Bellow’s funny and moving Henderson the Rain King. Though here the author’s white man—Clarence—is disenfranchised and trying to finagle his way out of his poverty, Bellow’s Henderson is rich but just as lost, just as peripatetic.
All three novels share Africa as their setting. Moreover, though Radiance deploys a different kind of comedy, it nevertheless reminds me a bit of the rollicking madcap humor of John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces with its company of oddballs and innocuous boobs.
Clarence is the down and out white man being escorted to the South (where he believes he will be granted a post by the king) by the obstreperous beggar and the two mischievous boys, Noaga and Nagoa. To get to the South they must cross through the forest. Naturally Clarence has no conception of the sheer malice of the forest, of its mythic sentience. As in The Famished Road, and Chinua’s Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, the forest is a capricious magic force all its own. “‘Don’t talk of that here!’ says Nagoa urgently. ‘Not in the forest.’ Clarence sees him [Nagoa] cast a frightened glance at the walls of the tunnel.” (p. 111)
I have one problem in the prolonged equivocations in the dialogue; they becomes tedious. Moreover, the so-called cultural superiority that Clarence uses to criticize the Africans is just so much Western hypocrisy. He is not sympathetic; he is a querulous know-nothing; he gets more hysterical as the novel proceeds, always falling in and out of wild hallucinations.
So they make it through the forest to the South. Clarence is ebulliently received in the township of Ariana. Here the beggar continues with his journey and we see no more of him. But before he goes he introduces Clarance to Samba Baloum, a eunuch in the naba’s harem. In a district near the palace, Clarence gets his own hut and his own woman, Akissi. But because he cannot see African women as individuals – they all look the same to him – he is unable to understand what the African natives are up to, which is not without interest.
December 4, 2015
Kafka plus Conrad turned upside down in Africa? Yes. Camara re-writes the Heart of Darkness as if it were a Kafkan parable, and, because that wasn't enough, writes from the close third POV of a white man, whose perceptions are entirely untrustworthy. But this is no grand existential statement about subjectivism and so on. The point is quite clear, and quite terrifying for the white reader: Clarence is simply incapable of experiencing or understanding the (unnamed) West African country he finds himself in. What he experiences, instead, are all the usual cliches. Africa smells. Africans jump up and down a lot. Africa is full of charlatans and corruption. Africa is filthy. Africa is full of sexually available women. And so on.
Most of these "experiences" are caused by his own stupidity, whether that's an inability to understand the people around him, an inability to understand himself, or because he's doped out of his mind.
It's hard to over-state the difficulty of this novel. It's not difficult for a reader--there's a bit of surrealism, which is tough to deal with, but mostly it's funny, the set-pieces are excellent, and it's easy to follow what's going on. When one can't understand what's going on, that's because Clarence can't, either, and you just have to stick with it and wait for the one of the not-white characters to explain what Clarence's own stupidity is hiding from him (and us).
But it must have been very difficult to write such a conceptually coherent novel. To take just one small example, "an unnamed West African country" is already a whopping cliche. And yet Camara sticks to it, not because he doesn't want to set it in, e.g., Guinea, but because people like Clarence really do experience Africa as if it were one place, and so the names of nations/peoples/geographies are unimportant to them (us). Camara allows us to experience the women in the novel as sexual objects or housemaids, not because that's what he thinks women are, but because, again, that how people like Clarence (us) experience African women. That's before we get to the way he imbues Kafka's characteristic situations with a different narrative engine (the trip to the Castle/King becomes waiting for the King to come to Clarence), and incorporates Conrad (and inverts him: the King is the antithesis of Kurtz), and so on.
My only criticism is that the prose, whether it's Camara's or the translators, is utilitarian at best. I itch to edit this book. Random example: "And again he looked at the tunnel walls with an expression of terror on his face." On what else, I wonder, would the expression of terror be? Delete.
Most of these "experiences" are caused by his own stupidity, whether that's an inability to understand the people around him, an inability to understand himself, or because he's doped out of his mind.
It's hard to over-state the difficulty of this novel. It's not difficult for a reader--there's a bit of surrealism, which is tough to deal with, but mostly it's funny, the set-pieces are excellent, and it's easy to follow what's going on. When one can't understand what's going on, that's because Clarence can't, either, and you just have to stick with it and wait for the one of the not-white characters to explain what Clarence's own stupidity is hiding from him (and us).
But it must have been very difficult to write such a conceptually coherent novel. To take just one small example, "an unnamed West African country" is already a whopping cliche. And yet Camara sticks to it, not because he doesn't want to set it in, e.g., Guinea, but because people like Clarence really do experience Africa as if it were one place, and so the names of nations/peoples/geographies are unimportant to them (us). Camara allows us to experience the women in the novel as sexual objects or housemaids, not because that's what he thinks women are, but because, again, that how people like Clarence (us) experience African women. That's before we get to the way he imbues Kafka's characteristic situations with a different narrative engine (the trip to the Castle/King becomes waiting for the King to come to Clarence), and incorporates Conrad (and inverts him: the King is the antithesis of Kurtz), and so on.
My only criticism is that the prose, whether it's Camara's or the translators, is utilitarian at best. I itch to edit this book. Random example: "And again he looked at the tunnel walls with an expression of terror on his face." On what else, I wonder, would the expression of terror be? Delete.
December 31, 2018
The lord will pass through the corridor and looking at the prisoner will say: "This one must not be locked up any more: he is coming to me."
- Kafka
What an epigraph. I was haunted by it for days. And it sets the tone so perfectly for what follows! This is very like Kafka, absurd satire-parable, although its energy seemed to me very much heartier and less desperate than Kafka's. I was laughing throughout, without crying at the same time...
Toni Morrison has written an introduction to this edition. There is therefore no need for me to write anything here except that I thoroughly enjoyed the book.
- Kafka
What an epigraph. I was haunted by it for days. And it sets the tone so perfectly for what follows! This is very like Kafka, absurd satire-parable, although its energy seemed to me very much heartier and less desperate than Kafka's. I was laughing throughout, without crying at the same time...
Toni Morrison has written an introduction to this edition. There is therefore no need for me to write anything here except that I thoroughly enjoyed the book.
December 30, 2015
3.5/5
You see what I mean by ‘luck,’ and what others mean when they talk of ‘merit.’I'm giving this a mere three on the star scale as an urgent reminder to someday come back to it in a far more equipped fashion. Said equipage so far consists of the concrete form of Toni Morrison's introduction to an edition of this work other than my own, along with some vague handwavey aspirations at a far greater amount of so-generalized "African" literature under my belt. What I didn't get I lost, what I did get I don't trust, and what appealed or disagreed or was just really really weird all came out of a context that I have minimal experience with, if any at all. One could call it a cop out if time was merely a string of frozen ahistorical instances, but alas. It's not.
His eye, it seemed, might have been turned inward or might have been contemplating his own person…And where could such an eye have found a place of rest, if not inhimself?...All the same, so much indifference cast a chill…Of course, one could understand such indifference—Clarence understood it—and one could accept it, one could resign himself to accepting it. One knew quite well that one had no right to anything but indifference and that in fact on deserved to be treated with repugnance: but all this did not make that indifference less chill, or less cruel, or less desolating…Much as this statement rings of the white supremacist patriarchy, I don't trust my own reactions to it because of how easy it is to fall into the simple dichotomy. The dominant discourse is _______ so this brutally suppressed and phased out of the dominant discourse's recognition must be _________, save for the fact that grading cultures on a have and have-not is still an implicit judgment of what, in fact, deserves to survive. I came for what I had heard of as reverse Heart of Darkness and found a continuation of the literary tradition of Guinea and a whole lot of other complex things I'm not familiar with at all. Do you have any experience with the narrative tradition of Guinea, specifically as comparable as one gets of the English tradition in US classrooms? I sure don't.
“Isn’t your father a high court judge?” he whispered in the dancer’s ear.Things I got: eradication of body-hatred, invalidation of the idea that the soul has a credit history, decoupling of justice from an inherent justification of sadism, forgoing of the idea that the worth of a human being is completely within the control of said human being, swallowing of the guilty-till-proven-innocent sense of human "worth" with communal holism, and a scoffing at matters of hierarchy and body-accorded measures of a "life worth living". Things I didn't get: forests, mazes, wings, dancing, View of the Female (that's my western feminism for you), snakes, the South, and WHAT THE FUCK WAS UP WITH THE MANATEES. LIKE. I was going along in relatively peaceful ignorance and then holy shit why. Whyyyyyyyy...
“I should think not!” said the dancer. “I wouldn’t allow such a thing in my house. My father is an honourable man!”
“Isn’t a lord president an honourable man?” asked Clarence.
“Those sort of men have all kinds of dangerous contacts,” she replied.
"I've still got the right," he told himself, "but I no longer have the means to put my anger into effect."...The means! Is that what one's "rights" were?..."I aim to better get this yet. Except for the manatees. Those I am happy to have sit in their own corner while I go and not think about it for the time being.
April 10, 2022
Camara Laye’s 1954 novel “The Radiance of the King” is a bitingly satirical, yet wonderfully subtle, reimagining of the “Dark Continent” colonial novels of the 19th and 20th centuries.
When we first meet our “hero” Clarence, a white man of seemingly little consequence who may or may not be affiliated with the colonial administration, he is attending a ceremony in a small village where the King of this unnamed African country is soon to make an appearance.
Clarence, wanting to have an audience with the King and doing his best impression of an arrogant and entitled white guy, pushes through the throng of onlookers while cursing those who don’t defer to his status as being white and therefore their superior.
Clarence is a man with no appreciable skills, who we are told was kicked out of the colonial hotel he was staying at over gambling debts. He however believes that despite this, he is white and therefore automatically deserving of a job with the King.
It is in just a few short pages a masterful encapsulation of white colonial attitudes towards Africa and the colonial sense of entitlement.
Things quickly go sideways for Clarence after that however as he does not get his audience with the King and spends the remainder of the novel in a state of physical and mental disrepair, leading up to the stunning final scene where Clarence has an epiphany of sorts. Even if it is not the one he was expecting at the beginning of his journey.
As one of the early African novels confronting colonialism, its subject matter was eye opening to many colonial powers. Particularly in France, which in 1954 was immersed in violent and bloody upheaval from their own colonial adventures.
What makes this novel particularly stand out however is its imagery and symbolism.
It is awash in so many evocative metaphors that a single review cannot perhaps do them all justice.
When Clarence starts his journey his is no different from many white men we see in colonial fiction in his sense of privilege. Yet by the end he is a completely different man. He has been deceived, treated unjustly in the court system, sold into slavery (unbeknownst to him), and used as a breeder for the harem of the impotent village chief.
All of these tropes, which are usually attached to black men, are turned on their head as Clarence essentially becomes powerless to control his own fate in the face of seemingly intractable forces. A lesser writer may have been less subtle in depicting this transformation but Camara Laye’s writing here is pitch perfect.
Even more so when one considers the character of “The King”.
We only meet him twice, once at the start of the novel and again at the end. He says very little, but his very presence inspires awe in everyone he lays eyes on. What is equally astounding however is that “The King” is in fact a teenage boy, so weighed down by heavy bracelets and jewelry that he is unable to stand on his own. When Clarence enquires about why this is necessary he is told:
"He is young and he is frail," remarked the beggar, "but at the same time he is very old, and very strong... If he were not so heavily weighed-down with gold, there would be nothing to keep him among us here."
"Why should he want to leave you?" asked Clarence.
"Why should he not want to leave us?" retorted the beggar. "Do you suppose he was intended for the likes of us? But the weight of all that gold holds him captive here."
"Gold ..." said Clarence, bitterly.
"Gold can also be something more than just gold," the beggar proclaimed. "Among you white men, is gold always just gold and nothing else?"
In a sense, this young king is a symbol of young post-colonial movements that were sweeping Africa at the time. Africa/the king were perceived to be weak, and its natural resources that white men came to Africa to exploit (such as gold) were a weight that held it down. Yet gold here is indeed something more. It holds the king down and yet simultaneously demands the help of all the people to lift him up. Lacking something holding him back, a sense of common purpose to remove the weights that have been placed on him don’t exist.
In much the same way, the barbarity of the colonizer heightens the awareness of the colonized to rise up as one and throw off the weights holding them back.
September 29, 2020
Vispār jau man šķiet, ka grāmata ir par dzīvi, ne Āfriku, bet kas to patiesībā zina? Es noteikti ne, bet grāmata tieši tāpēc arī bija forša. Kaut varbūt tā man liekas tāpēc, ka es, šķiet, arī biju tās varonis.
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March 1, 2019A European wastrel finds himself lost and broke in an unnamed, dreamlike west African country in this brilliantly odd take on colonialism. Sort of an anti-heart of darkness, a critique not only of African literature but of the west’s entire view of Africa, but subtle and without cruelty or even much bitterness. I genuinely can’t recall ever reading anything like it; strong rec.
July 17, 2018
Camara Laye's The Radiance of the King is a comic look at the white "master race" as seen through the eyes of West Africans. Clarence (no last name), leaving a broad swath of ruin behind him in the form of debts, winds up in an unnamed African country where he decides he will ask for a position with the king. First, however, he winds up with a crafty old beggar and two African boys who talk him into traveling to the south of the country.
There, he has the interesting job of impregnating the local ruler's harem, the ruler being too old to perform his marital duties. Curiously, he thinks he is sleeping with the same African woman every night because he has a hard time distinguishing one black woman from another. Eventually, he finds out he has been sold to the local ruler for this purpose by the beggar.
But suddenly it appears that the king will come to the south, and Clarence prepares to meet him.
The Radiance of the King is one of the best African novels I have read, with a light touch on the racial issues it raises. It is a highly entertaining read with an original viewpoint.
There, he has the interesting job of impregnating the local ruler's harem, the ruler being too old to perform his marital duties. Curiously, he thinks he is sleeping with the same African woman every night because he has a hard time distinguishing one black woman from another. Eventually, he finds out he has been sold to the local ruler for this purpose by the beggar.
But suddenly it appears that the king will come to the south, and Clarence prepares to meet him.
The Radiance of the King is one of the best African novels I have read, with a light touch on the racial issues it raises. It is a highly entertaining read with an original viewpoint.
February 27, 2021
This book is very different from novels that I usually read since generally I don't read quixotic fiction. The words I would use to describe The Radiance of the King are weird, absurd, humorous, erotic, psychotic, a few times poetic, epic, even sometimes a little philosophical. When I started reading Radiance I wasn't sure if I would be able to make it through the book, yet less than 30 pages in I wanted to read more and to complete it.
My favorite lines:
"It is always too late," said Diallo. "We have barely finished being born. before it's already too late for something or other. But the king knows that, and that is why there is always time."
If all those who present themselves to the king had to be worthy of him, the king would live alone in the desert.
This question just came to me. Is the king a Christ figure and is Clarence one of the thieves on the cross? I believe Camara Laye had a lot in mind when he wrote this peculiar novel.
My favorite lines:
"It is always too late," said Diallo. "We have barely finished being born. before it's already too late for something or other. But the king knows that, and that is why there is always time."
If all those who present themselves to the king had to be worthy of him, the king would live alone in the desert.
This question just came to me. Is the king a Christ figure and is Clarence one of the thieves on the cross? I believe Camara Laye had a lot in mind when he wrote this peculiar novel.
December 4, 2011
I don't know how to rate this book yet because i'm not sure i really understood it. some scenes were rather befuddling and i had trouble concentrating. but generally speaking, the language was amazing, especially the dialogue. I especially enjoyed "the boys," Nagoa and Noaga. In some ways i wished the story had been more about them than Clarence. At first i enjoyed Clarence, but the farther along i got, the more his arrogance began to grate--I was hoping to have a better understanding of what exactly was happening as i reached the conclusion of the book, but that didn't happen. Clarence was stubborn and right now i'm mad at him for that.
This was a group read for me so i'm hoping to eventually "get it" with the help of our discussion.
This was a group read for me so i'm hoping to eventually "get it" with the help of our discussion.
June 7, 2016
Hard not to recommend this. Part Waiting for Godot, part Candide, and part Heart of Darkness. Mix well. A very flowing book with lots to say about expectation, hope, and self.
December 13, 2011
Pretty preposterous giving this book three starts just because I didn't get it. I thought it would never end, this dream goes on and on. The main character Clarence falls asleep standing up and never seems to know what's going on. I like the reviews that call it "Kafka-esque." (I don't get him either.) I wish I had read The Radiance of the King in a class because every line seems to mean something heavy. But what? I read and re-read Toni Morrison's introduction. Personally, I think she's on the wrong track. I don't think this book is about Africa, colonialism or about race. I think it's just about life and grace and the journey and redemption. Maybe Clarence just happens to be a white man. Ah, what do I know.
The cryptic passages slay me...Like when the king's helpers have to hold his arms up because the gold bracelets weigh too much. The gold drags the king down. And the old fortune teller lady having sex with serpents? Why? Every sentence is like that. It would take a whole class of comparative lit students an entire semester to figure this novel out. It's not fun to read alone.
The cryptic passages slay me...Like when the king's helpers have to hold his arms up because the gold bracelets weigh too much. The gold drags the king down. And the old fortune teller lady having sex with serpents? Why? Every sentence is like that. It would take a whole class of comparative lit students an entire semester to figure this novel out. It's not fun to read alone.
June 29, 2018
One of the most remarkable and brilliant novels from Africa that I ever read. And this one was published very early many decades ago which illustrates what a great writer Camara Laye was…and from Guinea too. This book is a must for anybody interested in African writing. This is world class writing, incorporating the best from Africa, from Europe and cascading into intellectual apogee. This wonderful story of a white man in Africa, bewildered, bemused, brought down, even exploited, until attaining illumination of sorts at the end…should elicit grand applause and “clapping” all around.
September 6, 2023
Around the World Reading Challenge: GUINEA
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Alas, I can't say I loved it. Another reviewer said the humor here reminded them of John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, and I cannot say I disagree. Which is unfortunate, because I just don't connect with that kind of absurdist humor. I found it mostly tedious, and I'm not really sure I understood the point, in the end.
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Alas, I can't say I loved it. Another reviewer said the humor here reminded them of John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, and I cannot say I disagree. Which is unfortunate, because I just don't connect with that kind of absurdist humor. I found it mostly tedious, and I'm not really sure I understood the point, in the end.
July 10, 2022
I’m continuing my one country at a time journey through world literature, this time to Guinea.
The Radiance of the King is a classic written in the 1950’s. I felt transported to Guinea, and at the same time while reading the book I felt completely removed from my reality. A cover blurb describes the novel as phantasmagoric. That about sums it up. I’m glad I read it, and enjoyed it, even though it diverged a lot from the style of writing I typically gravitate to.
The Radiance of the King is a classic written in the 1950’s. I felt transported to Guinea, and at the same time while reading the book I felt completely removed from my reality. A cover blurb describes the novel as phantasmagoric. That about sums it up. I’m glad I read it, and enjoyed it, even though it diverged a lot from the style of writing I typically gravitate to.
March 13, 2009
I can't think of anything to say about The Radiance of the King that wasn't covered by Toni Morrison in her outstanding introduction to this edition of the book, found here: http://www.nybooks.com/shop/product-file/78/ther78/introduction.pdf.
Some highlights from her intro:
"Literary Africa — outside, notably, of the work of some white South African writers — was an inexhaustible playground for tourists and foreigners... Accommodatingly mute, conveniently blank, Africa could be made to serve a wide variety of literary and/or ideological requirements: it could stand back as scenery for any exploit, or leap forward and obsess itself with the woes of any foreigner; it could contort itself into frightening malignant shapes in which Westerners could contemplate evil, or it could kneel and accept elementary lessons from its betters."
"Imaginary Africa was a cornucopia of imponderables that resisted explanation; riddles that defied solution; conflicts that not only did not need to be resolved, but needed to exist if the process of self-discovery was to have the widest range of play. Thus the literature resounded with the clash of metaphors. As the original locus of the human race, Africa was ancient; yet, being under colonial control, it was also infantile. Thus it became a kind of old fetus always waiting to be born but confounding all midwives. In novel after novel, short story after short story, Africa was simultaneously innocent and corrupting, savage and pure, irrational and wise. It was raw matter out of which the writer was free to forge a template to examine desire and improve character. But what Africa never was, was its own subject, as America has been for European writers, or England, France, or Spain for their American counterparts."
"This extraordinary novel accomplished something brand new. The clichéd journey into African darkness either to bring light or to find it is reimagined here. In fresh metaphorical and symbolical language, storybook Africa, as site of therapeutic exploits or of sentimental initiations leading toward life’s diploma, is reinvented. Employing the idiom of the conqueror, using exactly and precisely the terminology of the dominant discourse on Africa, this extraordinary Guinean author plucked at the Western eye to prepare it to meet the “regard,” the “look,” the “gaze” of an African king."
Some highlights from her intro:
"Literary Africa — outside, notably, of the work of some white South African writers — was an inexhaustible playground for tourists and foreigners... Accommodatingly mute, conveniently blank, Africa could be made to serve a wide variety of literary and/or ideological requirements: it could stand back as scenery for any exploit, or leap forward and obsess itself with the woes of any foreigner; it could contort itself into frightening malignant shapes in which Westerners could contemplate evil, or it could kneel and accept elementary lessons from its betters."
"Imaginary Africa was a cornucopia of imponderables that resisted explanation; riddles that defied solution; conflicts that not only did not need to be resolved, but needed to exist if the process of self-discovery was to have the widest range of play. Thus the literature resounded with the clash of metaphors. As the original locus of the human race, Africa was ancient; yet, being under colonial control, it was also infantile. Thus it became a kind of old fetus always waiting to be born but confounding all midwives. In novel after novel, short story after short story, Africa was simultaneously innocent and corrupting, savage and pure, irrational and wise. It was raw matter out of which the writer was free to forge a template to examine desire and improve character. But what Africa never was, was its own subject, as America has been for European writers, or England, France, or Spain for their American counterparts."
"This extraordinary novel accomplished something brand new. The clichéd journey into African darkness either to bring light or to find it is reimagined here. In fresh metaphorical and symbolical language, storybook Africa, as site of therapeutic exploits or of sentimental initiations leading toward life’s diploma, is reinvented. Employing the idiom of the conqueror, using exactly and precisely the terminology of the dominant discourse on Africa, this extraordinary Guinean author plucked at the Western eye to prepare it to meet the “regard,” the “look,” the “gaze” of an African king."
July 4, 2017
The only thing I can truly say about this book was that it was extremely strange. I know it was supposed to have displayed aspects of postmodernism and post-colonialism, but I found it unrealistic. It wasn't moving at all, nor was it (in my opinion) eye-opening whatsoever. I completely understand what Laye was trying to accomplish, but the writing left me underwhelmed. If the plot, characters, and writing had been more developed, this could have been an outstanding novel. However, there is a reason why not many people have heard of it as it is now...
May 28, 2017
To me the dialogue and action was rather nonsensical - described as phantasmagorical by others. The main character comes across as rather obtuse and his interactions with the other characters were difficult to understand, unless perhaps you are into deconstructing the historical social interactions of white Europeans and Africans from the "dark continent". Honestly, I enjoyed the introduction by Toni Morrison better than the book.
December 15, 2017
The Radiance of the King is a book so radiant that it will surely overwhelm all books that come after it. I've learned that one cannot possess a book any more than one can possess a moment, for the rereading would always be a different book a different experience. 6 stars.
Shelved as 'did-not-finish'
November 4, 2021A fifth of the way in, I gave up. No one to root for, no interest in or investment in anything that was unfolding. Apparently, a well-thought-of book; certainly, not a novel for me.
November 9, 2018
Laye brilliantly and slyly turns colonial narratives on their head, then spins them around in a African-centric blender. To cite the varied literary references would be to walk through an obvious list of English Modernism, BUT, I think such a critique renders a great injustice to the originality of Laye's fiction.
Laye never once blinks at the assumed arrogance of the white man in Africa. Nor does he ever question the sophistication of the African society. As Clarence, the exiled white failure, ping pongs around the imaginary African country - Aziana - his awareness (and arrogance) is slowly changed. When we meet Clarence, he is pushing his way through a crowd assembled to witness the grandeur of the passing King. He throws his elbows as a metaphorical white invader, demanding audience on the single qualification of his skin color. His failure is due less a Kafka-esque labyrinth of impossible forces and more to a bemused reaction of those around him.
Clarence is whisked away by a con man beggar and two children. The beggar strings Clarence along with wit and hollow promises of access. The beggar keeps assuring Clarence that the Beggar will speak to the King about the white man. While the two boys are not the starving waifs tagging along to feed off the scraps of the White Man, but rather, scamps intent on sly and brilliant mischief. The boys, in on the scam, take turns encouraging and truth-telling to Clarence, who is immune to their pleas.
Clarence falls into the hands of the naba and his cast of characters. Samba Baloum is Clarence's handler, while Akissi serves as his "woman." It is in this last half of the novel that we encounter Aziana's political society. Clarence is completely unaware, due to his innate racism, that he is being used nightly to sire a harem's worth of children. Clarence believes that he is laying with Akissi each night, but is disturbed to see her outside the window each night.
Beyond his undiscerning racism, Clarence is at a complete loss when experiencing the African landscape. He is convinced he is traveling in circles through the forests and terrified by the "silver breasts of the river ladies" who are actually sea cows. His hallucinations are simple minded and seen as absurd amusements by the Africans. This particular narrative tactic is incredibly brilliant on Laye's part - it upends the wide eyed native in the western world completely.
The Epiphany of the novel is a bit of a let down, but sudden and brutal self-awareness of the Western Man usually is...
Laye never once blinks at the assumed arrogance of the white man in Africa. Nor does he ever question the sophistication of the African society. As Clarence, the exiled white failure, ping pongs around the imaginary African country - Aziana - his awareness (and arrogance) is slowly changed. When we meet Clarence, he is pushing his way through a crowd assembled to witness the grandeur of the passing King. He throws his elbows as a metaphorical white invader, demanding audience on the single qualification of his skin color. His failure is due less a Kafka-esque labyrinth of impossible forces and more to a bemused reaction of those around him.
Clarence is whisked away by a con man beggar and two children. The beggar strings Clarence along with wit and hollow promises of access. The beggar keeps assuring Clarence that the Beggar will speak to the King about the white man. While the two boys are not the starving waifs tagging along to feed off the scraps of the White Man, but rather, scamps intent on sly and brilliant mischief. The boys, in on the scam, take turns encouraging and truth-telling to Clarence, who is immune to their pleas.
Clarence falls into the hands of the naba and his cast of characters. Samba Baloum is Clarence's handler, while Akissi serves as his "woman." It is in this last half of the novel that we encounter Aziana's political society. Clarence is completely unaware, due to his innate racism, that he is being used nightly to sire a harem's worth of children. Clarence believes that he is laying with Akissi each night, but is disturbed to see her outside the window each night.
Beyond his undiscerning racism, Clarence is at a complete loss when experiencing the African landscape. He is convinced he is traveling in circles through the forests and terrified by the "silver breasts of the river ladies" who are actually sea cows. His hallucinations are simple minded and seen as absurd amusements by the Africans. This particular narrative tactic is incredibly brilliant on Laye's part - it upends the wide eyed native in the western world completely.
The Epiphany of the novel is a bit of a let down, but sudden and brutal self-awareness of the Western Man usually is...
September 10, 2017
2.5 rounded down.
I read this for a book club's journey to Guinea. There's a lot of praise surrounding this book, unfortunately this is the type of book that is too complex for me to understand. The afterword made me appreciate it more - especially the aspects how Western values are difficult to apply in foreign environments. However, while I was reading this book, I was often too confused about what was going on. It felt too surrealist and many symbols were unknown to me. Even though the ending of the book was exceptional, the first two thirds of the book were difficult to go through. The protagonist Clarence, is a white man who suddenly finds himself alone in the middle of Africa. He wants to meet the king, but that is difficult to arrange of course. He joins two young boys and a beggar and they wander around the land and forest. Unbeknownst to Clarence, he gets sold to a harem. Clarence persistently asks for a job in order to prove his self-worth. But in the end, he realizes that he was going after all the wrong things. The concept is interesting, unfortunately the story didn't appeal to me much.
I read this for a book club's journey to Guinea. There's a lot of praise surrounding this book, unfortunately this is the type of book that is too complex for me to understand. The afterword made me appreciate it more - especially the aspects how Western values are difficult to apply in foreign environments. However, while I was reading this book, I was often too confused about what was going on. It felt too surrealist and many symbols were unknown to me. Even though the ending of the book was exceptional, the first two thirds of the book were difficult to go through. The protagonist Clarence, is a white man who suddenly finds himself alone in the middle of Africa. He wants to meet the king, but that is difficult to arrange of course. He joins two young boys and a beggar and they wander around the land and forest. Unbeknownst to Clarence, he gets sold to a harem. Clarence persistently asks for a job in order to prove his self-worth. But in the end, he realizes that he was going after all the wrong things. The concept is interesting, unfortunately the story didn't appeal to me much.
December 13, 2011
Kind of a slapstick spoof on the colonial adventure narrative, with a special play on orientalist notions of indigenous sexuality.
I have to credit Toni Morrison's introduction [pdf] to really appreciate it:
The cliched journey into African darkness either to bring light or to find it is reimagined here. In fresh metaphorical and symbolic language, storybook Africa, as a site of therapeutic exploits or of sentimental initiations leading toward life's diploma, is reinvented. Employing the idiom of the conqueror, using exactly and precisely the terminology of the dominant discourse on Africa, this extraordinary Guinean author plucked at the Western eye to prepare it to meet the "regard," the "look," the "gaze" of the African king.
... the abyss looks also into you...
[For the Great African Reads book group]
I have to credit Toni Morrison's introduction [pdf] to really appreciate it:
The cliched journey into African darkness either to bring light or to find it is reimagined here. In fresh metaphorical and symbolic language, storybook Africa, as a site of therapeutic exploits or of sentimental initiations leading toward life's diploma, is reinvented. Employing the idiom of the conqueror, using exactly and precisely the terminology of the dominant discourse on Africa, this extraordinary Guinean author plucked at the Western eye to prepare it to meet the "regard," the "look," the "gaze" of the African king.
... the abyss looks also into you...
[For the Great African Reads book group]
August 17, 2017
What an incredible book. One of the most acclaimed books by an African writer of the post-war period. The language has a flow that is almost like poetry, extremely evocative writing inspires all of your senses. And the Introduction by the indomitable Toni Morrison was just amazing. Reading her introduction and then the book made me feel like I was back in a race studies class in college, and made me miss that so much! Especially when you think about how someone like Toni Morrison, a young black woman, must have felt upon first reading this book in the 1960s. A book about Africa and colonialism from the perspective of the colonized, that flips all Western writing about Africa on its head and turns it inside out in the most innovative ways. Just, wow.
Also the first book I've read set in the nation of Guinea, a region that has historically been known for it's rich music, dance and oral literary traditions. Absolutely can't recommend this book enough.
Also the first book I've read set in the nation of Guinea, a region that has historically been known for it's rich music, dance and oral literary traditions. Absolutely can't recommend this book enough.
December 25, 2008
This book almost killed me...
Shelved as 'tasted'
May 2, 2019The first few pages are fantastic. But the prose quickly becomes utilitarian at best, and the novel failed to work for me as a Kafkaesque fable. I read 50 pages.
August 13, 2023
Reminiscent of Heart of Darkness but with the plot of Waiting for Godot.
Clarence, a white man, spends the novel waiting for an audience with the king of a West African nation, assuming that his skin colour would secure him the audience. He gets humbled by his experiences throughout the novel, with some sort of revelation at the end, when he meets the king, that humility is key for humanity. On his journey he is accompanied by a beggar, two boys Noaga and Nagoa, and he lives with a woman called Akissi who enthrals him.
There is some surrealism thrown in, but it was more magical than Kafkaesque: the gold bracelets weighing down the kings arms so he cannot leave the kingdom, the future teller having intercourse with the snakes which kickstarts Clarence having a vision himself when he can’t look at her because the image is too awful - there is meaning in that.
But I wasn’t convinced by the flow and language of Clarence’s drawn out introspection. I was a bit disappointed in the ending - a tragic ending would’ve been better I feel like. Let him not meet the king and realise that THATS humility! Make him start to believe in the potential arrival of the king like the locals, not being magically assured by a vision and then… having a rather supernatural encounter with the king. (Potentially a hallucination?)
Nevertheless, reading a Black voice on this subject (criticism of the perception of traditional West African society through the eyes of a white person) was interesting and important.
Clarence, a white man, spends the novel waiting for an audience with the king of a West African nation, assuming that his skin colour would secure him the audience. He gets humbled by his experiences throughout the novel, with some sort of revelation at the end, when he meets the king, that humility is key for humanity. On his journey he is accompanied by a beggar, two boys Noaga and Nagoa, and he lives with a woman called Akissi who enthrals him.
There is some surrealism thrown in, but it was more magical than Kafkaesque: the gold bracelets weighing down the kings arms so he cannot leave the kingdom, the future teller having intercourse with the snakes which kickstarts Clarence having a vision himself when he can’t look at her because the image is too awful - there is meaning in that.
But I wasn’t convinced by the flow and language of Clarence’s drawn out introspection. I was a bit disappointed in the ending - a tragic ending would’ve been better I feel like. Let him not meet the king and realise that THATS humility! Make him start to believe in the potential arrival of the king like the locals, not being magically assured by a vision and then… having a rather supernatural encounter with the king. (Potentially a hallucination?)
Nevertheless, reading a Black voice on this subject (criticism of the perception of traditional West African society through the eyes of a white person) was interesting and important.
February 22, 2021
I’m not going to pretend I fully grasped what I read. The fifth star is for the introduction—-the eye opening stellar introduction—by Toni Morrison that I read after I read the novel. It’s clear I have a lot more international reading to do and that my own mind is stunted by the culture I was raised in...that blinded me to some of the points the author was trying to make.
I did pick up on some Kafka-esque absurdities and the dangers of the “innocent “ white man a la Graham Greene.
The main character Clarence, the destitute white man “lost” in Africa is the only one who cannot seem to see anything clearly. We the reader are stuck with his third-person-limited perspective and as such are in for quite an awakening...or are we? Or are we still too dull to get it?
I did pick up on some Kafka-esque absurdities and the dangers of the “innocent “ white man a la Graham Greene.
The main character Clarence, the destitute white man “lost” in Africa is the only one who cannot seem to see anything clearly. We the reader are stuck with his third-person-limited perspective and as such are in for quite an awakening...or are we? Or are we still too dull to get it?
Read
August 14, 2022I was two chapters in to The Radiance of the King and enjoying it immensely when I decided to look up more information on its author. I saw a short section on his Wikipedia entry titled "Authorship controversy," and down the rabbit hole I went.
The best article I can find on the topic is here: https://unbound.com/boundless/2019/12...
Long story short, there's a good chance The Radiance of the King (French title: Le Regard du roi) was not written by Camara Laye, but rather a white European acquaintance of his, and published under his name. There were rumors about this being the case starting with the book's publication in 1954, based on its startling stylistic departure from Laye's first book, and his reticence when discussing the book in interviews. After his death in 1980, Lilyan Kesteloot, a Belgian expert in African literature, said Laye had confessed to her he had not written The Radiance of the King. In 2002, Adele King published Rereading Camara Laye, in which she argues the book was written by obscure Belgian writer Francis Soulié--a friend and mentor of Laye's who was interested in Africa and dabbled in the surrealist movement. There have been few rebuttals to King's arguments. Though there's no "smoking gun" proving her correct beyond a doubt (as King herself admits), she makes a compelling case.
It was a strange experience picking the book back up after reading all that. I'm not sure I ever got back into the groove of the novel. For the first two chapters, I read it as an African writer's take on the white colonist's African novel, as Toni Morrison describes it in her Introduction. Beginning in chapter three, suddenly I was forced to consider may have been written by a white man with totally different motives. I was also forced to question my own enjoyment of the book, and its inclusion as one of the few African novels in NYRB's line of classics. Is this what Westerners want from our "African" literature--African name on the outside, European writing on the inside? Of course, that question is wrapped up in debates about what makes someone an "authentic" writer from a given culture, an extremely loaded topic.
I often see people say things like, "I don't care about the race or gender of the author, only if the book is good," and that's true to some extent. This is a very well-written book no matter who wrote it, for certain. Yet there is a huge difference between reading an African author's response to European authors, and yet another fantasy about Africa written by a white man who had never been there. If this was written by Francis Soulié, or another white person, it is a lot more self-aware about racism and colonialism than most books by white authors. But there are still a lot of racial and cultural stereotypes that don't read so well coming from a white author.
The Radiance of the King fits well into the tradition of European surrealism. It's most commonly compared to Kafka, but reminds me more of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz. The background is a mythical Africa, and its protagonist, Clarence, the foreigner who "falls down the rabbit hole." It's definitely in dialogue with European colonial literature, portraying Clarence as a fool rather than the intrepid explorer of most adventure novels. Clarence starts out believing he is superior to the natives because he is white, but after long realizes he is at their mercy. The plot is episodic, as Clarence moves from one adventure to the next, and the surreal imagery is constant, including endless halls of doors and a forest where Clarence sleepwalks in circles over and over again. Remarkably, to the African characters, nothing seems amiss. Africa is only a surreal nightmare to Clarence, who either cannot, or does not want to, understand its ways. The book is bizarre, but also humorous, encouraging the reader to laugh at Clarence's ignorance.
The book has a ton of symbolism that is fun to ponder over. Some of it still puzzles me (fish-women?). The central symbol is, of course, the King, a God (or Godot?) figure who Clarence believes will save him. It begins as a fit of white arrogance, but Clarence's attitude changes as the book goes on.
As an African novel, well, I think there is plenty of scholarship out there about it already, and Toni Morrison's Introduction is a good start. After reading about the authorship controversy it was hard for me to continue with that interpretation. It just felt very European to me--but I'm in no way an authority on what is authentically "African."
If I were forced to give this a rating, I'd probably give it 4/5, but because of its questionable provenance, I think I'll leave it unrated. I imagine most people these days who read The Radiance of the King are looking for a classic African novel, and there are others out there definitively written by Africans, so I can't really recommend it. (Instead I'd recommend Achebe, Armah, Saleh, Aidoo, etc.) As a piece of surrealism, however, I might recommend it.
An aside--I wonder if the authorship controversy has anything to do with NYRB removing Laye's photo from the cover in the 2011 edition? I have the 2001 edition, so I have no idea if the later one makes note of the controversy. The listing on the NYRB website does not. I feel a bit duped by NYRB. I'm sure they don't want to do anything that might discourage people from buying their books, but I found this book in the African section of their website and, had I known about the controversy, I would have chosen another book.
The best article I can find on the topic is here: https://unbound.com/boundless/2019/12...
Long story short, there's a good chance The Radiance of the King (French title: Le Regard du roi) was not written by Camara Laye, but rather a white European acquaintance of his, and published under his name. There were rumors about this being the case starting with the book's publication in 1954, based on its startling stylistic departure from Laye's first book, and his reticence when discussing the book in interviews. After his death in 1980, Lilyan Kesteloot, a Belgian expert in African literature, said Laye had confessed to her he had not written The Radiance of the King. In 2002, Adele King published Rereading Camara Laye, in which she argues the book was written by obscure Belgian writer Francis Soulié--a friend and mentor of Laye's who was interested in Africa and dabbled in the surrealist movement. There have been few rebuttals to King's arguments. Though there's no "smoking gun" proving her correct beyond a doubt (as King herself admits), she makes a compelling case.
It was a strange experience picking the book back up after reading all that. I'm not sure I ever got back into the groove of the novel. For the first two chapters, I read it as an African writer's take on the white colonist's African novel, as Toni Morrison describes it in her Introduction. Beginning in chapter three, suddenly I was forced to consider may have been written by a white man with totally different motives. I was also forced to question my own enjoyment of the book, and its inclusion as one of the few African novels in NYRB's line of classics. Is this what Westerners want from our "African" literature--African name on the outside, European writing on the inside? Of course, that question is wrapped up in debates about what makes someone an "authentic" writer from a given culture, an extremely loaded topic.
I often see people say things like, "I don't care about the race or gender of the author, only if the book is good," and that's true to some extent. This is a very well-written book no matter who wrote it, for certain. Yet there is a huge difference between reading an African author's response to European authors, and yet another fantasy about Africa written by a white man who had never been there. If this was written by Francis Soulié, or another white person, it is a lot more self-aware about racism and colonialism than most books by white authors. But there are still a lot of racial and cultural stereotypes that don't read so well coming from a white author.
The Radiance of the King fits well into the tradition of European surrealism. It's most commonly compared to Kafka, but reminds me more of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz. The background is a mythical Africa, and its protagonist, Clarence, the foreigner who "falls down the rabbit hole." It's definitely in dialogue with European colonial literature, portraying Clarence as a fool rather than the intrepid explorer of most adventure novels. Clarence starts out believing he is superior to the natives because he is white, but after long realizes he is at their mercy. The plot is episodic, as Clarence moves from one adventure to the next, and the surreal imagery is constant, including endless halls of doors and a forest where Clarence sleepwalks in circles over and over again. Remarkably, to the African characters, nothing seems amiss. Africa is only a surreal nightmare to Clarence, who either cannot, or does not want to, understand its ways. The book is bizarre, but also humorous, encouraging the reader to laugh at Clarence's ignorance.
The book has a ton of symbolism that is fun to ponder over. Some of it still puzzles me (fish-women?). The central symbol is, of course, the King, a God (or Godot?) figure who Clarence believes will save him. It begins as a fit of white arrogance, but Clarence's attitude changes as the book goes on.
As an African novel, well, I think there is plenty of scholarship out there about it already, and Toni Morrison's Introduction is a good start. After reading about the authorship controversy it was hard for me to continue with that interpretation. It just felt very European to me--but I'm in no way an authority on what is authentically "African."
If I were forced to give this a rating, I'd probably give it 4/5, but because of its questionable provenance, I think I'll leave it unrated. I imagine most people these days who read The Radiance of the King are looking for a classic African novel, and there are others out there definitively written by Africans, so I can't really recommend it. (Instead I'd recommend Achebe, Armah, Saleh, Aidoo, etc.) As a piece of surrealism, however, I might recommend it.
An aside--I wonder if the authorship controversy has anything to do with NYRB removing Laye's photo from the cover in the 2011 edition? I have the 2001 edition, so I have no idea if the later one makes note of the controversy. The listing on the NYRB website does not. I feel a bit duped by NYRB. I'm sure they don't want to do anything that might discourage people from buying their books, but I found this book in the African section of their website and, had I known about the controversy, I would have chosen another book.
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