Description: Awarded the Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie and the Prix Senghor for the originality of his work, the author captures the sounds, rhythms and pleas of a young man who pulls on the alarm from his prison cell to warn against the multiple barriers of confinement that risk the future of certain sectors of French youth today.
Review Quotes:
"A breathtaking first novel . . ."--Le Figaro
"I am also very fond of francophone literature outside of France . . . Wilfried N'Sondé, the author of The Heart of the Leopard Children . . . is someone quite remarkable."--J. M. G. Le Clézio, winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature
"Traveling between the France of his experience and the Africa of his imagination, the narrator offers a powerful view of the immigrant, never quite at home, always a stranger in two places. . . Francophone African writers, like African writers generally, are too little known in this country. This brief but potent tale shows that N'Sondé is one who merits attention."--Kirkus Reviews
"Densely and beautifully written, the chapterless narrative absorbs like a thriller and reads like a prose poem. Sophisticated readers should grab."--Library Journal
"N'Sondé has burst onto the literary scene with this brief yet powerful tale."--World Literature Today