Waiting For The Wild Beasts To Vote - Hardcover

Kourouma, Ahmadou; Frank Wynne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0434008141 ISBN 13: 9780434008148

Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd, 2003

Synopsis

The story of Koyaga, dictator and president of the Gulf Coast, an imaginary former French African colony, is told by Bingo, his sora, part storyteller, part court fool. Bingo tells of Koyaga's father, born in an obscure and backward mountain tribe, which he leaves for success as a wrestler, and heroic exploits on the Somme as a French fusilier only to die of hunger in a French colonial prison; and of Koyaga himself, a French solider in Vietnam and Algeria, and then the leader of a coup that overthrows a shortlived post colonial democracy. Koyaga is part an archetypal third world dictator, part hero of a folktale his story is told in a prose of haunting simplicity, in a novel that by turns brings to mind Gabriel Marquez and Giles Foden.

About this title

Review:

‘...one of the most powerful, funniest and richest novels written in French this decade’ -- Le Nouvel Observateur

‘It demonstrates a prodigious and astounding imagination and a political wisdom...’ -- Le Figaro

From the Publisher:

A magical, blackly funny tapestry of a book, which, through the rise and fall of its central character, the dictator of a small imaginary former French African colony, tells the story, bitter, painful and beautiful, of modern Africa.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0434008141
• ISBN 13: 9780434008148
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 464