Doomi Golo―The Hidden Notebooks (African Humanities and the Arts) - Softcover

Diop, Boubacar Boris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1611862140 ISBN 13: 9781611862140

Publisher: Michigan State University Press, 2016

Synopsis

The first novel to be translated from Wolof to English, Doomi Golo―The Hidden Notebooks is a masterful work that conveys the story of Nguirane Faye and his attempts to communicate with his grandson before he dies. With a narrative structure that beautifully imitates the movements of a musical piece, Diop relates Faye’s trauma of losing his only son, Assane Tall, which is compounded by his grandson Badou’s migration to an unknown destination. While Faye feels certain that his grandson will return one day, he also is convinced that he will no longer be alive by then. Faye spends his days sitting under a mango tree in the courtyard of his home, reminiscing and observing his surroundings. He speaks to Badou through his seven notebooks, six of which are revealed to the reader, while the seventh, the “Book of Secrets,” is highly confidential and reserved for Badou’s eyes only. In the absence of letters from Badou, the notebooks form the only possible means of communication between the two, carrying within them tunes and repetitions that give this novel its unusual shape: loose and meandering on the one hand, coherent and tightly interwoven on the other. Translated by Vera Wülfing-Leckie and El Hadji Moustapha Diop.

About this title

About the Author

Born in Dakar, Senegal, in 1946, Boubacar Boris Diop is widely regarded as one of the most important novelists and intellectuals in Africa.

Vera Wülfing-Leckei received an M.A. Classics and Modern Languages from Oxford University. She has translated numerous works from English to German, including an abridged version of Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom. Currently, she is translating “Parole chantée et communication social chez les Wolof du Sénégal” by Momar Cissé.

El Hadji Moustapha Diop has translated several published works, including those of Boubacar Boris Diop and Ousmane Sembène. Currently, he is a Ph.D. student of French Studies at the University of Western Ontario, focusing on Francophone postcolonial studies.

Edition details

• Publisher: Michigan State University Press
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1611862140
• ISBN 13: 9781611862140
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 307