So Distant From My Life

by Monique Ilboudo , Yarri Kamara (Translator)

Rating: 4 (2 votes)

Tags: Set in Morocco Set in Burkina Faso Female author

So Distant From My Life

Reviews:

Read Around The World Challenge user profile avatar for Pedro
(1 year ago)
06 Nov, 2023
Jeanphi, a young man from the fictional West African city Ouabany, has one obsession that will determine the fate of his life – migration. He scrapes together money to take the illegal route across the Sahara, making it as far as Morocco before being repatriated. Increasingly desperate, Jeanphi meets an elegant French widower who for his part is despairing at the insurmountable bureaucratic hurdles for his charitable endeavour in Jeanphi’s country. A window opens to opportunity – but it will also bring tragedy. Burkinabé author Monique Ilboudo’s novel offers a compelling and complex portrait of migration, one of the defining global concerns of the twenty-first century, and a sharp critique of both the NGO-isation of African countries and the currents of shame that divide communities and families. Yarri Kamara has rendered Ilboudo’s text in an idiom that conveys the sharp humour, lucid descriptions and urgency of the original.

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Country: Burkina Faso flag Burkina Faso
Language: EN
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