Ce baobab que tu vois là, il est mort depuis longtemps... Le rendez-vous manqué lui avait causé une profonde tristesse. Il devint fou et mourut quelque temps après. Ce livre se lit très facilement, et je trouve cela une des qualités les plus importantes, parce que Ken Bugul a vécu une vie assez difficile. La traduction en anglais doit être terrible, parce que je n'ai de difficulté avec la compréhension de l'histoire de Ken Bugul.Au Sénégal, Ken Bugul (pseudonyme) habite dans une très petite vil

I didn't much enjoy this book. Perhaps once I have a chance to talk about it with my classmates, I can get a better understanding of the novel. I don't have high hopes, though. The overall narrative structure of the novel was very off-putting; the speaker felt quite distanced from her audience. At times it felt like listening to someone talk to herself -- you feel like you're intruding, a little awkward and confused at hearing only one side of a conversation. Additionally, the chronology jumped

Es una novela que se lee sin parar. Plantea temas interesantes como la búsqueda de una identidad. Es autobiográfica por lo que resulta muy fuerte en ese sentido. ¡Recomendable!

Vieles davon habe ich wahrscheinlich nicht aufgenommen und verstanden, dennoch war es super interessant. Sicherlich eine Lektüre, die man beim 2. Mal lesen deutlich besser versteht, weil man mehr Details aufnimmt. Bin auf die Besprechungen im Unterricht gespannt, um die Lücken zu füllen, die ich beim und nach dem Lesen hatte/habe.

Ken é unha nena senegalesa que sofre o abandono familiar e inicia unha búsqueda identitaria como africana moderna no mundo occidental. A incomprensión, a alienación, o racismo e a inadaptación son unha constante neste libro no que a procura da identidade é vital para acadar a supervivencia e o sentido como ser humano nun mundo decadente e colonialista.

Historia interesante sobre el choque entre la modernidad occidental y la tradición africana, a lo 'Aventura ambigua' de Cheikh Hamidou Kane, aunque menos filosófica. Narra la experiencia de transitar en esa visión construida, impuesta, de la 'tierra prometida': el norte. El descubrir de Ken, las experiencias vicerales por las que pasa, el descubir de su cuerpo, los recuerdos vívidos de la madre abandonandola y la desazón de las luchas de la independencia en su país trayendo oligarquías necolonia...

“Ken Bugul lays bare an alienated self ravaged by colonialism and familial social dysfunction.”

Contrast. Between the village in Senegal and the Belgian city. Between Bugul's means of conveyance and my mode of decoding. It is always hot there. It is always cold there, she says of the village, a line I'd usually have read as a boring paradox but that here leads out from me a humbled understanding that this place is out of the time I know. In the city time and the narrative snagged on it roll onward like the conveyor belt of a machine, like the tread of a tank, while when Bugul's consciousne...

I felt quite bad disliking this. A female Senegalese author writing about being black and beautiful in Europe - should be a no brainer. But I didn't like the writing, the narrative changed between an idealised Africa and a demonized west, where everything bad happening, ever wrong decision is somehow due to uniform "white" culture. I got annoyed at the narrator. The ending is highly problematic as well. And in the middle I lost interest in the trials and tribulations of the woman. Maybe it was e...

The novel narrates the story of a Senegalese woman who moves to Belgium to study and drifts into the artistic milieu and the demimonde. The protagonist processes her sometimes disillusioning experiences by constructing dualisms like the idealization of her homeland vs racism and unresolved colonial guilt of the Belgians. However, the text includes quite a few ambivalences and contradictions that complicate these apparent generalisations and reveal the complex facets of the protagonist's identity...

Une sensation de malaise et désordre.L’autrice poétise beaucoup son récit et la chronologie des faits ne se suivant pas forcément sur la fin. Malgré tout, j’ai aimé son écriture et la rudesse de ses mots. Elle pensait réaliser son rêve ; vivre à la manière des occidentaux en arrivant à Bruxelles mais son destin aura été tout autre. Constamment rappelé à sa couleur de peau, elle cherchait à s’identifier à eux mais ce n’était pas leur cas.

Serein et tourmenté - Un malaise général, d'un continent à l'autre, des gens qui, sans doute tentent de rêver leur vie au détriment des réalités et le moi dans la douleur toujours de sa conscience... Extrait :..."Il faut se demander parfois comment allait ce monde sans appréhender de répondre; chaque jour de la vie, les événements se succédaient inéluctables. On pouvait rêver sa vie, mais on ne pouvait pas rêver sa réalité. Le quotidien n'est constitué que par des instants.". Comment un être hum...

A really complex look at a woman's relationship with location and identity - the trauma of exile. So much of the writer's personal experiences are present in this book and it's a very insightful and intense read.

I loved this book. One of my favorite of all times.

Es una lectura atrapante, diferente. La historia cautiva hasta el final y el mundo interior de la protagonista nos absorbe, pero me resultó opresiva y angustiante.

At first I wasn't a huge fan of this book, but about half way through it started to win me over. There were a lot of little quotes in here that I really enjoyed and rang true to me. But there were also times where it seemed to me that the book was one huge poem. But I enjoyed the book. It was also interesting to hear about how this woman interacted with white men and how they only saw her as an object. That was really interesting to me as well.

Interesting content, and I loved Bugul's perspective of the artists and liberals in Belgium who were only interested in knowing her as an Other, someone beautiful and exotic that they could brag about knowing. But the writing, or the translation, is earnest and melodramatic. "Again a school year flowed by like the liquid that holds together the hot couscous on which we'd feast in the evenings in the village," etc. I found it hard to finish.

While I can appreciate the importance of this book, I found it rather tedious to read (perhaps it would have been better in the original French, but I only had it in English), and never made it all the way to the end. I was looking for something by a Senegalese author before going on a trip to Dakar, and this was the only thing that was readily available at the time.

Eine spannend geschriebene Autobiografie und gleichzeitig eine aktuelle Erzählung einer Suche nach Bedeutung in der Moderne. CNs: Suizidalität, Vergewaltigung, sexuelle Übergriffe (teilweise an Kindern), (auch internalisierter) Rassismus, (auch internalisierte) Homofeindlichkeit, Polyam-Feindlichkeit, Drogen, Misogynie

I think this book was poorly translated. I couldn't read more than a few pages-- the language was terrible: formal, stilted, distanced. The protagonist constantly referred to her father as "the father" and there were other weird things like that. I couldn't even bring myself to finish it.