Camara Laye from Guinea was
one of the early outstanding creative writers in Africa. He is best known for
his two superb novels, The African child, and The radiance of the king.
Remarkably these two superb works
were published even before Chinua Achebe's first great novel, Things fall
apart. But because Laye was writing in French it took the emergence of English
translations of his work for the literary world at large to appreciate his
genius.
The African child revisited
Laye's childhood in a stunning, charming manner that critics found lyrical and
attractive. His second work, The radiance of the king was considered by some
experts to be the best novel ever published by an African.
"In 1954 when The
Radiance of the king was first published (in French) Laye had been living in France
for ten years, well aware of the various achievements of the modern European
novel".
Wole Soyinka would inter alia
comment on The Radiance: "Despite the mystical effusions at the end (of
the novel) the aesthetics of the novel are secular".
Indeed: "It is a
remarkably modern achievement (for Laye) to have won critical praise in Paris
and respect from the Malinke griots of Guinea"
Still as regards The Radiance
of the king with its excellent descriptions and other esoteric aspects:
"In a dream Clarence (the protagonist of the novel) is frightened by 'fish
women'; somewhere between sirens and manatees...the king is God in Africa
rather than an African God".
Camara Laye would later
publish two other works: A dream of Africa; and The Guardian of the word. He
died in1980 after protracted problems with his health.
- R Mokoena
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