In the Belly of the Congo - A Novel

Informationen zum Autor Blaise Ndala is a Canadian writer originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His debut novel, J’irai danser sur la tombe de Senghor , won the Ottawa Book Award for French fiction and was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award. His book Sans capote ni kalachnikov won the 2019 Combat des livres and was a finalist for the Grand prix littéraire d’Afrique noire and the Trillium Book Award. In the Belly of the Congo is his first book to appear in English. Amy B. Reid is an award-winning translator and Professor of French and Gender Studies at New College of Florida. In 2016 she received a Literature Translation Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts for Patrice Nganang’s When the Plums Are Ripe . Her other translations include Patrice Nganang’s Dog Days , Mount Pleasant , and A Trail of Crab Tracks , Mutt-Lon’s The Blunder , and Véronique Tadjo’s Queen Pokou . Klappentext "Originally published in French as Dans le ventre du Congo in 2021 by âEditions du Seuil, Paris"--Title page verso. Leseprobe THREE MONTHS BEFORE THE OPENING OF THE BRUSSELS WORLD’S FAIR EXPO 58 Everywhere you look, in color or black-and-white, there he is, on the right side of the photo. Each time the commissioner-general of Expo 58, Baron Guido Martens De Neuberg, needed his velvety voice, his athletic silhouette, and his sparkling white smile, Robert Dumont had stepped up. No matter the time, place, or subject.  Robert Dumont: so efficient, always true to his word. To say this Walloon was the personification of fidelity was something of an understatement. To quote Baron De Neuberg, who praised his many talents in the art of clearing land mines, “He was always a length ahead, focused on achieving the impossible.” Recognized as one of Belgium’s most influential bankers, Robert was both exuberant and extremely private, calm, cool, and collected—the exact opposite of his friend Guido. A man as impeccably dressed in the city as in the countryside of the Ardennes where he retreated to escape from the frenzied pace of the capital, he was, in the eyes of Baron Guido Martens De Neuberg, one of those guardian angels the heavens send to simplify the lives of the elect. As he approached fifty, he would have liked to preserve the reputation he’d so carefully constructed, sometimes following in the footsteps of the mighty, at others keeping as far as possible from the centers of power. But now entrusted with the most delicate portfolio inherited by the newly elected social-liberal government, where his friend counted as many allies as adversaries, Robert had seen dark clouds gathering on the horizon. Catapulted into the position of subcommissioner of the World’s Fair by Baron De Neuberg, he’d drawn up a list of the dangers ahead. As he raced along the obstacle course that had become the committee’s daily routine, there was just one thought—a haunting premonition, really—that he could not shake. The pressure on the team he and the commissioner-general formed would only continue to mount, and soon it would be unbearable. Yet he knew how to choose his battles—he was not the sort to take up Sisyphus’s challenge without having first measured the boulder’s weight. Still, with the first wave of articles railing against “De Neuberg’s style,” and decrying how, “by playing the ostrich, the baron risked delivering Belgium a stinging failure,” his doubts crystallized. He ought to have trusted his instincts, listened from the start to the voice whispering that the success of the World’s Fair was a deeply personal matter for the commissioner-general. The mother of all the battles that the man, his friend for more than thirty years, continuously waged against his internal demons. Battles to which he’d sacrificed his time, sleep, and energy—that was clear to everyone who rubbed elbows with the baron, whet...

Product details

• Authors: Blaise Ndala, Amy B. Reid
• Publisher: Other press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 07.02.2023
• EAN: 9781635422580
• ISBN: 978-1-63542-258-0
• No. of pages: 432
• Dimensions: 133 mm x 202 mm x 29 mm
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature