Agatha Moudio's Son (African Writers Series) [Paperback]

Francis Bebey (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation)

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Heinemann Educational Publishers (September 27, 1971)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0435900862
• ISBN-13: 978-0435900861
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,782,403 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic of World Literature, May 14, 2000

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"heiderichter" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Agatha Moudio's Son (African Writers Series) (Paperback)

Out of print or not, I have no doubt that "Agatha Moudio's son" belongs among the classics of World Literature.

Well above 30 years have passed since this novel fetched a prestigious prize for African literature, founding the fame of its author in large parts of francophone West Africa and among connoisseurs worldwide. It is fresh as ever and fun to read even for the casual consumer. At the same time, it has many dimensions that unfold as one gets back to it again and again.

The story is told from the angle of a young fisherman in a coastal village in Cameroon. He never gets over his fascination for Agatha, an independent young woman with witch like qualities, such as making rain at convenient occasions. In spite of fierce resistance from his mother, he ends up taking in Agatha as his second wife, after obediently establishing his first marriage with Fanny, a "good girl" from a neighbor village. Soon after joining the family as a co-wife, Agatha gives birth to a baby boy whose skin is unusually light and doesn't turn to the "local color" even after months....

The reader comes to see polygamy and other approaches to life in the African village in the characters' own frame of logic - not as exotic phenomena, but not idealized, either. Among other things, the book, as well as the song that was based on it and became an earworm in West Africa over decades, is a superb play with the spectrum of colors. Agatha makes her man "see all the colors". She gives him a son who is not of the "right" color to be his biological child - but a child is a child, whether their color is black, white, red, green or yellow.

During my work in Africa, I have experienced how extracts from this book and other Bebey lyrics (including some of his characteristic witty, philosophical, story-telling songs) instantly built bridges of communication across very diverse sets of people. His stories, and the way they are told, are quintessentially African, and at the same time, universally human.