The Radiance of the King (New York Review Books Classics) [Paperback]

Camara Laye (Author), Toni Morrison (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 31, 2001 | Series: New York Review Books Classics

At the beginning of this masterpiece of African literature, Clarence, a white man, has been shipwrecked on the coast of Africa. Flush with self-importance, he demands to see the king, but the king has just left for the south of his realm. Traveling through an increasingly phantasmagoric landscape in the company of a beggar and two roguish boys, Clarence is gradually stripped of his pretensions, until he is sold to the royal harem as a slave. But in the end Clarence’s bewildering journey is the occasion of a revelation, as he discovers the image, both shameful and beautiful, of his own humanity in the alien splendor of the king

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A classic work of modernism—a signal work in the African canon and one that every lover of literature will admire and enjoy.”
—Henry Louis Gates Jr.

“One of the greatest of the African novels of the colonial period, Camara Laye’s The Radiance of the King has delighted and puzzled generations of readers inside and outside the continent. The delight is in the humor and elegance of the language and narrative. The puzzle lies in the book’s wonderfully unsettling end, which calls on us all to respond with an interpretation of our own.”
—Kwame Anthony Appiah

“Allegorical, Kafkaesque and African in a unique way; it is a powerful and disturbing exploration of exile, quest and reconciliation with a power greater than logic or reason.”
—The New York Times Book Review --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 279 pages
• Publisher: NYRB Classics (May 31, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0940322587
• ISBN-13: 978-0940322585
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #807,096 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars By far the best French African novel I have read, August 31, 1999

By 

S. N. Kras "Stefan Kras" (Den Haag Netherlands) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Radiance of the King (Paperback)

This book is a wild trip. The main character is a white French man, living in an unidentified African setting (although the author must have been inspired by his Guinean background), who is totally broke. We don't know anything about his backgrounds, his reasons for being in Africa, or his prior professional occupations. Rejected by the French community, he is bummed. To get out of his misery, he wants to meet a mysterious African king, and apply for a position as advisor at the court. In his quest to find the king, the white man gives up his 'white' identity, and gets in touch with a variety of weird and fascinating characters: an old griot, two annoying boys, a mad village priest. During his journey, 'regular' situations rapidly degenerate into eery hallucinations.

One of the things I especially liked in this breathtaking literary masterpiece was that Camara Laye didn't emphasize human weaknesses of a white oppressor (like Oyono enjoys doing, although I like Oyono a lot); Laye didn't try to denounce Colonialism as a system either, like Cheikh Hamidou Kane or Pramoudya Ananta Toer have done (quite well, of course) - I think that a novel is not the most suited platform to do that: characters quickly tend to become boring academic abstractions rather than interesting people and the literary power of the work suffers. Instead, Laye gradually "forgets" the whiteness of his main character, emphasizing the humanity of all players.

Anyway, Camara Laye's "The radiance of the king" (I read the original French "Le regard du roi" - I can only hope the translation is just as good) is a truly unique book in style and content. Definitely a must-read!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An exciting read with some lofty symbolism, June 27, 2006

By 

V. Wicker - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Radiance of the King (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

Clarence is a European with a gambling debt, who has been austracized by his countrymen in an ambiguous place in colonial Africa and without anything more than the clothes on his back. He is determined to meet the king, thinking that the monarch will certainly take him in as a "worldly" advisor. When initial attempts to catch the king's attention fail, Clarence is lead south by an old beggar and two young boys to await the king, who will be touring this area of his dominion. Time passes as Clarence waits, and as this happens our young and arrogant hero becomes a more humbled through a series of events deep in the forested South.

This story was intriguing to me, and it reminded me very much of Alejo Carpentier's "The Lost Steps" with the theme of a man arrogantly thinking he is capable of anything, but whose ignorance is exposed once he is taken out of the culture and environment he is accustomed to.

There is a twist in the plot of the story which surprised me, but I think some readers would see it coming a lot earlier than I did. There is a lot of symbolism that I completely missed until I read Toni Morrison's introduction after finishing the book. I wish I had read this for a book group because it would spark a great discussion!

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Too Much of an Object Lesson for Me, March 29, 2004

By 

John Sollami (Stamford, CT) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Radiance of the King (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

Although Toni Morrison's introduction to this book raves about its unique character and its genius, to me the introduction is more about the deeply thoughtful mind of Toni Morrison and not about this book. I found the main character, Clarence, to be rather shallow and naive and uninteresting, which is why my interest was not able to be sustained throughout its narrative. I understand this work was published in 1954, which makes its author a revolutionary in even conceiving of it, but for me it is allegorical and is teaching an object lesson to white civilization about African civilization. And that lesson is hammered home on every page until finally there is an understanding reached. I think I get it.
Perhaps it's me, but I just can't read novels that are constructed in this way. They are too didactic, too unliterary. I'm sorry Mr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., but I am a lover of literature and I did not admire or enjoy this book. But I do appreciate its historical and sociological importance, and for that alone I gave it 3 stars.