The Lieutenant of Kouta |
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| Author:
| Diabaté, Massa Makan
Diabaté, Massa Makan |
| Translator:
| Auerbach, Shane
Yost, David |
| Series title: | African Humanities and the Arts Ser. |
| ISBN: | 978-1-61186-227-0 |
| Publication Date: | Feb 2017 |
| Publisher: | Michigan State University Press
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| Book Format: | Paperback |
| List Price: | USD $20.00 |
Book Description:
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The Lieutenant of Kouta is the first novel in Massa Makan Diabaté's award-winning trilogy. It tells the story, part tragicomic and part hagiographic, of an African lieutenant in the French Army who returns as a decorated hero from the battlefields of World War II to the town of Kouta. The novel offers a rich and nuanced representation of Mali on the brink of independence in the late 1950s; it is a tapestry of traditional Mandinka society and the French colonial apparatus,...
More Description The Lieutenant of Kouta is the first novel in Massa Makan Diabaté's award-winning trilogy. It tells the story, part tragicomic and part hagiographic, of an African lieutenant in the French Army who returns as a decorated hero from the battlefields of World War II to the town of Kouta. The novel offers a rich and nuanced representation of Mali on the brink of independence in the late 1950s; it is a tapestry of traditional Mandinka society and the French colonial apparatus, illustrating the dynamic interplay between the two. This text is, ultimately, a story of a man's transformation coinciding with that of his country.