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    The Shameful State
    The Shameful State
    The Shameful State
    Ebook128 pages2 hours

    The Shameful State

    By Sony Labou Tansi, Dominic Thomas and Alain Mabanckou

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    About this ebook

    Set in a fictitious African nation, this novel by the distinguished writer Sony Labou Tansi takes aim at the corruption, degeneracy, violence, and repression of political life in Africa. At the heart of The Shameful State is the story of Colonel Martillimi Lopez, the nation's president, whose eccentricity and whims epitomize the "shameful situation in which humanity has elected to live." Lopez stages a series of grotesque and barbaric events while his nation falls apart. Unable to resist the dictator's will, his desperate citizens are left with nothing but humiliation. The evocation of this deranged world is a showcase for the linguistic and stylistic inventiveness that are the hallmark of Sony Labou Tansi's work.

    This first English translation by Dominic Thomas includes a foreword by Congolese writer Alain Mabanckou that contextualizes the novel's importance in literary history and the significance of Sony Labou Tansi for future generations of writers.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIndiana University Press
    Release dateJan 3, 2016
    ISBN9780253019325
    The Shameful State
    Author

    Sony Labou Tansi

    Sony Lab'ou Tansi was born in the Republic of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1947. He taught English at Collège Tchicaya in Pointe Noire for several years before working as an administrator in several ministries in Brazzaville. His first novel, La Vie et demie (1979), was awarded the special jury's prize at the Festival International des Francophonies in Limoges. Some of his most notable books include The Antipeople, Parentheses of Blood, and The Shameful State. He died in 1995.

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