When the plums are ripe

Resource Information

The work When the plums are ripe represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Vancouver Public Library, Britannia Branch (Open with Limited Services). This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

When the plums are ripe

Statement of responsibility

Patrice Nganang ; translated from the French by Amy B. Reid

Creator

• Nganang, Alain Patrice

Author

• Nganang, Alain Patrice

Subject

• Cameroon -- History -- 20th century -- Fiction
• Cameroon fiction (French)
• Cousins -- Fiction
• France -- Colonies | History -- 20th century -- Fiction
• Historical fiction
• Imperialism -- Fiction
• Plum -- Fiction
• Poets -- Fiction
• World War, 1939-1945 -- Fiction
• Nationalism -- Fiction
• Boxers (Sports) -- Fiction

Genre

• Fiction
• Historical fiction
• Cameroon fiction (French)

Language

• eng
• fre
• eng

Summary

In Cameroon, plum season is a highly anticipated time of year. But for the narrator of When the Plums Are Ripe, the poet Pouka, the season reminds him of the "time when our country had discovered the root not so much of its own violence as that of the world's own, and, in response, had thrown its sons who at that time were called Senegalese infantrymen into the desert, just as in the evenings the sellers throw all their still-unsold plums into the embers." In this novel of radiant lyricism, Patrice Nganang recounts the story of Cameroon's forced entry into World War II, and in the process complicates our own understanding of that globe-spanning conflict. After the fall of France in 1940, Cameroon found itself caught between Vichy and the Free French at a time when growing nationalism advised allegiance to neither regime, and was ultimately dragged into fighting throughout North Africa on behalf of the Allies. Moving from Pouka's story to the campaigns of the French general Leclerc and the battles of Kufra and Murzuk, Nganang questions the colonial record and recenters African perspectives at the heart of Cameroon's national history, all the while writing with wit and panache. When the Plums Are Ripe is a brilliantly crafted, politically charged epic that challenges not only the legacies of colonialism but also the intersections of language, authority, and history itself

Member of

• Saison des prunes

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

843/.92

Illustrations

• illustrations
• maps

Index

no index present

LC call number

PQ3989.2.N4623

LC item number

S3513 2019

Literary form

novels