scarlet dawns

léonora miano

(Plon, 280 pages, 2009)

✓ A transformative narrative with the power to spark deep reflection on Africa’s history and future. 
✓ An evocative story that bridges personal struggles and collective trauma, resonating globally
✓ A compelling  work, destined to become a landmark in African literature

The adventures of Epa, a child soldier, dissolve into a phantasmagorical epic of an Africa haunted by the spirits of those massacred in the tragedies of the past.  

With Les aubes écarlates, Léonara Miano concludes the cycle that began with L’intérieur de la nuit and Contours du jour qui vient – a personal and poetic portrait devoted to Africa.

Enrolled as a child soldier, Epa has been on the run from the troops of Isilo, the war chief. He has managed to cross the Mboasu and ends up in La Colombe, a centre that receives abandoned children. There he finds Ayané, the hero of L’intérieur de la nuit and Musango, the little girl of Contours du jour qui vient. He tells them of his journey as a child soldier: the plunders, the massacres, the rapes ...The absurdity of a war in which the militiamen murder those they supposedly wish to save.

But soon, his story takes strange turns: Epa talks about unknown lands that don’t figure on any map, strange people that nobody has ever met before. His spirit is pursued by the spirits of the slave trade, those who perished during the manhunt and the trip over the ocean. Never having been honoured on the African continent, the deceased haunt and poison the boy with their bitterness. Their disembodied presence filters into daily life at La Colombe and seems to have engendered the insanity and violence that Africa unceasingly brings upon itself.  Now conscious of the malevolent forces that rule the continent and determined to fight back, Epa throws himself into the search for other child soldiers to bring them back to their families, to peace.

About the auhor :
Novelist, playwright and essayist, Léonora Miano was born in Douala, in Cameroon.  She is considered one of the major voices of African literature and is the author of some twenty books. Her awards include the Prix Goncourt des lycéens in 2006 for Contours du jour qui vient (Pion), the Prix Seligmann contre le racisme in 2012 for Ecrits pour la parole (L'Arche), the Prix Femina and the Grand Prix du Roman Métis in 2013 for La Saison de l'ombre (Grasset, published by Seagull Books in 2018 under the title Season of the Shadow ). At Seuil, she published L'Opposé de la blancheur. Réflexions sur le problème blanc (2023).