THE BRIDGETOWER SONATA

French publisher: Actes Sud

U.S. publisher: Schaffner Press

In this vividly imagined, richly detailed novel, acclaimed Congolese author Emmanuel Dongala trains his laser-sharp wit and satirical perspective on the life and times of a figure from history: George Bridgetower, the violin prodigy, who, at the age of nine took the courtly world of 18th Century Europe by storm-and surprise, given the youth's unusual origins. For young George was or mixed-race parentage, or as was known in the parlance of the day--a mulatto.

Though his father Augustus was from Barbados, and dark-skinned, and his mother was a Polish handmaiden of the Hungarian court, this young virtuoso was welcomed into the high society of Paris on the eve of the French Revolution, and soon after fleeing to London was to become a court favorite of the Prince of Wales (the future George IV). From there, he returned to Vienna and became a close friend and confidant of the great composer, Ludwig Van Beethoven.

The two were to create an inseparable bond that resulted in their joint composition, "sonata mulattica" that later the tempestuous Ludwig renamed the Kreutzer Sonata after a falling out with his young friend. Brimming with lively characters and dialogue, and with cameo appearances of such historical figures as the writer Alexandre Dumas, the composer Joseph Haydn, astronomer George Herschel, and many others, The Bridgetower Sonata brings to light the issues of race, class, privilege, and with gentle humor reveals the rampant hypocrisy of the era that ironically mirrors our own.

Born 1941, Emmanuel Dongala is a Congolese chemist and novelist. The former Dean of the Marien Ngouabi University in Brazzaville, Dongala was forced to flee to the United States from Congo when civil war broke out in 1997, and he was offered a professorship at Bard College at Simon's Rock, where he taught until 2014. He is the author of a number of highly acclaimed, award-winning books, including Johnny Mad Dog and Little Boys Come from the Stars. His work is featured in the Penguin Anthology of Modern African Poetry, and he has been a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. A film based on Johnny Mad Dog was released in 2008, and this novel also received the Cezam Prix Littéraire Inter CE Award in 2004. He lives in Massachusetts.

Marjolijn De Jager was born in Indonesia (1936), raised in The Netherlands, and has lived in the USA since the age of 22. She earned a PhD. in Romance Languages and Literatures from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1975. She translates from both the Dutch and the French. Francophone African literature, the women's voices in particular, have a special place in her heart. Among her honors are an NEA grant, two NEH grants and, in 2011, the annually awarded ALA Distinguished Member Award received from the African Literature Association for scholarship, teaching, and translations of African Literature.