The African man

The African man, J. M. G. Le Clezio, Barcelona, Ed. 62, 2008 (2004)
It is an autobiographical tale, with overtones of colonialism, exoticism and growth initiation. An inspiring book to understand the literature of the 2008 Nobel laureate in which we know the African origins of his family: his father was a physician in sub-Saharan Africa. Thoughtful comments that attract people to see the continent, but certainly the highlight is the separation of the family, the father in Africa, the mother and child in the occupied France during World War II. A lack of father for nearly eight years and a recovery of this a bit traumatic, because he had lost the charm of that continent and the illusion of an idyllic world, lost to the social and political collapse postwar.
Some expressions suggestive:
* “Africa was the body than the face” (p. 17)
* “The memory of a child exaggerates the distances and heights” (p. 27)
* “Africans have a habit of saying that humans are not born the day they leave the womb, but at the place and the moment they are conceived.” (P. 87)