The Knight and His Shadow
The Knight and His Shadow
BOUBACAR BORIS DIOP
TRANSLATED BY ALAN FURNESS
Series: African Humanities and the Arts
Copyright Date: 2015
Published by: Michigan State University Press
Pages: 204
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.14321/j.ctt14bs0x6
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Book Info
The Knight and His Shadow
Book Description:

A brilliant tour de force,The Knight and His Shadowtells the tale of Lat-Sukabé's quest to find his former lover, Khadidja, who writes him to "come before it's too late." As Lat-Sukabé recounts his past with Khadidja, reality shapeshifts and takes on a dreamlike quality. He describes how Khadidja is hired by a wealthy stranger to sit before an open door and tell stories into an uncertain darkness, unable to see the person to whom she speaks. Like Lat-Sukabé and Khadidja, the reader feels farther from home with every page, as the world turns and morphs. With those shifts, the symbolic order, the basis of meaning and sanity, begins to tremble. Postmodernist sensibilities meet postcolonial concerns in this lyrical novel from a master of Senegalese literature.

eISBN: 978-1-60917-439-2
Subjects: Language & Literature
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  1. Front Matter
    Front Matter (pp. i-iv)
  2. Foreword
    Foreword (pp. v-xviii)
    Nasrin Qader

    Boubacar Boris Diop not only arguably is Senegal’s most acclaimed and renowned contemporary writer, he is, as Liana Nissim has aptly pointed out, also a great writer of literature, tout court.¹ Diop was born in Dakar, Senegal, in 1946, and his first novel,Le temps de Tamango, was published in 1981. Diop is not only a prominent novelist in both French and Wolof but also the author of a number of plays, short stories, and an opera. Both prior to and in tandem with his career as a novelist, he has worked as a journalist, been a prominent activist, and...

  3. The First Day
    The First Day (pp. 1-52)

    I got to the Villa Angelo hotel here yesterday, just after midnight. It was the first time I had been to this quiet, small country town in the East. I can see already how difficult it’s going to be to find a pirogue to get to Bilenty on the other side of the river, which is the real object of my journey. The rains this year were very heavy. All the villages upriver, like Bilenty, were completely cut off from the rest of the country for several weeks. Luckily, this has now sorted itself out. There is nothing to stop...

  4. The Second Day
    The Second Day (pp. 53-164)

    Stretched out on my bed, I heard the hotel waking up around me. People came and went in the corridor. Their silhouettes danced at times on the wall opposite, like dark lightning flashes. Presumably the hotel staff making up the rooms for guests. The question was whether there were any other guests staying at the Villa Angelo apart from me. Since yesterday, I hadn’t seen a single one.

    My room smelled of damp and rotten wood. I had spent a restless night, and I ached in all my limbs. I had slept badly, as I always do when I spend...

  5. The Third Day
    The Third Day (pp. 165-185)

    It was midday. Sitting under one of the centuries’ old trees of the Villa Angelo, I was close to complete collapse…. My morning walk had come to an end here. I mean that it was impossible for me to go a step farther. I was done for, physically. Getting down the dozen steps of the staircase had been a painful ordeal. I had the impression that I wasn’t going to make it. Fortunately, it was early, and no one witnessed my agony. Then once I had got down, I rested for a good quarter of an hour under the bower....

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