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Camara Laye

Guinean author (1928–1980)

This is a Mandinka name; the family name is Camara and precedes the given names

Camara Laye (January 1, 1928 – February 4, 1980) was a writer from Guinea. His most well-known works are The African Child (L'Enfant noir), a novel based loosely on his own childhood, and The Radiance of the King (Le Regard du roi). Both novels are among the earliest major works in Francophone African literature. Camara Laye later worked for the government of newly independent Guinea, but went into voluntary exile over political issues.

Early life

Camara Laye was born in Kouroussa, a town in what was then the colony of French Guinea. His family were Malinke (a Mandé-speaking ethnicity), and he was born into a system where he had to follow his forefathers footsteps who traditionally worked as blacksmiths and goldsmiths. His mother was from the village of Tindican, and his immediate childhood surroundings were not predominantly influenced by French culture.

He attended both Quranic and French elementary schools in Kouroussa. At the a

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Guinean novelist, short story writer, and essayist, who first gained fame in the 1950s with his novels L'Enfant noir (1953, The African Child), a poetic re-creation of the author's childhood days, and Le Regard du roi (1954, The Radiance of the King). The latter work with its theme, a frustrating quest for an unattainable authority, has been compared to Franz Kafka's The Castle (1926). There has been a controversy about the authorship of the book since its publication. Laye's third novel, Dramouss (1966), was banned in Guinea.

"Am I not a white man?" cried Clarence.
"The white men do not come here, on the esplanade!" retorted the black man, using the same abrupt tone of voice as he had used before.
"No, this esplanade would not be the place for white men to put in an appearance," Clarence thought bitterly. "They wouldn't let themselves be shoved around by all these black men; they would more likely be sitting in their villas, where it was cool, or else playing cards and sipping iced drinks on the veranda of the hotel."
(in The Radiance of the King)

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Includes the names: Laye Camara, Camara Laye

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In this book, Camara Laye turns the story of the white man visiting Africa on its head, because the experiences of the somewhat hapless white protagonist are seen not only through his eyes but through the reality of African landscapes and people. Clarence has been shipwrecked in Africa, lost all his money gambling with other white people, been kicked out of the white hotel, and is on the verge of also being kicked out of a dirty and decrepit African inn for nonpayment when, in the midst of a show more celebration linked to the king's arrival in town, he meets a beggar and a pair of teenage rascals. They take him in hand, help him out of a jam when he gets arrested, and allow him to accompany them to the south where, eventually, the king will probably show up, as Clarence believes that, largely because he is white, he can get a job working for the king. Thus begins the tale of Clarence's travels through the forests and his exper