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Road to Europe
Book by Oyono, Ferdinand
- GenresFiction
103 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1989
About the author
Ferdinand Oyono
19 books50 followersFerdinand Léopold Oyono was an author from Cameroon whose work is recognized for irony that shows how easily people can be fooled. Beginning in the 1960s, he had a long career of service as a diplomat and as a minister in the government, ultimately serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1992 to 1997 and then as Minister of State for Culture from 1997 to 2007.
Oyono's novels were written in French in the late 1950s and were only translated into English a decade or two afterward.
Oyono's novels were written in French in the late 1950s and were only translated into English a decade or two afterward.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 16, 2022
Though written and published in the 1960s, this novel feels very modern, akin to the post-colonial African novels 0f the 21st century (NoViolet Bulawayo and Chris Abani come to mind). A farcical edge keeps this novel sharp. Aki Barnabas, the novel's hero, is bookish and ambitious; the book's introduction juxtaposes him with the more naive hero of Oyono's more famous Houseboy. Yet, in spite of his bookishness and shrewd planning, Barnabas is unable to execute his plans of going to France and bettering his fortune and opportunities through the systems of colonial governance that occupy Cameroon. Much like Houseboy, however, the novel trafficks in the experience of frustrated desire. Where one novel focuses on the tragic-but-foolish will to ascend in (white) Christianity, Road to Europe is about how even the wiliest hero can be thwarted by imperial institutions.
Oyono's attention to material goods and vibrant life is impeccable. Descriptions can often be cacophonous. A bus, in a pivotal section at the end of the novel, attracts and array of people who yield lines of rich, savory, text. "Hausas parading about in their shimmering gondouras [...], ludicrous, bewildered, mostly Catholic peasants [...], plump traders, clasping their snakeskin briefcases" and on this passages goes. Oyono provides almost sumptuous detail, giving the colonial-era Cameroonian landscape and particularly lived-in quality. It's remarkable, how quickly a list becomes a story, one which gushes effusively across the page.
Road to Europe is compulsive. It is both narrow (a slim book, defined by a singular protagonist) and sprawling. Its sentences veer into each other and present surprising junctures and keen observations. It's something of a tragedy itself that this novel is apparently so underread. I only read it after happening open Oyono's first, Houseboy, while browsing a local used bookstore.
Like a mixture of A Confederacy of Dunces, The Odyssey, and Beckett, this is a moving satire-cum-anti-colonial tract.
Oyono's attention to material goods and vibrant life is impeccable. Descriptions can often be cacophonous. A bus, in a pivotal section at the end of the novel, attracts and array of people who yield lines of rich, savory, text. "Hausas parading about in their shimmering gondouras [...], ludicrous, bewildered, mostly Catholic peasants [...], plump traders, clasping their snakeskin briefcases" and on this passages goes. Oyono provides almost sumptuous detail, giving the colonial-era Cameroonian landscape and particularly lived-in quality. It's remarkable, how quickly a list becomes a story, one which gushes effusively across the page.
Road to Europe is compulsive. It is both narrow (a slim book, defined by a singular protagonist) and sprawling. Its sentences veer into each other and present surprising junctures and keen observations. It's something of a tragedy itself that this novel is apparently so underread. I only read it after happening open Oyono's first, Houseboy, while browsing a local used bookstore.
Like a mixture of A Confederacy of Dunces, The Odyssey, and Beckett, this is a moving satire-cum-anti-colonial tract.
February 5, 2024
I found this one very slow to get through until I finally got accustomed to the prose and narration; dense, incredibly inventive language, with much self-aggrandizing and many humorous observations from our mainly failed Barnabas, it reminded me of a mix of Voltaire with A Confederacy of Dunces, but transposed into colonial Africa.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews