The Lives and Deaths of Véronique Bangoura

In this gripping novel set in both French Guinea and Paris, award-winning author (The King of Kahel) Tierno Monénembo explores themes of international exile, sexual abuse, generational trauma and repressed memory of a people and country under the regime of dictator Sekou Toure from 1956-1982 in which 50,000 people were reported killed or disappeared. With his title character Véronique Bangoura, Monénembo provides a portrait of a powerful female protagonist living under an assumed name in exile, having fled her native country to take on a new identity and occupation as caregiver for an elderly and infirm gentleman. Prompted by a friendship she has struck up with an older woman who claims to recognize her, she finds a confidante to whom she relates her personal story, when as a young teenager she killed her father in self-defense upon his attempt to rape her, and fled into the slums of Conakry where she was taken in by a gang of women and their matriarch, Aye Bamby, who mentors her in a life of petty crime and prostitution. In this complexly unwinding plot told in alternating parallel narratives, the dark political history of her parentage as well as the truth behind her many lives is revealed.

A winner of some of France’s most prestigious awards, including the Prix Renaudot and the Grand Prix de la francophonie, Guinean-born (1947) author Tierno Monénembo most recently received the 2022 Baobab Prize for Best African/Diasporic Work of Literature for his novel, The Lives and Deaths of Véronique Bangoura. A refugee from Guinean dictator Ahmed Sékou Touré’s regime, Monénembo migrated to France to earn a PhD in Biochemisty. He has lived in Senegal, Morocco, Algeria, the US, and now, a professor, in France, and currently makes Paris his home. Ryan Chamberlain holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Arkansas, where he currently teaches French. With Carolyn F. Walton Cole Fellowships in both fiction and translation, he has worked as a subtitler for TV5Monde and served as Translation Editor for The Arkansas International.