Two boys venture from their village to hunt in a nearby forest, where they shoot down bats with glee, and cook their prey over an open fire. Within a month, they are dead, bodies ravaged by an insidious disease that neither the local healer's potions nor the medical team's treatments could cure. Compounding the family's grief, experts warn against touching the sick. But this caution comes too late: the virus spreads rapidly, and the boys' father is barely able to send his eldest daughter away for a chance at survival.
Acutely relevant to our times in light of the coronavirus pandemic, In the Company of Men explores critical questions about how we cope with a global crisis and how we can combat fear and prejudice.
Véronique Tadjo is a poet, novelist, academic, and artist from Côte d'Ivoire. She earned a doctorate in Black American Literature and Civilization from the Sorbonne, Paris IV, and went to the United States as a Fulbright scholar at Howard University in Washington, DC. She headed the French Department of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg until 2015. Her books have been translated into several languages, from The Blind Kingdom (1991) to The Shadow of Imana: Travels in the Heart of Rwanda (2001) and Queen Pokou: Concerto for a Sacrifice (2005), which was awarded the Grand Prix de Littérature d'Afrique Noire in 2005.
- Publisher: Other Press (February 23, 2021)
- Language: English
- Paperback: 160 pages
- ISBN-10: 1635420954
- ISBN-13: 9781635420951
- Item Weight: 6.4 ounces
- Dimensions: 5.25 x 0.45 x 7.95 inches
