The Last of the African Kings

The Last of the African Kings follows the wayward fortunes of a noble African family. It begins with the regal Béhanzin, an African king who opposed French colonialism and was exiled to distant Martinique. In the course of this brilliant novel, Maryse Condé tells of Béhanzin’s scattered offspring and their lives in the Caribbean and the United States. A book made up of many characters and countless stories, The Last of the African Kings skillfully intertwines the themes of exile, lost origins, memory, and hope. It is set mainly in the Americas, from the Caribbean to modern-day South Carolina, yet Africa hovers always in the background.

Born in Guadeloupe in 1937, Maryse Condé has lived in Africa and a traveled throughout the world. She first won international acclaim for Children of Segu, a novel about Black African experience and the slave trade. Her other writings include the novels I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, Tree of Life, and Crossing the Mangrove. Richard Philcox is one of the leading translators of Third-World Francophone literature in the world today. He has published translations of six of Condé’s novels, including, most recently, Crossing the Mangrove. Leah D. Hewitt is a professor of French at Amherst College and the author of Autobiographical Tightropes: Simone de Beauvoir, Nathalie Sarraute, Marguerite Duras, Monique Wittig, and Maryse Condé (Nebraska 1990).