Étienne Goyémidé

Goyémidé, Étienne (b. 1942). Novelist, play-wright, and poet from the Central African Republic. His first novel, Le Silence de la forêt (1984), examines the world of the pygmies, which provides the framework to the story of the protagonist, who suddenly decides to give up everything and reconsider his values in search of the true meaning of existence. The originality of his second novel, Le Dernier Survivant de la caravane (1985), lies in the fact that it does not deal with the conflict between the indigenous and colonial populations, but concentrates on the violent clashes with the slave-traders who came from the north in the 19th c.

[Dominic Thomas]