Shadows of Your Black Memory

#397
Title: Shadows of Your Black Memory
Author: Donato Ndongo
Translator: Michael Ugarte
Publisher: Swan Isle Press
Year: 2007
Country: Equatorial Guinea
180 pages

I was quite impressed by this novel, which made me glad that I was unable to find a copy of the first of his books I searched for, History and Tragedy of Equatorial Guinea. The story is narrated as two internal monologues, one voice calling itself "I," the other referring to that voice as "you," that recount the protagonist's formative years through his relationship with his tribal culture and religion as it interweaves, but does not commingle with, Spanish culture and Catholicism. The two voices, both of which alternate between storytelling and stream of consciousness reflection, capture the rift in identity that is such a ubiquitous and potent theme in narratives of coming of age under colonialism.

Ndongo's novel is fruitfully read with Somé's memoir Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman for its spiritual/alternate reality passages, Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man for its evocation of sin and the fear of damnation, and Roth's Portnoy's Complaint for a much sadder and distressing version of Portnoy's encounter with the liver.