Description
A young European boy, Fintan, sets out in 1948 with his Italian mother—Maou—on a long, uncertain voyage from Bordeaux to Marseille, then onward along the African coast toward colonial Nigeria and the trading town of Onitsha. As he travels to meet a father he has never known, Fintan is forced to confront unfamiliar landscapes, shifting languages, and the uneasy realities of empire, while his mother struggles to find her place within a society built on exploitation. Written as a novel of apprenticeship, the story traces how childhood is tested and transformed by movement, loss, and the slow awakening to moral complexity. With the lyrical, semi-autobiographical sensibility for which J. M. G. Le Clézio is celebrated, the book turns a journey into a meditation on belonging, power, and the fragile formation of identity.
Available Editions
paperback
Unknown
Published Jun 28, 2026
ISBN: 9788129109392
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Details
First Published
1991
Language
fra
Content Warnings
No content warnings identified.