My Country, Tonight / Mon Pays, Ce Soir by Josué
Guébo Translated by Todd Fredson (Action Books, paperback)
Publication Date: October 15, 2016
Publisher Marketing: Poetry. African Studies. "Josué Guébo's MY COUNTRY, TONIGHT offers English-language readers their first sustained encounter with one of the important contemporary poets of the Ivory Coast and Francophone Africa. Translated with superb nuance and verve by Todd Fredson, who also provides an insightful introduction to the collection, Guébo's poems present a stirring, condensed and often ironic vision of his country's long colonial and post-independence struggle for cultural, political and economic sovereignty, against the power-plays of the neoliberal West and global capitalism. Both lyric and polemic, MY COUNTRY, TONIGHT, by 'tear[ing] the names open for us,' adds new depth to our post-colonial understanding of recent Ivorian history and enriches our appreciation of African poetry today."—John Keene
