Queen Pokou

Tadjo uses her powerful and fertile imagination to rekindle an ancient Akan myth and deliberately sets it ablaze! In deceptively simple but poetically elegant prose, she revisits the legend of the Baoulé female ancestor, Queen Abraha Pokou — presenting it not as one authoritative, impermeable text, but as a series of self-regenerating narratives; each version just as colourful, persuasive and compelling as the others. Through this process, Tadjo shows the received texts of history and tradition as they truly are — as subjective fictions capaciously vulnerable to interpretations and reinterprerations.

Professor Femi Osojìsan, University of Ibadan, Nigeria.

Mother love and the imperative to sacrifice for the collective good. With Queen Pokou, Tadjo has given a clear and magnificent rendition of an Akan classic of this tragic motif. In an English version that seems not to have lost anything in translation, this poetic narrative is as lyrical as it is cerebrally compelling. Have a great read.

Ama Ata Aidoo, Visiting Professor, Brown University, LISA.

Even through the translation we hear the anguished lyricism of the poet´s voice wrestling with the meaning of history — and the burden of myth. In shedding the light of her powerful imagination afresh on this tale, Tadjo shoulders the burden of those who are driven to tell our stories to us, over and again, for our own self-understanding.

Professor Alena P. A. Busia, Rutgers University, USA.

Boundary-crossing is this story´s overwhelming metaphor and Tadjo leaves us in no doubt about the poignant symbolism of happenings on both sides of the Great River… Told with sensuous, frequently gripping panache, Queen Pokou is the work of a poet and painter who knows the purposive polyvalence of memory.

Professor Niyi Osuridare, University of New Orleans, USA, and Winner of the igqi NOMA Award.