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Join the Alliance Française de Seattle, in partnership with Elliott
Bay Book Company,
for an online discussion with author Hemley Boum,
who will discuss her latest book Days Come and Go, translated by Nchanji Njamnsi.
Nkiacha Atemnkeng, a writer and music enthusiast from Cameroon, will moderate this virtual interview, which will
be followed by a Q&A session with the audience.
Free event, in English, RSVP mandatory (Please RSVP at the bottom of this page).
This event takes place online via Zoom.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR | HEMLEY BOUM
Hemley Boum is the author of four novels, including Les Maquisards, which received the Grand prix littéraire de l’Afrique Noire, and Days Come and Go (Les jours viennent et passent), winner of the Prix Amadou Kourouma, which has been translated into both German and Dutch. She regularly publishes articles in Jeune Afrique, Le Point Afrique and Le Monde Afrique, and speaks at colloquia, universities, and literary festivals. Hemley has conducted masterclasses in France, Réunion, Cameroon, and Congo, and since 2019 she has been involved in “La Fabrique de Souza”, a series of literary salons in Douala, Cameroon. Hemley was born in Cameroon, where she studied anthropology before relocating to Lille, France, to study international trade. She currently lives in Paris, France.
ABOUT THE BOOK
For readers of Yaa Gyasi and Imbolo Mbue, this English-language debut of a major African writer dazzles as it devastates, offering an
intimate look at three generations of a Cameroonian village as its people attempt to make sense of an inherited past and the complexities
of belonging.
Chronicling the beauty and turmoil of a rapidly changing Cameroon, Days Come and Go is the remarkable story of three
generations of women both within and beyond its borders. Through the voices of Anna, a matriarch living out her final days in Paris; Abi,
Anna’s thoroughly European daughter (at least in her mother’s eyes); and Tina, a teenager who comes under the sway of a militant terrorist
faction, Boum’s epic is generous and all-seeing. Brilliantly considering the many issues that dominate her characters’ lives—love and
politics, tradition and modernity—Days Come and Go, in Nchanji Njamnsi’s vivid translation, is a page-turner by way of
Frantz Fanon and V. S. Naipaul. As passions rise, fall, and rise again, Boum's stirring English-language debut offers a discerning
portrait of a nation that never once diminishes the power of everyday human connection.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR | NCHANJI NJAMNSI
Nchanji Njamnsi is a translator from Cameroon who has been translating since 2012. He is passionate about the role literary translation should play in intercultural communication. He previously co-translated a short story featured in Your Feet Will Lead You Where Your Heart Is, a bilingual anthology published in 2020.
ABOUT THE MODERATOR | NKIACHA ATEMNKENG
Nkiacha Atemnkeng is a writer from Cameroon. His work was published in the 2015 Caine Prize anthology Lusaka Punk and Other Stories, Hotel Africa: New Short Fiction from Africa, Of Passion and Ink: New Voices from Cameroon by Bakwa Books, as well as The Africa Report, This Is Africa, The Johannesburg Review of Books, The Guardian Longread, Longreads, Porter House Review, among others. He is a Goethe Institut/Sylt Foundation writing residency winner, and a 2021 Art Omi fellow in New York. Nkiacha Atemnkeng earned his MFA in Creative Writing from Texas State University, where he is currently employed as a faculty member teaching College writing courses.
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