The Radiance of the King by Camara Laye. London. 1956. Collins. 319 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION - A black writer penetrates the heart of a white man in this brilliant tragicomic parable of two Africas - a literary and symbolic masterpiece exposes as never before the mind and spirit of a white pilgrim and his black counterparts. One glimpse of the magnificent black King of Kings, and the white man Clarence realizes that only in his service will he ever find peace. Down and out but arrogant, he assumes that his color will automatically gain him an audience. But his appeal is denied, and he becomes obsessed with the desire to confront the King at any cost. And so begins Clarence's odyssey. Fleeing from gambling debts, corrupt justice, and the contempt of his fellow whites, he begins a grueling trek to the savage South, accompanied by a roguish beggar and two boys. The overwhelming jungle and its many false trails finally give way to the South, ‘provocative and cruel, lascivious and unmentionable,' where Clarence comes to the end of a bizarre hallucinatory quest for ‘soul' and redemption in THE RADIANCE OF KING.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Camara Laye (January 1, 1928 - February 4, 1980) was an African writer from Guinea. He was the author of The African Child (L'Enfant noir), a novel based loosely on his own childhood, and The Radiance of the King (Le Regard du roi). Both novels are among the earliest major works in Francophone African literature. Camara Laye later worked for the government of newly independent Guinea, but went into voluntary exile over political issues. Camara Laye was born in Kouroussa, a town in what was then the colony of French Guinea. His family were Malinke (a MandE speaking ethnicity), and he was born into a caste that traditionally worked as blacksmiths and goldsmiths. His mother was from the village of Tindican, and his immediate childhood surroundings were not predominantly influenced by French culture. He attended both Koranic and French elementary schools in Kouroussa. At age fifteen he went to Conakry, the colonial capital, to continue his education. He attended vocational studies in motor mechanics. In 1947, he travelled to Paris to continue studying mechanics. There he worked and took further courses in engineering and worked towards the baccalaurEat. Camara Laye published his first novel in 1953, the autobiographical L'Enfant noir (The African Child, also published under the title The Dark Child). It follows his own journey from childhood in Kouroussa, his education in Conakry, and eventual departure for France. The book won the Prix Charles Veillon in 1954. L'Enfant noir was followed the next year by Le Regard du roi (The Radiance of the King). The Radiance of the King was described by Kwame Anthony Appiah as 'one of the greatest of the African novels of the colonial period.' In 1956 Camara Laye returned to Africa, first to Dahomey, then the Gold Coast, and finally to newly independent Guinea, where he held several government posts. He left Guinea for Senegal in 1965 because of political issues, never returning to his home country. In 1966 Camara Laye's third novel, Dramouss (A Dream of Africa), was published. In 1978 his fourth and final work, Le Maître de la parole - Kouma Lafôlô Kouma (The Guardian of the Word), was published. The novel was based on a Malian epic told by the griot Babou CondE about Sundiata Keita, the thirteenth-century founder of the Mali Empire. Camara Laye's authorship of Le Regard du roi was questioned by literary scholar Adele King in her book Rereading Camara Laye.She claimed that he had considerable help in writing L'Enfant noir and did not write any part of Le Regard du roi. Scholar F. Abiola Irele, in an article called In Search of Camara Laye asserts that the claims are not 'sufficiently grounded' to adequately justify that Laye did not author the mentioned work.
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