Mimosa Book

Many (most?) people are well aware of the masterpiece "Remembrance of Things Past" by Proust the winner of the 1921 Prix Goncourt, yet many of those same people are unaware of Batouala, the 1922 winner. I only learned of this book a few months ago. It is an exceptional book capturing life in 1920's colonial Africa from the perspective of Batouala, an African Chief. In addition to being an exceptional story, the book has a cultural significance as the first great novel about Africa by a black writer. In fact, according to Donal Herdeck from Georgetown University, the author of the book's introduction, this book played a major role in initiating the half-century of protest that led to African independence and it influenced numerous African writers of the important "negritude" school.