Wilfried N’Sondè's The Heart of the Leopard Children and The Silence of the Spirits

Wilfried N’Sondè's The Heart of the Leopard Children and The Silence of the Spirits allow our investigation of the migratory imagination to explore two novels centered on the postmigratory condition in the suburbs and projects of Paris to showcase the expansive imaginary capacity of the African migration novel. The migratory route carved out by the protagonists from the Republic of Congo to Paris is often overlooked if only because of its underrepresentation. The Republic of Congo (colloquially known as Brazzaville) is often overshadowed in historical discourses and our collective imaginary by the Democratic Republic of Congo, no doubt because of the latter's tumultuous colonial and postcolonial history that has garnered significantly more scholarly attention. Historians have been busy producing massive and popular tomes such as King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism by Adam Hochschild, Congo: The Epic History of People by David Van Reybrouck, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa by Jason Stearns, to name just a few of the monumental historical studies that have recently emerged.

On the literary front, however, the creative works emerging from the Republic of Congo have been gaining increased attention due in no small part to Indiana University Press's commitment to translating and publishing Francophone African literature by authors from the Republic of Congo in its Global African Voices series. Wilfried N’Sondé is one author the series is committed to translating and publishing. N’Sondé is often classified as an “Afropean” author because he is firmly integrated in and, more importantly, contributes to European culture (Thomas “The Heart of the Leopard Children” xi). He hails from Brazzaville, was raised in Paris, and is a practicing musician living in Berlin. His literature carries the traits of an Afropean sensibility and aesthetic.