A Rain of Words: A Bilingual Anthology of Women's Poetry in Francophone Africa

Although the past two decades have seen a wide recognition of the notable fiction written in French by African women, little attention has been given to their equally significant poetry. A Rain of Words is the first comprehensive attempt to survey the poetic production of these women, collecting work by forty-seven poets from a dozen francophone African countries. Some are established writers; others are only beginning to publish their work. Almost none of the poems here have been published outside of Africa or Europe or been previously translated into English. The poems are accompanied by brief biographies of the poets. Supplementing these are a critical introductory essay by Ir ne Assiba d'Almeida that places women's poetry in the context of recent African history, characterizes its thematic and aesthetic features, and traces the process by which the anthology was compiled and edited, an essay by Janis A. Mayes discussing language politics, the cultural contexts within which the poetry emerges, and literary translation strategies, and an extensive bibliography.

This landmark bilingual collection--the result of ten years of research, collection, editing, and translation--offers readers of English and French entry into a flourishing and essential genre of contemporary African literature.

Irène Assiba d'Almeida is Professor of French and Francophone Studies and Department Head at the University of Arizona and the author of Francophone African Women Writers: Destroying the Emptiness of Silence and editor of Femmes africaines en poésie. Janis A. Mayes is Associate Professor of African American Studies at Syracuse University and the translator of The City Where No One Dies (from the French, La ville où nul ne meurt) by Bernard Dadié and The Blind Kingdom (from the French, Le Royaume aveugle) by Véronique Tadjo.