Queen Pokou

Woven into the historic framework of the founding of the Baoule people by Queen Abraha Pokou in the 18th century, Tadjo's novel explores not only the most intimate of relationships - that between mother and child - but also the trans-Atlantic slave trade. A bridge between Tadjo's long and short fiction, it has often been read as a reflection of the bloody ethnic wars that have only recently engulfed West Africa once again.