Photo : Valter Campanato / Agência Brasil, CC BY 3.0 BR
Léonora Miano
The novelist of sub-Saharan Africa and its diasporas
Born in 1973
Related city : Douala
Who are they?
A novelist born in Douala in 1973. She moved to France in 1991 to study American literature and published her first novel, "L'Intérieur de la nuit", in 2005.
What made them famous
"Contours du jour qui vient" won the Prix Goncourt des lycéens in 2006. In 2013, "La Saison de l'ombre", about the beginnings of the slave trade, won her the Prix Femina.
Key facts
- "L'Intérieur de la nuit" was named the best French first novel of 2005 by Lire magazine.
- She has developed the idea of the "Afropean", already present in her collection "Afropean et autres nouvelles" (2008).
- Her play "Révélation", the first part of the "Red in Blue" trilogy on the history of slavery, was staged in 2018 by the Japanese director Satoshi Miyagi.