An undocumented immigrant from the Ivory Coast, Black Manoo is walking the streets of Belleville´s Paris. The people he meets are unlucky luck-hunters, new lives in an anti-paradise. It is an illusion many do hunt for in France or elsewhere. Through my work, I regularly meet such individuals, trying to build new lives from the remains of their previous ones, not always successfully.
Black Manoo by Gauz - Armand Patrick Gbaka-Brédé -, an author who experienced himself the life of an undocumented immigrant - brings to life different characters and their episodic life sparkles, in the 1980s Paris. Both the ambiance and the voice of the characters are authentic and realistic, although part of a fictional unit.
Each generation of immigrants are sharing different stories and motives for leaving their countries. The ways in which host countries welcome or reject them is also different. The individual loneliness and alienation is universal though.
The exceptional cover belongs to the Ethiopia-born artist Aida Muluneh, which uses stunning photographic techniques combining photography with traditional frameworks and colours representing the different cultures from the African continent. (PS: What about offering a larger recognition space to the individual cover authors, especially the photographers, whose choice weight so much in the success of a book?)
Rating: 4 stars
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