User:AlexLetour/Léonora Miano



Biography

Birth 12 March 1973 (47 years old)

Douala

Nationality Cameroonian

Activity Writer

Further information

Worked for University of Michigan

Website www.leonoramiano.com


 * Awards Goncourt des lycéens 2006 prize for Contours du jour qui vient (Contours of the coming day)


 * Grand prix littéraire d'Afrique noire 2011 for his body of work


 * Femina Award 2013 for The Shadow Season

Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters 2014

Main works

Contours of the Coming Day, The Shadow Season

Léonora Miano, born on 12 March 1973 in Douala (Cameroon), is a French-speaking Cameroonian woman of letters.

Biography
Léonora Miano was born in 1973 in Douala, Cameroon. She moved to France in 1991, first to Valenciennes and then to Nanterre, to study American literature. Léonora Miano's first work, L'intérieur de la nuit, was well received by French-speaking critics. She received six awards: Les lauriers verts de la forêt des livres, Révélation (2005), the Louis-Guilloux Prize (2006), the prize for a woman's first novel (2006), the René-Fallet Prize (2006), the Bernard-Palissy Prize (2006), and the Cameroonian Excellence Prize (2007). The magazine Lire named it the best first French novel of the year in 2005.

His second novel, Contours du jour qui vient, was awarded the Goncourt des lycéens prize in November 2006 by a jury of young high school students aged 15 to 18.

In spring 2008, Léonora Miano published five novels in the Flammarion Group's "Étonnants classiques" collection. They are grouped under the title Afropean and other short stories.

According to Daniel S., his work has a particularity. Larangé, to create an Afropean literature, conscious of the transformations of the world and of humanity. It defends the Afropean identity in the era of globalisation, which could regenerate French culture through French-language literature. Still according to Daniel S. Larangé, jazzy writing is based on a popular and musical culture, integrating impromptu rhythms and rhapsodies specific to jazz.

In November 2013, Léonora Miano won the Prix Femina for La Saison de l'ombre, which tells the story of the beginning of the black slave trade, in line with Yambo Ouologuem's Devoir de violence. The novel, rich in emotion, is said to be a parable of globalisation which leads to the exploitation of humanity as a consumer product. In January 2014, the French Minister of Culture and Communication Aurélie Filippetti nominated her to the rank of Chevalière de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Then in 2015 the writer directed the collective work Volcaniques: an anthology of pleasure in which twelve authors from the black world, Hemley Boum, Nafissatou Dia Diouf, Marie Dô, Nathalie Etoke, Gilda Gonfier, Axelle Jah Njiké, Fabienne Kanor, Gaël Octavia, Gisèle Pineau, Marie-Laure Endale, Elizabeth Tchoungui and Léonora Miano herself wrote short stories around this theme.

In 2018, Satoshi Miyagi directs Revelation, the first part of the Red in Blue trilogy on the history of slavery published in 2011. Léonora Miano, a specialist in colonial history, chose a director whose (Japanese) culture is far removed from the history of transatlantic slavery. It is the writer's wish to avoid "cultural appropriation" by a Westerner. The contrast between the story familiar to a Western spectator and the aesthetic distance (dissociation of voice and body inherited from Japanese theatre) creates surprise and, according to Libération, goes beyond the confrontation between Africa and Europe.

Work

 * The Interior of the Night, Plon, 2005; Pocket, 2006 ( ISBN 2266162683 )

ranked 5th in the list of the best books of the year by the magazine Lire.


 * Contours du jour qui vient, Plon, 2006 ( ISBN 2259203965 ); Pocket Jeunesse 2008; Pocket 2008 ( ISBN 2266176943 ) Goncourt des lycéens prize in 2006.


 * Afropean Soul, Flammarion, 2008 ( ISBN 2081209594 )


 * Like extinct stars, Plon, 2008 ( ISBN 225920628X )


 * Soulfood équatoriale, Robert Laffont, 2009 ( ISBN 978-2-84111-380-4 )


 * Les Aubes écarlates, Plon, 2009 ( ISBN 978-2259210676 )


 * Blues for Elise, Plon, 2010 ( ISBN 978-2259212861 )


 * These sorrowful souls, Plon, 2011 ( ISBN 978-2-259-21287-8 )


 * Écrits pour la parole, L'Arche éditeur, 2012 ( ISBN 978-2-85181-773-0 )


 * Habiter la frontière, L'Arche éditeur, 2012 ( ISBN 978-2-85181-786-0 )


 * La Saison de l'ombre, Grasset, 2013 ( ISBN 978-2-246-80113-9 )


 * Femina Prize 2013


 * Red in blue trilogy, L'Arche, 2015 ISBN 978-2-85181-865-2


 * Twilight of Torment, Grasset, 2016 ISBN 978-2-246-85414-2


 * L'impératif transgressif, L'Arche éditeur, 2016 ISBN 978-2-85181-893-5


 * Twilight of Turmoil 2: Heritage, Grasset, 2017 ISBN 978-2-246-85446-3


 * Empress Red, Grasset, 2019 ISBN 978-2-246-81360-6


 * What needs to be said, L'Arche, 2019 ISBN 978-2-85181-970-3


 * Afropea. Post-Western and Post-Racist Utopia, Grasset, 2020 ISBN 978-22468178

Decorations

 * Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters

Prizes and awards

 * Louis-Guilloux Award 2006 for L'Intérieur de la nuit 2006 Woman's First Novel Award for The Interior of the Night René-Fallet Prize 2006,  Bernard-Palissy Prize 2006.  Prix Goncourt des lycéens 2006 for Contours du jour qui vient  Grand prix littéraire d'Afrique noire 2011 for his body of work  2012 Seligmann Prize Against Racism for Writings for the Word (L'Arche éditeur).  Métis Novel Grand Prize 2013 for La Saison de l'ombre (The Season of Shadows)  Femina Award 2013 for The Shadow Season

Related articles

 * Cameroonian Literature