Hemley Boum's sixth novel pits a jailed lawyer against the officer watching her
On France Culture's Le Book Club, the Cameroonian novelist discusses a story of corruption, disillusioned citizens, and an unlikely alliance between two women on opposite sides of the law.
Hemley Boum was a guest on France Culture's literary podcast Le Book Club, broadcast September 7, to discuss her sixth novel. According to the program's summary, the book follows Ndolo Elimbi, a lawyer imprisoned for defying those in power, and Commissioner Zeinabou, the officer assigned to watch her closely.
The novel is described by France Culture as an exploration of corruption and the disenchantment of ordinary people, threaded through with the question of what happens when women on opposing sides find common cause. The two women's positions - one confined, one enforcing that confinement - frame the book's central tension before, per the summary, some form of alliance takes shape between them.
Boum, a Cameroonian novelist, has built her body of work across five previous novels before this one. No publisher, title, or release date for the book beyond its being her sixth novel was given in the program notes, so those details cannot be confirmed here. The France Culture segment presents it as part of the current conversation around African women's voices in French-language fiction, framed by the show's own title, 'La puissance des femmes.'
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