Cameroonian Ernis wins the "Voix d'Afriques" literary prize, initiated by RFI
The winner of the “Vois d’Afriques” prize, Ernis, in an RFI studio, September 21, 2022. © RFI / Pierre René Worms
Text by: RFI Follow
1 min
The "Voix d'Afriques" literary prize, initiated by RFI, today reveals the name of the author who wins this third edition.
This is a winner who comes from Cameroon, her name is Ernis, she is 28 years old and her first award-winning novel is entitled
Like a Queen
.
It comes out this Wednesday, September 21 in bookstores at JC Lattès editions, our partner.
Portrait of the winner.
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Ernis is his artist name.
The one under which she slams and publishes her first novel today.
Born in Cameroon in Bafoussam in 1994, she grew up surrounded by women.
Four generations from a village next to Mbouda in the heart of a Bamileke community.
There, Clémence, by her original first name, was raised by a single mother with three children.
An experience that nurtured the young author first for her poems and then her slammer texts until the competition for the
"Voix d'Afriques"
prize, of which she was the third winner and the first female voice.
Rediscovery of ancestral customs
Like his text entitled
Like a queen
, where Ernis stages a young Cameroonian whose existence is diluted in Douala and who returns to her native village;
a return to the sources which is accompanied by a rediscovery of ancestral customs and a love story with the king of the territory.
Her novel is stretched between modernity and tradition, with the freedom of women at its heart.
For example, Ernis raises the question of polygamy, abortion, witchcraft, motherhood, AIDS.
So many sensitive themes tackled here without detour, the mark of a writer who is taking her first steps in literature.
• You will be able to hear Ernis in the major interview dedicated to him in
“
Literature Without Borders
”
by Catherine Fruchon-Toussaint broadcast this Friday at 1:30 p.m. GMT.
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