The abandoned baobab
Subtitle: the autobiography of a Senegalese woman
By: Ken Bugul ; translated by Marjolijn de Jager ; afterword by Jeanne Garane.
Contributors: De Jager, Marjolijn.
Edition: 1st Univ. of Virginia Press ed.
Series: CARAF books
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Charlottesville
Language: eng
Number of pages: 180
ISBN-13: 9780813927374
Subjects: Bugul, Ken; Authors, Senegalese -- Biography
Genres: Biography.
Work titles: Baobab fou.
Description: "Abandoned by her mother and sent to live with relatives in Dakar, the author tells of being educated in the French colonial school system, where she comes gradually to feel alienated from her family and Muslim upbringing, growing enamored with the West. Academic success gives her the opportunity to study in Belgium, which she looks upon as a "promised land." There she is objectified as an exotic creature, however, and she descends into promiscuity, alcohol and drug abuse, and, eventually, prostitution. (It was out of concern on her editor's part about her candor that the author used the pseudonym Ken Bugul, the Wolof phrase for "the person no one wants.") Her return to Senegal, which concludes the book, presents her with a past she cannot reenter, a painful but necessary realization as she begins to create a new life there."--Jacket.
Notes: This translation originally published: Chicago, Ill. : Lawrence Hill Books, c1991.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [176]-180).