They left the islands a legacy / of hybrid words and gloomy plantations

In point of fact, Lisbon was not waiting there [to greet us.

The Esplanada, thick with the scent of fragrant [DDT

What does he have to fear?

These poems display the health and vitality of a literature that has already proved to be a potent medium for self-expression, a grounds for linguistic experimentation, and an important declaration of autonomy itself.

I proceeded with caution / Like a marble inching toward the line

silence sullen-faced fate reaches my ears

My friends are distressedStunned into silenceMany of them grieveAnd all have despairedSuddenly the night has attacked usIt’s so dark I can’t see my pathDarkness spreads over everythingLike…

History will remember this manOur grandchildren will study him between school recessesOld women will speak of him as a strange enigmaA myth, an eccentric aberration . . .The old men will brush off their…

Burundi is a small East Central African nation on the northern edge of Lake Tanganyika, one of Africa’s Great Lakes, which holds almost one-fifth of the world’s entire fresh water supply.…

© Ramón Esono Ebolé. By arrangement with Phoneme Media and Equatorial Guinea Justice. Translation © 2014 by David Shook. All rights reserved.