Listening Length 59 minutes

Cameroonian author Hemley Boum brings us "Little Pa", a potent story of a boy who grows into a man battling with identity.

Zacharias is his maternal grandfather’s namesake, though he has never met said grandfather or any other extended family members. He represses questions he has as a way of trying to protect himself and his mother, Dorothée, who is prone to bouts of depression. But he cannot ignore his reality forever and in adolescence, Zacharias begins to commit small acts of rebellion leading to a final act that goes horribly wrong and leads him to exile and a new life where he promises himself never to look back.

Translated from French by one of Africa’s new leading voices in writing and translation, Edwige-Renée Dro.