Neyla: A Novel

Neyla is a treasure of African experiences recorded through the eyes of an African who is at once a participant and an observer, the latter due to the fact that he has come home on vacation from Europe. The natural story line exposes the reader to a variety of settings in the author's native Togo: middle-class city life, urban slums, an adventurous trip to the hinterland, and life in a village, including the work of a witch doctor. The protagonist's particular status also legitimizes comparisons between African and European cities, medical practices, family relations, reciprocal stereotyping, and prejudices. On another level, Kossi Komla-Ebri expresses lyrically his protagonist's situation as the eternal migrant, living between two cultures. Through the use of various narrative strategies, Komla-Ebri has achieved a lyricism of universal quality that represents the best of migration literature in Italy.