Tadjo uses her powerful and fertile imagination to rekindle an ancient Akan myth and deliberately sets it ablaze. Woven into the historic frame of the founding of the Baoule people by Queen Abraha Pokou in 18th Century Cote d’Ivoire. Tadjo explores not only the most intimate of relationships – that between mother and child, but also the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade. Ultimately, Tadjo invites us to reflect on the bloody ethnic wars that engulfed West Africa at the end of the 20th century.

• Cover
• About the Author
• About the Translator
• Copyright
• Title
• The Legend of Queen Abraha Pokou: An Introduction
• Prelude
• I: The Time of Legend
  • Chapter 1
• II: The Time of Questioning
  • Abraha Pokou: Fallen Queen
  • Chapter 3
  • The Atlantic Passage
  • The Queen Pulled from the Waters
  • In the Claws of Power
  • The Words of the Poet
• III: The Time of the Bird-Child
  • Chapter 8
  • Véronique Tadjo: Writing across literary, geographic and linguistic borders
• Translator’s Note:
• Works Cited
• Other Publications by Véronique Tadjo