2024 Book Review #12: Ces soleils ardents by Nincemon Falle

This is a brilliant book written by a precocious 22-year-old writer which brought me back to my own time in the early 2000s in one of the cities I’ve most loved in my life Abidjan, with its coupe decale music, attieke, inventive French and a shared love for hustle and bustle.

It’s about friendships in and out of a union mob-ruled, strike ridden university, difficult but crucial family relationships for young men, especially with their fathers, those who leave their homes and those who remain, those who go too far, the perilous value of occasional loneliness and opportunities which must be fought for tooth and nail.

It speaks to the importance of reconnecting with childhood passions when looking for a career to pursue, a truth I try to instill in students I have, while the main character has an insatiable quench for books, understanding deep seated family grievances, and writing articles to rot out corruption and abuse, all traits I could relate to.

This novel deservedly won the Voix d’Afriques in 2024 and I was surprised to find it for relatively cheap on Amazon.

The author’s own name Nincemon means “the fire is not extinguished” in Guere, an ethnic group from the Dix-Huit Montagnes and Moyen-Cavally regions of Ivory Coast.

In English the title of this book could be translated as These Ardent Suns.

The first winner of the Voix d’Afriques prize in 2020, established for first time French language African writers under the age of 30, was the equally brilliant Abobo Marley, also based in Abidjan, by Yaya Diomande.

Both reminded me in certain passages and strength of freedom despite challenges in Les Bouts de bois de Dieu, one of my favorite all time books, written by Senegalese writer Ousmane Sembene, about a railroad strike on the Dakar Niger line at the end of the 1940s.