Virtual Event: Véronique Tadjo
presenting
In the Company of Men:
A Novel
in conversation with STÉPHANE ROBOLIN
DateFeb
24
Wednesday
February 24, 2021 5:00 PM ET |
LocationJoin our online event (or pre-register) via the link in the event description.
|
Tickets
Free - $5 contribution suggested at registration
|
Harvard Book Store's virtual event series welcomes celebrated novelist and poet VÉRONIQUE TADJO—author of the award-winning books Queen Pokou and Far from My Father—for the paperback release of her latest novel, In the Company of Men. She will be joined in conversation by STÉPHANE ROBOLIN, associate professor of English at Rutgers University, New Brunswick and author of Grounds of Engagement: Apartheid-Era African American and South African Writing.
Contribute to Support Harvard Book Store
While payment is not required, we are suggesting a $3 contribution to support this author series, our staff, and the future of Harvard Book Store—a locally owned, independently run Cambridge institution. In addition, by purchasing a copy of In the Company of Men on harvard.com, you support indie bookselling and the writing community during this difficult time.
About In the Company of Men
Two boys venture from their village to hunt in a nearby forest, where they shoot down bats with glee, and cook their prey over an open fire. Within a month, they are dead, bodies ravaged by an insidious disease that neither the local healer’s potions nor the medical team’s treatments could cure. Compounding the family’s grief, experts warn against touching the sick. But this caution comes too late: the virus spreads rapidly, and the boys’ father is barely able to send his eldest daughter away for a chance at survival.
In a series of moving snapshots, Véronique Tadjo illustrates the terrible extent of the Ebola epidemic, through the eyes of those affected in myriad ways: the doctor who tirelessly treats patients day after day in a sweltering tent, protected from the virus only by a plastic suit; the student who volunteers to work as a gravedigger while universities are closed, helping the teams overwhelmed by the sheer number of bodies; the grandmother who agrees to take in an orphaned boy cast out of his village for fear of infection. And watching over them all is the ancient and wise Baobab tree, mourning the dire state of the earth yet providing a sense of hope for the future.
Acutely relevant to our times in light of the coronavirus pandemic, In the Company of Men explores critical questions about how we cope with a global crisis and how we can combat fear and prejudice.
Praise for In the Company of Men
“Véronique Tadjo’s In the Company of Men is more than a story about Ebola. This novel, elegiac and sorrowful, is also an affirmation of the cycle of life and nature’s important place in it. What do the living owe to the dead? What do they owe to the earth, which both protects and punishes? Tadjo offers us her powerful, luminous answers in this book.” —Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King, shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize
“I kept talking to my Kenyan father, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, about In the Company of Men as I read it because it resonates so deeply with our own familial history. His father left a pandemic in his village in the late 1800s and was cautioned never to talk about it, so we have no history beyond my great-grandfather. Tadjo, writing so urgently and beautifully about Ebola two centuries later at a time of Covid-19, is our witness.” —Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ, Professor of English at Cornell University and author of Nairobi Heat and Black Star Nairobi
“It is chilling to read Véronique Tadjo’s In the Company of Men when the world trapped by Covid-19 wonders why the numbers on the African continent are still not skyrocketing. The book reminds us that pandemics are world phenomena, and in doing so hits its most lyrical tone. Tadjo lets the virus speak, speak to us, and answer in the face of disaster and community, in the court of the people, animals, and trees. A necessary book today.” —Patrice Nganang, author of Mount Pleasant and When the Plums Are Ripe
Harvard Book Store’s award-winning event series continues online! Named "Best of Boston: 2020 Best Virtual Author Series" and "2021 Best Virtual Author Series" by Boston magazine.
(617) 661-1515
info@harvard.com
Media Inquiries
mediainquiries@harvard.com
Accessibility Inquiries
access@harvard.com
Classic Totes
Tote bags and pouches
in a variety of styles,
sizes, and designs, plus mugs, bookmarks, and more!
Shipping & Pickup
We ship anywhere in the U.S. and orders of $75+ ship free via media mail!
Learn More »Noteworthy Signed Books: Join the Club!
Join our Signed First Edition Club (or give a gift subscription) for a signed book of great literary merit, delivered to you monthly.
Learn More »