Angèle Christiane Rawiri, or Angèle Ntyugwetondo Rawiri
(1954 – 2010) was a
Gabonese writer.
Life and career
She was born in 1954 in
Port-Gentil
Port-Gentil () or Mandji is the second-largest city of Gabon, and it is a leading seaport. It is the center of Gabon's petroleum and timber industries. The city is located on a delta island in the Ogooue delta. Nearby Cape Lopez is Gabon's weste ...
, and was the daughter of
Georges Rawiri
Georges Rawiri (March 10, 1932 – April 9, 2006
Xinhua (''People's Daily Online''), April 10, 2006. , a Gabonese politician, diplomat and poet who was a friend of President
Omar Bongo
Omar Bongo Ondimba (born Albert-Bernard Bongo; 30 December 1935 – 8 June 2009) was a Gabonese politician who was the second president of Gabon from 1967 until Death and state funeral of Omar Bongo, his death in 2009. A member of the Gabonese De ...
. She was orphaned age 6. She studied at university in France. She then lived in
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
for two years, where she worked as a model and actress (notably in supporting roles in
James Bond films
James Bond is a fictional character created by British novelist Ian Fleming in 1953. A British secret agent working for MI6 under the codename 007, Bond has been portrayed on film in twenty-seven productions by actors Sean Connery, David ...
). She returned to Gabon in the late 1970s and worked as a French-English translator for a Gabonese oil company,
Société Nationale Pétrolière Gabonaise (still called Petrogab), while beginning to write. At the end of the 1980s, she returned to France and devoted herself to writing.
Her novel ''Elonga'', published in 1980, denounces the scourge of witchcraft and occult sciences through the return home of a young mixed-race man. Her second novel, ''G'amèrakano au carrefour'', was published in 1983. It deals with the confrontation between tradition and modernity in his native country through the story of a young secretary, Toula, who lives in an eccentric and sinister neighbourhood where she rubs shoulders with delinquents and idlers. She longs for a different life. A friend suggests that she lose weight, go out with a rich man and lighten her skin.
It was in France that she completed and published her best-known novel, ''The Fury and Cries of Women'' (1989), which evokes the frustrations of young people who have lived abroad in relation to certain obstacles in Gabonese society, the weight of families, infidelity and female homosexuality.
She belongs to a new post-independence generation of African novelists with a significant female presence.
She died in November 2010 in
Puteaux
Puteaux () is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located in the heart of the Hauts-de-Seine department, from the centre of Paris.
La Défense, Paris's business district hosting the tallest buildings in the metropolitan ...
, near Paris.
Rawiri is also the mother of a young woman who still lives in the Paris region.
Published works
*''Elonga: roman'' Paris: Silex: L’Harmattan, diffusion, c1986.
*''Gʾamèrakano: au carrefour: roman'' Paris: Silex, c1988.
*''Fureurs et cris de femme'' Paris: L’Harmattan, c1989.
References
*
David E. Gardinier, ''Historical Dictionary of Gabon'', 2nd ed. (The Scarecrow Press, 1994) p. 287
External links
UWA page with novel synopses
Angèle Rawiri interview fo
Vidéo Lire
Angèle Rawiri interview fo
1954 births
2010 deaths
Gabonese women writers
Gabonese novelists
People from Ogooué-Maritime Province
20th-century novelists
20th-century women writers
20th-century Gabonese people
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