Felix Faure Street

Ken Bugul is the pen name of Senegalese Francophone novelist Mariètou Mbaye Biléoma. In the Wolof language, her pen name means “one who is unwanted.” Since the 1982 publication of her first book, Le baobab fou (The Abandoned Baobab), a semiautobiographical work in which she confronts her own experiences with immigration, racism, exploitation, sexuality, and substance abuse, Bugul has published ten more novels, each of which takes on an array of pressing social issues in West Africa and beyond.Julie Huntington is a college professor and literary translator who lives and works in New York City. She has taught courses in language, literature, film, translation, and pedagogy at campuses in France, Ghana, and the United States. She is the author of Sounding Off: Rhythm, Music, and Identity in West African and Caribbean Francophone Novels.

Praise for the French edition:“Added to the richness of genres is the richness of the style which, with repeated phrases, echoes the African tradition of oral storytelling. The reader will feel lulled and almost hypnotized by the sound of the violin, the voice of the blues, and the leitmotifs that give the novel its rhythm.”—Jeanne-Sarah de Larquier, The French Review

• Author’s PrefaceTranslator’s IntroductionAuthor’s DedicationFelix Faure Street: A NovelAppendix: Author’s Preface in the Original FrenchTranslator’s Acknowledgments