Decolonization:Unsung Heroes Of The Resistance

Description

Full of gripping historical vignettes and evocative photographs, an accessible overview of the dynamic figures who resisted colonization, from India, Senegal, and Algeria to Vietnam, Kenya, and Congo.

Decolonization started on the very first day of colonization.

From the arrival of the Europeans, the peoples of Africa and Asia rose up. No one willingly accepts subjugation, but in order to one day regain freedom, you first and foremost need to stay alive. Faced with the Europeans’ machine guns, the colonized hit back in other ways: from civil disobedience to communist revolution, by way of soccer and literature. It was a struggle marked by infinite patience and unlimited determination, fought by heroic men and women now largely unknown.
    Condensing a wealth of scholarly research into short, lively chapters, Decolonization brings their extraordinary stories to light:
    Manikarnika Tambe, the Indian queen who led her troops into battle against the British;
    Mary Nyanjiru, the Kenyan activist who spearheaded a protest in Nairobi;
    Lamine Senghor, the Senegalese infantryman who became an anti-colonial militant in Paris;
    and many more.
    With them, a current of resistance swept the world, culminating in the independence of almost all the colonies in the 1960s. But at what price? In the atomic India of Indira Gandhi, in the Congo subjected to Mobutu’s dictatorship, or in a London shaken by the rioting of young immigrants, we can see just how crucial it is that we understand and learn from this painful history.

About the Author

Anne Plantagenet was born in 1972 in Burgundy and spent her childhood in Champagne. After stays in London and Seville, she now lives in Paris. She has published translations from the Spanish; two biographies, Marilyn Monroe (Gallimard, 2007) and Manolete (Ramsay, 2005); a first novel, Un Coup de corne fut mon premier baiser (Ramsay, 1998); and an acclaimed story collection, Pour les siècles des siècles (Stock, 2008). The Last Rendezvous is the recipient of the 2005 Prix du récit biographique of the Académie internationale des arts et collections.

Willard Wood is the winner of the 2002 Lewis Galantière Award for Literary Translation and a 2000 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Translation. He lives in Connecticut.