These Blazing Suns.
By Nincemon Fallé.
By Nincemon Fallé.
How much of our future is shaped by the lives our parents lived before us?
These Blazing Suns takes us to Côte d'Ivoire and follows a group of young men trying to create opportunities for themselves in Abidjan, where education, work and friendship offer the possibility of lives very different from those of the generations before them.
At the centre is Iro, who has left his village to study in the city. He is ambitious and determined to make something of himself, but studying alone isn't enough to survive. Alongside university, he takes whatever work he can find and builds a close friendship with Thierry, Malick and Yeo.
I really enjoyed the friendship between the young men. There is a resourcefulness to their lives together, but beneath that is the constant awareness that the futures they're working towards aren't guaranteed. Education may represent opportunity, yet circumstances outside their control can change everything remarkably quickly.
That becomes particularly important when Iro loses his father.
His death forces Iro to reconsider a man he thought he understood, gradually uncovering parts of his father's life that had never been shared with him. I found the exploration of that relationship particularly interesting because grief becomes intertwined with discovery. Iro isn't simply mourning his father; he's having to reconsider who that father actually was.
The perspective also expands beyond Iro in a way I wasn't initially expecting. Thierry appears at first to occupy a smaller place within the story, but gradually becomes much more significant. Seeing more of his circumstances adds another dimension to the questions surrounding opportunity and the different obstacles facing young people who appear, on the surface, to be travelling similar paths.
One of the strongest elements for me was the insight into life in Côte d'Ivoire. Abidjan isn't simply used as a backdrop. The contrast between city and village life becomes part of the characters' experiences, particularly as they negotiate traditional expectations alongside the freedoms and difficulties that come with building an independent life.
There is a wider generational story here too. Parents have made their own compromises and carried experiences their children don't necessarily understand, while the younger generation is attempting to imagine something different for itself. The tension between respecting what came before and refusing to be defined by it gives the story much of its emotional weight.
I also appreciated that ambition isn't presented as a straightforward route out. These young men can work hard, study and make plans, yet their progress remains vulnerable to money, family responsibilities and circumstances they cannot predict. Sometimes the difference between continuing towards a dream and watching it disappear can be frighteningly small.
Translated from French by Tina Kover, These Blazing Suns was also an opportunity for me to read about a country and culture I haven't encountered very often through fiction. I love when translated literature takes me somewhere completely new while still exploring experiences that feel immediately recognisable.
This is an impressive debut about friendship, fathers and sons, ambition and the complicated process of deciding which parts of our inheritance we want to carry forwards. I really enjoyed discovering Iro and his friends, but equally valued everything their stories allowed me to discover about Côte d'Ivoire.
Thank you so much to Daniela and the team at Europa Editions for sending me a copy as part of their new catalogue! The book is out now and available to purchase.
Support a local and independent bookshop and purchase the book here.
