It is definitely a century that hangs its head in shame. Our elders have been called impotent, and we are accused of being ‘limp’… - Véronique Tadjo

We spoke of conquest. We spoke of destruc-tion. We spoke of boredom. And he told mehow he was finding life painful, of his inter-minable languor, and of his feeling of insatiable emptiness

As a bat, somewhere midway between a mammal and a bird, with my foxy-looking fangs and snout and my translucent wings, I harbor but one regret: having let Ebola escape from my belly. It was dormant in me until Man came and wreaked the splendour of the forest.

But sometimes I say to myself, ‘There, Afri-cans are fighting, dying and I am doing not h-ing, My life is sheltered in the heart of this cityof stone. I just don’t know, I just don’t know.