Hemley Boum
Cameroon
Hemley Boum, born in Douala, Cameroon, in 1973 and now living near Paris, initially worked in business before devoting herself entirely to writing. Today she is regarded as the leading author of the Cameroonian diaspora: her novels explore memory, colonial history, migration and family ties spanning generations. Boum narrates the often multiple time frames calmly, precisely and with great empathy for her characters.
In her sixth novel, Wind, der uns heimträgt, for which she received the Grand Prix Afrique and nine other awards, a fisherman takes on the big fishing corporations and fails. But when his grandson, who lives in Paris, returns to Cameroon and rediscovers his own history, time layers upon time and we realise: defeats are never final. Even when lives are destroyed by war, by colonial and neo-colonial rule, by the powerful, our stories are not written by them, but carried by the resisters, the rebels and the dreamers.
Wind, der uns heimträgt. Novel. Translated from French by Gudrun and Otto Honke. Peter Hammer 2025
Die Tage kommen und gehen. Novel. Translated from French by Gudrun and Otto Honke. Peter Hammer 2021
Gesang für die Verlorenen. Novel. Translated from French by Gudrun and Otto Honke. Peter Hammer 2018
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