The Heart of the Leopard Children

A nameless young man lives in the housing projects outside of Paris. When he was a child, his parents moved with him from the Congo to France, hoping in vain to escape poverty and violence. His best friend, Drissa, is in a psychiatric hospital and now Mireille, his girlfriend, the woman with whom he has shared his childhood and hopes, has left him to reconnect with her Jewish roots in Israel. During a night out to drown the pain of his heartache, there is a fight with a policeman, the policeman dies, and the young man is arrested and taken to jail. Between police beatings and abrupt interrogations, his memory becomes his sole ally to escape from the exiguous space in which he is confined. Half-conscious and delirious, he reflects on his journey from the land of his ancestors to his life in the projects with Drissa and Mireille. In The Heart of the Leopard Children, N'Sondé explores the themes of love and pain, belonging and uprooting, desire and fear—all with an...