Timothée de Fombelle, resolutely free

7/1/2020, 10:55:49 PM

PORTRAIT - The new adventure novel by this youth writer, Alma, tells the story of the slave trade with accuracy. But it should not be published in the United States or England on the pretext that it appropriates a story that is not its own.

We have always talked about Timothée de Fombelle for a good reason: his talent as a writer. His novels are without doubt among the best of those which were written for the youth for fifteen years. Tobie Lolness, Vango, The Book of Pearl and today Alma . The latter, which the booksellers impatiently awaited after confinement, because to have a novelty of Timothée de Fombelle in a youth section is to put adolescents and their parents in the pocket. Alma, whose cover adorns Parisian buses like any successful adult novel. Alma , the first volume in a trilogy and powerful story of adventures that does not go wrong in this prolific work. As soon as in hand, it will be read feverishly.

Read also: Cultural appropriation: Timothée de Fombelle's latest novel threatened with boycott in the United States

But here Alma is also a black heroine, supposed to live at the end of the 18th century in Africa at the time of slavery and whose fate is linked to this history. And we are now talking about this novel because its author is white and he appropriates a story that is not