MY KINGDOM FOR A GUITAR, a novel, translated by Karen Lindo

218pp., paperback, First English Language Edition, Bloomington, 2021

Originally published in 2016 in French as Mon Royaume pour une guitar.

Based on the life of Cameroonian-born writer and musician Francis Bebey. Born in Douala, Cameroon, Bebey studied in Paris and New York. His first novel, Le Fils d'Agatha Moudio (Agatha Moudio's Son), was published in 1967, to great acclaim. His first album was released in 1969, and he went on to become one of the best-known singer-songwriters of Africa, with a style that merged Cameroonian makossa with classical guitar, jazz, and pop.

"A wonderful translation of a gentle and yet poignant fictionalized (auto-)biography of the intensely creative Cameroonian musician, poet and critic Francis Bebey. This family saga, narrated by his daughter, Kidi, seamlessly merges its descriptions of a uniquely cosmopolitan Paris in the 1960s and 1970s and an African country's struggles to move beyond the colonial experience." Pim Higginson, University of New Mexico

"Without a shadow of a doubt, Kidi Bebey has inherited from her father, Francis, the famous Cameroonian musician who passed away in 2001, a visceral attachment to creativity, to the arts, to what makes us human." Séverine Kodjo-Grandvaux, Le Monde

French journalist and writer Kidi Bebey is Francis Bebey's daughter. She is the author of several children's books. My Kingdom for a Guitar is her first adult novel.

Karen Lindo is a scholar of French and Francophone Studies, currently teaching and translating in Paris. She is the translator of The Heart of the Leopard Children, The Silence of the Spirits and Concrete Flowers, all by Wilfried N'Sondé.