Nativity, Nativité, Natividad - Lasana M. Sekou

NATIVITY, NATIVITÉ, NATIVIDAD
Lasana M. Sekou

MULTILINGUAL POEMS

Trilingual edition in English, French, and Spanish. “Lasana M. Sekou’s Nativity is a stunning, rich, complex, and multilayered narrative poem that is simultaneously dirge, rant, condemnation, protest, prophecy, love chant, and celebration. It is a call to arms in drumbeats, a synctactic revolution, and an assegai piercing the heart of the oppressor.

Nativity narrates elements of the epic journey of African peoples and maps their odysseys around the world, particularly in the Caribbean and the Americas. The word nativity in its broadest sense means birth (of people), but throughout the poem, the word’s meaning varies: nature, native, nation. The entry point into the journey of these traveling Africans is culture, and through the birth of their migrations, Africans have produced created and reimagined culture wherever they went.

Nativity, with an unaccustomed deft and defiance, navigates especially the act and aftermath of the transatlantic slave trade migration.” Cooper goes on to explore the multiple archetypes, references, and intersections found in what can be read as a poem or a rich array of poetic segments multiplied by three. Each section becomes a world to be explored separately—in English, French, and Spanish—and then together, bound by the common languages of the African diaspora.

REVIEWS

"The poet ploughs, seminates and gleans in the social landscape in a journey of collective self-discovery, the work assumes an epic quality" - Howard A. Fergus.

“Nativity inflicts pain even as it engulfs the reader with lyrical pleasure. Celebrates culture as solidarity. A brilliant erudition of the text”.
- Dr. Conrad M. James, University of Birmingham, UK

“An exuberant, epic rush … a lusty, encyclopedic yawp.”
– Roberta Q. Knowles, The Caribbean Writer

“Dans neuf segments hante... Un recit gras,... depuis longtemps... centralise la region indigene, africaine, asiatique connexions. Un triomphe de le esthetique Caraibes.”
- Dr. Conrad M. James, University of Birmingham, Royaume-Uni

Introduction by: Afua Cooper, PhD. Vancouver B.C., Canada

Translated into French: Alex Richards
Translated into Spanish: Maria Teresa Ortega

 
AUTHOR
LASANA M. SEKOU is a St. Martin, Caribbean author of poetry, monologues, short stories, and essays. Reviewers have compared Sekou's poetry to the works of Aimé Césaire, Oswald Mtshali, Kamau Brathwaite, Dylan Thomas, e.e. cummings, and Linton Kwesi Johnson. His Nativity, The Salt Reaper, 37 Poems, Love Songs Make you Cry and Brotherhood of the Spurs, all published by House of Nehesi, have been required reading at Caribbean, North American, and European universities. Sekou has performed his poetry throughout the Caribbean, USA, South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. His poetry has been translated into Spanish, Dutch, French, German, Turkish, and Chinese. Sekou is an advocate for the independence of St. Martin, a colony of France and the Netherlands. Book of the Dead (House of Nehesi, 2016) and Hurricane Protocol (House of Nehesi, 2019) are his newest collections.

PRODUCT SPECIFICATION
English, French, Spanish | paperback | 200 pages | House of Nehesi Publishers | St. Martin | 2010