3. Given that the character of Clarence is a university linguistics lecturer and is interested in African-Hispanic, Equatorial Guinean, and Spanish literature and the literary output from Equatorial Guinea, I will mention the following documents and authors that have also helped me: La formación de identidad en la novela hispano-africano: 1950—1990 by Jorge Salvo (2003), lecturer in Spanish at the University of South Carolina and also author of several articles related to this subject; Literatura emergente en espa?ol: Literatura de Guinea Ecuatorial by Shosténe Onomo-Abena and Joseph Désiré Otabela Mewolo (2004); “La literature Africana de expression castellana: La creación literaria en Guinea Ecuatorial” by Mbaré Ngom (1993), from Morgan State University in Maryland; and “La creación semántica y léxica en el espa?ol de Guinea Ecuatorial,” the doctoral thesis of Issacar Nguen Djo Tiogang (2007). I also consulted various articles by the following authors: Mariano L. de Castro Antolín, chair of geography and history in Valladolid and author of works on the history of Equatorial Guinea and the relationship between Guinea and Spain; Humberto Riochí, spokesperson for the Movement for Self-Determination for Bioko Island (MIAB) in 2009; Michael Ugarte, lecturer in Spanish literature in the University of Missouri; Juan Tomás ávila Laurel, writer, editor-in-chief of Malabo’s El Patio magazine, and guest speaker in several North American universities; Carlos González Echegaray, renowned Spanish Afrophile; and Germán de Granda, who has worked on the languages of Equatorial Guinea.
Specifically on the Spanish spoken in Equatorial Guinea, it’s worth mentioning the articles by Sosthéne Onomo-Abena and Aminou Mohamadou from the Yaounde I University (Cameroon). Mohamadou has an article on spaguifrenglish, as a language made up of marks from the different languages it lives with: Spanish, Guinean—from the large ethnic groups of Fang, Bubi, Annobonese, Benga, Ndowé—French, and English. And of course, I must mention John M. Lipski, chair in linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania and specialist in dialectology, contact languages, Creole languages, and African elements in Spanish and Portuguese. His magnificent article “The Spanish of Equatorial Guinea: Research on la Hispanidad’s Best-Kept Secret” is what Clarence would probably have read when starting her linguistic research in Guinea, had she ever carried it out.
With regard to the literary production related to Equatorial Guinea—from the precolonial period, characterized by its oral nature; from the colonial, represented by descriptions of the exotic; and from the postcolonial, both from the unhappy memory period and the beginnings of native literary creation, of collections of stories and legends and of new narrative works and essays—and so that the reader might have some idea of its importance, I would recommend the very interesting paper by Justo Bolekia Boleká, which appears in the 2005 Central Virtual Cervantes Annuary, and the works of Mbaré Ngom Fayé and Donato Ndongo-Biyogo. Ndongo-Biyogo, the Guinean journalist, historian, essayist, author of the novels Las tinieblas de tu memoria negra and Los poderes de la tempestad, and expert on Spanish modern literature in Equatorial Guinean, published in 1984 the indispensable Antología de la literatura de Guinea Ecuatorial, an anthology of the authors and their narrative, poetic, and drama works.
In a different section from the works produced by the native Equatorial Guineans are the works written by Spaniards after their stay in Guinea. I know there are some more—I have yet to read El corazón de los pájaros by Elsa López (2001) and see the film Lejos de áfrica by Cecilia Bartolomé (1996)—but these are the ones that I have read and have helped me in the setting of my novel: En el país de los bubis by José Más (written in 1919 and reedited in 2010); Manto verde bajo el sol by V. López Izquierdo (1973); El Valle de los bubis by Maria Paz Díaz (1998); La casa de la palabra by José A. López Hidalgo (1994); Al sur de Santa Isabel by Carles Decors (2002); the hard and unsettling Guinea by Fernando Gamboa (2008); Una historia Africana by Javier Reverte (2009); La aventura de Muni (Tras las huellas de Iradier: La historia blanca de Guinea Ecuatorial) by Miguel Gutiérrez Garitano (2010); and the aforementioned Fernando el africano by Fernando García Gimeno (2004).
My novel adds, therefore, to the long list of books about Equatorial Guinea, something that pleases me deeply. Clarence and Iniko coincide in that they form part of a long chain that includes both their forebearers and those yet to come. In the same way, this novel forms part of a long chain of written and yet-to-be-written words about the history of Equatorial Guinea. Not only that, I hope that the reader can get to know or recognize a culture and a different historical, political, and social context that is both close and distant, and I also hope that the Equatorial Guinean reader gets to know something about those who went to their country, the reasons why they went, my valley and its customs, and the changes we have lived through.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Justo Bolekia Boleká, Equatorial Guinean intellectual of Bubi extraction; chair of French language in the University of Salamanca; author of numerous articles, books of essays, and linguistic and sociolinguistic publications; expert in Bubi language, culture, and anthroponomy; poet; politician; and historian, for granting me the privilege of his revision of a novel such as this, where there is a little bit of everything he is an expert in. I owe the corrections of the Bubi and Pidgin English dialogues and expressions to him (for the expressions in Pidgin English, I had used the dictionary my father and grandfather took with them, a 1919 edition, the same one that Kilian reads on his first trip by sea). I must also thank him for his clarifications on Bubi traditions and culture, as well as for his revision of the historical and political aspects. And I would like to especially mention his kindness in allowing me to use the Bubi story entitled “Wewè?buaar?ó” that Fernando Laha relates to Daniela and that is published in his collection of Bubi stories. But most of all, I must thank him for his gracious words in showing me his gratitude for allowing him to enjoy this continuous journey from Pasolobino to Bioko.
To Ismael Lamora and Mari Pe Solana, who lived for many years in Fernando Po, and to José Antolín, who worked for Spanish National Television on the island just after independence, for all their anecdotes and memories of that period.
To Luis Acevedo for bringing Sampaka closer to my mountains and for persevering in his efforts on the plantation.