Before The Birth Of The Moon by Valentin-Yves Mudimbe

*Before the birth of the moon*

This book is a wispy, soulful story of a woman and man’s dance through two romances in the time of an African rebellion. The woman, Ya, we find out, is the daughter of a tribal rebel leader. She becomes involved with a career politician at the highest levels of a repressive government. The book touches on an ancient, violent secret society, different standards of behavior toward women vs. men, the typical conflict between how much schooling a young African ought to do when they are ultimately going to become citizens in a culture with no applicability for it.

All this happens almost as an aside to the main drama. Unfortunately, the author switches voices very quickly, which works fine, except he does not explain or give detail as to who is speaking, which makes the book unnecessarily difficult at times–enough to make it a worse read.