Théo Ananissoh features at PEN Togo’s Literary Cafe

Théo Ananissoh’s novel Le Soleil sans se brûler was the featured book at PEN Togo’s Literary Cafe on Thursday, August 3, 2023.

PEN International is a worldwide association of writers, founded to promote friendship and intellectual cooperation among writers everywhere in 1921. The London-founded organisation has autonomous International PEN centres in more than 100 countries. The Togolese branch of the association was founded when a meeting was hosted in Lomé on February 13, 2016.

Since it was founded, PEN Togo has hosted a number of activities to support writers in their jurisdiction such as its Literary Café. The latest person to feature in the series was Togolese writer and academic Théo Ananissoh currently living in Germany. He is the author of the titles Yeux ouverts (1994), Territoires du Nord (2000), Lisahoé (2005), Un Reptile Par Habitant (2007), Ténèbres à Midi (2010), L’invitation (2013), Le Soleil sans se brûler (2015), Delikatessen (2017), and Perdre le corps (2021).

The events in Lomé started with a writing workshop that was conducted by the author for budding writers on Saturday, July 8, 2023. That was followed by a reading Le Soleil sans se brûler (2015) conducted by both Pen Togo and Editions Woudy its publishers on August 3. The book has the following blurb;

Lomé, January 1995. Back from Europe, Théo visits one of his former teachers, Charles Koffi Améla, a former minister recently released from prison. The emergence of the young man in his loneliness offers Améla the opportunity to relive an intellectual journey in which the friend, the brother, Sony Labou Tansi is part. An ancient pact binds the two men.

At the start of this year, Sony, a renowned Congolese writer and playwright, is dying of AIDS in a Paris hospital. Amela, penniless, ostracized from society, nevertheless tries to honor her oath of loyalty. Against all hope.

Théo is the unexpected witness of these few days imbued with an urgency that moves no one in the world.

In this novel, Théo Ananissoh imagines, twenty years later, an ignored episode of the last moments of Sony Labou Tansi’s life and restores to us the truth of a torn literary glory. An enlightened tribute to all those who step into the arena.

Here are some images from the events in Lomé courtesy of PEN Togo;

Writing Workshop