Library Weekly

On 6 November 1966 Equatoguinean author and activist, Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel, was born. His parents were from the remote island of Annobón, off the West African coast. He is at the center of the feature award-winning documentary The Writer From a Country Without Bookstores.

For many years Ávila Laurel was one of the best known authors from Equatorial Guinea who opted not to live in exile. He has been a constant thorn in the side of his country's long-standing dictatorial government, engaging in protest and political activism.

His first novel to be published in English, By Night the Mountain Burns (And Other Stories, 2014), was shortlisted for the 2015 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and is based on his time growing up on Annobón. The Gurugu Pledge, his second novel to appear in English, was published by And Other Stories in 2017.

Ávila Laurel made headlines in 2011 by embarking on an anti-government hunger strike, and now lives in exile in Barcelona.

(Source: Wikipedia accessed on 1 November 2024)

Selected Publications

Ávila Laurel, Juan Tomás, Arde el monte de noche (Madrid, 2009).

Ávila Laurel, Juan Tomás, By night the mountain burns (London, 2014).

Ávila Laurel, Juan Tomás, Misceláneas Guineo Ecuatorianas 1: del estado colonial al Estado dictatorial (2001).

Ávila Laurel, Juan Tomás, Panga Rilene (Barcelona, 2016).

Ávila Laurel, Juan Tomás, Ramblas primer premio de poesia 12 de octubre de 1990 (Malabo, 1994).

Ávila Laurel, Juan Tomás, The Gurugu pledge: a novel (Shefield, 2017).

Figueroa-Vásquez, Yomaira, Decolonizing Diasporas : Radical Mappings of Afro-Atlantic Literature (Chicago, 2020).

Lewis, Marvin A, Equatorial Guinean Literature in its National and Transnational Contexts (Columbia,  2017).

Lewis, Marvin A, Introduction to the Literature of Equatorial Guinea: Between Colonialism and Dictatorship (Columbia, 2007).

Tucker, Sharon, Understanding phenomena : the rewriting of history and its use in Juan Tomas Avila Laurel (Vancouver, 2007).

Trailer from "The Writer From a Country Without Bookstores"