The Dark Child: The Autobiography of an African Boy

The Dark Child: The Autobiography of an African Boy is an autobiographical novel by African writer Camara Laye. It was first published by the French publishing house Plon in 1953 under the title L'enfant noir; it appeared for the first time in English the following year. The novel tells the story of Laye's coming of age in the African nation of Guinea and how his family and his culture shaped his values, his education, and, ultimately, his fate.

The first chapters focus on Laye's boyhood. Laye's father is the village goldsmith, and while his business is successful, his real claim to fame is his status as a sort of mystic. For instance, as little Camara plays in his family's hut, he watches as his father lovingly strokes and talks to a black snake, seemingly charming it. Laye's mother explains to the boy that the snake is the spirit animal of their people and will guide Laye's father, giving him wisdom. Laye understands that his father possesses special powers because of his abilities to communicate with the snake. He recounts how his father used to predict events the day before they happened and how his prophetic skills placed him in high esteem among the other villagers. Laye's father attempts to share some of his knowledge with his young son, but the boy is unable to absorb it. This plants the seed that, even from an early age, Laye's education and destiny were not within the walls of the family hut, but somewhere else out in the unknown world beyond.

Laye's mother is also well regarded in the village. She operates with a deep, innate sense of faith and compassion, and the villagers routinely seek out her advice and guidance. She is especially adept at calming the distressed and lending solid support—support that goes beyond the mere bending of an ear, instead, bordering on the mystical.



Though Laye grows up in the Guinean village of Kouroussa, he views himself as more a child of the city than a child of the country. He finds great adventure in visiting his grandmother and extended family who live in the rural village of Tindican. There, he witnesses the workers toiling away in the rice fields; he fills with pride when he is finally able to help them and take part in the harvest. Still, even during what is a momentous experience in his youth, Laye knows that he will not be a rice-field laborer like those around him. The inexorable pull of destiny again suggests his fate lays elsewhere.

A devout Muslim, Laye follows faithfully all the rites and rituals required by his faith and by his village. In his early teen years, the village initiates him into manhood through the usual circumcision ritual. The celebration surrounding this practice comes complete with a public festival that lasts several days. After the circumcision, Laye, like all young men his age, is largely kept away from his family and given weeks of healing time, during which he spends his days relaxing on straw mats with others who have just been circumcised and idly passing the hours away.

Once he has fully healed, Laye returns to his family, but now that he is officially a man, he can no longer live in the family hut. He moves into a hut of his own but is "still within earshot" of his mother and father. Though he is uneasy about this major transition, Laye accepts it as part of growing up. He now wears the new grown-up clothes of a man, living in his own hut, though he admits that there is an undercurrent of melancholy between his mother and himself.



At fifteen years old, Laye goes to the Guinean coastal city of Conakry, where he attends a boarding school and lives with his mother's brother on the weekends. The school brims with new experiences…and hardships. In addition to classes and lessons, there are language barriers; there is a dominating colonial influence, which is much stronger in Conakry than it is in Kouroussa. The stiflingly hot climate makes even mundane tasks nearly unbearable. Laye becomes ill, landing in the hospital for many months. After recuperating at home in Kouroussa over the summer, he returns to school, recovered and with a new determination to learn and adapt.

His love life blossoms as well. He develops a crush on a girl named Marie, who, he soon learns, reciprocates his feelings. The two have a charming and innocent courtship.

Nevertheless, by the time Laye finishes his schooling, he must make a decision, and his romantic interests take the back burner. The director of the school offers Laye a scholarship to continue his education abroad—in Paris, France. Laye is unsure what to do. His father and uncles encourage him to go, but his mother forbids it. Once more feeling the force of destiny tugging at his sleeve, Laye realizes that this is an opportunity he needs to take. His mother, outraged, unleashes a string of insults at him and physically shoves him away from her. He goes to her, and she collapses in tears while raging at the European influence overtaking the country—and, in her eyes, taking her son away from her.



On this note, Laye bids goodbye to his family and sets off for France, armed with few belongings but a Paris subway map his father gives him. The book closes with Laye stepping off the plane and feeling the comfort of the map in his shirt pocket. A reminder of his father and, by extension, his mother. A reminder of home and his family's love and their desire to see him safe. And a reminder of the destiny that has summoned him to France.