Africans in Europe: The Culture of Exile and Emigration from Equatorial Guinea to Spain (review)

A little known country for many, Equatorial Guinea, the only former Sub-Saharan Spanish colony, is the focus of Dr. Michael Ugarte’s latest work which strives to disseminate African exilic literature and culture to a wider audience. Ugarte sets out to introduce the reader to Guinean poems, novels, essays and other texts to “serve as a window to an understanding of the realities that will define the cultural, economic, and political currents of the twenty-first century.”

Ugarte uses the first two chapters of his book to examine his own family’s journey from Spain as immigrants to the U.S. to reflect upon what he believes is the difference between being an emigrant/immigrant and being an exile. He coins the term “emixile” (also the title of Chapter One) to argue that the departure from one’s native land is too complex to classify under one term, that those who are exiled and those who emigrate have too many overlapping characteristics (2). Ugarte argues the term “emixile” is most appropriate to describe writers from Equatorial Guinea as many of its writers have felt some sense of liberation in exile, yet struggled with the double consciousness of being African immigrants of a former Spanish colony.

In Chapters Two and Three, Ugarte attempts to clarify the complex history of colonial and postcolonial Equatorial Guinea while at the same time introducing the reader to the writers who came out of these periods. Ugarte’s vacillation of writings between historical periods makes this part of the book difficult to read at times. Nevertheless, these chapters are necessary to fulfill Ugarte’s main objective, that is, the collecting of Guinean cultural artifacts in their entirety. In Chapters Two and Three, Ugarte cites various authors whose works were heavily influenced by the politics of their tribes, Franco policies in Equatorial Guinea, and the Macías “holocaust.” Overall, Ugarte underscores that these “emixile” writers reflect a collective yearning for their home villages, a sense of “otherness” both in exile, and in a changing Equatorial Guinea. Ugarte notes that the work of the authors included in these chapters are not necessarily reflective of later Guinean texts, which encompass African self determination. However, the “younger (Guinean) writers learn much from the ways” of this generation of authors who “molded their political frustration into poetic expression” (57).

Dr. Ugarte clearly demonstrates his personal connection to Donato Ndongo, with whom he worked at the University of Missouri in Chapter Four. Ugarte labels him a “model emixile,” and dedicates the entire chapter to Ndongo’s personal and professional life. Donato Ndongo experienced the life of an exile in Spain when his life was threatened multiple times under the Macías and Obiang regimes in Equatorial Guinea. Ndongo was sent to study in Spain at a young age, became a prominent writer of African issues in Spain, although censured for his criticisms of the Macías regime. Donato Ndongo is praised by Ugarte for his narratives, but notes Ndongo has been underappreciated and stands as “an African stranger in a familiar land” and is exceptional because he is black (60). Furthermore, Donato Ndongo is unique amongst previous Guinean authors because his alienation, his “tension” as an outsider, a black man in Spain, is “laid bare the moment he picks up the pen” (61). Donato Ndongo, not unlike many exiled writers, is author of “fiction” but with underlying social critiques vis-à-vis the characters in his novels.

In Chapter Five, Ugarte examines Ndongo’s epic novel El Metro, a chapter so well written that one is enticed to read more from the Guinean author. Ugarte’s examination of El Metro truly embodies the book’s title and stands out amongst the other chapters as a clear, sobering picture of the African immigrant in today’s Spain as a “ghost-like” figure. El Metro’s protagonist, Lambert, ponders “that he could not help but be surprised each time he descended...