Reading Wilfried N'Sondé "The woman of the sky and the storms"

Table of contents

1. 1. 1. 1. Photo impressions
         2. Cooperation

Num, a shaman from the nomadic Nenets tribe, discovers the magnificent grave of a black woman, over 10,000 years old, in the thawed permafrost of Russia. Was she a queen? The first mother of us all? Do the Siberian peoples of the Yamal Peninsula possibly have ancestors from Africa? At the same time, huge natural gas deposits are discovered in the same area, the exploitation of which threatens to destroy the delicate ecological balance of the Arctic tundra. Encouraged by the meditative conversation with the African woman of the Arctic, the shaman seeks support from a French scientist friend, who quickly puts together a research team. Together with a German-Japanese forensic scientist and an anthropologist with Congolese roots looking for meaning, he sets off on a secret expedition to the Yamal Peninsula. The sensational burial find could stop the exploitation of the natural gas deposits and save nature from destruction. But the expedition team has to deal with powerful and unscrupulous opponents: the Russian mafia and its henchmen and lickspittles. Even the shaman's nephew is blinded by the promise of easy money - until the showdown under the midnight sun.

Wilfried N'Sondé has written a highly suspenseful and multi-layered environmental thriller. And at the same time a modern fairy tale in which some use hand grenades and dynamite, others love, meditation and spirituality. This book is published as part of the Institute Français funding program and was supported by the Centre national du livre (CNL) and the German Translation Fund.

The successful novel "Frau des Himmels und der Stürme" (in the French original Femme du ciel et des tempêtes, Actes Sud 2021), translated from the French by Brigitte Große, is a resonant text of burning topicality, dedicated to the harmony between man and nature, the bond between peoples and the exchange between the visible and invisible world.

Wilfried N'Sondé was born in Brazzaville (Congo) in 1968. He grew up in the greater Paris area, studied political science at the Sorbonne and lived in Berlin for 25 years as an author, musician and composer.

He is the author of six novels published by Actes Sud, including Le Coeur des enfants léopards (2007, Prix des Cinq Continents de la francophonie and Prix Senghor de la création littéraire), Un océan, deux mers, trois continents (2018), which was awarded a dozen literary prizes, including the Prix Ahmadou. including the Prix Ahmadou Kourouma, the Prix France Bleu / Page des libraires and the Prix des lecteurs de L'Express / BFMTV - and Femme du ciel et des tempêtes (2021).

In his stories, Wilfried N'Sondé explores historical adventures, the experience of exile and alterity, and our relationship with the visible and invisible world. Among other things, he wrote the texts for the photo books Homo détritus by Stéphan Gladieu (Actes Sud, 2022) and Borders by Jean-Michel André (Actes Sud, 2020), which were exhibited at the Rencontres d'Arles photography festival in 2021 and at the Museum Fünf Kontinente in 2023.

Moderation: Torsten König

German voice: Dagmar Hunold

Admission free

In cooperation with the Institute français Dresden and Kopf & Kragen Literaturverlag.

Photo impressions

Cooperation