This novel,a classic of African literature, still speaks to us today. We look back at Africa’s grotesques like Idi Amin of Uganda, Bokassa of the Central African Empire or Zaire’s Mobutu, but now we must also look around us at comic opera heads of state posturing extravagantly on our domestic stages. We need this cleansing laughter.

“Is the funny bone a literary erogenous zone? Anyone who thinks so will certainly be turned on by Henri Lopes’ The Laughing Cry . . . this writer has the same feel for the literary burlesque that Woody Allen has for the philosophical kvetch.” —San Francisco Examiner