AfriDay, a day with writers (Vamba Sherif)

The book

‘Vamba Sherif' s The Emperor’s Son is a gripping tale of Zaiwulo, a young prodigy dispatched to the ancient city of Musadu to train under the tutelage of Talata, a renowned sage of the legendary Haidarah family. In his new surroundings, the young Zaiwulo finds himself entangled in a web of intrigue surrounding Emperor Samori, the formidable leader whom the French have dubbed ‘the Black Napoleon.’ As Zaiwulo matures into a formidable soldier, fighting alongside the Emperor, his quest for truth intensifies, leading him on a daring adventure that ultimately brings him face-to-face with his own origins. Set against the backdrop of political upheaval and historical tumult, The Emperor’s Son is a riveting historical saga of loyalty, the pursuit of identity, the complexities of leadership, and the enduring quest for truth in a world that is constantly evolving.’

The writer

Vamba Sherif is a writer, essayist, film critic and lecturer in African literature at Leiden University. Sherif’s work has been published in many languages, including English, French, German, Spanish, Polish and Indian Malayalam. He has published journalism, essays, stories, film reviews, columns and opinion pieces in The New York Times, the German Kulturaustausch, African Writing, Trouw, Volkskrant, NRC and ZAM Magazine, among others. In 2018, he and Ebissé Rouw compiled the anthology Zwart, a unique collection of Afro-European literature from the Low Countries. In April 2021, his memoir Ongekende liefde (Unprecedented Love) was published, in which he tells his life story in letter form to his ten-year-old daughter Bendu. Together with Martijn Lindeboom, he compiled De komeet (The Comet) in 2023, a collection of speculative stories.