The Radiance of the King

At the beginning of this masterpiece of African literature Clarence a white man has been shipwrecked on the coast of Africa. Flush with self-importance he demands to see the king but the king has just left for the south of his realm. Traveling through an increasingly phantasmagoric landscape in the company of a beggar and two roguish boys Clarence is gradually stripped of his pretensions until he is sold to the royal harem as a slave. But in the end Clarence’s bewildering journey is the occasion of a revelation as he discovers the image both shameful and beautiful of his own humanity in the alien splendor of the king.