My Country, Africa: Autobiography of the Black Pasionaria

by Andrée Blouin

“We who have been colonized can never forget”

Andrée Blouin—once called the most dangerous woman in Africa—played a leading role in the struggles for decolonization that shook the continent in the 1950s and ’60s, advising the postcolonial leaders of Algeria, both Congos, Ivory Coast, Mali, Guinea, and Ghana.

In this autobiography, Blouin retraces her remarkable journey as an African revolutionary. Born in French Equatorial Africa and abandoned at the age of three, she endured years of neglect and abuse in a colonial orphanage, which she escaped after being forced by nuns into an arranged marriage at fifteen. She later became radicalized by the death of her two-year-old son, who was denied malaria medication by French officials because he was one-quarter African.

In Guinea, where Blouin was active in Sékou Touré’s campaign for independence, she came into contact with leaders of the liberation movement in the Belgian Congo. Blouin witnessed the Congolese tragedy up close as an adviser to Patrice Lumumba, whose arrest and assassination she narrates in unforgettable detail.

Blouin offers a sweeping survey of pan-African nationalism, capturing the intricacies of revolutionary diplomacy, comradeship, and betrayal. Alongside intimate portraits of the movement’s leaders, Blouin provides insights into the often-overlooked contribution of African women in the struggle for independence.

Genres: Africa, Nonfiction, History, Biography, Memoir, Politics, Feminism

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

Reviews

[Sarah B · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. But it's probably the most tragic I've ever read. This book intertwines so many uniquely colonial tragedies and gives you an outlook on why countries in Central Africa still struggle enormously to this day.

It's the biography of Andrée Blouin, a woman who helped liberate several colonized African Nations - Guinea, DR.Congo, Algeria. Andrée Blouin was a métisse born in the Central African Republic. She was taken away from her mother and placed in a Catholic Orphanage by her white father and his new Belgian wife. Her description of the abuse she suffered was heartbreaking. But after she ran away, she became an activist for the African Independence movement. She eventually counselled six African leaders, among them Sekou Touré and Kwame Nkrumah.

The first chief of protocol for the Republic of the Congo, she was the only woman in Patrice Lumumba's government. This is a remarkable achievement considering Congolese women couldn't even vote in 1960.

Her autobiography is no longer in circulation - but you can find it for free at archive.org.

My only problem with this book is that it can rely too heavily on colonial stereotypes sometimes, probably due to the fact that this book was written by Jean MacKeller, a white woman. Andrée Blouin actually sued to stop the publication of the book, claiming that it relied too heavily on her personal life, not her political activism.

If you want to see other perspectives about Andrée Blouin's life, by African and Congolese writers, read "Le Lys et le Flamboyant" or "Reimagining Liberation : How Black Women Redefined Citizenship in the French Empire."

[Sarah Schulman]

The film "Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat" is about the parallell events of the CIA take down of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, and the CIA manipulation of Black jazz artists by setting up their African tours to sell US excelllence. The film introduced me to African revolutionary Andree Blouin and so I sought out her memoir.

Interestingly it is less about her experiences in Guinea and Congo with Toure and Lumumba than it is about her experience of being bi-racial in Africa. Her story is based in consistent experience of extreme stigma, her hot and cold white father, her 3 white male partners (2 husbands, including one with the name Andre) and her four bi-racial children, one of whom died because colonial hospitals refused him treatment for being Black.

It is both interesting and telling that her racial existence was more searing to her self-reflection than her making of history. It wasn't what I expected but I was fascinated, informed, and moved.

[noa · Rating 5 out of 5]

beste autobiografie ooit gelezen, zwaar de moeite. prachtig laatste hoofdstuk van haar dochter

[Malcolm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Born in 1921, near Bangui – now in the Central African Republic – there is little about Andrée Blouin’s life that does not expose and critique the violence of colonialism and imperialism. Born to a 40 year old French trader and 14 year old daughter of a local village head, by the time she was three years old Blouin had been relocated against her mother’s will to a convent two weeks down river in Brazzaville, where she was taught by nuns that as a ‘mixed race’ child she was the sinful embodiment of her parents’ sin of miscegenation. While the first 2/3 of the book deal with her childhood and life as a young woman in this world. Then, from her mid-20s her disquiet, based a sense of unfairness, and personal resistance to the colonial order took a more structural form, as she developed a systematic awareness of her world and became active in pan-African anti-imperialist activism eventually becoming one of the key inner circle in Patrice Lumumba’s post-independence Congolese government.

Blouin builds an image of complex and challenging relations – where despite her parents’ obvious affection for each other, her father asserted his ‘right’ to determine and control her life, based in both race and gender authority. He was also fickle, taking her into his life and home and rejecting her, while the relationship seems to be further complicated by his Belgian wife, with whom he has no children. Through this and her deeply abusive experience in the convent, she comes across as a young woman with a sure sense of fairness as the basis of how she views the world and her rights, obligations, and entitlements in it. Yet this transforms when in her mid-20s her son dies after being refused malaria treatment available only to whites; a decision that brings her into conflict with the state and an increased structural awareness of the oppression she has rebelled against on the basis of fairness.

Yet this is not a moment of political transformation; that comes a few later when she is living in Guinea and is drawn into Sékou Touré’s campaign for full independence from France, rejecting a degree of limited economic association. This opens up her sharp and insightful narrative of her years of high profile political campaigning in Guinea and Congo through the late 950s and early 1960s, culminating in Lumumba’s assassination in January 1961. She was a central figure in much of this activity, especially the campaign for Congo’s independence from Belgium (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), organising Lumumba’s work during his term as Prime Minister, and acting as a speech writer.

Even without the campaigning, just as a tale of a woman’s life in colonial central Africa this is a compelling, insightful, vital, and in places invigorating read; with the independence campaigning, the pan Africanist politics, this is a vital insight into an era, a reminder of the erasure by patriarchal power, of women’s vital role in and leadership of these struggles, and a real sense that things might have been different. Blouin is not shy to pass comment – on both strengths and weaknesses – of her allies as well as her enemies, adding to the value of text. It’s an important text, well contextualised by series editors Adom Getachew and Thomas Meaney, and only available in this new edition because Blouin’s daughter Eve was able to wrench back the copyright; Eve also provides an epilogue, tracing the years and events around Blouin’s death in 1986 – three years after this as initially published. Alongside all its importance, it is also a damn good read.

[eliza! · Rating 5 out of 5]

So striking. She’s completely unafraid of being misunderstood - you can feel the strength of her Pan Africanism through the entire account. Endlessly fascinating and tragically hopeful. And I can’t believe this edition approved by her daughter was only published a year ago?

Also where the hell is the goodreads description coming from???

[lilebon · Rating 5 out of 5]

banger 😭💔

[Dana Torrente · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible! One of the most moving autobiographies I’ve ever read. I read this after seeing soundtrack for a coup d’etat and was blown away by her story. So infrequently do we get written accounts of the women who shaped Africa and the freedom movement of the 60’s.

[Christina Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am attempting to find the energy to again tackle my journal article. I thought I would stretch my fingers and my brain by adding a few comments about this book. My tactics are related. I read the book as part of my research for the journal article.

For the past two months I have been on a near fruitless search for documentation on women's political/activist history in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The reason for the search is rather straight forward: I traveled to the DRC to meet grassroots women's organizations doing prodigious and courageous work to end the ongoing armed conflict and rebuild their country. These women defy the disgraceful and insulting overreaching victim narrative ensconced in current writings circulating about the country. Please do not misunderstand me. The horrendous violence is very real. The inaccuracy comes in overlooking the capabilities and the work of Congolese women...capabilities defying the pathetic image that has become all too common in the media, security, and organizational reporting. The result is that these organizations are ignored, are considered irrelevant, and have no voice in any operational decision-making process (this includes decision-making in peace processes, security processes, and international humanitarian/aid processes). They are fighting for recognition and deserve to be given credence and worth. I am delving into the scraps of history available in order to give context the women's present work. After all, it is incomprehensible that suddenly one day women wake up with political awareness. The work of these women was fostered in some capacity. Most have spoken of the work of their mothers and the encouragement of their work by their fathers.

Alright I am off my soapbox. I have been researching and have been corresponding with Congolese women in order to uncover a activist and political history of women that very much exists despite common inference. At present, there is no comprehensive work that records this history. As the women who fought for independence following WWII and subsequently fought against Mobutu's overthrow, and who now fight to end the hostilities and change their country, progressively grow older, this history is being relegated to rumor and considered inconsequential. Once again, the women are insulted.

Andree Blouin is not Belgian Congolese, but French Congolese from Congo-Brazzaville. She did, however, meet the resistance and democratic reform leadership of Patrice Lumumba. Lumumba recruited Andree to campaign with him and his staff subsequently appointing her as Chief of Protocol in his cabinet. Her story is powerful and gives tremendous insight to the political awakening and work of Congolese women during independence. Strong Congolese women exist and have existed. Reading this gives me hope that eventually their contributions will one day be fully recognized.

In the meantime, my advice to the reader interested in the Congolese conflict is to continually ask her/himself, 'Where are the women?" If the answer is not apparent beyond helplessness, begin to dig further. This book is a good place to start the informational archeology.

[Ren Mooney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a good book about Madame Blouin, she inspired so much in anti-colonial resistance in Africa but is barely talked about. I found out about her from the film Soundtrack to coup d’état - where I think she also deserves more credit. This book really is so well written and lays out the colonial relations of the time, her journey to political activism and fighting the colonial forces was so moving. The epilogue written by her daughter was so well done. The book is so hard to find!! I wish more bookstores/libraries have it because there is such a need for her story to be told. Anyway 5 stars for sureeeee

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wat een verhaal en wat een leven - en zo mooi verteld. Bood naast een heel belangrijk perspectief op zowel het leven als "métisse", moeder/dochter en vrouw in die tijd, ook een goede introductie tot panafrikanisme, intersectionaliteit en de geschiedenis van Congo. Blouin verdient de aandacht om haar "second death" van het vergeten worden, zoals haar jongste dochter het in de epiloog verwoordt, ongedaan te laten maken.

"I have often pondered the additional intertwining of the fates [of my daughter and I], in sharing this day, and the same stars, to enter the world."

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Devastating but inspirational read that will stay with me.

[Richmond Apore · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is very rare, and perhaps equally a blessing, to land on a non-fiction book that is not only beautifully written, but also remarkably powerful in its effect on the reader. Whatever one’s predilection vis a vis feminism, Pan-Africanism, or even Blackness itself, one is captivated by Madam Blouin’s autobiography not only because she tells her own story so well, but because her story opens a window into a rarely highlighted world: the social and cultural havoc European colonialism unleashed upon the African masses, and later, the psychological chaos and rupture that followed the advent of decolonization across many African countries. But at the core of it all, this autobiography, easily one of the best I have ever read, is a testament to the life of a woman who truly understood the essence of Pan-Africanism as it pertains to that particular shared African destiny. That is a shared destiny that sees no borders, tribes, or genders but only human beings in and of the continent striving together for the betterment of all and not merely a select few, foreign or local.

For a woman like Blouin to have come to espouse such ideas and convictions, it must be said that the contradictions of her early life and decisions make her later political work and worldview all the more inspirational, precisely because they were not inherited cheaply, but arrived at through pain, rupture, and hard-won clarity. She narrates her early life as a métisse, the term then used to refer to children who were half-African and half-European. At the age of three, she was effectively abandoned by her French father, who snatched her from her African mother and placed her in a Catholic mission orphanage for mixed-race girls; an act treated, with staggering hypocrisy, as a kind of atonement for the European father’s cardinal sin of having fallen to the supposed “seduction” of the primitive and uncivilized African woman. Blouin’s many years in that orphanage, as she would later attest, and as the reader can easily discern, were deeply formative to her psyche as an African, and to her understanding of what it meant to be, or not to be, Black. Yet as she keenly and tragically noted, there was no inherent rationality to the so-called “civilizedness” of the white man, especially when set against the nonsensical and cruel application of colonial policy upon African lives. It is therefore no surprise that the fissure, or rather the rupture, that birthed the “Andrée Blouin” history would come to know was not some quiet psychological realization she had been silently brooding over, but rather a boom. It came through the cruel and deeply uncivilized, oh the irony, French colonial policy in the Central African Republic of administering quinine only to whites and Europeans, while willingly allowing Africans, even children like her own 2-year-old son, to die needlessly of malaria without the lifesaving treatment. This, as she significantly noted, was the moment she became “politicized.”

While Blouin herself does not make this admission in the book, nor even directly imply it to that end, I personally think her time at the Catholic orphanage, from the age of three until her escape at seventeen, played another crucial role in shaping her psyche and her appreciation of Africanness. Dare I even say it, the rational foundation of her later Pan-Africanism was sown, unwittingly and with almost laughable irony, in that very place where her existence as a mixed-race child was treated as a so-called abomination of racial crossing. What I mean is that when we later read of Blouin possessing the absolute clarity of mind, and indeed the big-picture grasp, to counsel both Fulbert Youlou, the first president of Congo-Brazzaville, and Barthélemy Boganda, the first prime minister of the Central African Republic, to look past their ethnic and national orientations and remember that they were African brothers before anything else, we are perhaps seeing the mature political expression of an earlier psychological formation. The same can be said of how easily she took up the Congolese independence cause and joined the likes of Pierre Mulele and Antoine Gizenga of the PSA, or even earlier, how she joined Sékou Touré, Houphouët-Boigny, and others in the RDA, despite the RDA operating across colonial and regional fault lines, and despite Blouin herself not even being West African. In my reading, all these later projections of her Pan-African convictions may not have been so readily possible, or at least not in quite the same form, had she not been brought up semi-detached from her own tribal and ethnic background, separated from her mother, and raised in an austere environment that made race, mixedness, Blackness, and African belonging far more immediate to her than whatever specific African tribe she may have belonged to. That is not to say, of course, that to be an ardent and practical Pan-Africanist, one must be untribal or ethnically detached. That would be ridiculous. The likes of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, proud in her Yoruba identity yet never captive to it, and none other than Kwame Nkrumah himself, born Francis and yet destined to become one of Africa’s clearest apostles of continental unity, prove the opposite. But in Blouin’s particular case, it seems that the very colonial attempt to sever her from the fullness of African belonging may ironically have helped her arrive at a broader, almost instinctive African consciousness.

Also worth unpacking is how masterfully Blouin dealt with the contradictions of her own life as they pertained to her later political work. The obvious elephant in the room, of course, is the fact that Blouin married, or had relations with, only white men. To this end, I would not lie: as I continued reading, a certain feeling of contradiction, even hypocrisy, began to build in me. How could a woman who had suffered so much personal grief at the hands of white colonialism find herself repeatedly bound, romantically and domestically, to men of that same race? And then, almost as if she knew that I, and perhaps many other readers, would eventually arrive at that question, she spoke directly to it. She acknowledged that many would ask why she dated and married only into the white race, the very race that had brought her so much suffering. Her answer was simple, but not simplistic: it was not deliberate, nor the result of some ideological preference. It simply happened that way.

But then she goes further, and this is where she genuinely blew my mind. She explains why, in that pre-independence African landscape, she never really found African men with whom she could build such relationships. What becomes obvious only after she says it is that Blouin was, in many ways, a unicorn for a woman in that period. She exposed, almost effortlessly, the grim double oppression of African women: first, obviously, by race under colonial rule, but then, less openly discussed, by gender within African society itself. Her spirit, her energy, her boundless refusal to bend before indignation, would have clashed even with many of the most open-minded African men and intellectuals of her time. Not because such men did not exist, of course they did, but because they were an anomaly. As she herself explains, the African man was dominated every day by the white man, and so, by custom, tradition, and wounded masculine psychology, the one place where he could still insist upon authority was over his woman. The African woman, then, became the place where the colonized man could still feel like a man.

Blouin could never have been Josephine, her mother. She could never have quietly accepted that position. And ironically, even the impressive African political leaders she later met, exchanged ideas with, and helped in various ways, men like Nkrumah, Lumumba, Sékou Touré, and Gizenga, did not exactly have wives who were publicly visible as independent political actors in their own right. Their wives, whatever their private intelligence, strength, or influence, were not known to history as co-equal political personalities standing beside them. This is not to diminish these men, nor to suggest that they were uniquely guilty of the patriarchal assumptions of their time. Rather, it is to show how unusual Blouin was. She was not merely a woman participating in politics; she was a woman who could not be domesticated by the expectations of her age. In that sense, her romantic life was not simply a contradiction to be mocked, but a window into the suffocating gendered realities of the world she inhabited.

On a personal note for me, as a lifelong admirer of that great African, Patrice Lumumba, Blouin’s autobiography proves again invaluable. From her account here, I now appreciate Lumumba not merely as that first great martyr of neocolonialism in Africa or the fiery nationalist he was but also, surprisingly, as the easily congenial and cheerful man he was to those who knew him. I now know how easily he smiled with others, how warm and human he could be, and how he carried within himself a determined, almost stubborn belief in the eventual triumph of his ideas and mission. In this sense, he was not so dissimilar from Fidel Castro, with that legendary self-belief in his own historical destiny. This may perhaps explain why Lumumba remained so defiant and stoic despite his capture, humiliation, and public degradation. He likely understood such suffering as part of the course, not the destination of his mission to the Congolese masses. Unfortunately, what he may have understood as only one brutal chapter in a longer historical struggle became, through betrayal, the tragic final chapter of his life.

Even the revelation made by Blouin’s daughter in the epilogue at the end of the book is stunning. That is, it was widely believed among Congolese politicians close to Lumumba at the time of his historic independence day speech that Blouin’s own draft, or at least her own words, formed part of what Lumumba eventually delivered, alongside his own additions. The fact that Blouin, writing her memoir decades after Lumumba’s murder, and surely aware of his historical importance, chose not to mention or claim that contribution for herself, only strengthens my sense of her impressive grasp of the bigger picture. Many people, given the opportunity, would have loudly “barged” into history. Blouin did not. If she helped shape that speech, she understood that the speech belonged not to her ego, but to Congo, to Africa, to Lumumba, and to that charged historical moment. Even most powerful, albeit perhaps brutal, moment in her account of Lumumba is when she narrates how, after crossing the river during his escape to Stanleyville and seeing that his wife had been captured by Mobutu’s men, Lumumba decided to return to her. Blouin’s judgment of that decision is most severe. She says, in effect, that Lumumba failed Congo and Africa. Obviously such a statement may seem almost cruel. After all, what husband would not want to return for his wife? What human being would not be moved by that instinct? But Blouin was judging Lumumba not merely as a husband, but as a transcendental historical figure whose life had become larger than himself. She knew his worth. She understood what he represented to Congo, to Africa, and to the still-unfinished project of liberation. And because she understood this, she expected him to think beyond even his own family in that moment. It is a harsh judgment, yes, but not a merely cynical one for the sake of it. It reveals the terrible seriousness with which Blouin understood history and anticipated African liberation. For her, liberation could not afford to be sentimental. It demanded sacrifice, clarity, discipline, and at times, yes, the almost unbearable ability to place the destiny of a people above the deepest claims of private love.

In the end, the reason I hold this autobiography, and its author, Madam Blouin, in such high esteem is not simply because she was a pioneering feminist, nor even because she discovered and practiced true Pan-Africanism during one of the most chaotic periods of the recent African experience, that is, the lead-up to and advent of decolonization. It is because, in addition to all of that, similar to the Osagyefo, Kwame Nkrumah, she too seemed almost prophetic. In the last chapter of her autobiography, Blouin makes the confession, or rather the revelation, that Africa’s lot before and after colonization was indeed largely orchestrated by external forces; but tragically, and perhaps most painfully, it was often our own brothers and sisters on the continent who made that orchestration easier, if not possible. Is this realization not similar to Amílcar Cabral’s warning about the “cancer of betrayal”? That the African tragedy was never merely the story of foreign domination, but also of internal collaboration, moral surrender, and the willingness of some Africans to mortgage the destiny of the many for the comfort of the few.

[Chloe Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is almost unbelievable that Andree Blouin’s autobiography was nearly lost to us. Her deeply personal account of her early life and her indispensable role in the independence movements of Guinea and the now Democratic Republic of the Congo, among others, reads more like a work of fiction than of reality.

Those who want an in-depth breakdown of the wave of independence movements that spread across Africa in the 50s and 60s may be disappointed, as this book focuses as much on Blouin’s traumatic childhood as it does on revolutionaries and warfare. Blouin, in excruciating detail, breaks down the harrowing experiences that built her opposition to colonial rule. From seeing Congolese men being chained and whipped in the street for demanding the same rights as their occupiers to feeling the cut of the chicotte herself, at the hands of inconceivably cruel nuns at an orphanage for mixed race children.

As an adult, her paradoxical existence in colonial life, through her parentage and her relationships with European men, will eventually design her desire to advance the decolonisation process.

But Blouin’s guiding belief, responsible for her propulsion into several anticolonial movements, is one of enduring love and sacrifice for her continent. Her love for Africa, its culture and its people, is ubiquitous throughout her writing as well as her love for her complicated mother Josephine, whose entire life was shaped by colonialism. Most of all, it is her love for her ‘bronzed prince’, her son Rene, who was murdered by Belgian colonial rule after being denied life-saving malaria treatment because he was the child of a mixed-race woman. His death, a pebble on the beach of horrors committed against African children during this time, ultimately serves as the catalyst for Blouin’s commitment to charting a new course in her life that will entwine her inextricably with movements and leaders famed across the globe.

Blouin whizzes through the violent and interminably complex landscape of the independence movements of several countries, beginning with her role in the struggle in Guinea, the frontrunner of West African independence movement from France. She references her speeches to thousands of men and women with ease, while mere paragraphs describe assassination attempts and nation-wide campaigns. Humility is a quality generously afforded to Blouin, who great leaders like Lumumba not only admired but relied upon for counsel, speech writing and oration.

Throughout, she revisits the events of her life while scarcely acknowledging how extraordinary her achievements were as a senior female figure in multiple independence movements. Nor does she stop to lament how she has been erased from many accounts of these movements, like so many African women have been.

“I only regret that I was not given the right, in my sex, to go as far as I could.”

After the heyday of the decolonisation movements passes, her love for the continent endured but she nakedly condemns the enclaves of power that emerge and quickly consume these fledgling democracies. Her daughter Eve plainly acknowledges her mother’s depression at the cyclical betrayal of Africa by its own people. Her questions for a post-colonial Africa remain as salient today, as they were back in 1983. Ultimately, Blouin concludes that to love is to know and that her truth is one that must be told to truly know Africa. ‘Black Pasionaria’ indeed.

[Isaiah · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s been quite a journey. I first discovered this book while watching Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, which mentioned Andrée Blouin and referenced her biography. After leaving the theater, I looked it up, and to my delight, I found that Verso Books had scheduled a re-release, complete with an epilogue written by Eve Blouin.

Initially, I picked up the book because I wanted to learn more about this enigmatic revolutionary—someone who, though not Congolese herself, found herself at the heart of history alongside figures like Patrice Lumumba, Sekou Touré, and Kwame Nkrumah. If you’re looking to delve deeper into the history of Congo or Lumumba specifically, this book doesn’t focus much on that. Instead, it offers an intimate portrait of Mrs. Blouin in her rawest form.

The narrative holds nothing back, inviting you into her world with unflinching honesty as it recounts her struggles, misfortunes, and triumphs. By the end, you feel as though you’ve truly come to know her. A significant portion of the book is devoted to her childhood, and it’s through these early years that the reader gains the deepest sense of connection and familiarity.

Her involvement with Sekou Touré, for instance, unfolds in a surprisingly unassuming way. It’s neither glamorous nor driven by grand ideological ambitions; rather, it begins with something as simple as her being captivated by a photograph.

Overall, this is an intimate, genuine, and tender autobiography.

[Fleeno · Rating 5 out of 5]

Andrée Blouin was an absolutely amazing woman. A Pan-African nationalist and astute political strategist, best known for her role in campaigning to build support in the Belgian Congo for its independence vote in 1959 and mobilizing thousands of Congolese women to the cause. Born in 1921 in the French colony of Oubangui-Chari (now Central African Republic) to a black mother and French father, Blouin lived with her mother until the age of three, when her father moved her to an orphanage for mixed-race girls in Congo-Brazzaville. The nuns were cruel, racist, and hunger was constant . After running away from the orphanage Blouin began to sew and during WW2 sent packages to France for money. Although critical of France, Blouin did try very hard to forgive her father and have a good relationship with him. She makes comment the only thing they couldn't discuss was colonialism, her father commenting "where would Africa be without the whites" and her replying "where would Europe be without the African," it would end the conversation because her fsther knew she was right. Her view is clear, whatever Europe gave to Africa, Africa gave Europe more. When her young son died of malaria because the medicine was only for white children, Blouin became politicised, hell bent on righting the racist structures which forced her people into poverty. Blouin worked with Sékou Touré (who became Guinea’s first President) in the movement for Guinea to become independent from France, and in 1958 it became the first French colony to vote for independence. After being invited into the Congo to speak to the women about independence, she became a trusted advisor for Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. Blouin advised Lumumba to seek support from the US, not because they would help, but to force their hand and show the world they had sided and were aiding the Belgians. Blouin had a keen political mind, predicting many of the moves made by Europeans and tribal leaders. Her parents had both commented the Gods had made her a woman because she would have been too powerful as a man. Certainly Blouin felt hamstrung by her gender, and although she admits she could have achieved a lot more as a man she also acknowledges she would have been assassinated early on in her life.

The first half of this book is a heart felt and emotional story, a reflextion on what is was like growing up biracial in colonialist Africa, while the last part reads like a political thriller. You really get a sense of the excitement and passion people like Blouin, Touré's and Lumumba had for African independence and the African people. At one point Lumumba ponders that peace in the congo is his deepest wish, and its sad that 60years later things have only gotten worse. The political events described however give a good overview and understanding of why things are the way they are in Central African Countries. Blouin viewed all of Africa as her country and she loved her country and people. Blouin ends her biography stating she wrote it as a way of speaking to Africa and sharing her Africa with people. She writes, "I want Africa to be loved. We cannot love what we do not know. Knowing comes first, then love follows. Where there is knowledge, surely there will be love." I certainly learned a lot about the indomitable African spirit and the amazing revolutionaries who tried to shape their countries for the better in post colonialist Africa. This was an inspiring read.

[Jalisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

To be honest I really struggled with this book over a number of weeks. I felt that the first half focused too long on her childhood struggles when I came for the story of an activist that was key to multiple revolutionary struggles in Central Africa. I was frustrated by the many contradictions in values this woman had and her often paternalistic views of other Africans. But I'm really happy I stuck with this book because the second half was just what I was looking for. Andrée Blouin is a woman who was aware of her contradictions and how they mirrored the pathways of the African countries she wrote about and loved in their imperfection.

I loved learning more about the history of the liberation movements of the late 1960s and was astounded by the influence and courage this woman who began as an orphan and seamstress had. She was integral to Congo's independence struggle and worked closely with Lumumba and many other revolutionaries. She frequently put her life at risk for her desire to see a free Africa and suffered greatly for her convictions. I wish she would have talked more about how she made the transition and learned all she needed to play key roles in organizing and political speech writing.

It breaks my heart that she did not get to see the free Africa she dreamed of and died disillusioned with its possibilities due to not only the actions of Western colonialists but also the betrayals of Africans which she always felt was the bigger threat.

Her daughter writing the epilogue was perfect. I am so happy she got to bring this work back into publication and is able to steward her mother's legacy in all it's nuance and complication.

[Teague · Rating 5 out of 5]

I sought out this Verso edition because it is authorized by the author’s daughter. I wanted to learn more about the life of Andree Blouin after watching the excellent 2024 documentary _Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat_. I studied African independence and anticolonial movements in college but had never heard of Blouin until watching the documentary. The first half of the book details her formative experience growing up in an orphanage run by French and Belgian nuns. Her Bangui mother and French white colonialist father’s relationship while allowed did not sanction her existence. Finally, escaping the orphanage, the pages describing her political awakening are riveting. But the book’s second half transfixed me as she supported independence movements in Guinea, Ghana, Algeria, Senegal, and finally, in the Congo. Her political activities signed up close to a million Congolese women to vote in the country’s first democratic elections. The final pages speak of the glory and promise of the Nonaligned Movement before neocolonialism and multinationals retrench and give us the horror we are living in now. This is unlike any autobiography.

[Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best autobiographies I’ve ever read

[juliana sasaki-george · Rating 5 out of 5]

such an inspiring woman whose persistence and commitment to liberation and decolonization is a model for what we should all work to emulate

[Melissandre Naud · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book I've read all year! (and it was the very last I read!!)

I randomly picked up this book in the book store, intrigued by the playful bookcover /picture and this provocative title (africa a country??) and wasn't able to put it down. Andrée Blouin was an amazing woman that has endured a lot of trauma and pain simply because she was born métisse. Her personal story weaved into the historical/political context and attitudes of her environment make it both an emotional as well as a insightful read. Also making me painfully aware that this wasn't that long ago, and that those dynamics are still present (even if less obstentiously so).

I would have loved if the book would have gone more into depth with regards to some aspects (political and/or psychological) but then; this was Mme Blouin's story to share and i can only respect she does so on her own terms.

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Central African Republic

"That girls such as I were given opportunity to atone for our existence was considered one more proof of the white man's charity as he scourged the black man's land."

"The existence of the orphanage was proof that the racism on which colonialism was built had failed."

"Hunger was a constant companion."

"I don't see why we should have to be subjected to penances all our lives for what our parents did."

"Because the woman was black, the embrace was shameful and the love impure."

"According to the whites' law, a black could not be permitted to "disturb the life of a European."

"The children of mixed blood were a shameful stigma to this society in which the lines for blacks an whites were so clear cut."

"I was determined to forge my own future, however good or bad that might turn out to be."

"My mother and father said it would have been catastrophic if i had been born a male. Certainly I would not be alive today."

"African hospitality has no limits."

"I want Africa to be loved. I want her to be known."

[Tess Raser · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing is beautiful, story heartbreaking and necessary read. People don’t really realize how brutal Europeans and their descendants throughout the west have been (and often still are) on the African continent (and to all Africans across the diaspora). Blouin's account of her childhood is tragic but beautifully told. Sometimes she as a person frustrated me because she was almost a little too forgiving, at times, of the European men and women in her life that were so cruel, while at other times, I found her descriptions of Africans pretty unfair. But then I realized, that she was telling the story through her colonized mind, and this sometimes shifts throughout the memoir. I didn't like her characterization of them as naive and childish. She was not always self-reflective of her own shortcomings. Still, she was obviously very brilliant, thoughtful and brave.

The last chapter is beautiful, as she recounts her mother's horrific death and her love and understanding of Africa is really about her love and understanding of her mother. She also didn't know what we know all know about US, UN and Belgian involvement in Lumumba's assassination, which she mostly blames on his countrymen.

Overall, this text is an essential read, and more of us should be devoting time to reading decolonial African texts because the African continent and its independence project are both completely misunderstood and understudied by most people in the west. There is such an overemphasis on European fascism and the holocaust and almost no acknowledgment of the millions and millions of Africans who also were killed, stolen from and controlled by European interests for centuries.

If we were really to compare the violent impact of imperialism on the African continent and all Africans in the diaspora from Congo to Mississippi to Haiti, there would be no comparison to the Holocaust. The horrors that Africans have endured because of European greed and their need to control, are unimaginable, and so we have to read these texts and their descriptions as brutal as they are. Acknowledgement is the first step in fighting back and resisting. Blouin's life, with all its tragedy, exploitation and grief, is a testament to that.

[Violet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I only recently learned of Andrée Blouin through the documentary, "Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat," and it was a shock. I had read a few books and seen other films about Congo and Lumumba, and none mentioned her. This is a travesty. Blouin was vital not only to Lumumba (as a colleague, speechwriter, and friend) and to Congo's independence but to pan-Africanism and anti-colonial revolution in Africa in general. Hence the title, where she describes Africa as her country. That description would feel offensive coming from elsewhere, but for Blouin it's sincere and true, as borders literally moved past her and as she lived in and traveled to several African countries, advising so many of their leaders.

My Country, Africa begins with harsh foundations: abandonment by the white father who denied her much-younger African mother the chance to raise her, and travails in an orphanage for mixed-race girls, where they were underfed, barely educated, and treated with cruelty. And yet, a revolutionary spirit manifested during Blouin's childhood, leading her to resist abuse, racism, sexism, and colonialism--a theme which continued throughout her life. My Country, Africa focuses mostly on Blouin's experiences before her political involvements, which felt unfortunately like a brush-over. I truly wanted to know how she managed to accomplish all that she did and influence so many, especially considering her earliest foundations. But overall, the memoir offers beautiful and gripping storytelling about a most fascinating and inspiring life, and My Country, Africa should be mandatory reading for any student of contemporary African history.

[Monique Kasonga · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I want Africa to be loved. I speak of my country, Africa, because I want her to be known. We cannot love what we do not know. Knowing comes first, then love follows. Where there is knowledge, surely there will be love.”

Going into this book I was very curious about why and how she’d defend calling Africa a country and I’m pleased to report that my question was beautifully answered through this telling of her life’s story.

What a great read. I have so many questions that I wish I could ask her.

Four stars because of some issues I had with the translation (which her daughter brings up in the epilogue as well) and the fact that she didn’t have full control over the publishing of this book, which is somewhat evident in certain parts .

Also, Goodreads has got to update the description of this book because Mme Blouin was most certainly not Lumumba’s mistress… and that is most certainly not the subject matter discussed.

[Imcsi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. Blouin's autobiography should be a compulsory reading all over the world. I was shocked to find out how long it was out of print before her daughter, Eve Blouin, rescued and republished it, and how little known Blouin herself still is (at least here in Europe) despite her incredible political work.

My Country, Africa offers a personal account of the hardships African nations faced on the road to independence, and of how colonial powers—and the West more broadly—made it impossible for most of them to emerge from these struggles as true winners. I already knew the impersonal, historical side of the story, but Blouin’s firsthand perspective brought my understanding to a whole new level.

PS: I find this book so important that even though I've been an active Goodreads user for 11 years, this is my first ever review. Well, it's not really a review, it's a strong recommendation.

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

So glad this book exists. I'm still shocked (shocked of course is the wrong word given that female revolutionaries rarely seem to get talked about apart from the ones who you simply can't ignore (Tubman, Parks, Davis, etc)) that I had never heard this woman's name until this year when I watched the beautiful documentary "Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat" Given my studies, I was definitely unpleasantly surprised that even someone like me who sought out the revolutionary histories of Africa and the New World had completely missed her. Thankfully her daughter has persevered to get this autobiography re-printed as we definitely need more stories like this one to be common knowledge. What an inspiring life she lived during such an inspiring (although ultimately also tragic) time to be alive.
5 massive stars!

[Dar]

Born to a very young teen mom in a village, Andree was raised by severe nuns in a convent, and was only able to escape through personal earnings, then a young marriage. She accompanied wealthy business owners into the heartland and developed both a business sense and comfort with luxury. These stood her in good stead as she eased her way into circles of political power, where she individually achieved a high level of influence. A remarkable story of post-colonial African nations and one woman's astute rise to power.

"Embodying pan-Africanism, Blouin befriended, counseled or lobbied the first presidents or prime ministers of Algeria, both Congos, Ivory Coast, Mali, Guinea and Ghana." - Stuart A. Reid, New York Times

[Chad Sinckler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’d been holding off giving a 5 star review to a book but, I think this one deserves it. Perhaps my review is influenced by my timing of reading this. Although Blouin is famous for her political work, much of the book centers on her life before her political career. Her depiction of colonial African life serves as a reminder of the ugliness of that time period. But more than that, the fact that in spite of that ugliness, Blouin could do meaningful work in the liberation of Africans across the continent. It serves as a reminder that there is always hope to be had and meaning to be made.

[C K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love it but Michelle Obama autobiography vibes- 80% memoir and then glossing over the periods that made them autobiographical material.

Moving beautiful memoir.

But wish she had gone more in depth and expanded beyond her expulsions from Congo.

Still blown away that she went from a mommy poet to political mover and shaker.

And her and Andre got divorced??????? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!! Whhhhyyyyyyyy??????

And on that note- she denies being Lumumba’s mistress- change that book description

[Ije the Devourer of Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant and moving book which provides a living testimony about life in African under colonial rule, and the struggles for independence.

Andree Blouin was inspirational and passionate for self rule and justice. Her memoir also reminds us of the many Africans who died under colonialism and imperialism. The death of Patrice Lumumba was particularly difficult to read as was Andree’s childhood in a harsh children’s home run by nuns.

Her memoir is life giving but also informative. The struggle for a flourishing Africa continues.