by Veronique Tadjo 

Two boys go into the forest and kill bats to cook and eat, within a month they are dead and Ebola is moving quickly through the village. The story of Ebola is told through different voices experiencing the outbreak. Medical staff fight to stop the spread, but in order to save people, all rituals around death and caring for the sick are to be stopped. The story is a heartbreaking look at the impact Ebola had on Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone during the last big outbreak in 2014. The book is also a warning to us, in between the human voices, we hear from the bat and the baobab tree, who both tell tales of human greed and destruction. As humans chop down forests and destroy nature, animals move further towards towns and villages, coming into contact with men, making the chances of zoonotic disease spread more likely. 

Veronique writes as a warning to humanity – we cannot continue to view ourselves as separate from nature – unless we want to risk it all,

“You cannot destroy the forest without spilling blood. Humans today think they can do whatever they like. They fancy themselves as masters, as architects of nature. They think they alone are the legitimate inhabitants of the planet, whereas millions of other species have populated it since time immemorial. Blind to the suffering they cause, they are mute when faced with their own indifference. Their voracity is boundless; it seems impossible to stop them. The more they have – and they already have everything – the more they devour.”

Title: In the Company of Men: The Ebola Tales

Author: Veronique Tadjo

Awards and Recognition:

Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Winner
Harper’s Bazaar: Best Book of the Year  
Boston Globe: Best Book of the Year 
Ms. Magazine: Best Feminist Book of the Year 
Words Without Borders: Best Translated Book of the Year 

ISBN: 9781913109790

Publisher: HopeRoad Publishing Ltd 

Veronique Tadjo is a writer, poet and artist from Côte d’Ivoire and France, she received the Literary Prize of L’Agence de Cooperation Culturelle et Technique in 1983 and the UNICEF Prize in 1993 for ‘Mamy Wata and the Monster’, which was also chosen as one of Africa’s 100 Best Books of the 20th Century.

Abdourahamane Ly, guest curator for Veganuary at Global Literature in Libraries Initiative, has been vegan for the past seven years now. He is extremely passionate about animal rights and encouraging more humans, especially Africans, to go vegan. He was born in Guinea in West Africa but spent the last 13 years in China. He is currently in Rwanda spreading the vegan message. You can follow him on Instagram at @fulanivegan and X at @fulanivegan.