A gripping multigenerational novel that explores the history and human
cost of colonialism in the Congo.
April 1958. Organizing the Brussels World's Fair, the biggest
international event since the end of the Second World War,
subcommissioner Robert Dumont cedes to pressure from the royal palace:
there will be a "Congolese village" in one of the seven pavilions
devoted to the settlements. Among the eleven members of this "human zoo"
assembled to put on a show at the foot of the Atomium is the young
Tshala, daughter of the intractable king of the Bakuba. From her native
Kasai to Brussels via Léopoldville, the princess's journey
unfolds--until her forced exhibition at Expo 58, where we lose track of
her.
Summer 2004. Newly arrived in Belgium, a niece of the missing princess
crosses paths with a man haunted by the ghost of his father--Francis
Dumont, professor of law at the Free University of Brussels. A
breathtaking series of events will reveal to them a secret the former
subcommissioner of Expo 58 carried to his grave.
From one century to the next, In the Belly of the Congo confronts
History with a capital "H" to pose the central question of the colonial
equation: Can the past pass?
