“I left his room empty-handed. Sad and angry. Like the Cuban and African percussionists at home, in Quebec they took away my right to learn because I was a woman. It is fear in the stomach, but decided, that Martine leaves the fold and flies away to Conakry, where a merry band of musicians awaits her, ready to open their arms and their hearts to her so that she can perfect her art. Inspired by her own story, Mélissa Lavergne signs the iroko, a first novel full of suffering and hope. Against a backdrop of military tension, the author recounts her arrival on African soil, the culture shock, homesickness, the crushing heat, the pain in her palms, abused by the practice, she who dragged with difficulty the memory of her ex- boyfriend. However, Lavergne’s writing remains unassertive, carried by a syntactic heaviness behind which we feel the search for style. Despite this lack of naturalness, the author offers a sincere story in which the heartbreak that propels the heroine in this crossing as well as her love of music are palpable.
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