Little Pa

A Short Story

By: Hemley Boum

Narrated by: Tony Tambi

Length: 59 mins

Publisher's summary

Cameroonian author Hemley Boum brings us "Little Pa", a potent story of a boy who grows into a man battling with identity.

Zacharias is his maternal grandfather’s namesake, though he has never met said grandfather or any other extended family members. He represses questions he has as a way of trying to protect himself and his mother, Dorothée, who is prone to bouts of depression. But he cannot ignore his reality forever and in adolescence, Zacharias begins to commit small acts of rebellion leading to a final act that goes horribly wrong and leads him to exile and a new life where he promises himself never to look back.

Translated from French by one of Africa’s new leading voices in writing and translation, Edwige-Renée Dro.

©2022 Hemley Boum (P)2022 Audible Originals LLC

Emotion pure

A hollow life painted in vivid detail. Real emotion and connection to a person who lacked this.

Heartbreakingly Beautiful

This short story is one you won’t want to miss, a tale of mental health, and a boy who just wants to save his lost mother.

A must hear!

This story was told unabashedly from a child's perspective. He bestowed unconditional love in it's rarest form.

Find my eyes welling with tears throughout this story

This is a simple and incredibly moving story. I hesitate to say more about it because I think part of its beauty is in the listening and letting it take you to various landscapes and vistas, each more engrossing than the last. The narrator’s voice gives the story a poignancy that at first I did not appreciate. There’s so much that is left to the imagination, which makes this a devastating story as well. Glad I took it on.

I liked the story and the real struggle pi went threw

The short story was good and told a real story about pi that was a smart young boy and African I liked that he did his school work.

Sad sad story.

The story flowed nicely. It is just sad. I am looking for escapism to be honest.

Well written reality short and unsweetened.

Wrecking and relatable story of community, poverty and, mental illness, experienced throughout broken families all across the Black/African diaspora. This familiar dynamic of lone mother and son, puts me in mind of an African proverb I once heard - something like… “the sun does not forget about the village just because it is small”. I wish healing and wholeness to all who sees themselves within these words.

For a Brief Moment

For a brief moment, I was dropped into the life of a young Zachariah or Little Pa. In that moment, I learned of the how he became emotionally intelligent piecing together why his life was the it was. His journey to manhood resonated with me. It made me take a minute to think about my own journey through life, lessons, learning and love.

Grief beautifully written

Beautifully written story about unresolved grief or trauma. I’m still not certain what happened to Little Pa’s “mother”, but the writing hauntingly communicated her unresolved pain, her perceived nothingness. This was my first encounter with Hemley Boum’s writing, and I am so excited to explore her work.

Good Writing

I really enjoyed both the story and narration. Would like to see more stories by this author.