The poems, essays and novels by Francisco Zamora Lubosch (Santa Isabel, now Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, 1948) written from exile in Spain survive. Coming from a family originally from the island of Anobon, Zamora, he went to Madrid at the age of 20 to study economics at the Complutense University – before spending some time in Periodismo – and in the same city he died last November 22 at the age of 77. Zamora leaves a legacy of decades of fictional and nonfiction production about memory, identity, politics, and power in a country that was a Spanish colony and since 1979 has lived under the regime of Teodoro Obiang.
Before becoming a writer, he worked in several Spanish media outlets. I was a writer in periodicals such as: present, Pueblo, El Sol, Diario AS the 20 minutes And collaborated in RNE. His journalistic section won the Julio Campa National Journalism Award in 1991.
He was part of the musical group Los Hermanos Zamora, which in the 1960s, during the last phase of the Spanish colony in Equatorial Guinea, performed in some musicals and at local festivals. Later, when all its members were exiled to Spain, it changed its name several times. In the 1980s, under the name Guinea, there were two phrases on hit lists, such as pachyderm y We are the conguito They played with the famous advertisement for the brand Gulcinat.
I was also a sports fan, especially football. I was a coach for children’s and youth teams.
But perhaps most notable is Zamora Lubuch’s multifaceted literary legacy. On several occasions, he expressed that his experiences of exile and belonging – to Equatorial Guinea and Spain – had a profound influence on his work. Moreover, they are the qualities that made him one of the best representatives of the so-called “lost generation” of eccentric writers. This is a name given to a group of authors originally from Equatorial Guinea, who live and write in exile, due to political repression, censorship, or instability in their country, especially in Spain. The group reached its peak during the second half of the twentieth century. Among their members, in addition to Zamora Lubosch, they stand out Donato Ndongo BidiogoCrisostomo Juan Nkogo, Justo Policia Polica the Juan Tomas Avila Laurel. The state of forced displacement, the difficulty of being recognized in their country of origin, and the feeling of cultural and literary loss are characteristics of these intellectuals.
This situation is clearly reflected in the writings of Zamora Lubuch. In the pages of his books, he talks about the trauma between his Guinean origins and his life in Spain, as well as nostalgia for his land. African reality, colonialism and power dynamics are also present. Likewise, his investigations explore Equatorial Guinea’s colonial past and how these records shape its literary structure.
Your most important posts are How to be black and not die in Aravaca (Ediciones B, 1994), an article that takes it as a starting point The murder of Dominican immigrant Lucrecia Pérez Matoswithout naming it. It does not fall within a specific case, but it was a historical journey from 1942 to the end of the twentieth century to show that racism is something structural, cultural and linguistic rooted in Spanish society.
It also highlights the memory of mazes (Sial, 1999), a poem that constitutes the struggle of exile and the memory of Equatorial Guinea. Much of the literature reflects the uprooting of Guineans brought to Spain after the traumas of colonialism and subsequent regimes. This translates into culture shock and homesickness.
Of life and other records (Sial, 2008), touches on similar topics Memory mazesBut it is a more mature reflection.
Conspiracy in the Green Zone (Abayak Report) (Sial, 2009) is an entertaining story about an unassuming, anonymous private investigator hired by Spain’s National Intelligence Center to investigate rumors of a possible coup in Equatorial Guinea. At the same time, from one of the select golf clubs in Ciudad del Cabo, a British lord and his Lebanese partner conspire to seize and control the small country’s oil. The novel combines intrigue, espionage and crime with a strong historical and political dimension where corruption, geopolitical interests and the consequences of all of this for African societies are intertwined.
(El Cayman in Kaduna). (Paréntesis, 2012), a young African man (named El Caimán de Kaduna) arrives in Spain with the illusion of football victory. It’s the doorman who struggles to get there, but the promise is kept. After a series of mistakes on his actor’s part, he ends up accused of drug smuggling. Once in prison, he decided to write a biography of his idol, Iker Casillas. All this is an excuse that serves Zamora-Luboch to explore the more negative side of “African society” in Europe.
And finally, the wonderful Republic of Anobon (Sial/Pygmalion, 2017) is a novel set in 1931, when the government of the Second Republic appoints a delegate on the island of Anobon to Restituto Castilla González, a sergeant in the Civil Guard. This historical reality is mixed with fantasy. Through Restituto’s eyes, the discovery of a new world is told, as well as the culture shock and tensions that arise between colonial and republican vision and local reality. Everything is combined with a love story that changes events dramatically.
This entire work highlights the figure of Francisco Zamora Luboch as one of the major representatives of ecuatogenic literature in the Spanish language. An essential voice from Guinean exile who brings new perspectives from his personal experience.