Aya: Face the music

The young and restless of Yop City just can’t seem to catch a break.

Marguerite Abouet and Clement Oubrerie’s world-renowned and critically acclaimed series about ‘80s life in the Ivory Coast continues with Aya: Face the Music. After getting thrown in jail for organizing a student housing protest, Aya must grapple with the aftermath of her decisions. Her friends don’t have it much easier.

Her classmate Cyprien has been unconscious since police violently broke up their demonstration, and his family can barely scrape together funds for treatment. Her dear friend Albert, last seen passing out at dinner with his family, awakes in the countryside in the clutches of a healer his father has hired to pray his gay away. In France, Albert’s ex-paramour Inno agrees to enter into a fake marriage with his friend Sabine with surprising results. And back in Abidjan, embattled starlet Bintou must find a way to capitalize on the public’s newfound sympathy after her house is burned down by an angry mob.

Translated by Abidjan-based writer and activist Edwige Renée Dro, this contemporary classic of Ivorian literature bridges the gap between the past and present, proving that no matter how much things may change, we change with them too.