The Aquatics

₦20,000.00

In the fictional Zambuena, Katmé lives a life of privilege; a dutiful politician’s wife to a husband that has ceased to notice her. The only outlier to her regimented life is her friendship with Samy, a struggling artist, and gay man—an offense punishable by law in Zambuena. When Samy’s new exhibition boldly critiques Zambuena’s inequities, Katmé’s two lives are set on a collision course. Political rivals descend and threaten Samy with incarceration, forcing Katmé into an agonizing choice: abandon her friend or destroy her family.

Available on: June 16, 2026 at 12:00 am

AUTHOR: Osvalde Lewat is a Cameroonian-born photographer, director, and writer. She began to share her visual and narrative universe through documentary films. Author of several award-winning works that deal with socio-political subjects and that bring out reflections on alterity, she graduated from Sciences-Po Paris and has completed image training courses at Femis in Paris, and at the Institut National de l’Image et du Son (INIS) in Montreal. Her films, broadcast by more than seventy television channels around the world, have traveled to the five continents and received several international awards, including the Tanit d’Or at Carthage, the Étalon de Bronze at Fespaco and the prestigious Peabody award at the United States. Her photos have been exhibited in Africa, Europe and America. THE AQUATICS, her first novel won Pan-African Prize for Literature, the French Academy literature and the Kourouma Prize. The book has been translated in seven languages including Japanese and Swahili.

Alongside her artistic activity, Osvalde Lewat, who has lived in different countries around the world (France, Canada, Comoros, Congo-Kinshasa, Burkina Faso, etc.), is involved in several associative projects of a socio-cultural nature in africa.

TRANSLATOR: Maren Baudet-Lackner has published over a dozen book-length translations and is the recipient of a 2023 PEN Presents Award and 2024 PEN Translates Award. Working from the French with a focus on putting works by under-represented authors into readers’ hands, literary translator. Her work was also recognized by Albertine Translation Grants in 2023, 2024 and 2025. Her most recent translations include The Aquatics by Franco-Cameroonian author Osvalde Lewat (Coffee House Press, 2025 and Cassava Republic, 2026) Remember the Bees by Franco-Moroccan author Zineb Mekouar (Milkweed Editions, 2026) and The Bureau of Lost Fates by Gaëlle Nohant (Bonnier UK and St. Martin’s Press US, 2026). She holds advanced degrees from Yale University and the Sorbonne and lives outside of Paris with her family.