Myths and Retellings

In Queen Pokou, Véronique Tadjo reimagines the legend of Queen Abraha Pokou, the eighteenth-century Akan leader traditionally credited with founding the Baoulé people of Côte d’Ivoire. According to the legend, as Pokou leads her people away from danger and across the Comoé River, she faces an impossible choice: sacrifice her only son to secure their passage and save her community. Her decision becomes a defining story of collective survival, maternal grief, and the origins of a people. Rather than presenting the legend as one fixed historical truth, Tadjo retells it through multiple imagined possibilities. What if Pokou refused to sacrifice her child? What if grief destroyed her, or her journey led her towards a different fate? These alternative narratives challenge the authority of traditional stories and explore how myths are reshaped by the people who inherit them. Moving between eighteenth-century West Africa and more recent conflicts across the continent, Tadjo connects the queen’s legendary sacrifice to the enduring consequences of war, displacement, and political violence. At its heart, the book asks what communities demand of their leaders—and what individuals must surrender for collective survival. It is both a reimagining of an important African legend and a reflection on motherhood, historical memory, and the human cost of founding a nation.