A gripping multigenerational novel that explores the history and
human cost of colonialism in the Congo.
April 1958. Organizing the Brussels World’s Fair, the biggest
international event since the end of the Second World War,
subcommissioner Robert Dumont cedes to pressure from the royal
palace: there will be a “Congolese village” in one of the seven
pavilions devoted to the settlements. Among the eleven members of
this “human zoo” assembled to put on a show at the foot of the
Atomium is the young Tshala, daughter of the intractable king of the
Bakuba. From her native Kasai to Brussels via Léopoldville, the
princess’s journey unfolds—until her forced exhibition at Expo
58, where we lose track of her.
Summer 2004. Newly arrived in Belgium, a niece of the missing
princess crosses paths with a man haunted by the ghost of his
father—Francis Dumont, professor of law at the Free University of
Brussels. A breathtaking series of events will reveal to them a
secret the former subcommissioner of Expo 58 carried to his grave.
From one century to the next, In the Belly of the Congo
confronts History with a capital “H” to pose the central question
of the colonial equation: Can the past pass?