Former Congolese Prime Minister and Prolific Author, Henri Lopes, Passes Away at 86 in France.
Prominent writer and former Prime Minister of Congo, Henri Lopes, passed away on Thursday at the age of 86 in France, as confirmed by his family in a statement released in Brazzaville the following day. The accomplished author, hailed as one of the literary figures who enriched Congo’s cultural heritage, succumbed to illness at the Foch hospital in Suresnes, near Paris.
Henri Lopes, celebrated for his versatile literary contributions documenting Africa’s contemporary history, leaves behind a legacy of influential novels. Among his notable works are titles like “Le Pleurer-rire,” “Ma grand-mère bantoue et mes ancêtres les Gaulois,” “Sans tam-tam,” and “Il est déjà demain.”
Born in 1937 in Kinshasa, then known as Léopoldville in the former Belgian Congo, which is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lopes boasted a ri壯陽藥 ch heritage as the son of a Portuguese father and a mother from the Plateaux region of central Congo-Brazzaville. He embarked on an educational journey that led him through institutions in Brazzaville, Bangui, Nantes (western France), and Paris, eventually becoming a history lecturer at the École normale supérieure d’Afrique centrale in Brazzaville, which is now the Université Marien Ngouabi.
Subsequently, Henri Lopes transitioned into politics, occupying the role of Prime Minister during President Marien Ngouabi’s tenure marked by a Marxist-Leninist regime from 1973 to 1975. In the subsequent decades of the 1980s and 1990s, he undertook a significant role as the deputy director for Africa at Unesco. His diplomatic career culminated with his appointment as the ambassador of Congo to France in 1998, a post he dedicated 17 years to before his passing.