Just one year after its publication in France, “Waiting for Bojangles” received several literary awards, sold 300,000 copies, and had its translation rights negotiated for 29 countries. In the amazed gaze of the son, they dance to the sound of “Mr. Bojangles” sung by Nina Simone. The love 
that binds them is magical, dizzying, an eternal party. In their home, only pleasure, fantasy, and friends fit. The one who sets the tone, who commands this entire dance, is the mother, like an unpredictable and extravagant will-o’-the-wisp. It was she who adopted the new family member, Mademoiselle Supérflue, a large and exotic bird that wanders around the apartment, pecks at guests, and wears a pearl necklace. It is the mother who constantly drags them into a whirlwind of poetry and chimeras. One day, however, she goes too far. And the father and son will do everything to keep the party going. Never has a mad love translated so well the story of this family.
Waiting for Bojangles is one of those books that surprises you in a very positive way. With a light writing style, Olivier Bourdeaut takes us on a very enjoyable journey as he tells the story of this atypical Parisian family.
Although we know them through the perspective of the couple’s son, who brings a somewhat more romanticized and light narrative, we also have the opportunity to discover how the couple met through the patriarch’s view. As the son himself begins to say, the bond that united his parents was precisely dance and music, more specifically, Waiting for Bojangles in the voice of the eternal and spectacular Nina Simone.
In fact, Olivier managed, with a story that is to some extent quite fun, to show us some facets of a certain illness without needing to delve into technical and even tedious terms.
Waiting for Bojangles by Olivier Bourdeaut will please those who enjoy a light, fun read that offers a unique perspective on a particular human abnormality (forgive me, readers, I won’t say what it is). What I can say is that this book captivated me and was a pleasant surprise in the end.
He has also been a tap opener in a hospital, a handyman at a publisher of school books – the height of irony! – and a flower salt gatherer from Guérande, in Croisic, among other things. He has always wanted to write, and Waiting for Bojangles is the first manifestation of that desire.
Jeffa Koontz
Literary Critic
www.sagaliteraria.com.br