Rene Maran is Batouala

Batouala was first published in 1921. Rene Maran, while born in Martinique he moved to Gabon in Central Africa when he was 7. It's the setting for his book Batouala. It was written in French of course, my translation was printed in 1930 from a 1922 translation by Thomas Szold Seltzer. The text is now in the public domain. While my copy was $2, your can be free here.

As with all translations I assume that the story line is the work of the writer, but the language that of the translator. As with all my assumptions it is probably only part right. the language is overt and flowery and almost Victorian.

"Gradually colors faded, from shade to shade, from transparence to finer transparence, and the beams in the immense sky scattered. the last shades of color were blotted out. The indefinable silence that watched over the agony and the death of the sun spread over the whole earth."

Jean Thomas

Jean Thomas was a charlatan, but her reverence for mountain music lend a certain tone to her writing about the gene that was unique to her. Problematic in her work is separating real words from what she fabricated. It is said that often she just made up crap. It's a shame as well, her own writing is staunch and vivid. There's no reason for her to be attributing false words to non-existent people.

"He lay there in this fix, cold as a rock for some time. He were laid out for dead. And after a long spell he were revived up with this song on his lips"

This was followed by the tablature for a traditional rendering of "O'Death"
More here.