Skip to content
Osvalde Lewat

Writer · Filmmaker · Photographer

Osvalde Lewat

Words, images, light: twenty-five years of telling what people would rather not see, from Cameroon to the Congo.

GarouaYaoundéKinshasaParis

3literary prizes for Les Aquatiques
10documentary films
3translation languages
2026Un corps indocile, Renaudot selection

The novel

Les Aquatiques

First novel, published in 2021 by Les Escales (English edition: The Aquatics). Winner of the Grand Prix panafricain de littérature, the prix Ahmadou-Kourouma and a prize from the Académie française, and translated into English, German and Japanese.

Read the book page →
Portrait of Osvalde Lewat, 2018
Osvalde Lewat in 2018. Photo: WZHNG2014, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Literary season 2026

Un corps indocile

Second novel, published on 20 August 2026 by Philippe Rey, and included in the first two selections for the prix Renaudot.

Read the biography →

Cinema

Ten films

From Le Calumet de l'espoir to MK: Mandela's Secret Army.

2023

MK, l'armée secrète de Mandela

The armed wing of the ANC, uMkhonto we Sizwe, created in 1961 and led by Nelson Mandela, and its forgotten fighters.

57 min
2012

Land Rush

The grabbing of farmland in Mali, made for the international series Why Poverty?, awarded a Peabody Award.

58 min
2011

Sderot, Last Exit

Portrait of Sderot, an Israeli town next to the Gaza Strip, and of its inhabitants.

80 min
2007

Une affaire de nègres

The abuses of the Commandement opérationnel, a special unit deployed in Douala in 2000, told by the victims' families. Released in French cinemas in 2009.

90 min
2007

Les Disparus de Douala

The case of the young men who disappeared in Douala and their families' struggle.

52 min
2005

Un amour pendant la guerre

Violence against women in the war in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

63 min
2003

Au-delà de la peine

A 52-minute documentary produced with the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie.

52 min
2001

Itilga

A 26-minute short film.

26 min
2001

140, rue du Bac

Short film.

2000

Le Calumet de l'espoir

First short film, shot in Canada with Indigenous communities in Ontario.

Full filmography →

Photography

Couleur nuit

Her series were born in the nights of Kinshasa and Lubumbashi.

Couleur nuit

Night-time wanderings through Congolese cities, where deliberate blur and movement let in the light of a candle, a bulb or a fishing boat.

2012 — 2015 · Kinshasa, Lubumbashi

Marges

Portraits of people living on the streets of Kinshasa, bringing the margin back to the centre and telling of the joy of living in spite of everything.

2013 — 2014 · Kinshasa
I look for lost photographs, for photographs that were never taken.

Osvalde Lewat, on her photography

Series and exhibitions →

Press

In the press

All press →