Houseboy is a novel in the form of a diary written by Ferdinand Oyono, first published in 1956 in French as Une vie de boy (Paris: René Julliard)[1] and translated into English in 1966 by John Reed for Heinemann's African Writers Series.

[2] The novel starts in Spanish Guinea with a Frenchman on vacation, who finds a man named Toundi, who has been injured and soon dies.

The rest of the story consists of the diary (exercise book) that the Frenchman is supposedly reading.

He rejects his father's offer and after this point no longer acknowledges his birth parents.

Father Gilbert dies in a motorcycle accident a few months after meeting Toundi.

Toundi is eventually taken to live with the Commandant, the man in charge of the surrounding colony.

Sophie, the lover of the water engineer, is accused of stealing his workers' salaries with the help of Toundi.

After M. Moreau has left, Toundi escapes the hospital and heads to Spanish Guinea, where he was first introduced in the beginning of the novel.