Alain Mabanckou: 17 books

Written on the twentieth anniversary of James Baldwin’s death, Letter to Jimmy is African writer Alain Mabanckou’s ode to his literary hero and an effort to place Baldwin’s life in context within the greater African diaspora. Beginning with a chance encounter with a beggar wandering along...

All human beings, says an African legend, have an animal double. Some doubles are benign, others wicked. This legend comes to life in Alain Mabanckou’s outlandish, surreal, and charmingly nonchalant Memoirs of a Porcupine. When Kibandi, a boy living in a Congolese village, reaches the age of 11,...

Recently hailed by The New York Times as “An African Novelist Poised for Recognition in the U.S.,” Alain Mabanckou’s latest novel, Black Moses, was longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize; this renewed spotlight provides the perfect opportunity to reissue one of his most celebrated works, Broken...

A dazzling meditation on home-coming and belonging from one of “Africa’s greatest writers” and the Man Booker International Prize finalist (The Guardian). Alain Mabanckou left Congo in 1989, at the age of twenty-two, not to return until a quarter of a century later. When he finally came...

   Né au Congo, partageant son temps entre la Californie où il enseigne comme professeur de littérature à UCLA (University of California – Los Angeles), Paris où il a fini ses études, et le monde qu’il parcourt pour présenter ses livres, Alain Mabanckou est un auteur en langue française...

Né à Harlem en 1924, mort à Saint-Paul de Vence en 1987, noir, bâtard, homosexuel, écrivain, James Baldwin a combattu sans relâche la ségrégation raciale. Mais ce n'est pas à ce titre que l'admire Alain Mabanckou. Dans cette longue lettre qu'il lui adresse post-mortem, il salue en Baldwin...

In The Tears of the Black Man, award-winning author Alain Mabanckou explores what it means to be black in the world today. Mabanckou confronts the long and entangled history of Africa, France, and the United States as it has been shaped by slavery, colonialism, and their legacy today. Without ignoring...

Award-winning author: Mabanckou won the 2015 French Voices Grand Prize and was a finalist for the 2015 Man Booker International Prize. International voice: Mabanckou is regarded as Francophone Africa's leading novelist. He is a professor at UCLA and has commented in the U.S. press on issues...

Lee Child's street corner. Gary Shteyngart's bed. Joyce Carol Oates's classroom. Roxane Gay's dream house. Billy Collins's New York City. Aimee Mann and Jonathan Coulton's kitchen. Valeria Luiselli's writing desk. Sloane Crosley's conference call. Alain Mabanckou's Department of Human Resources. Jonathan...

Michel is ten years old, living in Pointe Noire, Congo, in the 1970s. His mother sells peanuts at the market, his father works at the Victory Palace Hotel, and brings home books left behind by the white guests. Planes cross the sky overhead, and Michel and his friend Loun?s dream about the countries...

This tale of wild adventure reveals the dashed hopes of Africans living between worlds. When Moki returns to his village from France wearing designer clothes and affecting all the manners of a Frenchman, Massala-Massala, who lives the life of a humble peanut farmer after giving up his studies, begins...

 Je suis noir, et forcément ça se voit. Du coup les Noirs que  je croise à Paris m’appellent « mon frère ». Le sommes nous vraiment ? Qu’ont en commun un Antillais, un  Sénégalais, et un Noir né dans le Xème arrondissement,  sinon la couleur à laquelle ils se plaignent d’être  constamment...

L’Afrique a pendant plusieurs siècles été vue, imaginée, fantasmée par les Européens comme un continent sauvage, ténébreux, matière première des récits d’aventures et d’exploration teintés d’exotisme, qui ne laissaient pourtant entendre qu’une seule voix, celle du colonisateur....

Huit écrivains portent un regard sans complaisance et totalement libre sur les Objectifs du MIllénaire pour le Développement. En septembre 2000, pour la première fois, tous les États membres des Nations unies se sont engagés à réaliser un projet commun pour s'attaguer à la fatalité...