Alain Mabanckou is a Franco-Congolese author and Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. His novels include Blue White Red, African Psycho, Broken Glass, Memoirs of a Porcupine, Black Bazaar, Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty, The Lights of Pointe-Noire, and Black Moses. He is the recipient of numerous literary prizes, such as the Grand Prix Littéraire de l'Afrique noire, Prix Renaudot, Prix Georges Brassens, and the Grand Prix de Littérature Henri Gal from the Académie Française for his life's work.Dominic Thomas is Madeleine L. Letessier Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. His books include Nation-Building, Propaganda, and Literature in Francophone Africa; Black France: Colonialism, Immigration, and Transnationalism; and Africa and France: Postcolonial Cultures, Migration, and Racism.

"Africans, Mr. Mabanckou is asking us to wake up from such dreams and do something that matters in the present rather than live in the past. It is not helping us in the least. Also, he is asking us, for God's sake, to stop blaming everything on the white man and acknowledge our share of responsibilities."—Ndeye Sene Mbaye, author of 'Under the Neem Tree'"In this slender but intellectually dense collection of 12 essays, Franco-Congolese novelist Mabanckou (Black Moses) reveals and reshapes notions of black identity, arguing that in today's global community, 'identity goes far beyond notions of territory or blood.' . . . Mabanckou's challenging perspective on African identity today is as enlightening as it is provocative."—Publishers Weekly"Africa's Samuel Beckett ... one of the continent's greatest living writers"—Guardian"Mabanckou's challenging perspective on African identity today is as enlightening as it is provocative."—Publishers Weekly

• ContentsChapter 1: The "Black" Man's Tears (Pascal Bruckner)Chapter 2: A Negro in Paris (Bernard Dadié)Chapter 3: The Spirit of the Laws (Montesquieu)Chapter 4: Murderous Identities (Amin Maalouf)Chapter 5: Road to Europe (Ferdinand Oyono)Chapter 6: How can one be Persian? (Montesquieu)Chapter 7: The Foreign Student (Philippe Labro)Chapter 8: Bound to Violence (Yambo Ouologuem)Chapter 9: The Identity Card (Jean-Marc Adiaffi)Chapter 10: Literature of the Stomach (Julien Gracq)Chapter 11: Phantom Africa (Michel Leiris)Chapter 12: The Suns of Independence (Ahmadou Kourouma)Appendix