Global African Voices – serie

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 to dream of following in Moki's footsteps. Together, the two take wing for Paris, where Massala-Massala finds himself a part of an underworld of out-of-work undocumented immigrants. After a botched attempt to sell metro passes purchased with a stolen checkbook, he winds up in jail and is deported. Blue White Red is a novel of postcolonial Africa where young people born into poverty dream of making it big in the cities of their former colonial masters. Alain Mabanckou's searing commentary on the lives of Africans in France is cut with the parody of African villagers who boast of a son in the country of Digol.

Under the pseudonym Eza Boto, Mongo Beti wrote Ville cruelle (Cruel City) in 1954 before he came to the world's attention with the publication of Le pauvre Christ de Bomba (The Poor Christ of Bomba). Cruel City tells the story of a young man's attempt to cope with capitalism and the rapid urbanization of his country. Banda, the protagonist, sets off to sell the year's cocoa harvest to earn the bride price for the woman he has chosen to wed. Due to a series of misfortunes, Banda loses both his crop and his bride to be. Making his way to the city, Banda is witness to a changing Africa, and as his journey progresses, the novel mirrors these changes in its style and language. Published here with the author's essay "Romancing Africa," the novel signifies a pivotal moment in African literature, a deliberate challenge to colonialism, and a new kind of African writing.

Mahlet, a young Ethiopian girl with a gift for storytelling, has a special bond with Yacob, the oldest in her household. When Yacob tells her stories of how he and the other warriors fought in the resistance against the Italian occupation of Ethiopia, Mahlet vows to become the keeper and teller of her family's stories. From the time of Menelik to the present, Mahlet's long voyage through time and space links thousands of stories between Africa and Europe. Intensely personal, this powerful and beautifully narrated novel tells the story of the Italian occupation of Ethiopia as well as of others around the globe who have suffered under colonialism or have been forcibly exiled from their homelands.

Mahlet, a young Ethiopian girl with a gift for storytelling, has a special bond with Yacob, the oldest in her household. When Yacob tells her stories of how he and the other warriors fought in the resistance against the Italian occupation of Ethiopia, Mahlet vows to become the keeper and teller of her family's stories. From the time of Menelik to the present, Mahlet's long voyage through time and space links thousands of stories between Africa and Europe. Intensely personal, this powerful and beautifully narrated novel tells the story of the Italian occupation of Ethiopia as well as of others around the globe who have suffered under colonialism or have been forcibly exiled from their homelands.

Set in a fictitious African nation, this novel by the distinguished writer Sony Labou Tansi takes aim at the corruption, degeneracy, violence, and repression of political life in Africa. At the heart of The Shameful State is the story of Colonel Martillimi Lopez, the nation's president, whose eccentricity and whims epitomize the "shameful situation in which humanity has elected to live." Lopez stages a series of grotesque and barbaric events while his nation falls apart. Unable to resist the dictator's will, his desperate citizens are left with nothing but humiliation. The evocation of this deranged world is a showcase for the linguistic and stylistic inventiveness that are the hallmark of Sony Labou Tansi's work. This first English translation by Dominic Thomas includes a foreword by Congolese writer Alain Mabanckou that contextualizes the novel's importance in literary history and the significance of Sony Labou Tansi for future generations of writers.

This dark and suspenseful novel tells the story of a fictitious West African country caught in the grip of civil war. The dispassionate and deadpan narrator, Asante Kroma, is a former head of Secret Services and finds himself living with the corpse of the dictator, a man who once ruled his nation with an iron fist. Through a series of flashbacks and letters penned by the dictator, N'Zo Nikiema, readers discover the role of the French shadow leader, Pierre Castaneda, whose ongoing ambition to exploit the natural resources of the country knows no limits. As these powerful men use others as pawns in a violent real-life chess match, it is the murder of six-year-old Kaveena and her mother's quest for vengeance that brings about a surprise reckoning.

This dark and suspenseful novel tells the story of a fictitious West African country caught in the grip of civil war. The dispassionate and deadpan narrator, Asante Kroma, is a former head of Secret Services and finds himself living with the corpse of the dictator, a man who once ruled his nation with an iron fist. Through a series of flashbacks and letters penned by the dictator, N'Zo Nikiema, readers discover the role of the French shadow leader, Pierre Castaneda, whose ongoing ambition to exploit the natural resources of the country knows no limits. As these powerful men use others as pawns in a violent real-life chess match, it is the murder of six-year-old Kaveena and her mother's quest for vengeance that brings about a surprise reckoning.

A nameless young man lives in the housing projects outside of Paris. When he was a child, his parents moved with him from the Congo to France, hoping in vain to escape poverty and violence. His best friend, Drissa, is in a psychiatric hospital and now Mireille, his girlfriend, the woman with whom he has shared his childhood and hopes, has left him to reconnect with her Jewish roots in Israel. During a night out to drown the pain of his heartache, there is a fight with a policeman, the policeman dies, and the young man is arrested and taken to jail. Between police beatings and abrupt interrogations, his memory becomes his sole ally to escape from the exiguous space in which he is confined. Half-conscious and delirious, he reflects on his journey from the land of his ancestors to his life in the projects with Drissa and Mireille. In The Heart of the Leopard Children, N'Sondé explores the themes of love and pain, belonging and uprooting, desire and fear—all with an implacable and irresistible accuracy. Wilfried N'Sondé's first novel awakens the reader with an urban symphony of desire and lost love, attuned to the violence that accompanies the struggle for social ascension and a sense of belonging, and the paralyzing sentiment of betrayal that inhabits a young man caught between traditions and cultures. Awarded the Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie and the Prix Senghor for the originality of his work, the author captures the sounds, rhythms and pleas of a young man who pulls on the alarm from his prison cell to warn against the multiple barriers of confinement that risk the future of certain sectors of French youth today.

In 1994, the akazu, Rwandan's political elite, planned the genocidal mass slaughter of 500,000 to 1,000,000 Tutsi and Hutu who lived in the country. Given the failure of the international community to acknowledge the genocide, in 1998, ten African authors visited Rwanda in a writing initiative that was an attempt to make partial amends. In this multidimensional novel, Abdourahman A. Waberi claims, "Language remains inadequate in accounting for the world and all its turpitudes, words can never be more than unstable crutches, staggering along . . . And yet, if we want to hold on to a glimmer of hope in the world, the only miraculous weapons we have at our disposal are these same clumsy supports." Shaped by the author's own experiences in Rwanda and by the stories shared by survivors, Harvest of Skulls stands twenty years after the genocide as an indisputable resource for discussions on testimony and witnessing, the complex relationship between victims and perpetrators, the power of the moral imagination, and how survivors can rebuild a society haunted by the ghost of its history.

Jazz, aliens, and witchcraft collide in this collection of short stories by renowned author Emmanuel Dongala. The influence of Kongo culture is tangible throughout, as customary beliefs clash with party conceptions of scientific and rational thought. In the first half of Jazz and Palm Wine, the characters emerge victorious from decades of colonial exploitation in the Congo only to confront the burdensome bureaucracy, oppressive legal systems, and corrupt governments of the post-colonial era. The ruling political party attempts to impose order and scientific thinking while the people struggles to deal with drought, infertility, and impossible regulations and policies; both sides mix witchcraft, diplomacy, and violence in their efforts to survive. The second half of the book is set in the United States during the turbulent civil rights struggles of the 1960s. In the title story, African and American leaders come together to save the world from extraterrestrials by serving vast quantities of palm wine and playing American jazz. The stories in Jazz and Palm Wine prompt conversations about identity, race, and co-existence, providing contextualization and a historical dimension that is often sorely lacking. Through these collisions and clashes, Dongala suggests a pathway to racial harmony, peaceful co-existence, and individual liberty through artistic creation.

What are the limits of empathy and forgiveness? How can someone with a shameful past find a new path that allows for both healing and reckoning? When Clovis and Christelle find themselves face-to-face on a train heading to the outskirts of Paris, their unexpected encounter propels them on a cathartic journey toward understanding the other, mediated by their respective histories of violence. Clovis, a young undocumented African, struggles with the pain and shame of his brutal childhood, abusive exploits as a child soldier, and road to exile. Christelle, a young French nurse, has her own dark experiences but translates her suffering into an unusual capacity for empathy, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Christelle opens her home and heart to Clovis and presses him to tell his story. But how will she react to that story? Will the telling start Clovis on a path to redemption or alienate him further from French society? Wilfried N'Sondé's brave novel confronts French attitudes toward immigrants, pushes moral imagination to its limits, and constructs a world where the past must be confronted in order to map the future.

To the sound of machine gun fire and the smell of burning flesh, award-winning author In Koli Jean Bofane leads readers on a perilous, satirical journey through the civil conflict and political instability that have been the logical outcome of generations of rapacious multinational corporate activity, corrupt governance, widespread civil conflict, human rights abuses, and environmental degradation in Africa. Isookanga, a Congolese Pygmy, grows up in a small village with big dreams of becoming rich. His vision of the world is shaped by his exploits in Raging Trade, an online game where he seizes control of the world's natural resources by any means possible: high-tech weaponry, slavery, and even genocide. Isookanga leaves his sleepy village to make his fortune in the pulsating capital Kinshasa, where he joins forces with street children, warlords, and a Chinese victim of globalization in this blistering novel about capitalism, colonialism, and the world haunted by the ghosts of Bismarck and Leopold II. Told with just enough levity to make it truly heartbreaking, Congo Inc. is a searing tale about ecological, political, and economic failure.

Behind the bars on her window, Rosa Maria dreams of sunshine, love, calm, and leaving the city where she lives with her family. She suffers her father's beatings, hides her femininity behind shapeless clothing, and pines for the beautiful Jason as she awaits her opportunity to flee. Meanwhile, her older brother is found dead in a nearby parking lot, and the neighborhood explodes in a riot against the police. Rosa Maria resolves to act before she is devoured by family intrigues and despair. Wilfried N'Sondé's powerful voice creates a palpable sense of the absence of hope and the social and racial isolation that pervade the Paris projects, even as he never abandons the expansive capacity of individuals to dream of better lives beyond a seemingly hopeless reality.

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 the injustices and prejudice still facing blacks, he distances himself from resentment and victimhood, arguing that focusing too intensely on the crimes of the past is limiting. Instead, it is time to ask: Now what? Embracing the challenges faced by ethnic minority communities today, The Tears of the Black Man looks to the future, choosing to believe that the history of Africa has yet to be written and seeking a path toward affirmation and reconciliation.

Set in the imaginary African Republic of Vietongo, The Negro Grandsons of Vercingetorix begins when conflict breaks out between rival leaders and the regional ethnic groups they represent. Events recorded in a series of notebooks under the watchful eye of Hortense Lloki show how civil war culminates in a series of outlandish actions perpetrated by the warring parties' private militias—the Anacondas and the Romans from the North who have seized power against Vercingetorix (named after none other than the legendary Gallic warrior who fought against Caesar's army) and his Little Negro Grandsons in the South who are eager to regain control. Award-winning author Alain Mabanckou is at his satiric best in this novel that catalogues the pain and suffering caused by the ravages of civil war. Translated into English for the first time, this novel provides a gritty slice of life in an active war zone.

My Kingdom for a Guitar is a novel based on the remarkable life of Cameroonian-born writer and musician Francis Bebey. Born in Douala, Cameroon, Bebey studied in Paris and New York. He found fame when his first novel, Le Fils d'Agatha Moudio (Agatha Moudio's Son), was published in 1967, and that fame continued to grow with the release of his first album in 1969. He would go on to become one of the best-known singer-songwriters of Africa, whose groundbreaking style merged Cameroonian makossa with classical guitar, jazz, and pop. Narrated by Bebey's daughter, Kidi, My Kingdom for a Guitar is a tribute to her late father and his family. Through a combination of recollections and fiction, it offers the reader a chance to witness the admiration of a daughter for her father and the love of a man for his music.

One morning the beautiful Ichrak is found murdered in a street in Casablanca. All the men feared her as much as they desired her . . . . In a city buffeted by the Chergui, a violent wind emanating from the Sahara, the investigation becomes a prism through which a group portrait of a working-class district emerges.In Casablanca Story, In Koli Jean Bofane trains his razor-sharp observations of a bitter reality and his mordant humor on corruption among the powerful, shady property deals, and the vulnerable situation of migrants and male sexual desire, and he succeeds in transforming a desperate contemporary reality into engrossing and entertaining fiction.Following on from Congo Inc., In Koli Jean Bofane shifts his geographical focus to outline a vision that encompasses both north and sub-Saharan Africans: Africa is moving forward and is the equal of the other continents or, to put it another way, Africa is no better than they are.Casablanca Story was named in the Brittle Paper 100 Notable African Books of 2022 list.

"My mother says that there are things in life that she can't forgive . . ."At age 16, Dipita's mother, Mbila, arrived in Switzerland from Cameroon. Trafficked into Europe, she supported herself and her son as a prostitute in Geneva. Dipita, now a young, black, gay man serving a five-year sentence in a Swiss prison, shares their story and his own search for purpose. He intertwines their stories with the life of Uncle Démoney, a former civil servant in Cameroon, who staked everything on sending his sister to Switzerland.39 Berne Street explores the complex themes of prostitution, immigration, and homosexuality through a fluid and expressive prose that makes it ring true. Originally published in French, it won the Prix du Roman des Romands in 2014.Max Lobe's 39 Berne Street vividly describes the unforgivable actions visited by family members upon family members in desperate bids for survival and contentment in the midst of Dipita's struggle toward forgiveness and acceptance.

From an early age, Yabar listened to Aunt Rosa's story of the commander of the river. Somali legend tells of how two wise men were entrusted with creating a river, because their country had none and had no drinking water. But when crocodiles found their way into the water, the people elected a commander of the river to control the beasts and allow access to the water. To know Good, you must live with necessary Evil. After his father abandoned him, Yabar sets out on a journey to discover what became of him. Sent from his home in Rome to his aunt's house in London, Yabar will discover a terrible family secret, which he may want to forget.Commander of the River is a timeless and compelling coming-of-age story set in contemporary Italy. The second novel by acclaimed Somali Italian writer Ubah Cristina Ali Farah, it explores themes of racism, trauma, adolescent angst, and the rebellious torments of the young.

From an early age, Yabar listened to Aunt Rosa's story of the commander of the river. Somali legend tells of how two wise men were entrusted with creating a river, because their country had none and had no drinking water. But when crocodiles found their way into the water, the people elected a commander of the river to control the beasts and allow access to the water. To know Good, you must live with necessary Evil. After his father abandoned him, Yabar sets out on a journey to discover what became of him. Sent from his home in Rome to his aunt's house in London, Yabar will discover a terrible family secret, which he may want to forget.Commander of the River is a timeless and compelling coming-of-age story set in contemporary Italy. The second novel by acclaimed Somali Italian writer Ubah Cristina Ali Farah, it explores themes of racism, trauma, adolescent angst, and the rebellious torments of the young.

In Senegal, three modest families share a courtyard. This common space is a small paradise where they meet to cook, dine, talk, evoke memories, and grow together. At one Sunday family gathering, the usual post-meal conversation turns tense when Sada's adolescent son, Dieìry, asks why his father was so friendly with a government official at a televised ribbon-cutting the day before. The conversation quickly devolves into one about respect and duty.In Empire of Illusion, legendary Senegalese novelist Aminata Sow Fall, explores the powerful themes of family, respect, and ethics. What respect does a son owe his father—and vice versa? How does a family maintain a balance of debate and respect? How does a person maintain self-respect when forced to swim in ethically muddy waters? Aminata Sow Fall, the matriarch of Senegalese social-realist fiction delivers yet another trenchant examination of her society, and of the universal challenge of finding, keeping, and giving respect to oneself and others.