Alain Mabanckou

Alain Mabanckou is a novelist, essayist and poet, and a professor of Francophone literature at UCLA, whose books have been translated in almost twenty languages. He received the Prix Renaudot for his novel Mémoires de porc-épic (2006, translated as Memoirs of a Porcupine). He has been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize twice, in 2015 for his body of work, and in 2017 for his novel Black Moses (original title Petit Piment, 2015). Other notable works include the novels Verre cassé (Broken Glass, 2005), Black Bazaar (Black Bazar, 2009), Les cigognes sont immortelles (2018, The Death of Comrade President), his memoir Lumières de Pointe-Noire (2013, The Light of Pointe-Noire) and his collected columns and essays Le sanglot de ‘l homme noir (2012, The Tears of the Black Man). Huit leçons sur l’Afrique contains Mabanckou’s lectures for the Collège de France in 2016, when he held the Chair for Artistic Creation.

foto: Nico Therin