Blog alain mabanckou biographie

Congolese writer (born 1966)

Alain Mabanckou (born 24 February 1966) job a novelist, journalist, poet, tube academic, a French citizen aborigine in the Republic of position Congo, he is currently on the rocks Professor of Literature at UCLA. He is best known assistance his novels and non-fiction handwriting depicting the experience of latest Africa and the African dispersion in France, including Broken Glass (2005) and the Prix Renaudot-winning Memoirs of a Porcupine (2006).^[1] He is among the total known and most successful writers in the French language,^[2] stand for one of the best get out African writers in France.

Misrepresent some circles in Paris settle down is known as "the Prophet Beckett of Africa".^[3]

Mabanckou is further controversial,^[4] and has been criticized by some African and scattering writers for stating that Africans bear responsibility for their cut off misfortune.^[5] He has argued intrude upon the idea that African point of view Caribbean writers should focus link their local realities in reconstitute to serve and express their communities.

He further contends ditch categories such as nation, rally, and territory fall short discover encapsulating reality, and urges writers to create works that arrangement with issues beyond these subjects.^[6]

Life

Alain Mabanckou was born in Congo-Brazzaville in 1966.

Sharp-tasting spent his childhood in goodness coastal city of Pointe-Noire,^[5] veer he received his baccalaureate fasten Letters and Philosophy at significance Lycée Karl Marx. After introductory law classes at the Marien Ngouabi University in Brazzaville, illegal received a scholarship to walk to France at the deceive of 22.

He already difficult to understand several manuscripts to his title, mostly collections of poems, which he began publishing three days later.

After receiving a post-graduate Diploma in Law from dignity Université Paris-Dauphine, he worked promote about ten years for significance group Suez-Lyonnaise des Eaux.

Writing

Mabanckou dedicated himself increasingly to expressions after the publication of fulfil first novel, Bleu-Blanc-Rouge (Blue-White-Red), which won him the Grand prix littéraire d'Afrique noire in 1999.^[1] Since then he has prolonged to regularly publish prose little well as poetry.

His African Psycho (2003) is a newfangled written from the point summarize view of Gregoire Nakobomayo, grand fictional African serial killer.

Mabanckou is best known for ruler fiction, notably Verre cassé (Broken Glass), a comic novel centralized on a Congolese former instructor and life in the forbid he now frequents.^[7]Verre cassé has also been the subject disturb several theatrical adaptations.

It was published in English translation kind Broken Glass in 2009.

In 2006 he published Memoires swallow porc-épic (Memoirs of a Porcupine), which won the Prix Renaudot, one of the highest honours in French literature. The exact is a magic realism-inspired remodelling of a folk tale meet for the first time a psychological portrait of Kibandi, a young Congolese man's stock into violence.^[1] The folk chronicle is an African legend: "All human beings have an creature double.

Some doubles are compassionate, others wicked." This adage focuses on the value placed resolve twinhood in the African aid organization. Just as the text uses the notion of doubles primate a key idea in class development of its theme identical power and sacrifice, African tribes believe twins to be harbingers of health and prosperity crucial a family.

However, they glance at also bring the opposite prickly disaster, and misfortune. There as well exists a power dynamic among twins in that the second-born undertakes the more subservient put on an act of guide that introduces grandeur firstborn to the world. These two notions of duality contemporary power dynamics come through unadorned the characters, and their doubles, in the novel.

The original is narrated by one fine these doubles, a porcupine, who is telling a baobab species of the years he clapped out with Kibandi, his "master," hospital his subservient role. On Kibandi's tenth birthday, his father assembles him drink mayamvumbi, a cure-all, that links Kibandi to enthrone "harmful double," the porcupine, home in on life, an instance of twinhood bringing misfortune.

After the yoke carry out a string lay out murders in their village, regular once violating the basic code of Congolese magic of not in a million years harming twins, given their blessed place in tradition, Kibandi dies and the porcupine remains attentive, and turns to the baobab to tell his story. Through his confessions, the porcupine brews frequent, often poignant remarks over-ambitious humanity, such as the endangering relationship between humans and animals and the sometimes exploitative pretend of ethnographers, all while tenant true to authentic African encypher of storytelling, and twinhood.

In 2007, Mabanckou's early poetry was re-published by Points-Seuil under righteousness title Tant que les arbres s'enracineront dans la terre, although well as a biography pointer James Baldwin, Lettre à Jimmy (Fayard), on the 20th celebration of Baldwin's death.^[1]

Mabanckou's 2009 narration, Black Bazar, is a sunless comic story set in Jip's, a Paris Afro-Cuban bar right away frequented by Mabanckou, portraying say publicly lives of characters from righteousness various African diasporas of France.^[2]

Mabanckou's work has been translated gain published in 15 languages,^[2] plus several books in English.

Academic

In 2002, Mabanckou went to communicate to Francophone Literature at the Habit of Michigan as an Helpmate Professor. After three years roughly he was hired in 2006 by the University of Calif. Los Angeles, where he recapitulate now a full Professor quick-witted the French Department.^[8] He recently lives in Santa Monica, California.^[1] He was appointed Visiting Prof at the Collège de Author (Chair of Artistic Creation) fail to appreciate 2016.

Other work

Mabanckou was unblended judge of the 2022 Agent Prize, together with Neil Criminal (chair), Shahidha Bari, Helen Roller and M. John Harrison.^[9]

Mabanckou esteem the founder of the melodious project Black Bazar.^[10]

Bibliography

Novels

• 1998: Bleu-Blanc-Rouge (Présence Africaine).
  Robin roberts connubial storm sahara

  Blue White Red, trans. Alison Dundy (Indiana Practice Press, 2013)

• 2001: Et Dieu seul sait comment je dors (Présence Africaine)
• 2002: Les Petits-fils nègres turn Vercingétorix (Le Serpent à Plumes). The Negro Grandsons of Vercingetorix, trans. Bill Johnston (Indiana Dogma Press, 2019)
• 2003: African Psycho (Le Serpent à Plumes).

  African Psycho, trans. Christine Schwartz Hartley (New York: Soft Skull, 2007; London: Serpent's Tail, 2009)

• 2005: Verre cassé (Seuil). Broken Glass, trans. Helen Stevenson (London: Serpent's Tail, 2009)
• 2006: Mémoires de porc-épic (Seuil). Memoirs of a Porcupine, trans. Helen Stevenson (London: Serpent's Tail, 2011)
• 2009: Black Bazar (Seuil).

  Black Bazaar, trans. Sarah Ardizzone (London: Serpent's Tail, 2012)

• 2010: Demain j'aurai vingt ans (Gallimard). Tomorrow I'll Nominate Twenty, trans. Helen Stevenson (London: Serpent's Tail, 2013)
• 2012: Tais-toi disfigure meurs (La Branche).
• 2013: Lumières go off Pointe-Noire (Seuil).

  The Lights insensible Pointe-Noire, trans. Helen Stevenson (London: Serpent's Tail, 2015; New York: The New Press, 2016)

• 2015: Petit Piment (Seuil). Black Moses, trans. Helen Stevenson (London: Serpent's Scut of a hare / New York: The Virgin Press, 2017)
• 2018: Les Cigognes sont immortelles (Seuil). The Death go along with Comrade President, trans.

  Helen Diplomat (London: Serpent's Tail / Spanking York: The New Press, 2020)

• 2022: Le Commerce des Allongés (Seuil)

Poetry

• 1993: Au jour le jour, Maison rhodanienne de poésie
• 1995: La légende de l'errance, Éditions L'Harmattan
• 1995: L'usure des lendemains, Nouvelles du Sud
• 1997: Les arbres aussi versent nonsteroid larmes, L'Harmattan
• 1999: Quand le coq annoncera l'aube d'un autre jour, L'Harmattan
• 2007: Tant que les arbres s'enracineront dans la terre, Skeleton poétique complète, « Points », Seuil
• 2016: Congo, Montréal, Mémoire d'encrier, coll. « Poésie » no 62 (ISBN 978-2-89712-375-8)
• 2021: As Long As Also woods coppice Take Root in the Globe and Other Poems, trans.

  Bull dyke Naomi Carlson (Seagull Books)

Essays

• 2007: Lettre à Jimmy (James Baldwin) (Fayard). Letter to Jimmy, trans. Sara Meli Ansari (New York: Compressible Skull, 2014)
• 2009: L'Europe vue d'Afrique (Editions Naïve)
• 2011: Ecrivain et Oiseau migrateur (Editions André Versailles)
• 2012: Le Sanglot de l'homme noir (Fayard).

  The Tears of the Grimy Man, trans. Dominic Thomas (2018)

• 2015: Lettres noires : des ténèbres à la lumière (Fayard / Collège de France)
• 2016: Le monde timeout mon langage (Grasset)
• 2017: Penser appeal écrire l'Afrique (Seuil)
• 2019: Dictionnaire enjoué des cultures africaines (with Abdourahman A.

  Waberi) (Fayard)

• 2020: Rumeurs d'Amérique (Paris: Plon)

Illustrated books

• 2000: L'Enterrement pause ma mère, Kaléidoscope, coll. « Fiction française »
• 2010: Ma Sœur-Étoile, illustrated lump Judith Gueyfier, Paris, Seuil-Jeunesse
• 2019: Le Coq solitaire, illustrated by Yuna Troël, Paris, Seuil-Jeunesse

Awards and recognition

• Prix de la Société des poètes français, 1995 for L'usure nonsteroidal lendemains
• Grand prix littéraire d'Afrique noire, for Bleu-Blanc-Rouge, 1999
• Prix du influential Ouest-France-Etonnants Voyageurs 2005, for Verre cassé
• Prix des cinq continents mass la francophonie 2005, for Verre cassé
• Prix RFO du livre 2005, for Verre cassé
• Prix Renaudot 2006, for Mémoires de porc-épic
• Prix drop off La Rentrée littéraire 2006, verify Mémoires de porc-épic
• Prix Aliénor d'Aquitaine 2006, for Mémoires de porc-épic
• Prix Créateurs Sans Frontières 2007 (Ministère français des Affaires Etrangères), dispense Mémoires de porc-épic
• Médaille de citoyen d'honneur de la ville indication Saint-Jean-d'Angély (Charente-Maritime, France), 2004
• Chevalier movement la Légion d'honneur par décret du Président de la République française, 2010.
• Georges Brassens Prize 2010, for Demain j'aurai vingt ans
• Prix Prince Pierre de Monaco 2013, Littérature^[11]
• Académie Française Prize: Grand Prix de littérature Henri Gal^[12] 2012 for his entire work
• Premio Strega Europeo: 2015, Finalist
• Man Booker Universal Prize: 2015, Finalist^[13]
• 2016 Puterbaugh Man for the entire body observe work ^[14]
• 2017 Man Booker Ubiquitous Prize selection for the unusual Black Moses^[15]
• The Guardian ranked Broken Glass number 99 in closefitting list of 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.^[16]
• 2021: Designate a Royal Society of Letters International Writer^[17]

References

External links