Writing
Mabanckou dedicated himself increasingly to writing after the publication of his 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 continued to regularly publish prose as well as poetry. His African Psycho (2003) is a novel written from the point of view of Gregoire Nakobomayo, a fictional African serial killer.
Mabanckou is best known for his fiction, notably Verre cassé (Broken Glass), a comic novel centered on a Congolese former teacher and life in the bar he now frequents. [7] Verre cassé has also been the subject of several theatrical adaptations. It was published in English translation as Broken Glass in 2009.
In 2006 he published Memoires de porc-épic (Memoirs of a Porcupine), which won the Prix Renaudot, one of the highest distinctions in French literature. The book is a magic realism-inspired reworking of a folk tale into a psychological portrait of Kibandi, a young Congolese man's descent into violence. [1] The folk tale is an African legend: "All human beings have an animal double. Some doubles are benign, others wicked." This adage focalizes on the value placed on twinhood in the African tradition. Just as the text uses the notion of doubles as a key idea in the development of its theme of power and sacrifice, African tribes believe twins to be harbingers of health, and prosperity in a family. However, they can also bring the opposite in disaster, and misfortune. There also exists a power dynamic between twins in that the second-born undertakes the more subservient role of guide that introduces the first born to the world. These two notions of duality and power dynamics come through in the characters, and their doubles, in the novel. The novel is narrated by one of these doubles, a porcupine, who is telling a baobab tree of the years he spent with Kibandi, his "master," establishing his subservient role. On Kibandi's tenth birthday, his father makes him drink mayamvumbi, a potion, that links Kibandi to his "harmful double," the porcupine, for life, an instance of twinhood bringing misfortune. After the two carry out a string of murders in their village, even once violating the basic principle of Congolese magic of never harming twins, given their sacred place in tradition, Kibandi dies and the porcupine remains alive, and turns to the baobab to tell his story. During his confessions, the porcupine makes frequent, often poignant remarks on humanity, such as the endangering relationship between humans and animals and the sometimes exploitative role of ethnographers, all while staying true to authentic African traditions of storytelling, and twinhood.
In 2007, Mabanckou's early poetry was re-published by Points-Seuil under the title Tant que les arbres s'enracineront dans la terre, as well as a biography of James Baldwin, Lettre à Jimmy (Fayard), on the 20th anniversary of Baldwin's death. [1]
Mabanckou's 2009 novel, Black Bazar, is a dark comic story set in Jip's, a Paris Afro-Cuban bar once frequented by Mabanckou, portraying the lives of characters from the various African diasporas of France. [2]
Mabanckou's work has been translated and published in 15 languages, [2] including several books in English.
