Alain Mabanckou:
Astride the Black World
Ramonu Sanusi
He was going to be a lawyer. Destiny decreed literature, and Alain Mabanckou became a writer. Not just any writer; a writer’s writer. With his six novels, a volume of poetry, a collection of essays, a goatskin bag full of international literary prizes, the most significant of which is the Prix Renaudot, second only to the Goncourt in the pecking order of literary prizes in France, Mabanckou has indeed become one of Africa’s most famous and successful writers of the new generation. As Pius Adesanmi describes him memorably on one occasion, Mabanckou is “undoubtedly Francophone Africa’s response to Chimamanda Adichie, Chris Abani, and Moses Isegawa combined”. This is no hyperbole. Alain Mabanckou’s name has not only become a password in literary circles, it has also traversed many frontiers due to his wide readership and the popular academic reception of his work – especially in the area of Francophone African literature. His novels are the subject of countless articles, interviews, essays, theses, and dissertations. A number of novels are available in English translation and enjoy wide patronage.
Alain Mabanckou
Born on February 24, 1966 in Congo-Brazzaville, Mabanckou is one of the most formidable novelists in the ranks of “the children of the postcolony”, to borrow an expression made famous by Abdourahman Ali Waberi, when he used it to describe himself and the expansive clan of Francophone African writers – based mostly in France – who were born after 1960, the emblematic year of political independence. Mabanckou spent his childhood in Pointe-Noire. After his secondary education, he pursued his studies in law at the Université de Brazzaville. He later moved to France where he obtained his DEA in law and business from the Université de Paris-Dauphine (Paris IX).
Mabanckou gave his first notice to the literary world with a collection of poetry, L’Usure des lendemains, which won the Prix Jean-Christophe de la Société des Poètes Français in 1995. In 1998, he published his first novel, Bleu-Blanc-Rouge, which won the Grand Prix Littéraire d’Afrique Noire (Francophone Africa’s equivalent of the NOMA) in the same year. Bleu-Blanc-Rouge remains one of his most widely read and critiqued novels to date. In 2002, Mabanckou moved to the United States as a Visiting Distinguished Artist at the University of Michigan, Ann-Arbor for one year. He was later offered a position to teach Francophone African and Afro-American literatures in the same school, a post he held for four years before eventually moving to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2006, to teach in the Department of Francophone and Comparative Literatures. Mabanckou is a fellow of the Humanities Council and the French and Italian Department at Princeton University. His other published works include Mémoires de porc-épic, which won the prestigious “Prix Renaudot,” the “Prix Aliénor d’Aquitaine,” and “Prix de la Rentrée littéraire,” in 2006. Verre cassé fetched him the following prizes: “Prix Ouest-France/Etonnants Voyageurs,” “Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie,” and “Prix RFO du livre,” all in 2005. His other novels include: African Psycho, (2003), Les petits-fils nègres de Vercingétorix, (2003), Et Dieu seul sait comment je dors, (2001).