Alain Mabanckou

Alain Mabanckou (born 24 February 1966) is a novelist, journalist, poet, and academic, a French citizen born in the Republic of the Congo, he is currently a Professor of Literature at UCLA. He is best known for his novels and non-fiction writing depicting the experience of contemporary Africa and the African diaspora in France. He is among the best known and most successful writers in the French language, and one of the best known African writers in France. In some circles in Paris he is known as "the Samuel Beckett of Africa".

Mabanckou is also controversial, and has been criticized by some African and diaspora writers for stating that Africans bear responsibility for their own misfortune. He has argued against the idea that African and Caribbean writers should focus on their local realities in order to serve and express their communities. He further contends that categories such as nation, race, and territory fall short of encapsulating reality, and urges writers to create works that deal with issues beyond these subjects.

Alain Mabanckou was born in Congo-Brazzaville in 1966. He spent his childhood in the coastal city of Pointe-Noire, where he received his baccalaureate in Letters and Philosophy at the Lycée Karl Marx. After preliminary law classes at the Marien Ngouabi University in Brazzaville, he received a scholarship to go to France at the age of 22. He already had several manuscripts to his name, mostly collections of poems, which he began publishing three years later.

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

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. 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. Verre cassé has also been the subject of several theatrical adaptations. It was published in English translation as Broken Glass in 2009. ...

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