The Death of Comrade President

The Death of Comrade President PDF

Author: Alain Mabanckou

Publisher: Serpent's Tail

Published: 2020-03-12

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 1782835407

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In Pointe-Noire, in the small neighbourhood of Voungou, on the family plot where young Michel lives with Maman Pauline and Papa Roger, life goes on. But Michel's everyday cares - lost grocery money, the whims of his parents' moods, their neighbours' squabbling, his endless daydreaming - are soon swept away by the wind of history. In March 1977, just before the arrival of the short rainy season, Comrade President Marien Ngouabi is brutally murdered in Brazzaville, and not even naïve Michel can remain untouched. Starting as a tender, wry portrait of an ordinary Congolese family, Alain Mabanckou quickly expands the scope of his story into a powerful examination of colonialism, decolonization and dead ends of the African continent. At a stroke Michel learns the realities of life - and how much must change for everything to stay the same.

The Death of Comrade President

The Death of Comrade President PDF

Author: Alain Mabanckou

Publisher: The New Press

Published: 2020-09-01

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 1620976072

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A poignant and riotous tale of family and revolution in postcolonial Africa, from the winner of the French Voices grand prize and finalist for the Man Booker International Prize Pointe-Noire, a bustling port town on Congo's southwestern coast, is host to Alain Mabanckou's astonishing cycle of novels that is already being hailed as one of the grandest, funniest fictional projects of our time. His novels have been twice short-listed for the Man Booker International Prize and have been described as "beautiful" (Salman Rushdie), "brutally satiric" (Uzodinma Iweala), containing "fireworks on every page" (Los Angeles Review of Books), and "vividly colloquial, mischievous and outrageous" (Marina Warner) . Mabanckou's riotous new novel, The Death of Comrade President, returns to the 1970s milieu of his awarding-winning novel Black Moses, telling the story of Michel, a daydreamer whose life is completely overthrown when, in March 1977, just before the arrival of the rainy season, Congo's Comrade President Marien Ngouabi is brutally murdered. Thanks to his mother's kinship with the president, not even naive Michel can remain untouched. And if he is to protect his family, Michel must learn to lie. Moving seamlessly between the small-scale worries of everyday life and the grand tragedy of postcolonial politics, Mabanckou explores the nuances of the human soul through the naive perspective of a boy who learns the realities of life—and how much must change for everything to stay the same.

Black Moses

Black Moses PDF

Author: Alain Mabanckou

Publisher: Serpent's Tail

Published: 2017-03-23

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 178283267X

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It's 1970, and in the People's Republic of Congo a Marxist-Leninist revolution is ushering in a new age. But at the orphanage on the outskirts of Pointe-Noire where young Moses has grown up, the revolution has only strengthened the reign of Dieudonn Ngoulmoumako, the orphanage's corrupt director. So Moses escapes to Pointe-Noire, where he finds a home first with a larcenous band of Congolese Merry Men and then among the Zairian prostitutes of the Trois-Cents quarter. But the authorities won't leave Moses in peace, and intervene to chase both the Merry Men and the Trois-Cents girls out of town. All this injustice pushes poor Moses over the edge. Could he really be the Robin Hood of the Congo? Or is he just losing his marbles? Vivid, exuberant and heartwarming, Black Moses is a vital new extension of Alain Mabanckou's extraordinary, interlinked body of work dedicated to his native Congo, and confirms his status as one of our great storytellers.

Comrade Pavlik

Comrade Pavlik PDF

Author: Catriona Kelly

Publisher: Granta Books

Published: 2014-04-03

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 1783780711

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It was September, 1932. Gerasimovka, Western Siberia. Two children are found dead in the forest outside a remote village. Both have been repeatedly stabbed and their bloody bodies are covered in sticky, crimson cranberry juice. Who committed these horrific murders has never been proved, but the elder boy, thirteen-year-old Pavlik Morozov, was quickly to become the most famous boy in Soviet history - statues of him were erected, biographies published, and children across the country were exhorted to emulate him. Catriona Kelly's aim is not to find out who really killed the boys, but rather to explore how Stalin's regime turned Pavlik into a hero designed to produce good Soviet citizens. Pavlik's story is intriguing and multi-layered: did he denounce his own father to the authorities? Was he murdered by members of his own family? Did he ever belong to the Pioneers, the Communist youth organization who claimed him as member No. 001? This is the first book in English on Pavlik's legend, using previously inaccessible local archives.

Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty

Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty PDF

Author: Alain Mabanckou

Publisher: Profile Books

Published: 2013-05-09

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1847657893

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Finalist for the Man Booker International Prize 2015 Michel is ten years old, living in Pointe Noire, Congo, in the 1970s. His mother sells peanuts at the market, his father works at the Victory Palace Hotel, and brings home books left behind by the white guests. Planes cross the sky overhead, and Michel and his friend Lounès dream about the countries where they'll land. While news comes over the radio of the American hostage crisis in Tehran, the death of the Shah, the scandal of the Boukassa diamonds, Michel struggles with the demands of his twelve year old girlfriend Caroline, who threatens to leave him for a bully in the football team. But most worrying for Michel, the witch doctor has told his mother that he has hidden the key to her womb, and must return it before she can have another child. Somehow he must find it. Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty is a humorous and poignant account of an African childhood, drawn from Alain Mabanckou's life.

African Psycho

African Psycho PDF

Author: Alain Mabanckou

Publisher: Serpent's Tail

Published: 2017-03-23

Total Pages: 94

ISBN-13: 1847654738

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Finalist for the Man Booker International Prize 2015 Gregoire Nakobomayo, a petty criminal, has decided to kill his girlfriend Germaine. He's planned the crime for some time, but still, the act of murder requires a bit of psychological and logistical preparation. Luckily, he has a mentor to call on, the far more accomplished serial killer Angoualima. The fact that Angoualima is dead doesn't prevent Gregoire from holding lengthy conversations with him. Little by little, Gregoire interweaves Angoualima's life and criminal exploits with his own. Continuing with the plan despite a string of botched attempts, Gregoire's final shot at offing Germaine leads to an abrupt unravelling. Lauded in France for its fresh and witty style, African Psycho's inventive use of language surprises and relieves the reader by sending up this disturbing subject.