Synopses & Reviews
All human beings, says an African legend, have an animal double. Some doubles are benign, others wicked. This legend comes to life in Alain Mabanckous outlandish, surreal, and charmingly nonchalant
Memoirs of a Porcupine.
When Kibandi, a boy living in a Congolese village, reaches the age of 11, his father takes him out into the night and forces him to drink a vile liquid from a jar that has been hidden for years in the earth. This is his initiation. From now on, he and his double, a porcupine, become accomplices in murder. They attack neighbors, fellow villagers, and people who simply cross their path, for reasons so slight that it is virtually impossible to establish connection between the killings. As he grows older, Kibandi relies on his double to act out his grizzly compulsions, until one day even the porcupine balks and turns instead to literary confession.
Winner of the Prix Renaudot, Frances equal to the National Book Award, Alain Mabanckou is considered one of the most talented writers today. He was selected by the French journal Lire as one of fifty writers to watch this coming century. And as Peter Carey suggests, he positions himself at the margins, tapping the tradition founded by Celine, Genet, and other subversive writers.” In this superb and striking story, Mabanckou brings new power to magical realism, and is sure to excite American audiences nationwide.
Review
Praise for Memoirs of a Porcupine
Award-winning writer Mabanckou blends the surreal with some sour comic observation, and the dual perspective creates a sharp narrative.” Booklist
"[Mabanckou] has come to be known as Africas Samuel Beckett . . . Mabanckous freewheeling prose marries classical French elegance with Paris slang and a Congolese beat . . . The novel draws on oral lore and parables in its sly critique of those who use traditional beliefs as a pretext for violence." The Economist
About the Author
Alain Mabanckou was born in 1966 in the Congo. He currently lives in Los Angeles, where he teaches literature at UCLA. The author of several novels as well as six books of poetry, he received the Subsaharan African Literature Prize for Blue-White-Red and the Prix Renaudot for Memoirs of a Porcupine.