Alain Mabanckou – novelist, journalist, poet and academic hailing from Brazzaville in the Congo – recently attended the 2015 Open Book Festival where he participated in numerous panel discussions and exciting debates around world literature.
In one of these sessions, entitled James Baldwin, Mabanckou spoke about his book Letter to Jimmy – a tribute to the late great American writer and Mabanckou’s literary hero.
In another session Mabanckou spoke about the concept of “home”, what it means to be a writer living in different countries, and about feeling like a foreigner when he returned to the Congo.
Mabanckou was nominated for the 2015 Man Booker International Prize. His memoir, The Lights of Pointe-Noire tells the story of his last visit to Congo-Brazzaville.
Serpent’s Tail has shared an extract from The Lights of Pointe-Noire:
The taxi drops me outside Chez Gaspard. I almost turn back: it’s a rough-and-ready restaurant in the Grand Marché district, and it’s full and very noisy. A few customers have been waiting patiently for a while at the door. I’m surprised to see a guy sitting alone, thin as a rake, nod his head at me to come on over. Seeing me standing there, unmoving, undecided, he yells in a powerful voice:
‘Come on! Be my guest!’
I go over to the stranger and sit down opposite him.
‘I know you’re thinking we don’t know each other. But I know you! You’re a writer, I’ve seen you sometimes on the TV! All these people sitting eating here are ignoramuses, they don’t know who you are! But you’re looking at someone who actually follows the news!’
‘Maybe you were expecting someone who…’
‘I belong here, I invite who I like. Two days ago I had lunch with a white journalist, yesterday with a colonel in the army, and this evening I’m with a writer! A word of advice: don’t have the boar today, I’ve been told it’s not fresh…’
He waves a hand in the direction of the waitress. She brings us two Primus beers and takes the tops off, her face expressionless, as though put out by the presence of this stranger. She goes back to the counter while my host eyes up her rear:
‘I’ve got the file on that girl, and it’s closed. She can sulk at me if she likes, I’ve already slept with her… Did you see the arse on her?’
I look round and nod.
‘This country’s changed, my writer friend…’
The stranger notices me looking at the scar that cuts his face in two, and touches it with his hand.
‘Yes, I know, it comes from the war, the oil, I mean…’
He looks over at the customers sitting behind us, then at those sitting opposite us, to make sure they’re not listening, then goes on:
‘God gave us oil, even though we’re only a little country with less than three million people. Why did he put all the oil in the south, instead of giving a bit to the north, so everyone would at least have a slice of the cake and we could stop fighting each other? But you know, I’m not complaining; when I think of some countries and the mess they’re in and they don’t have a single drop of oil, in the ground or out at sea!’
He raises his glass, empties it in one, and fills it again:
‘Oil equals power! Where there’s a war, there’s oil. Otherwise, tell me this, why don’t countries fight over water? Imagine a country without water, would its people survive? Oil has screwed everything up between the north and the south. And like the fuckwits we are, we’ve had a civil war over it!’
Book details
- The Lights of Pointe-Noire by Alain Mabanckou
EAN: 9781846689802
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
- Letter to Jimmy by Alain Mabanckou
EAN: 9781593766016
Find this book with BOOK Finder!