Alain Mabanckou was born in 1966 in Congo-Brazzaville (French Congo). He currently resides in Los Angeles, where he teaches literature at UCLA, having previously spent four years at the University of Michigan. Mabanckou will be a Fellow in the Humanities Council at Princeton University in 2007-2008. One of Francophone Africa’s most prolific contemporary writers, he is the author of six volumes of poetry and six novels. He received the Sub-Saharan Africa Literary Prize in 1999 for his first novel, Blue-White-Red, the Prize of the Five Francophone Continents for Broken Glass, and the Prix Renaudot in 2006 for Memoirs of a Porcupine. He was selected by the French publishing trade journal Lire as one of the fifty writers to watch out for in the coming century. His most recent book is African Psycho.
Books in order of publication (In English and French):
1998: Bleu-Blanc-Rouge (Présence Africaine). Blue, White Red, trans. Alison Dundy (Indiana University Press, 2013)
2001: Et Dieu seul sait comment je dors (Présence Africaine)
2002: Les Petits-fils nègres de Vercingétorix (Le Serpent à Plumes). The Negro Grandsons of Vercingetorix, trans. Bill Johnston (Indiana University Press, 2019)
2003: African Psycho (Le Serpent à Plumes). African Psycho, trans. Christine Schwartz Hartley (New York: Soft Skull, 2007; London: Serpent’s Tail, 2009)
2005: Verre cassé (Seuil). Broken Glass, trans. Helen Stevenson (London: Serpent’s Tail, 2009)
2006: Mémoires de porc-épic (Seuil). Memoirs of a Porcupine, trans. Helen Stevenson (London: Serpent’s Tail, 2011)
2009: Black Bazar (Seuil). Black Bazaar, trans. Sarah Ardizzone (London: Serpent’s Tail, 2012)
2010: Demain j’aurai vingt ans (Gallimard). Tomorrow I’ll Be Twenty, trans. Helen Stevenson (London: Serpent’s Tail, 2013)
2012: Tais-toi et meurs (La Branche).
2013: Lumières de Pointe-Noire (Seuil). The Lights of Pointe-Noire, trans. Helen Stevenson (London: Serpent’s Tail, 2015; New York: The New Press, 2016)
2015: Petit Piment (Seuil). Black Moses, trans. Helen Stevenson (London: Serpent’s Tail / New York: The New Press, 2017)
2018: Les Cigognes sont immortelles (Seuil). The Death of Comrade President, trans. Helen Stevenson (London: Serpent’s Tail / New York: The New Press, 2020)
2022: Le Commerce des Allongés (Seuil)
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