bookshy: Translated Francophone African literature

There are some authors whose works I really must own and must read. One of them is the Aya series written by Marguerite Abouet and illustrated by Clément Oubrerie. The original six were published by Gallimard between 2005 and 2010, with English versions published by Drawn & Quarterly between 2007 and 2013. D&Q published the first three volumes, and then a reworked edition with the first three volumes in one (Life in Yop City) and another with the last three volumes (Love in Yop City). Aya tells the story of its 19-year old heroine, the studious and clear-sightd Aya, her easy-going friends Adjoua and Bintou and their meddling neighbours and relatives. In an interview on Bookslut, Marguerite says Aya is:

'autobiographical in the way that it's the Ivory Coast I know. The characters are based on my neighours. They had complicated stories and affairs with men. So the characters and places are things I know in real life. The story itself is fiction'.

On the series, Marguerite Abouet also explains:

'That's what I wanted to show in Aya: as Africa without the ... war and famine, an Africa that endures despite everything because, as we say back home, life goes on'.

Aya won the 2006 award for Best First Album at the Angouleme International Comics Festival. It also won the Children's Africana Book Award in 2008 and the Glyph Award (in 2008 for Rising Star Award, 2010 for Best Female Character and in both years for best Reprint Publication) and was adapted into an animated film.

Aya (2007)

Ivory Coast, 1978. Family and friends gather at Aya's house every evening to watch the country's first TV ad campaign promote the fortifying effects of Solibra, "the strong man's beer." It's a golden time, and the nation, too - an oasis of affluence and stability in West Africa - seems fueled by something wondrous.

Who's to know that the Ivorian miracle is nearing its end? In the sun-warmed streets of working class Yopougon, aka Yop City, holidays are around the corner, the open-air bars and discos are starting to fill up, and trouble of a different kind is about to raise eyebrows. At night, an empty table in the market square under the stars is all the privacy young lovers can hope for, and what happens there is soon everybody's business.

Aya of Yop City (2008)

This continuation of the dynamic story by Marguerite Abouet and Clement Oubrerie returns to Africa's Ivory Coast in the late 1970s, where life in Yop City is as dramatic as ever. Oubrerie's artwork synchronizes perfectly to Abouet's funny and lighthearted writing, which together create a spirited atmosphere and scenarios that, however unique to the bygone setting, remain entirely contemporary in their effect.

The original cast of characters is back in full force, with a case of questionable paternity fanning the flames of activity in the community. The new mother Adjoua has her friends to help with the baby, perhaps employing Aya a bit too frequently, while a new romance leaves Bintou with little time for her friends, let alone their responsibilities. The young women aren't the only residents of Yopougon involved in the excitement, however; Aya's father is caught in the midst of his own trysts and his employer's declining Solibra beer sales, and Adjoua's brother finds his share of the city's nightlife.

Aya: The Secrets Come Out (2009)

Secrets and desires cast long shadows in the third volume of Abouet and Oubrerie's warmly acclaimed series about life in the Ivory Coast in the 1970s. It's a world of shifting values, where issues like arranged marriage and gay love have Aya and her friends yearning to break out of the confines of their community, while the ties of friendship and support draw them back into this familiarity.

Aya: Life in Yop City (2012) Book One

This reworked edition offers readers the chance to immerse themselves in the lively world of Aya and her friends, bringing together the first three volumes of the series in Book One.

Aya: Love in Yop City (2013) Book Two

Aya: Love in Yop City comprises the final three chapters of the Aya story, episodes never before seen in English. While the stories found in Aya: Love in Yop City maintain their familiar tone, quick pace, and joyfulness, we see Aya and her friends beginning to make serious decisions about their future. When a professor tries to take advantage of Aya, her plans to become a doctor are seriously shaken, and she vows to take revenge on the lecherous man. With a little help from the tight-knit community of Yopougon, Aya comes through these trials stronger than ever.

This second volume of the complete Aya includes unique appendices, recipes, guides to understanding Ivorian slang, street sketches, and concluding remarks from Marguerite Abouet explaining history and social milieu.

Doesn't it sound fascinating!!!!! Luckily I did get a copy over the holidays while I was in Canada, but it was Volume 3 - so it is all by itself on my shelf waiting for the other volumes to come find it. They will come soon. Until then, here is a look inside Aya:

Source: Comic Art Communication

Source: Words Without Borders

Source: Drawn & Quarterly

And here's the poster for the film:

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Alain Mabanckou's Blue White Red (translated by Alison Dundy) was published end of January/beginning of February as part of Indiana University Press "Global African Voices" Series.

This tale of wild adventure reveals the dashed hopes of Africans living between worlds. When Moki returns to his village from France wearing designer clothes and affecting all the manners of a Frenchman, Massala-Massala, who lives the life of a humble peanut farmer after giving up his studies, begins to dream of following in Moki’s footsteps. Together, the two take wing for Paris, where Massala-Massala finds himself a part of an underworld of out-of-work undocumented immigrants. After a botched attempt to sell metro passes purchased with a stolen checkbook, he winds up in jail and is deported. Blue White Red is a novel of postcolonial Africa where young people born into poverty dream of making it big in the cities of their former colonial masters. Alain Mabanckou's searing commentary on the lives of Africans in France is cut with the parody of African villagers who boast of a son in the country of Digol.

- Synopsis from Indiana University Press.

Way Back Home, is South African author Niq Mhlongo's third novel, which was released in April.

I, Kimathi Fezile Tito, do solemnly declare that I am a soldier of the South African revolution. I am a volunteer fighter, committed to the struggle for justice. I place myself in the service of the people, The Movement and its allies.

13 August 1986, Angola

Kimathi Tito has it all. As a child of the revolution, born in exile in Tanzania, he has steadily accumulated wealth and influence since arriving in South Africa in 1991. But even though everything appears just peachy from outside the walls of his mansion in Bassonia, things are far from perfect for Comrade Kimathi. After a messy divorce, accelerated by his gambling habit and infidelities, he is in danger of losing everything. And now, to top it all, he’s seeing ghosts. Sometimes what happens in exile doesn’t stay in exile.

A caustic critique of South Africa’s political elite from the author of Dog Eat Dog and After Tears (both recently reissued).

- Synopsis from Kwela Books

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Last year I dedicated an entire month to reading Alain Mabanckou's novels that had been translated into English. This introduced me to the writings of an author who, let's be honest, I adore. So when I received a copy of Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty, courtesy of Serpent's Tail, I was so happy. This and Americanah honestly were joint first for books released in 2013 that I had to read.

Narrated through the voice of ten year old Michel, who lives in Pointe Noire, Congo in the 1970s Tomorrow I'll be Twenty (or Demain J'Aurais Vingt Ans in its original French) is a fictionalised memoir of Alain Mabanckou's childhood. In a recent interview with Africa Book Club, Alain Mabanckou was asked why it was important to write this story. To which he replied:

"It was very important because I figured out that we had no stories told through the voice of a kid in Congolese literature. In Tomorrow I'll be Twenty, I wanted to explain the way we were living under this Congolese regime called 'Soviet Socialism'. We were a red country! Everything was Marx and Engels, about materialism and the philosophy coming from the USSR".

The last time I read a novel with a child narrator I believe it was Ellen Banda-Aaku's Patchwork, and as much as I loved the book, I really did not like the main character. Michel, on the other hand, I absolutely adored. He was generous, kind-hearted, carefree, and also had a way with words for a ten year old ("I'll keep you in the castles I've got in my heart too, where no one can harm you"). I have to say he was a bit naive, but considering he was ten, I'm happy he was. What I loved about this book was the way it intertwined the global with the local - historical events such as the Cold War, Socialist principles, and the daily lives of a family living in the Congo-Brazzaville in the1970s- and how these were all portrayed through the eyes of a child.

There's Michel’s communist uncle, Rene, who quotes Marx, Engels and Lenin and claims to believe in the tenets of Marxism/Communism, but lives in wealth. A President who is also the Prime Minister, Minister of Defence and President of the Congolese Workers' Party, and immortal leaders with speeches children have to know by heart and recite word for word in class.

Michel and his father, Papa Roger, listen to the Voice of America with the American, Roger Guy Folly, on the radio cassette player his father got as a present from one of the guests at the Victory Palace Hotel where he works. Here he learns about Phnom Penh in Cambodia and the Vietnamese army that took over, the Shah of Iran and Ayatollah Khomeyni, Idi Amin Dada, the President of Uganda, and even Mother Teresa and the Nobel Peace Prize. Michel's also got seven brothers and sisters who he stays with when his mother, who sells peanuts, goes to the bush for business. His best friend is Lounes. They like to watch planes flying overhead and guess which country they will land in. He is also in love with Lounes' sister, Caroline, but she left him for ugly Mabele because he's read books like Marcel Pagnol.

While he struggles to decipher world events and the demands of his girlfriend, there is also a problem on the home-front. His mother is unable to have a second child and a witch doctor convinces Michel’s parents that he has the key (literally) to unlock his mother’s womb.

I can't say how much I enjoyed reading this book, but if you have ever been curious about what was happening, but also what it was like living, in a communist African country during the 1970s, what better way to see it than through the eyes of a loveable boy, like Michel. Also, who else can get away with saying, "The Shah of Iran's become a kind of vagabond, wandering from country to country, while the Monster, Idi Amin Dada, is fine, no one's after him, he's just chilling out in Saudi Arabia”, other than Alain Mabanckou in the voice of ten-year old Michel.

All that’s left for me to say, is grab a copy of Tomorrow I’ll Be Twenty. And let me know what you think.

4.5 out of 5 stars.

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I had no idea where to begin with As The Crow Flies by Véronique Tadjo as I have very mixed feelings towards it. I'm going to be honest and say I'm not even sure if I understood it, and wondered if I should give it a second reading. In the end I decided against that, and felt that I would probably try and read it again at a later stage in my life. Maybe then, it would make more sense. Instead, I'm going to try and give my interpretation of it, and if anyone out there has read As The Crow Flies, I would love to know your thoughts. So here it goes.

"If you want to love

Do so

To the ends of the earth

With no shortcuts

Do so

As the crow flies

Indeed I too would have loved to write one of those serene stories with a beginning and an end. As you know only too well, it is never like that, though. Lives mingle, people tame one another and part. Destinies are lost"

And so it begins. Published in French in 1986 as A vol d'osieau and translated into English by Wangũi wa Goro in 2001, As The Crow Flies includes 92 vignettes. It doesn't tell one story, but many stories and like a crow, the book swoops in at different times and places in random individual lives, only for a brief moment, to capture some aspect of their lives and particularly loves. But we don't know their names, or really who they are.

There is one common story though, which comes and goes throughout - that of a woman in love, who had an affair with a married man whose wife then found out. He is no longer in her life and she is dealing with that love loss. Other than that, there are various stories told in the first, second and third person, which I felt was also in some way about love - love for someone, love for a country, love for a city, the presence or absence of love. It took me some time to get into it, and also to get into the pattern of what was going on. And as there was the one story of the woman who had the affair, it also took me a while to figure out when a new character came in and if it was her, or someone else.

I read this a couple of weeks ago and I'm still trying to decide how I feel about it. It wasn't a bad book, far from it, but I do think with As The Crow Flies you might either get it or not, and you might either love it or not. It's also quite random, and if you're expecting structure, there isn't much of that in this. And I am torn, because while I (think) I might have got it, and actually appreciated the randomness of it, I am not sure that I loved it. Which is also why I feel I need a second reading.

So I still have very mixed feelings towards As the Crow Flies and would really love to know what others who might have read this think of it, and also if I've actually understood this book properly.

3.75 out of 5

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If 2013 wasn't going to be exciting enough with Americanah, as well as Ghana Must Go and Love is Power, or Something Like That, here are a few more books to look out for this year.

Tomorrow I Will Be Twenty Years Old, a humorous and poignant account of an African childhood, drawn from Alain Mabanckou's life, will be released in May.

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.

NoViolet Bulawayo, winner of the 2011 Caine Prize for African Writing, debut novel, We Need New Names, will also be out in May.

Darling is only 10 years old, and yet she must navigate a fragile and violent world. In Zimbabwe, Darling and her friends steal guavas, try to get the baby out of young Chipo's belly, and grasp at memories of Before. Before their homes were destroyed by paramilitary policemen, before the school closed, before the fathers left for dangerous jobs abroad. But Darling has a chance to escape: she has an aunt in America. She travels to this new land in search of America's famous abundance only to find that her options as an immigrant are perilously few.

Happiness, Like Water is Chinelo Okparanta's debut collection of short stories out in August.

Happiness, Like Water offers a portrait of Nigeria that is surprising, shocking, heartrending, loving, bringing us life across social strata, dealing in every kind of change. Among her characters are a young woman faced with a dangerous decision to save her mother, children slick with oil from the river, a woman in love with another despite the penalties. Their world is marked by electricity outages, lush landscapes, folktales, littered roads, Land Rovers, buses that break down and never start up again. They fight their mothers and their husbands, their own shame and their own sexuality, the power of religion and the pull of love.These are startling, challenging stories filled with language to make your eyes pause and your throat catch.

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I dedicated August to reading the four Alain Mabanckou novels that have been translated into English. The final novel I read was Black Bazaar, (published in French in 2009 and translated into English in 2012). This review is coming in much later than I would have hoped, but I finally got the chance to finish reading Black Bazaar.

Unlike the first three books I read, which were set in unnamed African countries (possibly Congo-Brazzaville where the author is from), Black Bazaar is set in Paris and presents the African immigrant experience in France. Also there are full stops, paragraphs, and sentences begin with capital letters (just in case you read Broken Glass and Memoirs of a Porcupine and really couldn't get into that style of writing).

Our narrator, Buttologist (he can describe a woman's character just from her behind), works at a printing works and has lived in Paris for fifteen years. He is currently living in a small studio he and his ex-girlfriend, Original Colour, used to live in. This was before Original Colour left him, with their daughter, for another man - the Hybrid. Buttologist is a sapeur (a member of the Society of Ambience-makers and People of Elegance), who can tell you about a man from the way he knots his tie, and spends time at an Afro-Cuban bar with other African immigrants in Paris. He is also an aspiring writer. Black Bazaar is his journal on everything - his relationship with Original Colour, his experiences with his racist neighbour, the 'Arab around the corner', his time at the Afro-Cuban bar with his friends, and even his view on colonialism and post-colonial Africa.

Black Bazaar really is about an African immigrants experience in Paris, and we get to experience that through Buttologist and the people he knows (or meets) and the places he goes. I don't know much about being an African immigrant in Paris, but I found it very interesting to read about it. I also loved the dialogue Buttologist had with different characters in the book, especially his racist neighbour and the 'Arab around the corner'. Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable read and Alain Mabanckou has found himself a new fan.

4 out of 5 stars.

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First I got into the head of a psycho, then an alcoholic, and now in Memoirs of a Porcupine (published in French in 2006 and translated into English in 2011) I get into the head of a porcupine. What will Alain Mabanckou think of next?

After being the harmful (animal) double for many years to his human master, our narrator, who is finally free from his master, is ready to tell us all about his long porcupine life. And for "porcupine's sake" you should really read this memoir because this porcupine has had a very interesting life. Like Broken Glass, there aren't full stops, only commas and more commas. And like Broken Glass, if you are able to look past that it is a really enjoyable read.

I recently posted this article on my facebook page – Alain Mabanckou by Binyavanga Wainaina – and in it Alain Mabanckou speaks a bit about Memoirs of a Porcupine – “it’s a sort of fable” based on African myths:

“The myth of the double exists not only in my own village; a lot of African readers have told me that in their country people also believe in having an animal as a double”.

Other than African folklore and myths (this is a story about animal doubles and magic), there’s also some crime. There are also many interesting characters we meet along the way - both in the animal (his description of squirrels was hilarious) and human world. His master is a particularly interesting character and in a way through him you get to see the just how bad inferiority complexes can be sometimes.

While reading it, I tried to tell my sister and a few friends about this novel. I tried to explain to them that yes a porcupine (literally, not figuratively) was telling his life story. I even had to show them the cover because what better way to explain a porcupine writing his memoir than the beautiful image on the book cover. They all laughed because they couldn't believe it. That's the thing - the premise of the novel is hilarious and when you do read it you are just shocked and amused at what this porcupine has gone through.

Like with his other two novels, as well as being funny, Memoirs of a Porcupine also has some shocking content. There is something else I do love about Alain Mabanckou's novel - characters from previous books always make a brief appearance. Angoualima did so in Broken Glass and now Stubborn Snail does so in Memoirs of a Porcupine.

I didn’t want to make any assumptions about Alain Mabanckou after reading African Psyho, but after Broken Glass I became a fan, and now after reading Memoirs of a Porcupine - can I just come out and say that he is an amazing author and the stories he comes up with are pretty much amazing. With only a few days to go until this month ends, I am off to start Black Bazaar.

4 out of 5 stars.

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