Alain Mabanckou, from Pointe-Noire to the Collège de France: the son of a banana seller who became a great writer

His novels have made readers around the world laugh and think. But before he was a celebrated writer, Alain Mabanckou was a child from Pointe-Noire who read the books that others had left behind.

A childhood in Pointe-Noire

Alain Mabanckou was born on February 24, 1966, in Pointe-Noire, Republic of the Congo. He was raised by his mother, Pauline Kengué, a banana seller at the market, and by Roger Kimangou, his adoptive father, a hotel receptionist. He carries the name of his uncle, René Mabanckou, and grew up in the Tié-Tié neighborhood.

Books from the hotel

He discovered reading by chance: his father would bring him detective novels from the hotel, such as San Antonio and SAS, abandoned by French aid workers. At the Karl-Marx high school, he earned a baccalaureate in literature and philosophy. His mother saw him as a magistrate or a lawyer, so he turned toward law and completed an undergraduate degree in private law at Marien-Ngouabi University in Brazzaville.

Leaving for France

In 1989, a scholarship took him to France. He already carried a few manuscripts with him, mostly collections of poems. He studied in Nantes, then in Paris. His first collection of poems, Au jour le jour, was published in 1993. For about ten years, he worked for the Suez-Lyonnaise des Eaux group while dedicating himself more and more to writing.

The novel that revealed him

In 1998, his first novel, Bleu-Blanc-Rouge, was published by Présence Africaine; in 1999, it received the Grand Prix Littéraire d'Afrique Noire. Other novels and collections followed. In 2005, Verre cassé, a comedic novel centered on a former Congolese schoolteacher and the bar he frequents, was acclaimed by critics and readers alike. In 2006, Mémoires de porc-épic received the Renaudot Prize.

From America to the Collège de France

A writer-in-residence in 2002, he taught Francophone literature in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for three years before being recruited in 2006 by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he is a tenured professor. For the 2015-2016 academic year, he was invited to the Collège de France in Paris: he was the first writer to occupy the chair of artistic creation since its inception in 2004. On March 17, 2016, he delivered his inaugural lecture there, "Black Letters: From Darkness to Light."

A body of work translated worldwide

His books are translated into about twenty languages, including English, German, Chinese, Korean, and Spanish. Black Bazar (2009), Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty (2010), The Lights of Pointe-Noire (2013), and Petit Piment (2015), which was shortlisted for the Goncourt Prize, are among his best-known titles. In 2015, he was a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize. In 2012, the Académie Française awarded him the Grand Prix de Littérature Henri-Gal for his entire body of work. In 2022, he served as a member of the Booker Prize jury.

Our perspective

Alain Mabanckou's journey serves as a reminder that a forgotten book can change a life. From a market in Pointe-Noire to the greatest universities, he has shown that African stories have their place in great world literature. And you, have you read a book by an African writer this year?