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Translations > Fiction > Francophone Literature
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Dreams from the Endz
Du rêve pour les oufs
by Faïza Guène
Translated by Sarah Ardizzone
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24-year-old Ahlème (her name means dream in Arabic) lives with her father, The Boss. He is half the man he was, since an accident on his building site stopped him working. Then there´s Ahlème´s brother, 16-year-old Foued, excluded from school and getting drawn into the world of drug-dealing on Uprising Estate. Ahlème battles with her family, the struggles and queues that come with being an immigrant, and the guilt-trips of distant relatives ´back home´. But when she returns - after a ten-year absence - to the country where her mother was massacred at a village wedding, she brokers a kind of truce, both with her homeland, and with the need to forge a future. Along the way, she stamps on that mythical version of Metropolitan France, a desperate fabrication put out by economic and political migrants and readily bought into by those left behind in Algeria. |
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First English Language Edition
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French Publisher :
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Hachette Littératures
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British Publisher :
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Chatto & Windus
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Published :
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2008
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Number of Pages :
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176
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Price :
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11.99 £
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ISBN :
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0701181540
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Gregoire Nakobomayo, a petty criminal, has decided to kill his girlfriend Germaine. He´s planned the crime for some time, but still, the act of murder requires a bit of psychological and logistical preparation. Luckily, he has a mentor to call on, the far more accomplished serial killer Angoualima. The fact that Angoualima is dead doesn´t prevent Gregoire from holding lengthy conversations with him. Little by little, Gregoire interweaves Angoualima´s life and criminal exploits with his own.
Continuing with the plan despite a string of botched attempts, Gregoire´s final shot at offing Germaine leads to an abrupt unraveling. Lauded in France for its fresh and witty style, African Psycho´s inventive use of language surprises and relieves the reader by injecting humor into this disturbing subject. |
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African Psycho
by Alain Mabanckou
Translated by Christine Schwartz Hartley
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First English Language Edition
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French Publisher :
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Le Serpent à plumes
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British Publisher :
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Serpent´s tail
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Published :
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2008
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Number of Pages :
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176
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Price :
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9.99 £
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ISBN :
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9781846686320
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African Psycho
African Psycho
by Alain Mabanckou
Translated by Christine Schwartz Hartley
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African Psycho concerns a would-be serial killer, Gregoire Nakobomayo, and the spiritual relationship he has developed with his phantom mentor, a far more accomplished serial killer, Angoualima.
The title recalls Bret Easton Ellis´ infamous book but while Ellis´ narrator was blank, and the book eschewed any kind of psychological exposition, accepting pure psychosis as the bottomline, Mabanckou´s protagonist is all psychology and relentless internal chatter and prevarication. The act of deciding to kill, immediately exposed in the novel´s first line, "I have decided to kill Germaine on December 29,” puts the psychological front and center. Whatever one may say about it, killing someone requires both psychological and logistical preparedness. This aspect is iterated within the first few paragraphs, when Gregoire introduces his deceased idol, Angoualima, the phantom to whom he continually speaks about his criminal intentions. Little by little, Gregoire interweaves Angoualima´s life and criminal exploits with his own. Despite his string of previously botched criminal attempts, Gregoire´s final decision and failure to kill Germaine, his live-in girlfriend and a professional prostitute, leads to an abrupt unraveling.
African Psycho most surprisingly engages readers through style, not gore, a remarkable feat for a narrative that takes murder as its subject and that references probably the most gruesome novel in recent American literature. Moreover, it does so with intimacy rater than the standoff-ish dispassion that characterizes novels that seek to contend with the violence engendered by the amorality and ennui of contemporary society. |
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First English Language Edition
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French Publisher :
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Le Serpent à plumes
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American Publisher :
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Soft Skull Press
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Published :
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2007
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Number of Pages :
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176
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Price :
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13 $
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ISBN :
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1933368500
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Salie lives in Paris. Back home on the Senegalese island of Niodior, her football-crazy brother, Madické, counts on her to get him to France, the promised land where foreign footballers become world famous. Given his illusions, how can Salie explain to him the grim reality of life as an immigrant?
The story of Salie and Madické highlights the painful situation of those who emigrate. Others who feel this pain include Ndétare, the Marxist schoolteacher and football coach, exiled to Niodior by the government but never accepted by those born there. Then there´s Sankèle, his former lover and a legendary beauty, whose only way out of an arranged marriage ends in tragedy. And Moussa, whose dreams look set to come true when he´s scouted by a big French football club, but which fall apart when he doesn´t make the team. |
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The Belly of the Atlantic
Le Ventre de l´Atlantique
by Fatou Diome
Translated by Ros Schwartz
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First English Language Edition
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French Publisher :
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Anne Carrière
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British Publisher :
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Serpent´s tail
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Published :
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2006
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Number of Pages :
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192
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Price :
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8.99 £
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ISBN :
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1852429038
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Allah is not obliged
Allah n´est pas obligé
by Ahmadou Kourouma
Translated by Frank Wynne
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Birahima is ten years old. He is from the Ivory Coast. He is a soldier. When Birahima´s mother dies, he leaves his native village - accompanied by the sorcerer Yacouba - to search for his aunt, Mahan. Crossing the border into Liberia, they are seized by a rebel force and press-ganged into military service. Birahima is given a Kalashnikov, scant rations of food, and plenty of dope. Fighting in a totally chaotic civil war, and alongside many other child soldiers, he sees death, torture, amputation and madness, but somehow manages to retain his own sanity...
Told in the remarkably realised voice of a ten-year-old boy, Birahima´s story is tinged with both humour and disdain. As Birahima takes us through the bloody battlefields of horrific warfare, he makes no attempt to explain the inexplicable. Yet, by making us both sick with despair and filled with laughter at the incredible and the ridiculous, his story brings us closer to comprehending the rivalries, power structures and customs that fuel Africa´s bitter wars. Both shattering and heartbreaking, Allah Is Not Obliged is a remarkable masterpiece. |
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First English Language Edition
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French Publisher :
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Le Seuil
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British Publisher :
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Heinemann
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Published :
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2006
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Number of Pages :
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400
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ISBN :
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0434009571
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