Originally written on the 20th anniversary of James Baldwin's death in 1987, this book by Mabanckou (Memoirs of a Porcupine) addresses Baldwin in the second person. Much of the first half recounts ...

In a UCLA classroom one day not long ago, Alain Mabanckou was teaching a course in post-colonial African fiction, which he instructs in his French mother tongue, one of several languages he speaks.

Renowned Congolese French author, novelist, poet, lawyer and scholar, Alain Mabanckou was in Nigeria last week during his five West African nation book tour, where he interacted with reporters. The ...

Bars, bottoms and bluster make for great bulges of black humor in the novels of the prolific Congolese writer Alain Mabanckou. His novels may switch back and forth between the immigrant neighborhoods ...

In a UCLA classroom one day not long ago, Alain Mabanckou was teaching a course in post-colonial African fiction, which he instructs in his French mother tongue, one of several languages he speaks.

Letter to Jimmy (Soft Skull Press) is a book-length letter to James Baldwin by the Congolese author Alain Mabanckou. In this imaginary letter, James Baldwin is addressed as a mentor who spoke to ...

ALAIN MABANCKOU genially holds court at Jip's, an Afro-Cuban salsa bar in Les Halles, central Paris. In a faded denim jacket and his signature flat cap, he modestly shares news of his burgeoning ...

“Our heroes tend to be orphans,” Zinzi Clemmons writes in her debut novel “What We Lose,” and the more you look the more the literary universe seems all but built by them. They stretch from Beowulf to ...

Marcus Garvey (1887-1940) was known as the Negro Moses because of his plans to take African-Americans back to Africa. Garvey’s life (he was born in Jamaica) and his attempts to start a shipping line ...