Alain Mabanckou on his profound connection to the Republic of the Congo
As Writers & Company wraps up after a remarkable 33 year run, we're revisiting episodes selected from the show's archive. This interview originally aired Nov. 20, 2016.
Alain Mabanckou was born in Pointe-Noire, the principal port of the Republic of the Congo, in 1966 — six years after the country achieved independence from France. He moved to France and later to the United States, writing poetry, six novels and several collections of essays.
Mabanckou's recent books are charming explorations of childhood, family and country. His memoir The Lights of Pointe-Noire relates his experience of returning to his hometown after 23 years. Salman Rushdie has described it as "a beautiful book — the past hauntingly reentered, the present truthfully faced." Mabanckou's 2013 novel, Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty, captures his childhood spirit in the character of his 10-year-old alter ego, a boy named Michel.
In 2017, Mabanckou was a finalist for the International Booker Prize for Black Moses, set in Pointe-Noire in the 1970s. His latest novel in English is The Death of Comrade President.
Mabanckou spoke to Eleanor Wachtel onstage at the Vancouver Writers Festival in 2016.
Why he dedicates all his books to his mother
"My mother didn't go to school, so she couldn't read and could barely speak French. At the time, people thought it was a waste of time to send a woman to school.
"For me, it was a real sadness to see that she wanted to go to school and she couldn't. She spent all her money on me, in order to make sure I would have a good education. She wanted me to go to France, because Congolese people dream of going to France to succeed, even though she also wanted me to stay because I was her only kid.
"I went to France when I was 20, and when I was 25, she died. So she didn't see me come back to Congo. All my books are dedicated to her — maybe I'm trying to make her one of the most famous mothers in African literature."
Holding on to traditional beliefs
"When I left Congo, it was the '90s and my country was facing two civil wars.
"They were fighting about oil, as usual. The country did suffer a lot. Each time I wanted to come back, my mother would say no, don't come, they could kill you. In 1995 she disappeared and I couldn't even go there. In The Lights of Pointe-Noire, I explain why I didn't go to the funeral.
Thanks to my Congolese culture, people never die.... In Congo, you live with all those shadows.
"Thanks to my Congolese culture, people never die. In Europe when someone dies, you go to a cemetery, you put down flowers, you cry. But in Congo, you live with all those shadows, all those ancestors.
"If I want to do something big, instead of asking God to help me, I ask the person I know the best. I know my mother better than God and I think that it's important for me to keep in mind that, even though I'm living in Western civilization, it's important to keep those beliefs."
On returning home, and finding it changed
"Pointe-Noire is a small city. I wrote the book about my childhood, Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty, from France and from America. But I wrote The Lights of Pointe-Noire in Congo, because I went back to my city 23 years later. I was sad that what I saw was not the image I had from my childhood.
"I was very shocked to see how people were living, without taking care of the spirit of the city. In the book I wanted to point out the spirit of the city, the beliefs, the fact that Pointe-Noire is still a place to visit and be.
"If I can't find what to write about, I just have to think about my childhood there, and then everything comes."
Alain Mabanckou's comments have been edited and condensed.
