Page 7 - BPW BERKELEY BULLETIN - Edition 22 - February 2024 - with attachments
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Mémoires de porc-épic (Memoirs of a Porcupine), longlisted for the Man Booker International
Prize and the winner of the 2006 Prix Renaudot, which gave him public exposure as a prominent
contemporary African writer. He also published the exceptional essay Dictionnaire enjoué des
cultures africaines (“Joyful Dictionary of African Cultures”) in collaboration with Djibouti
novelist Abdourahman Waberi.
What to Read by Alain Mabanckou: Petit Piment (“Black Moses”)
With great simplicity, Alain Mabanckou recounts the life of a Congolese boy — Petit Piment,
which literally means “Little Pepper” — through the 1960s and ’70s. It’s a life full of adventures
that tells the story of Mabanckou’s Congo, as well as the upheavals of history. The book is short
and quick to read, and it makes a marvelous introduction to the very particular universe of the
author.
