Alain Mabanckou is a Franco-Congolese author and Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. His novels include Blue White Red, African Psycho, Broken Glass, Memoirs of a Porcupine, Black Bazaar, Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty, The Lights of Pointe-Noire, and Black Moses. He is the recipient of numerous literary prizes, such as the Grand Prix Littéraire de l'Afrique noire, Prix Renaudot, Prix Georges Brassens, and the Grand Prix de Littérature Henri Gal from the Académie Française for his life's work.
Dominic Thomas is Madeleine L. Letessier Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. His books include Nation-Building, Propaganda, and Literature in Francophone Africa; Black France: Colonialism, Immigration, and Transnationalism; and Africa and France: Postcolonial Cultures, Migration, and Racism.

Contents

Chapter 1: The "Black" Man's Tears (Pascal Bruckner)

Chapter 2: A Negro in Paris (Bernard Dadié)

Chapter 3: The Spirit of the Laws (Montesquieu)

Chapter 4: Murderous Identities (Amin Maalouf)

Chapter 5: Road to Europe (Ferdinand Oyono)

Chapter 6: How can one be Persian? (Montesquieu)

Chapter 7: The Foreign Student (Philippe Labro)

Chapter 8: Bound to Violence (Yambo Ouologuem)

Chapter 9: The Identity Card (Jean-Marc Adiaffi)

Chapter 10: Literature of the Stomach (Julien Gracq)

Chapter 11: Phantom Africa (Michel Leiris)

Chapter 12: The Suns of Independence (Ahmadou Kourouma)

Appendix