Francophonie : conversation with Alain Mabanckou
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Alain Mabanckou is a novelist, journalist, poet, and academic. A French citizen born in the Republic of the Congo, he currently teaches literature and creative writing in the Department of French & Francophone Studies and African Studies Center at UCLA. Known for his novels and non-fiction writing depicting the experience of contemporary Africa and the African diaspora in France, Mabanckou is among the most recognized Franco African writers in France in contemporary literature.
Join us at
the Ashé Powerhouse Theater!
1751 Baronne Street, New Orleans, LA 70113
5:30 - Happy
Hour and Book Signing
French
and English books will be for sale by The Garden District Book Shop
6:30 - Discussion with moderator and translator
Guest speakers:
Guest of Honor: ALAIN MABANCKOU
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Alain Mabanckou was born in Congo in 1966. An award-winning novelist, Man International Booker Prize finalist, poet, and essayist, Mabanckou lives in Los Angeles, where he teaches literature at UCLA. He is the author of ‘’African Psycho’’, ‘’Broken Glass’’, ‘’Black Bazaar’’, and ‘’Tomorrow I’ll Be Twenty’’, as well as ‘’The Lights of Pointe-Noire’’and ‘’Black Moses’’. Among his many honors are the Académie Française’s Grand Prix de literature, awarded in recognition of his entire literary career, and the 2016 French Voices Award for The Lights of Pointe-Noire, which was described by Salman Rushdie as “a beautiful book.” Mabanckou is a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur, was a finalist for the 2015 and 2017 Man Booker International Prize, and has been featured on Vanity Fair’s list of France’s 50 most influential people. In September, Alain Mabanckou published “Lettres à un jeune romancier sénégalais” (Letters to a young Senegalese novelist) – Editions Le Robert, as well as “Notre France Noire” (Our Black France) in collaboration with Pascal Blanchard and Abdourhaman Waberi (Editions Fayard).
Speaker
Dr. CAMILLE DANTZLER
Xavier University
Assistant professor of African American and African Diaspora cultural studies
Dr. Camille Dantzler is cultural ethnographer with years of experience in African studies, Diaspora studies, women and gender studies, global affairs, and culture policy and programming. Dantzler holds an expertise in mixed and qualitative research design and database creation, administration, critical library studies, and programming including evaluation, program design, and centering participatory action research.
Moderator JULIETTE PAPADOPOULOS
Juliette Papadopoulos is a Ph.D. Candidate in Francophone studies at Tulane University, where she specializes in contemporary literatures from West and Central Africa. She has been teaching undergraduate French in the U.S. for 6 years, in Missouri and in Louisiana.
Translator NICOLE HORNE
Nicole Horne (she/her) has a PhD in Francophone Studies from Tulane University. Her research focused on francophone Maghrebi literature and culture and migrant literature from Iran. She currently teaches French as part of the full-day academic program at New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts (NOCCA).
In partnership with Ashé CAC, Villa Albertine, Tulane University,
Consulate General of France in Louisiana, Consulate General of Canada, Garden District Book Shop, and
OIF.
Biographie
Alain Mabanckou naît en 1966 à Pointe-Noire, capitale économique de la République du Congo, où il passe son enfance et où il obtient un baccalauréat en lettres et philosophie au lycée Karl-Marx. À l’issue d’un premier cycle de droit privé à l’université Marien- Ngouabi à Brazzaville, il décroche une bourse d’études et s’envole pour la France à l’âge de 22 ans, avec déjà quelques manuscrits dans ses affaires – des recueils de poèmes pour la plupart – qu’il commencera à publier trois ans plus tard.
Après un DEA de droit à l’université Paris-Dauphine, il travaille une dizaine d’années dans le groupe Suez-Lyonnaise des Eaux, mais se consacre de plus en plus à l’écriture : en 1998 paraît son premier roman Bleu-Blanc-Rouge qui lui vaut le Grand Prix Littéraire de l’Afrique noire. À partir de cette date, il ne cessera de publier avec régularité, aussi bien de la prose que de la poésie.
Écrivain en résidence à Ann Arbor en 2002, il y enseigne la littérature francophone pendant trois ans avant d’être embauché en 2006 par l’Université de Californie à Los Angeles (UCLA), où il est nommé professeur titulaire (Full Professor) de littérature francophone en 2007 et où il continue d’enseigner.