Recommended English books written by authors from Congo, Democratic Republic of (5)
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If you speak English here are some English books from Congo, Democratic Republic of for the next part of the "Read Around The World Challenge".
'"C'est l'arrivee," someone said. These were the first words the boy heard when the lorry on which he and the others had been travelling at last turned into the parking lodge at Bulungu, their final destination after a two-day journey from Kinshasa. The boy was impatient to find out more about this place, which might soon become his permanent home. With his little brain he had imagined that people everywhere lived like the people at his birthplace.' The idea of clashes or differences between cultures didn't make sense to the young boy who is sent by his international parents to a country villa... continue
Junior Library Guild Selection * New York Public Library's Best Books for Teens * Goodreads Choice Awards Nonfiction Finalist * Chicago Public Library’s Best of the Best Books for Teens: Nonfiction * 2018 Texas Topaz Nonfiction List * YALSA's 2018 Quick Picks List * Bank Street's 2018 Best Books of the Year “This gut-wrenching, poetic memoir reminds us that no life story can be reduced to the word ‘refugee.’" —New York Times Book Review “A critical piece of literature, contributing to the larger refugee narrative in a way that is complex and nuanced.” —School Library Journal (starred review) T... continue
What is masculinity? Dominating the world around us, from Trump's twitter outbursts to deadly gun violence, from male suicide rates to incels on Reddit and 4chan, masculinity is perceived to be 'toxic', 'fragile' and 'in crisis'. In Mask Off, JJ Bola exposes masculinity as a performance that men are socially conditioned into. Using examples of non-Western cultural traditions, music and sport, he shines light on historical narratives around manhood, debunking popular myths along the way. He explores how LGBTQ men, men of colour, and male refugees experience masculinity in diverse ways, revealin... continue
Set in a fictitious African nation, this novel by the distinguished writer Sony Labou Tansi takes aim at the corruption, degeneracy, violence, and repression of political life in Africa. At the heart of The Shameful State is the story of Colonel Martillimi Lopez, the nation's president, whose eccentricity and whims epitomize the "shameful situation in which humanity has elected to live." Lopez stages a series of grotesque and barbaric events while his nation falls apart. Unable to resist the dictator's will, his desperate citizens are left with nothing but humiliation. The evocation of this de... continue
Two friends, one a budding writer home from Europe, the other an ambitious racketeer, meet in the only nightclub, the Tram 83, in a war-torn city-state in secession, surrounded by profit-seekers of all languages and nationalities. Tram 83 plunges the reader into the modern African gold rush as cynical as it is comic and colorfully exotic, using jazz rhythms to weave a tale of human relationships in a world that has become a global village. Fiston Mwanza Mujila (b. 1981, Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo) is a poet, dramatist, and scholar. Tram 83 is his award-winning and raved-about deb... continue