Black Moses

Overview

LONG-LISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE A rollicking new novel described as “Oliver Twist in 1970s Africa” (Les Inrockuptibles) from “Africa's Samuel Beckett . . . one of the continent's greatest living writers” (The Guardian). It’s not easy being Tokumisa Nzambe po Mose yamoyindo abotami namboka ya Bakoko. There’s that long name of his for a start, which means, "Let us thank God, the black Moses is born on the lands of the ancestors." Most people just call him Moses. Then there’s the orphanage where he lives, run by a malicious political stooge, Dieudonné Ngoulmoumako, and where he’s terrorized by two fellow orphans—the twins Songi-Songi and Tala-Tala. But after Moses exacts revenge on the twins by lacing their food with hot pepper, the twins take Moses under their wing, escape the orphanage, and move to the bustling port town of Pointe-Noire, where they form a gang that survives on petty theft. What follows is a funny, moving, larger-than-life tale that chronicles Moses’s ultimately tragic journey through the Pointe-Noire underworld and the politically repressive world of Congo-Brazzaville in the 1970s and 80s. Mabanckou’s vivid portrayal of Moses’s mental collapse echoes the work of Hugo, Dickens, and Brian DePalma’s Scarface, confirming Mabanckou’s status as one of our great storytellers. Black Moses is a vital new extension of his cycle of Pointe-Noire novels that stand out as one of the grandest, funniest, fictional projects of our time.

PRAISE: “Moses comes of age quickly in this offbeat bildungsroman…”—Chicago Tribune “One of O’s Top 20 books to read this summer.”—O (The Oprah Magazine) “This mythic, beguiling novel is a journey to discover what is hard-wired in us and what we make up about ourselves.”—Publishers Weekly STARRED Review “[R]ibald, acerbic, and poignant... This tightly contained, densely packed story issues a challenge that never loses its urgency: how does a person cling to a sense of autonomy when it's under siege by so many powerful forces?”—Kirkus STARRED review “Funny and sharply satiric… over several books… Mabanckou has created a vibrant world in which Pointe-Noir has taken on the stature of an African Yoknapatawpha county.”—Booklist

The book, Black Moses [Bulk, Wholesale, Quantity] ISBN# 9781620972939 in Hardcover by Alain Mabanckou may be ordered in bulk quantities. Minimum starts at 25 copies. Availability based on publisher status and quantity being ordered.