African Psycho [Paperback]

... explains Grégoire Nakobomayo, a petty criminal, who is dreaming about his soon to be expected fame as a deserving successor of his idol Angoualima, serial killer and widely recognized Master of Crime. Award-winning Congolese (Brazzaville) author Alain Mabanckou, whose 2006 novel Mémoires de porc-épic (Memoirs of a Porcupine) won the prestigious Prix Renaudot, delves with AFRICAN PSYCHO into the underbelly of a large industrial city in disarray. His stinging critique of that society and its institutions, vaguely identifiable as his own, its post-colonial links to "the country over there" (France), is couched in bitter, yet at times hilarious satire and farce. His story is seen through the eyes of his anti-hero, Grégoire.

In the first sentence of this kind of confession of a would-be murderer, Grégoire identifies his target, Germaine, who he has decided to kill on December 29. Whether he succeeds with his plan and how he prepares himself for it, will have to be discovered by the reader. Grégoire's aim is, above all, to achieve notoriety and media fame that will bring him up to par with or even outshine his hero, Angoualima. *)

In a constant flow of internal chatter, interrupted only rarely by dialog, Grégoire ruminates about this rotten life, the poverty and squalor of his shanty-town district, the polluted river "Seine" that divides his city, the incompetence of the police and the justice system... Himself one of the "picked-up children" (orphans) that were abundant in the streets of his district, he had no ties to anybody; his home are the streets. From early on in his life, he is proud of his criminal tendencies whether he agrees with the concept of the "born criminal" or not. The only special, even emotional relationship he feels is with his now departed, mystical superhero. Regularly he visits the cemetery, seeking advice and blessings.

Mabanckou's language and style matches the meanderings of a young man without much education and no ambition except for this one: to outshine his idol. Grégoire uses nicknames for every locality, whether his own district "He-Who-Drinks-the-Water-Is-An-Idiot", the local pubs or the different streets in the red-light district. Seen together these descriptions build a portrait of a depressing, violent and hopeless place. The author's satire, however, goes deep, his language and descriptions are very expressive, blunt and often vulgar. At the same time, he maintains a sense of humour making some of the more gruesome scenes palatable and absurdly hilarious. Nonetheless, for me the story suffered from lengthy description and repetition of the sordid side of Grégoire's life and lack of variety and depth of character development. African Psycho was published 2003, translated as the first of the author's novels in 2007. Alain Mabanckou, a lawyer by training, has been publishing fiction since 1998; he has been teaching Francophone Literature in the United States at different universities since 2002.

*) Since posting this review I have had the opportunity to neet and talk to the author. An important aspect that adds to the review is based on this discussion. Angoualima, the hero Grégoire aims to follow, was a real person and acted as reflected in the novel. Any Congolese reader would have known this. Young people were afraid of this man, who himself attempted to create an African version of what he perceived Europe and the West represented. [Friederike Knabe]

Was browsing on amazon and came across a misleading review of this book, which I read first in the original French--Mabanckou is a big star on the French literary scene, winner of the prestigious Prix Renaudaut, and unlike many of his navel-gazing French novelist counterparts, great at spinning an entertaining yarn. His writing is deceptively simple, though; look just below the surface, and you'll see numerous references to the history of French and American literature, in jokes that make you feel like you're in cahoots with the author. In any event, African Psycho is a very funny novel about and narrated by a small-time African crook who dreams of making it big like his hero, Angoualima, "the most famous of our country's assassins," a notorious serial killer with an enviable ability to make the front page of the papers. Our narrator dreams of making a splash but so far has only petty crimes to his name, so he sets out to kill a certain Germaine, refusing even to consider the "humiliating" possibility that his infamous act will go unnoticed by police and media. He turns out to be something of a bumbler, but to say much more would ruin some of the book's funny surprises. Check this book out, I don't think you'll regret it.

If you enjoy reading nearly pornographic accounts of deranged twenty year old men raping and murdering their way through life - in the same vein as Ellis' appalling American Psycho - this is the book for you. Otherwise, it would be advisable, if you own this book, to either burn it, pee on it, or both.