Emmanuel Dongala
Emmanuel Dongala
Emmanuel Dongala was born in 1941 and is a Congolese academic and novelist. He earned his B.A. in chemistry from Oberlin College and his doctorate in chemistry at the University of Montpellier in France. He has been a faulty member in literature and chemistry in the Congo at Marien Ngouabi University and in the United States at Bard College at Simon’s Rock. Dongala was awarded the Grand Prix Littéraire de l'Afrique Noire in 1988 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1999.
Translated Titles by Emmanuel Dongala
Jazz, aliens, and witchcraft collide in this collection of short stories by renowned author Emmanuel Dongala. The influence of Kongo culture is tangible throughout, as customary beliefs clash with party conceptions of scientific and rational thought. In the first half of Jazz and Palm Wine, the characters emerge victorious from decades of colonial exploitation in the Congo only to confront the burdensome bureaucracy, oppressive legal systems, and corrupt governments of the post-colonial era. The second half of the book is set in the United States during the turbulent civil rights struggles of the 1960s. In the title story, African and American leaders come together to save the world from extraterrestrials by serving vast quantities of palm wine and playing American jazz. The stories in Jazz and Palm Wine prompt conversations about identity, race, and co-existence, providing contextualization and a historical dimension that is often sorely lacking.
The story is unified by the actions of one man, Mankunku, a ‘destroyer,’ who is born in mysterious circumstances in a banana plantation, and whose identity is as mercurial as that of his land. We follow his development along with that of his unnamed country, from the pre-colonial era, through the horrors of European subjugation, to independence and the complexities of the postcolonial nation. Along the way, we meet charlatans and saints, workers and bureaucrats, warriors and peacemakers, in a moving melange of laughter and terror.
Little Boys Come from the Stars
The peculiar and moving story of a Congolese boy's coming-of-age amid the political strife of postcolonial Congo. His nickname is Matapari, which means ‘trouble’. He is an African child of the '90s-brilliant, mischievous, postcolonial, postmodern-caught in the crossfire of a chaotically liberated African country. Matapari grows up in a world of talking drums, the Internet, and satellite TV, a world of dictators who remake themselves as democrats overnight. Emmanuel Dongala uses the ingenious viewpoint of a child to show up the telltale world of adults-and to show how one preserves one's independence in a corrupt and violent society.
Set amid the chaos of West Africa's civil wars, Emmanuel Dongala's striking novel tells the story of two teenagers growing up while rival ethnic groups fight for control of their country. Acclaimed in France, Johnny Mad Dog is a coming-of-age story like no other; Dongala's masterful use of dual narrators makes the novel an unusually vivid and affecting tale of the struggle to survive--and to retain one's humanity--in terrifying times.