Read Around the World: Republic of CongoI am forever grateful for the bestie and all the audiobooks she makes for me with the RAtW books we find. It helps me more than she will ever know and she is just so amazing to listen to, very soothing.

Black Moses may not be for everybody. If unwieldy character names put you off, for example, you’ll be put off right from the start with this one: Tokumisa Nzambe po Mose yamoyindo abotami namboka ya Bakoko, or, in shorthand “Moses.” If you’re not familiar with the repressive politics of the Congo and feel that you’re missing out, you may want to brush up on it first (and even then, you won’t truly catch every reference).Have I frightened you off yet? Hopefully not, because this is a surprisingly...

3.5I believe that the rating would have been higher if it was the first Mabanckou’s book I've read. Black Moses is sparkling with greatest AM’s qualities - satire, dark humour, political absurdities, ability to address heavy issues with irony and wisdom, refers brilliantly to African folklore, Judaeo-Christian tradition, literature... All that is great however, after reading Tomorrow I'll be Twenty and, exquisite in my opinion, Broken Glass I want more from him than seeing again not only the sam...

See more of my book reviews on my blog, Literary FlitsI had Black Moses stored on my Kindle for well over a year after purchasing it and I have no idea why it took me so long to get around to reading this book. I'm now kicking myself for the delay! Moses himself, or Little Pepper as he later comes to be known, is a particularly engaging narrator who tells his story in such a humorous way that I often found myself distanced from the true darkness of this novel.Little Pepper's childhood is scarred...

There are many books for which if I was editor, I would have told their author's to give the work another year. It is that kind of book. Great promise but it loses its way in second half. Plus, it should probably have been much bigger

There is something strange about the balance of this book. If you read the blurb here on Goodreads, it gives you a break down of the initial plot and then says "What follows is...". This suggests an introduction followed by a longer tale that expands on "what follows". However, the actual book is in two parts of almost exactly equal length. I didn't read that blurb until I reached the end of part one, but I turned to it then because I genuinely felt that I had spent half a book reading the intro...

I could not connect with this story at all. The last 50 pages or so were the most interesting. I felt like this was the writer's outline to the real story.

Solid book about growing up in a Congolese orphanage. First third of the novel concerns Moses and his day to day; second third is about Moses after he and the twins escape, and his relationship with the women in brothel (mostly maternal); the final third of the novel concerns Moses's deteriorating mental health due to malnutrition. I wish the book, rather than going into that final third, had expanded the first two sections because they were so rich and illuminating and interesting, and the last...

Black Moses tells the story of Moses, a Congolese orphan living at an Orphanage at Loango. We meet Moses at 13yo as he is coming of age in a changing country. The Orphanage, once run by a religious community is taken over by a corrupt socialist regime forcing Moses to run away to the streets of Pointe-Noire where he lives as a street urchin and petty thief until meeting a Zairean Madame who takes him in. An incident with the Madame sends Moses spiralling into mental collapse and back to the Orph...

This is definitely a consequence of being my mother's daughter, but I just don't enjoy books written from the perspective of kids :/ With a few notable exceptions, such as The Neapolitan Novels (although, even then, the first was my least favorite) and Harry Potter.There were quite a few common plot points and character traits with Nathacha Appanah's Tropic of Violence, but ToV was soooo much better crafted and told. (Both also translated from French!)I binged this because I'm going to see the a...

Book 4 of 2019. Set in 1970s Congo – Brazzaville, Mabanckou’s Black Moses is a brilliant novel about hope in a world that is quickly losing its grip on the idea of self-governance. Moses, who has an interestingly long name given to him by a priest he adored and lost, must first survive an orphanage in Loango, where his mother abandons him as an infant. He then has to face Pointe-Noire, by all means, an unkind city where he goes in the company of fellow young escapees. He is determined to leave b...

It all began when I was a teenager, and came to wonder about the name I' d been given by Papa Moupelo, the priest at the orphanage in Loango: Tokumisa Nzambe po Mose yamoyindo abotami namboka ya Bakoko. A long name, which in Lingala means: 'Thanks be to God, the black Moses is born on the earth of our ancestors' as it still inscribed on my birth certificate today. Book 11 of 13 for me from the 2017 Man Booker International longlist.Alain Mabanckou was a finalist in the previous author (rather th...

I chose this book with the sole purpose of practicing my French. I had read Une Si Longue Lettre in college and liked it, so I thought I would try a different French-language book by an African author about a former French-speaking colony. That being said, I had no expectations when I started Petit Piment. This book was excellent! I definitely got to practice my French, and the writing style worked well to get the point across while still retaining a linguistic style. The plot was a good combina...

2.5 stars.Black Moses was yet another of my Man Booker International Prize 2017 Longlist reads, and I can quite understand why this didn't make the shortlist. Although it is an enjoyable and easy read for the most part, there were issues I had with it and overall it didn't really leave much of a mark on me.It follows young Moses (whose full name is far too long to type), as he tries to get by in the orphanage he's grown up in as it's taken over by an overtly political director, before making his...

Enjoyable, fast clip that doesn't go very far, more of a mood and a sense of place than a story per se, though the storytelling draws up all sorts of little anecdotes that come and go by. Wish it was extended another 100 pages-- felt like the narrative arc should have connected somehow but it didn't. Not quite the post-modern chaos of Tram 83 but still had that sense of life bringing what it does with little context, explanation, or follow up (absolutely no foreshadowing, with no apologies), whi...

Young Moses’s childlike optimism clashes with harsh reality in a memorable coming of age story. Mabanckou’s novel deals with Moses’s life from the age of 13 to young adult, the first half set in an orphanage just outside Pointe-Noire in the Republic of Congo. Reviewers inevitably compare it to Dickens and Twain in its recognition of the harshness of life, but it’s setting and historical context make it very much it’s own thing. Though its dark humor shines through it is balanced by the backgroun...

A little book that is quite inventive in it's structure and style.The first half is about life in an Congolese orphanage at Loango. The narrator is 13 years old and things are changing in the country. The teaching moves from the religious to the government slogans of socialism.Moses escapes with two fellow orphans and they reach Pointe Noire where they run a local gang. Moses meets a local madam and lives with her for a while before moving into a job on the wharves.He then suffers from some sort...

This was a surprisingly enjoyable and quick read considering it's main theme is loss. The main character, Moses, starts life with the loss of his parents and is brought up in a Congolese orphanage on the cusp of the revolution of the 70's. Again and again throughout the book, Moses is faced with loss, which eventually culminates in a loss of self. Although there were several characters and story arcs that I really enjoyed, I didn't feel terribly attached or emotionally invested at any point. I t...

- 3.5 stars -I'm really curious to know the reason behind the choice of the title for the English version (that will be released on June 6th). Indeed I'm pretty sure there's a wink somewhere for us to see : from the French Petit Piment (literally, 'little hot pepper', which is the main character nickname after some... hmm... hot pepper affair, lol) to the English Black Moses (which is the name given by a priest to the MC), we seem to embrace all the different parts of our dear bo...

It is a coming-of-age story, where are political circumstances (corruption, nepotism, arbitrariness) shown with the satirical elements and the story is set in the time from the mid 60s until the 90s. The time period is not explicitly mentioned, but it can be seen from the story (the disappearance of a priest, the mention of Cuban soldiers - consultants, the mention of Brussels, Congolese Party of Labor...) and from sequence of event. We follow the life of Moses, at first in an orphanage and late...