Alain Mabanckou, a Congolese who writes in French, blogs in French, lives in Santa Monica, Calif., and teaches at UCLA, has won the Prix Renaudot for Mémoires de porc-épic.
Although
Mabanckou is not well represented in the U.S. in translation, that will
begin to change next year. In February, Soft Skull Press will publish
the author's African Psycho,
translated by Christine Schwartz Hartley ($13.95, 1933368500). In the
book, Grégoire Nakobomayo, a neurotic would-be serial killer relates a
litany of incompetent criminal acts as he plans what is to be his
culminating crime, the murder of his girlfriend--and explores the
spiritual relationship he has developed with his phantom mentor, a far
more accomplished serial killer, Angoualima.
Soft Skull publisher Richard Nash noted that Mabanckou was named by Lire, the French publishing magazine, as one of the 50 writers to watch out for in the 21st century.