Rumors of America

Alain Mabanckou

(PLON, 256 pages, 2020) 

***TRANSLATION SAMPLE AVAILABLE***

Here I’m attempting what I might qualify as an American autobiography, within the imagination’s mirages, within the twists and turns of the unusual, within the anecdotal digressions and the stark realities.

—from Rumors of America

Alain Mabanckou is known for his writings on his native country, the Republic of the Congo, his experience as a student and writer in France, and as a Francophone African caught between these worlds. He is one of the most decorated Francophone authors writing today: He has received the prestigious Prix Renaudot for Memoirs of a Porcupine, the Grand Prix de Littérature Henri Gal from the Académie Française for his body of work, and was twice shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize. But in the fifteen years that he has lived in the United States—first teaching at University of Michigan, and then at UCLA—he has yet to write about living in America.

Until now, that is. Rumors of America is written with the immediacy of journal entries and the wry humor of a storyteller, deftly blending aphoristic writing with the stylings of the contemporary narrative essay. He offers a portrait of America that is at once cultural and personal, speaking of the black artists, athletes, and activists who inspire him (such as James Baldwin, Muhammad Ali, Young Thug, and Biddy Mason), as well as immigrants who became icons of American ingenuity (such as Joseph Pulitzer, Madeleine Albright, Lupita Nyong’o, and Albert Einstein). He also reflects on his community in Los Angeles and the diaspora of fellow Francophone writers who share his sense of freedom living abroad. 

This book about America is also a book about Los Angeles. Mabanckou opens Rumors of America by recounting his time in Santa Monica, a place with such a beautiful view of the sea that it’s very easy to not see anything else. But as he shifts his gaze from the Pacific, the pronounced whiteness of the town comes to the fore. His move to Los Angeles is a need for diversity, which informs his writing. His Los Angeles is one that incessantly brings to mind his native Congo in the restaurants, museums, even the people he encounters.

Mabanckou’s descriptions of American life are at once familiar and unfamiliar. His light pen and subtle critique brings to mind Jack Kerouac’s Book of Sketches. His prose reflects the freedom of a writer comfortable navigating the many cultures, voices, and places that compose his story, now at last his American story.

Alain Mabanckou is a novelist, journalist, poet, and academic. A French citizen born in the Republic of the Congo, he currently teaches literature and creative writing in the Department of French & Francophone Studies and African Studies Center at UCLA. Known for his novels and nonfiction depicting the experience of contemporary Africa and the African diaspora in France, Mabanckou is among the most recognized Franco-African writers in France in contemporary literature. His novels have been translated into more than fifteen languages; those in English including Broken Glass, Black Moses, Memoirs of a Porcupine, Tomorrow I’ll Be Twenty, African Psycho, and The Death of Comrade President.