Description

‘One of Africa’s greatest living writers’ Guardian

‘Sharp and entertaining’ Times Literary Supplement

‘Exuberant … Dealing with the Dead is often damning, frequently hilarious and always compassionate’ Financial Times

Abruptly deceased at the age of twenty-four and trapped forever in flared purple trousers, Liwa Ekimakingai encounters the other residents of Frere Lachaise cemetery, all of whom have their own complex stories of life and death.

Unwilling to relinquish their tender bond, Liwa makes his way back home to Pointe-Noire to see his devoted grandmother one last time, against all spectral advice. But disturbing rumours swirl together with Liwa’s jumbled memories of his last night on earth, leading him to pursue the riddle of his own untimely demise. A phantasmagorical tale of ambition, community and forces beyond human control, Dealing with the Dead is a scathing satire on corruption and political violence by one of the foremost chroniclers of modern Central Africa.

‘Africa’s Samuel Beckett’ Economist

Translated from the French by Helen Stevenson

Publisher Review

A sharp and entertaining addition to Alain Mabanckou’s broader portrayal of Pointe-Noire’s historical complexities * Times Literary Supplement * We should all be reading Alain Mabanckou right now. His brilliantly imaginative novels throw a rope across borders and between people. A glorious, funny, surreal novel, set in communist Congo-Brazzaville in the 1970s. — Alex Preston * Financial Times * Alain Mabanckou addresses the reader with exuberant inventiveness in novels that are brilliantly imaginative in their forms of storytelling. His voice is vividly colloquial, mischievous and often outrageous as he explores, from multiple angles, the country where he grew up, drawing on its political conflicts and compromises, disappointments and hopes. He acts the jester, but with serious intent and lacerating effect. — Man Booker International Prize judges’ citation Mabanckou’s satire is as biting as writers from Armando Iannucci to Paul Beatty. Dealing with the Dead is a rewarding, humorously dark read * Buzz Magazine *