Storks are immortal Novel by Alain Mabanckou

In Pointe-Noire, in the Voungou district, life goes on as usual. Around the family plot where he lives with Mom Pauline and Dad Roger, the young schoolboy Michel has a reputation as a dreamer. But the worries of everyday life (lost money, delays and distractions, changeable moods of parents, pettiness of neighbors) will soon be swept away by the wind of History. In this month of March 1977 which should mark the arrival of the short rainy season, comrade president Marien Ngouabi is brutally assassinated in Brazzaville. And this will not be without consequences for the young Michel, who will then learn, among other things, to lie.

Starting from a family universe, Alain Mabanckou quickly widens the circle and brings us into the great fresco of colonialism, decolonization and the dead ends of the African continent, of which the Congo is here the powerful and painful metaphor. Mixing intimacy and political tragedy, he explores the nuances of the human soul through the naive gaze of a teenager who, suddenly, learns about life and its price.

Alain Mabanckou was born in 1966 in Pointe-Noire, Congo-Brazzaville. His works have been translated around the world. He teaches Francophone literature at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA).