Alain Mabanckou

Alain Mabanckou was born in 1966 in the Congo. He currently lives in California where he teaches French literature at UCLA. One of Africa's major writers he is the author of six volumes of poetry and six novels. He received the prestigious Prix Renaudot for Memoirs of a Porcupine. He was selected by the French journal Lire as one of the fifty writers to watch out for this century. He was awarded the Grand Prix de la Littérature in 2012 and in 2015 was listed as a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize.