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A review by msjoanna
The Death of Comrade President by Alain Mabanckou
3.0
This book highlights for me how little I know of the Republic of Congo (i.e., Congo-Brazzaville, the former French colony). The author recognizes that his readers will know nothing, and makes an effort to have explanations of the players, politics, and history built into the story. This has the benefit of keeping the reader oriented and providing education, but it tends to break off the action and leads to long sections of exposition.
The story is told from the perspective of a twelve-year-old during the few days surrounding the assassination of the Comrade President Marien Ngouabi in March 1977. (Not to be confused with the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in 1961, who was the president of the Republic of the Congo-Kinshasa, the former Belgian colony.) In the guise of people explaining things to the protagonist, various characters (and one long radio broadcast) explain the political history of the country. At that time, the Republic of Congo (the former French colony) was the People's Republic of Congo , and was a Marxist state that lasted from 1963 until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992.
When characters get distracted from explaining the history of the country, the reader gets glimpses of the marketplace, the interactions between different family members, and the family structure of the protagonist--living with his mother, who has become the second wife of "Papa Roger." I learned about the food, the family relations, the way that different ethnic groups interact, and other small details that brought the story to life.
Overall, I am glad to have read the book and learned about a piece of the world and a part of history about which I knew nothing.
The story is told from the perspective of a twelve-year-old during the few days surrounding the assassination of the Comrade President Marien Ngouabi in March 1977. (Not to be confused with the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in 1961, who was the president of the Republic of the Congo-Kinshasa, the former Belgian colony.) In the guise of people explaining things to the protagonist, various characters (and one long radio broadcast) explain the political history of the country. At that time, the Republic of Congo (the former French colony) was the People's Republic of Congo , and was a Marxist state that lasted from 1963 until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992.
When characters get distracted from explaining the history of the country, the reader gets glimpses of the marketplace, the interactions between different family members, and the family structure of the protagonist--living with his mother, who has become the second wife of "Papa Roger." I learned about the food, the family relations, the way that different ethnic groups interact, and other small details that brought the story to life.
Overall, I am glad to have read the book and learned about a piece of the world and a part of history about which I knew nothing.