The Negro Grandsons of Vercingetorix
2002
First Published
3.65
Average Rating
222
Number of Pages
Set in the imaginary African Republic of Vietongo, The Negro Grandsons of Vercingetorix, begins when conflict breaks out between rival leaders and the regional ethnic groups they represent. Events recorded in a series of notebooks under the watchful eye of Hortense Lloki, show how civil war culminates in a series of outlandish actions perpetrated by the warring parties' private militias—the Anacondas and the Romans from the North who have seized power against Vercingetorix (named after none less than the legendary Gallic warrrior who fought against Ceasar's army) and his Little Negro Grandsons in the South who are eager to regain control. Award-winning author Alain Mabanckou is at his satiric best in this novel that catalogues the pain and suffering caused by the ravages of civil war. Translated into English for the first time, this novel provides a gritty slice of life in an active war zone.
Avg Rating
3.65
Number of Ratings
31
5 STARS
16%
4 STARS
35%
3 STARS
45%
2 STARS
3%
1 STARS
0%
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Author
Alain Mabanckou
Author · 14 books
Alain Mabanckou was born in 1966 in Congo-Brazzaville (French Congo). He currently resides in Los Angeles, where he teaches literature at UCLA, having previously spent four years at the University of Michigan. Mabanckou will be a Fellow in the Humanities Council at Princeton University in 2007-2008. One of Francophone Africa's most prolific contemporary writers, he is the author of six volumes of poetry and six novels. He received the Sub-Saharan Africa Literary Prize in 1999 for his first novel, Blue-White-Red, the Prize of the Five Francophone Continents for Broken Glass, and the Prix Renaudot in 2006 for Memoirs of a Porcupine. He was selected by the French publishing trade journal Lire as one of the fifty writers to watch out for in the coming century. His most recent book is African Psycho.
