Author(s): Fiston Mwanza Mujila

Modern & Contemporary Literature | Fiction in translation

A pulsating novel of urban abandonment in the Congo.

In an unnamed African city in secession, profit-seekers of all languages and nationalities mix. They have only one desire: to make a fortune by exploiting the mineral wealth of the land. Two friends - Lucien, a writer with literary ambitions, home from abroad, and his childhood friend Requiem, who dreams of taking over the seedy underworld of their hometown - gather in the most notorious nightclub in town: the Tram 83. Around them gravitate gangsters and young girls, soldiers and stowaways, profit-seeking tourists and federal agents of a nonexistent State.

Tram 83plunges the reader into a modern African gold rush as cynical as it is comic and colourfully exotic. A daring feat of narrative imagination and linguistic creativity, Tram 83uses the rhythms of jazz to weave a tale of human relationships in a world that has become a global village.

'A masterpiece.' From the foreword by Alain Mabanckou, Man Booker International-nominated author of The Lights of Point-Noire

'Stylistically quirky and unorthodox fiction from Africa . . . Tram 83is the locus of those driven by ambition, desire, greed, or pleasure - and in this underworld we meet quite a cast of characters.' Kirkus Reviews

'A frenetic writing style, like that of a jazz musician, gives this Africa-set novel an enthusiastic, adventurous energy.' Josh Cook, Foreword Reviews