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Photo by Shevaun Williams

Alain Mabanckou is a prolific francophone Congolese poet and novelist who currently lives in LA, where he teaches at UCLA. The author of six volumes of poetry and six novels, he is the winner of the Grand Prix de la Littérature, the Sub-Saharan African Literature Prize, and the Prix Renaudot. He was named WLT’s Puterbaugh Fellow in 2016 (see WLT, Sept. 2016, 62–71).