I have often wondered what goes on in the minds of criminals and 'wannabe' criminals. No one, I believe, is born violent or with criminal instincts. Mabanckou addresses the working of a criminal mind in this hilarious monologue set in an unnamed African city, which I would believe is in Congo-Brazaville. The setting of the book is mainly in the 'He-Who-Drinks-Water-Is-An-Idiot' locality of the city, with a Seine of its own.
The protagonist Gregoire tells the readers about his plan to kill his girlfriend Germaine. The lead up to the planned murder starts from Gregoire's rough upbringing in foster homes and the streets of the city. Gregoire condemns the great crime novelists, who have never commited a crime in their lives. He also doesn't spare the psychiatrists, who think they know how the mind of a criminal works.
At times vulgar and erotic, the book traces the mind of a frustrated and angry young man in post-colonial Francophone Africa. I've never been to a former French or Belgian colony in Africa, but what I hear is that the French and Belgians left behind a mess in all of them.
Mabanckou, who teaches Francophone literature at UCLA, was inspired by Brett Easton-Ellis' "American Psycho," but Gregoire has a completely African soul and one with an animal alter-ego. It's difficult to not laugh when Gregoire idolizes his great hero the Great Master Angoualima, who is described as the greatest criminal of all time.
The book was a result of great research and the author has indeed gone through some of the great classics in crime literature like 'The Outsider' by Albert Camus and Cesare Lombroso's L'Uomo Deliquente. It takes some thick skin to ignore some of the disgusting parts of the book, but 'African Psycho' is well worth the read.
The protagonist Gregoire tells the readers about his plan to kill his girlfriend Germaine. The lead up to the planned murder starts from Gregoire's rough upbringing in foster homes and the streets of the city. Gregoire condemns the great crime novelists, who have never commited a crime in their lives. He also doesn't spare the psychiatrists, who think they know how the mind of a criminal works.
At times vulgar and erotic, the book traces the mind of a frustrated and angry young man in post-colonial Francophone Africa. I've never been to a former French or Belgian colony in Africa, but what I hear is that the French and Belgians left behind a mess in all of them.
Mabanckou, who teaches Francophone literature at UCLA, was inspired by Brett Easton-Ellis' "American Psycho," but Gregoire has a completely African soul and one with an animal alter-ego. It's difficult to not laugh when Gregoire idolizes his great hero the Great Master Angoualima, who is described as the greatest criminal of all time.
The book was a result of great research and the author has indeed gone through some of the great classics in crime literature like 'The Outsider' by Albert Camus and Cesare Lombroso's L'Uomo Deliquente. It takes some thick skin to ignore some of the disgusting parts of the book, but 'African Psycho' is well worth the read.
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