Dealing with the Dead by Alain Mabanckou review – supernatural satire

Funny, spooky and surreal, this shapeshifting novel from the Francophone author explores Congolese politics

Best known to English-language readers for his novels African Psycho, Broken Glass and Black Moses, Alain Mabanckou, a social satirist of breathtaking originality, is& a& leading name in contemporary Francophone literature. His books, which draw on his Congolese heritage, tend to be exuberantly imagined, a tad& absurd, very funny and focused on& off-kilter and off-centre perspectives. In his piquant and spunky new offering, Mabanckou tells the story of Liwa Ekimakingaï, who returns from the dead in search of& closure. Told in the second person and engagingly translated by Helen& Stevenson, the novel opens in& a& cemetery in the port& city of Pointe-Noire, where the 24-year-old has risen from his grave in& a seismic flurry, attired in an orange crepe jacket, a fluorescent-green shirt, purple flares and shiny red shoes. (If you are new to Mabanckou, you might be interested to know that he employs a personal stylist, and that his own sartorial preference tends toward the bold and bright.) Liwa& is a classic Mabanckou character:& orphaned, irresistibly charming but cruelly bereft of luck.

Once risen, Liwa falls asleep and begins “the longest dream of his death”, in which images from his four-day funeral mingle with memories of growing up: being raised by his maternal grandmother in the Trois-Cents neighbourhood; getting into mischief with his friends; turning for guidance to the Pentecostal church, officiated by a man later executed for ritual murder; and landing a job as a& commis chef in the kitchen of the French-owned Victory Palace Hotel.