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Memoirs of a Porcupine
A Literary Fiction Novel by Alain Mabanckou
Subgenres:
- Magical Realism,
- African Fiction,
- Darkly Comic
This book is for you if you're into...
- Animal doubles with dark, surreal twists
- African legends woven into literary confession
- Narrators who are not quite human
All human beings, says an African legend, have an animal double. Some doubles are benign, others wicked. This legend comes to life in Alain Mabanckou's outlandish, surreal, and charmingly nonchalant Memoirs of a Porcupine.
When Kibandi, a boy living in a Congolese village, reaches the age of 11, his father takes him out into the night and forces him to drink a vile liquid from a jar that has been hidden for years in the earth. This is his initiation. From now on, he and his double, a porcupine, become accomplices in murder. They attack neighbors, fellow villagers, and people who simply cross their path, for reasons so slight that it is virtually impossible to establish connection between the killings.
As he grows older, Kibandi relies on his double to act out his grizzly compulsions, until one day even the porcupine balks and turns instead to literary confession.
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