Life and a Half

"...a useful reminder of the greater depth of the African canon, and of the literary gems to be found in francophone Africa... Sony Labou Tansi's Life and a Half seethes with the violence and disappointment of the turbulent post-independence period in his native Congo. The setting is fictional; but the novel was written after the real-life execution of several of the author's friends, who have been accused of planning a coup. Life and a Half is a rejection of dictatorship - carried to astonishing lengths... The relentless satire is so angry, and so startling it is not always easy to read - but as his great Congolese successor Alain Mabanckou has written, Life and a Half was one of the "founders of the new francophone literature"." James Copnall, The Times Literary Supplement "Life and a Half is a place and a time of half-death -- or, if one prefers, half-life. It is a place where life and death are so entangled that it is no longer possible to distinguish them, or to say what is on the side of the shadow or its obverse." Achille Mbembe