Description: Its title recalls Bret Easton Ellis's infamous book, but while Ellis's narrator was a blank slate, "African Psycho's" protagonist is a quivering mass of lies, neuroses, and relentless internal chatter. Gregoire Nakobomayo, a petty criminal, has decided to kill his girlfriend Germaine. He's planned the crime for some time, but still, the act of murder requires a bit of psychological and logistical preparation. Luckily, he has a mentor to call on, the far more accomplished serial killer Angoualima. The fact that Angoualima is "dead" doesn't prevent Gregoire from holding lengthy conversations with him. Little by little, Gregoire interweaves Angoualima's life and criminal exploits with his own. Continuing with the plan despite a string of botched attempts, Gregoire's final shot at offing Germaine leads to an abrupt unraveling. Lauded in France for its fresh and witty style, "African Psycho's" inventive use of language surprises and relieves the reader by injecting humor into this disturbing subject.
Review Quotes: Finalist for the Man Booker International Prize 2015
"The novel with which [Mabanckou] cemented his reputation as one of French-language fiction's leading lights . . . Black as pitch and bitter as wormwood, a razor-sharp satire in which the trials of a would-be serial killer are played for laughs." --Times Literary Supplement "The drama's in the waffling: will he or won't he? Alain Mabanckou's novel [. . . ] discovers a fascinating new way to hang readers on those tenterhooks. African Psycho presents no gloomy Raskolnikov, nor the fixed sneer of Patrick Bateman, but a haunted burlesque . . . Mabanckou's sprightly negotiations of extremes and opposites demonstrate anew how the novel form is nothing if not flexible--a significant demonstration given the book's provenance." --The Believer