The River in the Belly & Other Poems - by Fiston Mwanza Mujila (Paperback)
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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br><b>Award-winning Congolese author Fiston Mwanza Mujila returns to the Deep Vellum catalog with a poetry book both intimate and universal, seeking through metaphor and lyric to reckon with the contested subjecthood of Mujila's native country.</b><p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><p> The River in the Belly is the collection only Mujila could write, blending musical lyricism, legend, and theology from Africa and Europe; from the widely-acclaimed author of the novel <i>Tram 83</i>. <p/> Created originally as part of a multi-disciplinary work of poetry, music, video, and dance performed in Europe in 2019, <i> The River in the Belly<i> shows the Congo River as it runs in real life and through Mujila's body and mind; he contemplates his native river and the decades of upheaval the Democratic Republic of Congo has gone through, in turns berating and serenading a homeland from exile in Austria. This bittersweet, ambitious collection, in the words of translator J. Bret Maney, "does no less than seek to reinitiate the Congo River in the imaginary of European languages."</p><p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br><p>"With dark, picaresque humor and faith in the power of chant, this notebook of counter-songs confronts the death drive of capitalism and chances to chart a 'cartography of violence' with a matter-of-factness that is the other side of love. The translator J. Bret Maney renders all this in a language as vital and musical as it is precise...and with a performative élan that feels like something special: solidarity, perhaps." <strong>-- Urayoán Noel, judge for The 2020 Gulf Coast Prize in Translation</strong></p> Praise for <i>Tram 83</i> <p/> <b>Winner of the Etisalat Prize for Debut African Fiction 2015<br> Nominated for the Man Booker International Prize 2016<br> Winner of a French Voices Award</b> <p/>"An exuberantly dark first novel . . . Evoking everyone from Brueghel to Henry Miller to Celine, Fiston plunges us into a world so anarchic it would leave even Ted Cruz begging for more government." -- John Powers, NPR's Fresh Air w/ Terry Gross <p/>"A high-velocity debut . . . The writing has the pulsing, staccato rhythms of Beat poetry and Roland Glasser has exuberantly harnessed that energy in his translation from the French." --Sam Sacks, <i>Wall Street Journal</i> <p/> "At once a grim account of neocolonialism and a comic tale of late-night urban mayhem, this vigorous, hip and brilliant work takes a while to warm up but ends up gripping like a vice." -- James Smart, <i>The Guardian</i> <p/> "In this visceral, fast-paced debut novel, acclaimed Congolese poet Mujila examines life in a central African state plagued by instability. . . . Rapid and poetic, Mujila depicts a province where "every day is a pitched battle." . . . The central characters fight to change the paths laid before them, desperate to rebel against a fate imposed by life in a consumptive environment. Mujila succeeds in exploring themes of globalization and exploitation in a kinetic, engaging work." -- <i>Publishers Weekly</i><br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br><p>Fiston Mwanza Mujila's writing foregrounds its debt to jazz, responds to political turbulence in his native country and its effects on everyday life, and displays an often incandescent, improvisatory verbal energy, replete with bouts of irreverent humor and surprising tonal shifts. He is the recipient of many literary prizes, including, most recently, the Peter-Rosegger-Literaturpreis (Austria, 2018). He is the author of <i>Tram 83</i>, published in English in 2015 by Deep Vellum; winner of the German International Literature award and long-listed for the International Man Booker and the Prix du Monde. Mujila born in 1981 in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo, and now lives in Graz, Austria. </p> <p>J. Bret Maney is an assistant professor of English at Lehman College, CUNY. He earned a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Pennsylvania and has worked as a translator from the French and Spanish since 2005. Before starting graduate school, Maney founded and ran the Talking World translation agency. His translation of <i>Manhattan Tropics</i> has been honored by the Ezra Pound Prize for Literary Translation, a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant, and a Commendation in the <i>Gulf Coast</i> Translation Prize. </p>
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