The Lights of Pointe-Noire

The Lights of Pointe-Noire is a well-written memoir of the author’s return to the Congo after living in Europe for 23 years. Mabanckou intelligently captures a society where modernization and technological developments mix with traditional family networks and religious/mystical thinking. This book seemed to receive a significant amount of attention in the UK (and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize) but unfortunately was almost entirely ignored in the US.