Tram 83 by

Some how I ended up with
the original French language
version of Tram 83.

Fiston Mwanza Mujila is a writer and teacher, born in the Congolese mining town of Lubumbashi and now living in Graz, Ausria. He has won a raft of awards for poetry and prose.

Tram 83 was Mukila's debut novel, published in 2014 to much critical acclaim in the francophone world, it was translated into many languages and several of these won awards.

When I dug Tram 83 out of my bedside cabinet, I discovered I had bought the original french, probably a step above my 25 year old GSCE French. And so I had to dig out my Kobo, which now refuses to connect to the internet and has a battery life of approximately 37 seconds. 

With all the accolades I was excited to read Tram 83. It has been described as poetic, frenetic and having a jazz rhythm that hums and throbs through out. Coupled with its focus on the seedy underbelly of (probably) Kinshasa it sounded ideally suited to my tastes. I had in my mind it was going to be a Congolese version of Dézafi, a novel I loved.

Mukila is am educator at 
the University of Graz

Unfortunately it just didn't click. Whether because I was reading it in translation, or maybe my English accent was at odds with the rhythm. Whatever the cause, I found the prose disappointingly pedestrian, in places even lumpy. 

Mukila has said in interviews that the west does not understand Africa, and yet it feels like he has heaped the worst stereotypes on top of each other - from dog meat to child prostitution. And while there is of course a place to display the negative aspects of any culture - no one feels rounded in this novel - these are not convincing personalities with the flaws inherent in a desperately poor and unempowered society - these are just tropes displayed to shock.

And the repeated lines peppered through out the novel just became increasingly irritating.

As you may have surmised I do not rate this novel highly.

★★☆☆☆

The DRC has a pretty cool flag - though the sea
blue lends it a little nautical air - and they only 
have 25 miles of coast.