Sony Lab'ou Tansi's surreal portrait of a despised and incompetent regime is a biting, burlesque fable, incisive in its description of postcolonial colour and chaos. 'At the time of night when dew begins to form on objects left outside, and while Fartanio Andra's insomniac cocks crowed, we heard a cry from the town square: "Help me! He's killed me!"' History has been silenced in this modern African state: only the voices of the dead cry out for justice. It is a cry answered by Estina Bronzario, the Woman of Bronze, determined to act against the political and moral corruption of male-dominated society. Murders escalate, crowds ebb and flow, and the years roll by. But all the while, the police never come... 'Central Africa's greatest writer.' New York Times 'No greater genius than Sony Lab'ou Tansi.' Independent 'Sublimely surreal allegory... Tansi [is] one of Africa's important voices.' Publishers Weekly

Set in a fictitious African nation, this novel by the distinguished writer Sony Labou Tansi takes aim at the corruption, degeneracy, violence, and repression of political life in Africa. At the heart of The Shameful State is the story of Colonel Martillimi Lopez, the nation's president, whose eccentricity and whims epitomize the "shameful situation in which humanity has elected to live." Lopez stages a series of grotesque and barbaric events while his nation falls apart. Unable to resist the dictator's will, his desperate citizens are left with nothing but humiliation. The evocation of this deranged world is a showcase for the linguistic and stylistic inventiveness that are the hallmark of Sony Labou Tansi's work. This first English translation by Dominic Thomas includes a foreword by Congolese writer Alain Mabanckou that contextualizes the novel's importance in literary history and the significance of Sony Labou Tansi for future generations of writers.

Spritzige Groteske auf dem grellen politischen Hintergrund eines fiktiven zeitgenossischen Terrorregimes. Grandiose Haupt- und eine Palette vollblutiger Nebenfiguren! Seine Eminenz Furst Walante, blutrunstiger Diktator der Tropeninsel und ehemaligen Kolonie Bergotha, hat die mannliche Bevolkerung ausgemerzt, bis auf gewisse 'Inseminatoren des Vaterlands'. Als ideologische Provokation gegenuber England, dem er schlampige Entkolonisierung vorwirft, inszeniert er die 'kartesianische Insemination' ("Lassen Sie den Motor aufheulen, meine Damen! Seien Sie hart, eine Nation, die gibt's nicht zum Arschtarif. Dergleichen entsteht im ausdrucklichen Schweisse der Schenkel!"). Gleichzeitig wird eine pompose Hochzeit geplant und es intrigieren Neffe, Tochter und personlicher Ratgeber. Alle sind verruckt, nach Gold, Liebe, Sex, Macht - bis die Intrige auffliegt. Die charmante Braut entpuppt sich als ein Burger namens Yongo. Bevor Walante alle am Komplott Beteiligten vernichtet, feiert er noch mit seiner Ohnmacht Hochzeit.

Listed as one of the 100 best books on Africa, Life and a Half was Sony Labou Tansi s response to the death of close friends during a bloody military and political crackdown in Congo. The novel takes place in an imaginary African country run by the latest in a series of cannibalistic dictators who has captured Martial, the leader of the opposition, and his family. Though shot, knifed, butchered, and bled, Martial s spirit lives on to guide his followers in their fight against the dictators. Facing censorship, Tansi insisted that his book was a fable and that if he were ever given the opportunity to write about real events, he would be much more direct rather than follow the torturous paths of a novel. This crisp translation by Alison Dundy maintains the fast-paced action and bitingly satiric tone of the original."