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author, visiting professor

MABANCKOU BOOK SIGNING Tuesday, 7 p.m. James West Alumni Center

He is fluent in nine African tongues, but French is the language Alain Mabanckou used to write the novels that have since made him a literary celebrity in France.

The author and visiting UCLA professor was awarded the Prix Renaudot on Nov. 6 for his novel “Memoires de porc-epic.”

The Renaudot is a prestigious French literary prize comparable to the National Book Award.

Mabanckou, a visiting professor in the Department of French and Francophone Studies, will hold a reading in French and discussion session of his award-winning work on Tuesday.

“For the time, we read it in French, because the book is not translated,” Mabanckou said.

Three of his novels will be translated into English and published in the U.S. next year, Mabanckou said.

Mabanckou said his winning of the prestigious award has helped propel the French and Francophone studies department into the international limelight, prompting prominent French newspapers such as Le Monde to interview the UCLA department head, Dominic Thomas, about the field.

“It’s good for Francophone studies. It makes our department known around the world,” Mabanckou said.

The writer is such a celebrity in France that a French television crew filmed his first class at UCLA last month, according to a UCLA press release.

Born in the Congo, Mabanckou spent time in France before moving to the U.S. and teaching at the University of Michigan for five years. This is his first year at UCLA, and he said he hopes it is not his last.

“I want to stay, hopefully. I like this place, I like this university, the students are very great and wonderful. ... It’s like paradise. You have good weather, the city is clean,” Mabanckou said.

Mabanckou, who learned to speak French at age 6, said “Memoires de porc-epic,” which translates to “Memoirs of a Porcupine,” is his attempt to record African civilization. The novel is a fable written in the form of a monologue told by a porcupine, based on the traditional African belief that every human has an animal alter ego, according to an article by UCLA Today.

The porcupine is the alter ego of a village artisan who forces it to commit horrible crimes. It ultimately rebels against the artisan by revealing to the village the perpetrators of the activities, according to the article.

Because it is written from an African rather than a French perspective, Francophone literature like that of Mabanckou “is using the same language, but it’s coming from a different path,” said Sandy Sargent, a UCLA alumna who majored in comparative literature with a French minor.

Sargent said Mabanckou’s novels seemed to be attempting to translate the Congolese culture into the French language.

“I think it’s significant coming from Africa and coming from the Congo in particular,” Sargent said.

Writing about African traditions in languages other than their native tongues allows those traditions to be more easily understood by other cultures, Sargent said.

“It puts his expression into more of a worldwide scale,” Sargent said.