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Tram 83 by the Congolese author Fiston Mwanza Mujila was translated from the original French into English by Roland Glasser.

The novel comes with a highly complementary introduction from Alain Mabanckou, with whose Broken Glass it shares many similarities (my review /review/show...).

The novel is set in the "City-State", the lawless capital of a rebel part of the country, with mining as the main industry - loosely based on Lubumbashi.

"The City-State is one of those territories that have already broken through the barrier of internal suffering. You share the same destiny as everyone else, the same history, the same hardship, the same trains, the same Tram beer, the same dog kebabs, the same narrative as soon as you come into the world. You start out baby-chick (*) or slim-jim (**) or child soldier. You graduate to endlessly striking student or desperado. If you've got family on the trains, then you work on the trains; otherwise, like a ship, you wash up on the edge of hope - a suicidal, a carjacker, a digger with dirty teeth, a mechanic, a street sleeper, a commission agent, an errand boy employed by for-profit tourists, a hawker of secondhand coffins. Your fate is already sealed, the route marked out in advance. Fate sealed like that of the locomotives carrying spoiler merchandise and the dying." (* under-age prostitute ** child worker in mine)

And our story starts at the North Station.

"The Northern Station was going to the dogs. It was essentially an unfinished metal structure, gutted by artillery, train tracks, and locomotives that called to mind the railroad built by Stanley, cassava fields, cut-rate hotels, greasy spoons, bordellos, Pentecostal churches, bakeries, and noise engineered by men of all generations and nationalities combined. It was the only place on earth you could hang yourself, defecate, blaspheme, fall into infatuation, and thieve without regard to prying eyes."

But the real heart of the City-State, and the novel, is Tram 83 a 24/7 bar and nightclub which attracts patrons from afar:

"Inadvertent musicians and elderly prostitutes and prestidigitators and Pentecostal preachers and students resembling mechanics and doctors conducting diagnoses in nightclubs and young journalists already retired and transvestites and secondfoot shoe peddlers and porn film fans and highwaymen and pimps and disbarred lawyers and casual labourers and former transsexuals and polka dancers and pirates of the high seas and seekers of political asylum and organized fraudsters and archaeologists and would-be bounty hunters and modern day adventurers and explorers searching for a lost civilization and human organ dealers and farmyard philosophers and hawkers of fresh water and hairdressers and shoeshine boys and repairers of spare parts and soldiers� widows and sex maniacs and lovers of romance novels and dissident rebels and brothers in Christ and druids and shamans and aphrodisiac vendors and scriveners and purveyors of real fake passports and gun-runners and porters and bric-a-brac traders and mining prospectors short on liquid assets and Siamese twins and Mamelukes and carjackers and colonial infantrymen and haruspices and counterfeiters and rape-starved soldiers and drinkers of adulterated milk and selftaught bakers and marabouts and mercenaries claiming to be one of Bob Denard’s crew and inveterate alcoholics and diggers and militiamen proclaiming themselves 'masters of the world' and poseur politicians and child soldiers and Peace Corps activists gamely tackling a thousand nightmarish railroad construction projects or small-scale copper or manganese mining operations and baby-chicks and drug dealers and busgirls and pizza delivery guys and growth hormone merchants, all sorts of tribes overran Tram 83, in search of good times on the cheap."

(In the original French;
"Ou musiciens par inadvertance ou prostituées du troisième âge ou prestidigitateurs ou pasteurs des églises de réveil ou étudiants aux allures de mécano ou médecins diagnostiquant dans les boîtes de nuit ou jeunes journalistes déjà à la retraite ou travestis ou bradeurs des chaussures de second pied ou amateurs de films pornos ou bandits de grand chemin ou proxénètes ou avocats radiés du barreau ou hommes à tout faire ou extranssexuels ou trafiquants d’armes ou pirates de mer ou demandeurs d’asile politique ou escrocs en bande organisée ou archéologues ou chasseurs de prime à la manque ou aventuriers des temps modernes ou explorateurs à la recherche d’une civilisation perdue ou vendeurs d’organes ou philosophes de basse-cour ou vendeurs d’eau fraîche à la criée ou coiffeurs ou cireurs ou réparateurs de pièces de rechange ou veuves de militaires ou obsédés sexuels ou férus de romans à l’eau de rose ou rebelles dissidents ou frères en Christ ou druides ou chamans ou vendeurs d’aphrodisiaques ou écrivains publics ou vendeurs de vrais faux passeports ou trafiquants d'armes à feu ou portefaix ou brocanteurs ou prospecteurs miniers à court de liquidités ou frères siamois ou mamelouks ou coupeurs des routes ou tirailleurs ou aruspices ou faux-monnayeurs ou militaires en mal de viol ou buveurs de lait frelaté ou boulangers autodidactes ou marabouts ou mercenaires se réclamant de Bob Denard ou alcooliques invétérés ou creuseurs ou miliciens autoproclamés «maîtres de la terre» ou politiciens «m'as-tu vu» ou enfants- soldats ou coopérants à bras-le-corps mille projets cauchemardesques de construction de chemins de fer et d’exploitations artisanales de minerais de cuivre et de manganèse ou canetons ou dealers ou aides-serveuses ou livreurs de pizza ou vendeurs d'hormones de croissance, toutes sortes de peuplades envahissent le Tram 83, en quête d’un bonheur bon marché.")

The novel centres around two characters - friends, rivals and enemies at the same time - Requiem, a denizen of Tram 83 and the City-State, and Lucien, an author, recently arrived from the Back-Country (the government held part of the country). Lucien tries to remain above the chaos, declining the persistently offered services of the "baby-chicks" and trying to write the sort of worthy, cultured novel that this novel definitely isn't:

“A stage tale that considers this country from a historical perspective. The Africa of Possibility: Lumumba, the Fall of an Angel, or the Pestle-Mortar Years . . . Characters include Che Guevara, Sékou Touré, Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Lumumba, Martin Luther King, Ceaușescu, not forgetting the dissident General�

But a publisher tells him:
“Look around us. There are beautiful girls, good-looking men, Brazza Beer, good music� Doesn’t all that inspire you? � The main character in the African novel is always single, neurotic, perverse, depressive, childless, homeless, and overburdened with debt."

And the book we're reading is not Lucien's but the one the publisher would like him to have written.

This is Mujila's debut novel and he was previously a published poet, and the highlight of the novel is the rhythm and repetition, with key motifs repeated throughout e.g. every time the rail station is mentioned we get "an unfinished metal structure, gutted by artillery, train tracks, and locomotives that called to mind the railroad built by Stanley.", to the extent that even the novelist replaces must of the sentence with ellipses towards the novels end ("an unfinished metal structure..... ").

The novel is particularly strong when recreating the hubbub of Tram 83 - "at Tram 83 it was impossible to converse without being interrupted!" - and the dialogue in the novel is frequently interrupted by the background chat particularly of the baby-chicks, constantly touting for customers with their lines "Do you have the time?."

Against that, the story itself is almost disappointingly simple, particularly when Mujila tries to wrap it a bit too abruptly at the novel's end, to the extent that one almost questions whether it would have been better without a plot at all.

A strong first novel and worthy of it's place on the MBI longlist but not shortlist material for me.

3.5 stars - I'm wavering between 3 and 4.