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I should have reviewed this earlier, but Christmas has intervened (and I couldn't resist starting one of my Christmas books) so I have probably forgotten some of what I might have said.

I picked this book up after it was chosen for a list of best books of the 2010s by my friends in the Mookse group (thanks Anto). I am not sure I would entirely concur, but it is undoubtedly fresh, lively and often funny. We don't tend to hear much about the so called Democratic Republic of Congo and this is the first Congolese book I have read.

Mujila paints a startling picture of his home city Lubumbashi, as something of anarchic frontier town, and his picture is not a flattering one. His main character Lucien, a writer, initially seems incorruptible but in the end he is not spared - rather like Prince Myshkin in The Idiot his naivety has unforeseen consequences that upset a fragile stability. My main reservation was a degree of casual sexism - the women in the story are peripheral characters for whom prostitution seems to be the only option...