Fiston Mwanza Mujila was awarded the literary award “Les Afriques” for his second novel “La danse du vilain” (2020) which will be published in English, German, as well as other languages in 2022.
The prize has been awarded annually since 2015 by the Swiss-based association La Cene Littéraire to writers from Africa or the diaspora whose work highlight human, social, ideological, political, cultural, economic, or historical issues related to Africa or its diaspora.
“This novel mainly evokes the themes of inter-African migration, the artisanal exploitation of the richness of their land by Africans and the constant deterioration of their living conditions. It is also about the growing gap between the African population and its political class –which are the only ones getting richer and richer. Fiston Mwanza Mujila also questions the so-called joviality of Africans in general and the Congolese in particular, by summoning through his characters, the history of personal and collective tragedies that hide behind a laugh or the frenzied rhythm of a dance –in this case, that of the ‘villain’.”
What the jury said about “The Villain’s Dance”