Overview

A new poetic form from National Book Award finalist Fiston Mwanza Mujila, lauded author of novels Tram 83 and The Villain's Dance and poetry collection The River in the Belly. The Slaughterhouse of Dreamsis rooted in a traditional Congolese form of praise poem, thekasala, that ties together proverbs, origin stories,fables, and riddles into a recitation accompanied by music. In Mwanza Mujila's skilled hands, this oral tradition becomes a new multimedia form,set to the page while retaining the remarkable drama, emotion, and celebration of its performed root. InThe Slaughterhouse of Dreams, multiple lyrical traditions create a hybrid world of global spaces and layers of time. With the rhythmic, frenetic energy that unites his poetry, prose, and performances, Fiston Mwanza Mujila reanimates and simultaneously deconstructs ideas of the (post)colonial environment.

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9781646054114

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Reviews

""In a state of turmoil, water--mayi!--gushes from its source. It springs up in beautifully unpredictable spurts. Over which only the earth has final say. So it is with the poetry of Fiston Mwanza Mujila. So it is with the minerals scratched from the ground. Whether in Kolwezi, Kipushi or Tenke-Fungurume, in this land saturated with cobalt, uranium and other things no less terrible, and which we end up jettisoning abroad at the border post of Kasumbalesa, in the region where the author of these sublime verses was born."" --In Koli Jean Bofane, author of Congo Inc. ""The Slaughterhouse of Dreams in translation opens up a traditional African poetic performance to the world with charm and acuity. But make no mistake: it's a poetic river deep in history, longing, family, anger, love, and a quest for a nation within the self, layer by layer."" --Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún, author of Eṣù at the Library and co-editor of Best Literary Translations ""In these praise songs, Fiston Mwanza Mujila weaves traditional oral poetics with a contemporary lens to make a series of poems that celebrate, satirize, complicate, and recognize the fundamental and ancient cores of the human condition. The Slaughterhouse of Dreams sets a clear vision for the continuation of human struggle and reminds us that in praise we can find the fullness of all things."" --Matthew Shenoda, author of The Way of the Earth

""In a state of turmoil, water--mayi!--gushes from its source. It springs up in beautifully unpredictable spurts. Over which only the earth has final say. So it is with the poetry of Fiston Mwanza Mujila. So it is with the minerals scratched from the ground. Whether in Kolwezi, Kipushi or Tenke-Fungurume, in this land saturated with cobalt, uranium and other things no less terrible, and which we end up jettisoning abroad at the border post of Kasumbalesa, in the region where the author of these sublime verses was born."" --In Koli Jean Bofane, author of Congo Inc. ""The Slaughterhouse of Dreams in translation opens up a traditional African poetic performance to the world with charm and acuity. But make no mistake: it's a poetic river deep in history, longing, family, anger, love, and a quest for a nation within the self, layer by layer."" --Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún, author of Eṣù at the Library and co-editor of Best Literary Translations

Author Information

Fiston Mwanza Mujilawas born in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1981 and lives today in Austria. His debut novel,Tram 83, published in English in 2015 by Deep Vellum, won the Etisalat Prize for Literature and the German International Literature Award and was longlisted for both the International Booker Prize and the Prix litteraire du Monde. His second novel,The Villain's Dance(2024), also available from Deep Vellum, won the Prix Les Afriques and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Translated Literature. In addition to these novels translated by Roland Glasser, his poetry collectionThe River in the Belly(trans. J. Bret Maney, 2021) is also available in English from Deep Vellum. Dubbed ""a new and provocative contribution to African Literature,"" it was a finalist for the Luschei Prize for African Poetry and the Sarah Maguire Prize for Poetry in Translation. J. Bret Maney is a literary critic and translator from the French and Spanish. He is a recipient of several awards, including the 2020 Gulf Coast Translation Prize for his translations of Fiston Mwanza Mujila's poetry and an International Latino Book Award and PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant for his translation of Guillermo Cotto-Thorner's novel,Manhattan Tropics(Arte Pblico, 2019), which he also coedited. He is Associate Professor of English and Digital Humanities at Lehman College and The Graduate Center, CUNY.

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