The Story Archive

Memoirs of a Porcupine

Alain Mabanckou · 2006 CE · Novel · Central African · Contemporary

A porcupine, the animal double bound to a man in a Congolese village, confesses to a baobab tree the killings it has carried out at his master's bidding. The whole confession runs on in one unpunctuated stream of comic, grim talk. By a Congolese writer working in French, drawing on African beliefs in the animal double.

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