Fantastic and Marvellous Reality; Witchcraft and Miscellaneous Events Le commerce des Allongés by Alain Mabanckou

Abstract

The novel Le commerce des Allongés by Alain Mabanckou, launched at la rentrée littéraire in September 2022, is a fulfilment of the novelist’s desire to reconnect with the oral narratives of his childhood: by his own admission, Mabanckou draws on the répertoire by his mother bequeathed to him. The result is a singular work in which the fantastic is grafted onto news and gives way to the magic realism, while exploring workings of black magic rites. My purpose is to study the writer’s use of the supernatural and his manipulation of stereotypes, prejudices and commonplaces associated with Africa. The aim of Mabanckou’s work is to convey a strong, though biased, criticism of the powerful and influent African men who are stifling and corrupting their country’s society, and to plunge Western readers into a fearsome reality that is likely to amuse, shock and outrage them at the same time.