Literary programme
David Van Reybrouck – “Congo”
In a compelling and breathtaking narrative, David Van Reybrouck tells the history of Congo – from the Belgian colonial period through Mobutu’s 32-year dictatorship and the “African World War” of the 1990s to the present day. He tells the story from the powerful perspective of those who suffer, struggle and live in the country. Drawing on countless eyewitness accounts, previously unknown archival documents and his extensive knowledge of historical research, Van Reybrouck’s Congo is “a milestone of political and historical reportage” (Die Welt).
“Nothing like this has ever been written before. The work is incomparable in its narrative style, the sheer scale of its research and its dramatic structure. From the first page to the last, it is more gripping than any crime novel and more intricately woven than most social novels.” Süddeutsche Zeitung
“The best book on Africa in recent years.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Van Reybrouck interweaves his own family’s history with the voices of a diverse range of individuals – charismatic dictators, feuding warlords, child-soldiers, the elderly, female merchant smugglers, and many in the African diaspora of Europe and China – to offer a deeply humane approach and a definitive work of political history, focusing squarely on the Congolese perspective and returning a nation’s history to its people.
Moderation: Anabela Mota Ribeiro
