What an incredible visit from the amazing award-winning novelist, essayist, poet and academic Alain Mabanckou!

On Wednesday evening the French Embassy showed the film “Noirs en France “ - a powerful documentary by Alain Mabanckou and Director Aurelie Perrault about what it means to be Black in France.

The film interviews people with vastly different lives who recount their common experiences with racism. The participants include celebrities like rapper Soprano, journalist Karine Baste and tennis legend Yannick Noah—as well as private citizens: a home health aide, a high school student, a dancer. After the film Howard University professor Jean Jacques Taty led a lively discussion with Alain Mabanckou followed by audience Q&A.

And then the book signing! We could hardly keep up as people flocked to buy books. Monsieur Mabanckou patiently signed everyone’s copies while chatting with each and every person. An incredible evening!

And we are still floating on air from Thursday’s sold out literary discussion at the Alliance Francaise during which Alain Mabanckou was interviewed by the wonderful Amaneh Madjlessi, Academic Director at AFDC. Delighting the audience with his fantastic sense of humor and humanity, we learned how he became a writer (as a boy he wrote his first poems to charm the pretty girls in his classes), and Monsieur Mabanckou treated the audience to hilarious anecdotes from his childhood in the Republic of the Congo—a vast creative well that nourishes his imagination and inspires his novels.

Thank you to the French Embassy and the Alliance Française for inviting us to be a part of these unforgettable evenings with the magical Alain Mabanckou!