Safe Return Doubtful

translated from the French (DR Congo) by Helen Stevenson – Published 2025

This was my fourth Mabanckou novel, and though I’ve enjoyed them all, this is best.

Liwa Ekimakingaï is dead at just 24, and trapped with the ghosts of other dead in the Frère Lachaise cemetery wandering aimlessly listening to the many tales of woe and regret.

As he gets to grips with his situation he deciphers the over-riding message of his fellow residents, beware of returning to Pointe-Noire, his hometown, where he intends to visit one final time, to visit his grandmother who raised him and find out what led to his demise. Unwisely, he ignores them. He is unable to ignore the disturbing rumours swirling amongst his own jumbled memories.
Back in Pointe-Noire, he discovers its darker side; corruption, double-dealing, violence and murder within the political administration of the country.

The novel has three distinct parts. Firstly as Liwa realises his fate, and tries to get to grips with being one of the walking dead, with flashbacks to his life. The second part tells the stories of his fellow residents, and in the third, the plot gathers pace to a fitting climax as Liwa returns home.

A feature of Mabanckou’s writing in all of his work is his dark and satirical humour, but in this particular novel, its blending with the surreal and supernatural takes it to another level. Infused within the story the macabre moves, unnerves, and surprisingly delights, playing with space, light, sound, and texture to produce a cinematically three-dimensional text. As in his previous work, his mission is to describe Congolese truths of colonial subjugation, religious superstition, and yet, the reason why he so clearly loves his country, the landscape, the people, and the culture. Its brilliance is in dissecting and reconstructing death to expose the past, and to recognise the fantastical world as the real one.

Its a wonderful piece of storytelling, and will be, no doubt, one of my books of the year.

Here’s a clip, an introduction to a character called ‘The Artist’..

A tiny old man, hunched, with a red hat and shoulder bag. He reaches the foot of your tree, hastily grabs the mangoes and stuffs them into his bag, without asking our permission. ‘What are you up to, sir?’ you ask him. ‘It’s the only mango tree in the whole cemetery, so it belongs to everyone, otherwise you have to go outside, and people on the outside are so horrible to us…’ You detect an unpleasant smell. The little guy needs a shower, you think. He is barefoot, his nails like mountain ridges. Strands of his hair trail from under his hat; like long twists of creeper. In the popular districts he’d get taken for a rasta come down from the mountain after years spent meditating, living among wild creatures.

My GoodReads score 5 / 5