Great African Reads discussion

As book availability in Mar/April 2021 is still challenging many places in the world - we're adding the other two books from the poll as alternative reads.

This thread is for discussions of our Mar/Apr 2020 read of The Curious Case of Dassoukine’s Trousers, by Fouad Laroui - Notice that there may be SPOILERS (Find the no-spoiler thread here)

- Feel free to discuss anything you like about the book here: Here's a few questions to get you started:

How did you like the characters? The plot? The style? The portrayal of characters and their surroundings?

So far, I have read three out of nine of the stories and have been enjoying them! They are full of wit and humour. Thanks, Anetq, for also setting a thread for this one and for suggesting this title last year!

I just noticed that this short story collection was initially written in French and that the French ebook is easily available. I hope to find the time and join this group read.

I am nearly finished (only three more stories to go) and I have the feeling that a) the English translator Emma Ramadan did a good job! but b) that it will be even better to read it in French as one of Laroui's topics is language and being at home in a language. As he discusses this topic also in a sort of philosophical way I reckon there might be some things that will simply get lost in translation no matter how well it might have been done...

I have read the three first stories and I loved all three of them. Wonderfully written, very original stories.

I finished this book last week and I really loved it. Original, absurd, touching, funny, it really is a nice short story collection.

I've read the first three stories and am loving it so far. Really original with some marvelous moments of comedy.

I'm so glad this was nominated, I really enjoyed this collection. I'd love to read more books by this author.

Carolien wrote: "I'm so glad this was nominated, I really enjoyed this collection. I'd love to read more books by this author."

The same reaction here! I also want to read more of Fouad Laroui!!!