The Pontas Agency is celebrating that Congolese author Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s second novel, The Villain’s Dance (La Danse Du Vilain) has been longlisted for the prestigious National Book Award for Translated Literature in the US. The finalists will be revealed on Tuesday, October 1st and winners will be announced live at the 75th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner on November 20th 2024.
Originally published in French with Éditions Metailié in 2020, the English translation by Roland Glasser of The Villain’s Dance (La Danse Du Vilain) was published in the US with Deep Vellum in March of this year to rave reviews. Translation rights have also been sold to Zsolnay/Unionsverlag (German), Nottetempo (Italian), Jensen & Dalgaard (Danish), Ramus (Swedish), and Al Kotobkhan (Arabic). All other translation and Film/TV rights are available.
Publishers submitted a total of 141 books for the 2024 National Book Award for Translated Literature. The judges for this category were Aron Aji, Jennifer Croft, Jhumpa Lahiri (Chair), Gary Lovely, and Julia Sanches, who said of the novel:
“In The Villain’s Dance … readers zig-zag across timelines, perspectives, and borders—from 1990s Zaire (present-day Democratic Republic of Congo) to the diamond mines of Angola. Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s novel features a dizzying cast of characters whose quests for survival amidst political, environmental, and financial uncertainty somehow, ultimately, converge.”
Fiston Mwanza Mujila was born in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo, in 1981, and writes poetry, prose, and theater. He currently lives in Graz, where he teaches African literature at Universität Graz and works with musicians in Austria on various projects. His first novel Tram 83 was longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2016 and the Prix du Monde, and was awarded the Etisalat Prize for Literature, the Internationaler Literaturpreis from Der Haus der Kulturen der Welt and the Peter-Rosegger-Literaturpreis. His second novel, La danse du vilain, was the Winner of the Prix Les Afriques 2021 and was longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award for Translated Literature. In 2024 he was also awarded the Literaturpreis der Literaturhäuser.
For more information about the above title, please contact Anna Soler-Pont (anna@pontas-agency.com).