Mwanza Mujila’s Tram 83 is a very raw portrait of a post-Colonial state tucked into south central Africa. Tram 83 itself seems to be a bar or whorehouse near a railway station anchoring the urban wasteland between miners and soldiers and tourists, although not the class of tourist one would expect in Miami Beach or Disneyworld,

The dialogue between Lucien, a writer, and Requiem, his pal/agent, is flinty.

Jazz blasts from the stage. Scantily-clad waitresses deliver cold beer and liquor to the tables. Prostitutes and their clientele rotate endlessly in the washrooms.

I am reminded of the super-realism of Bulgakov, or Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, or Daniel Dafoe’s London. A funny but nightmarish landscape of broken down institutions, violence, and crooked cops.

It seems only to come alive at night.

I almost expect Anthony Bourdain to pop up with a voice-over “I just happened to meet an old friend along the way to the charming neighbourhood bordellos...” ( )

Ouf, ça c’est une écoute éprouvante. La prose de Fiston Mwanza Mujila va à cent à l’heure, elle peut être vulgaire, est très souvent provocante et pleine d’images et de métaphores qui ne laissent aucun répit au lecteur. Il y a une telle rage de tout changer, un tel besoin de dénoncer. Dénoncer l’absence de perspective, la vie prise dans un engrenage de misère, dénoncer un climat politique et social étouffant…
Je ne suis pas le genre de lectrice pour ce genre de texte. Comme j’en ai écouté une adaptation radiophonique, je me suis accrochée et je suis allée au bout. Je ne le regrette pas car c’est une expérience certes éprouvante mais pas sans intérêt. Je suis contente de l’avoir menée à terme, mais je ne conseillerai pas ce livre à n’importe qui. Il faut aimer les allégories, et il faut aimer les textes qui partent dans tous les sens et débordent d’une vitalité qui ne peut s’exprimer aussi pleinement que dans les arts et la littérature.

Playwright Lucien arrives in the City-State, the stronghold of a dissident General where desperate people scrabble a living centred on the sleazy nightclub Tram 83. The denizens of Tram 83 are musicians, hookers, miners, tourists and other low-lives.

Lucien shacks up with local hood Requiem while he tries to get his magnum opus published. Requiem does his best to play Lucien, as well as everybody else.

Mujila uses language artfully to convey the bustle and hassling of Tram 83, where nobody can conduct a conversation without being hassled by half a dozen chancers. There is a good concept underlying this novel; the problem is that I just could not get interested in Lucien as a protagonist. He's a lame, feeble, ineffectual cypher, not enough to build the novel around. A novel with Requiem as the protagonist and Lucien as a minor character would have been much more fun. ( )

220 pages of text with little to no literature quality. Hectic, confusing, repetitive and boring. Meaningless time shifts, absurd plot. One of the worst books I ever came across. ( )

For the most part more of a narrative poem (or a philosophical rant with poetic aspirations) than a novel, somewhat disjointed and abstract at times, but definitely a satisfying read throughout.

I was almost going to give it just three or even two stars at certain points, but the ending really won me over. Nice. ( )