The winner of the 2021 “Voix d'Afriques” literary prize: Fann Attiki
Fann Attiki, winner of the 2nd edition of the “Voix d'Afriques” literary prize (RFI-JC LATTES) © Pierre René-Worms / RFI
Text by: Catherine Fruchon-Toussaint
2 min
The literary prize “Voix d'Afriques” initiated by RFI, Lattès editions in partnership with the Cité Internationale des Arts returns for a second edition.
After a call for writing from young feathers on the African continent and the receipt of three hundred and fifty manuscripts, the 2021 laureate is the young 29-year-old author Fann Attiki awarded for his first novel entitled "Cave 72", a fiction which takes place in Congo-Brazzaville, the home country of the winner.
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A great reader of Sony Labou Tansi, Emmanuel Dongala, his Congolese elders, but also Gustave Flaubert discovered in his youth in Pointe Noire where he was born in 1992, Fann Attiki started out as a slammer before becoming a writer. Installed in Brazzaville since 2016, author of short stories in his beginnings, he then embarked on a novel which he finished writing to participate in time in the competition offered by RFI and the editions JC Lattès. Her manuscript, selected from among five finalists, won the day during the deliberations of the jury chaired by the writer Abdourahman A. Waberi and a committee made up of journalists, editors, bloggers, bookseller, authors and cultural managers from France, Côte d ' Ivory or Mauritania, among others.
“Cave 72”, the title of his award-winning novel, is the name of a bar in Brazzaville where four young Congolese meet who spend their time remaking the world, drinking beers and watching passers-by, until the day they come. are trapped in a plot that involves a former minister. At the crossroads of the detective novel, with a murder at stake, the political novel, with the gloomy wings of power, and the satirical novel, the fiction is as burlesque in the dialogues and the situations as it is serious in the themes addressed: corruption , plot, disillusionment of a part of the youth.
In a very energetic language, where French is interspersed with Lingala, Kituba or even Lari, “Cave 72” exudes an undeniable literary vitality with a bubbling of ideas, references, revolt and humor that pays homage to the people of Brazzaville in their sufferings and their smiles.
Voice of Africa Award 2021 © JC Lattès
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