The Translations Book Club journeys to the Congo in May as we read Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s Tram 83 (trans: Roland Glasser).

In an unnamed African city in secession, profit-seekers of all languages and nationalities mix. They have only one desire: to make a fortune by exploiting the mineral wealth of the land. Two friends — Lucien, a writer with literary ambitions, home from abroad, and his childhood friend Requiem, who dreams of taking over the seedy underworld of their hometown — gather in the most notorious nightclub in town: the Tram 83. Around them gravitate gangsters and young girls, soldiers and stowaways, profit-seeking tourists and federal agents of a nonexistent State.

Tram 83 plunges the reader into a modern African gold rush as cynical as it is comic and colourfully exotic. A daring feat of narrative imagination and linguistic creativity, Tram 83 uses the rhythms of jazz to weave a tale of human relationships in a world that has become a global village.

New members are most welcome but spaces are limited. The event link below will be activated from 9am on Friday 23 April and spaces will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis. Feel free to send us an email if you have any questions.