“Tram 83” by Fiston Mwanza Mujila (Democratic Republic of Congo)

Review

From a classic plot-driven novel to an unusual collective ‘novel-essay,’ the four shortlisted books for this year’s Summer Reading Group varied greatly in structure, style of writing, and point of view. Our summer readers also noticed a recurrent theme in all four of dreams and their many meanings.

“Tram 83” was chosen as the Summer Reading Group’s Coup de Cœur Summer 2016. Set in an unnamed mining town, this highly original novel drags the reader into the eponymous nightclub filled with an eclectic cast of characters. Describing it as bold, adventurous and fast-paced, most readers really liked the underlying stories in this book. They compared the rambling style with long passages consisting of lists of words and phrases to a ‘cacophony of words.’ They thought the English translation was excellent, though some readers felt it would work better in French. 

Synopsis

Winner of Etisalat Prize for Literature 2015

Two friends, one a budding writer home from abroad, the other an ambitious racketeer, meet in the most notorious nightclub — Tram 83 — in a war-torn city-state in secession, surrounded by profit-seekers of all languages and nationalities.

Nicola’s Summer Reading list 2016

“Sleeping on Jupiter” by Anuradha Roy (India) *
“Tram 83” by Fiston Mwanza Mujila (Democratic Republic of Congo)
“The Story of My Teeth” by Valeria Luiselli (Mexico)
“Reckless” by Hasan Ali Toptas (Turkey)

* Best Summer Read
In italics, SRG’s Coup de Cœur