In koli jean bofane
In Koli Jean Bofane is a writer. He grew up on a coffee plantation in the Congo managed by his Belgian stepfather, and left for Brussels in 1960. He returned home to Mobutu’s Zaire in 1983, first working in advertising and then running Kinshasa’s satirical newspaper. He returned to exile in 1993, working small jobs, especially as a bouncer at nightclubs, before finally publishing a political fable with Gallimard Jeunesse, Pourquoi le lion n’est plus le roi des animaux. His most recent novel, Congo Inc. (Actes Sud), received many prizes and has been translated in six languages. Having been a writer in residence at PEN International’s Vlaanderen Center in Anvers, he now lives in Brussels – but still likes to remember that he was born at the spot where the Congo river crosses the equator, latitude zero, at noon.
