A bit difficult to follow but a nice ending.

I chose this book with the sole purpose of practicing my French. I had read Une Si Longue Lettre in college and liked it, so I thought I would try a different French-language book by an African author about a former French-speaking colony. That being said, I had no expectations when I started Petit Piment.

This book was excellent! I definitely got to practice my French, and the writing style worked well to get the point across while still retaining a linguistic style. The plot was a good combination of interesting and steadily-paced, but not action-packed. It kept me wanting to keep going without feeling like the entire substance of the book was plot-based. I would recommend to anyone interested in practicing their French, learning more about Africa, and enjoying French-language African literature.

It’s 1970, and in the People’s Republic of Congo, a Marxist-Leninist revolution is heralding a new age. But in the orphanage where Moses has grown up, they have terror and corruption in the form of the orphanage’s director. When Moses makes his escape, he finds a new home in busy Pointe-Noire with petty thieves and Z airian prostitutes. His new life is thrown into chaos when he authorities want to remove the city’s underbelly, and as they do so, Moses starts to lose grip on reality.

Black Moses is a captivating and well-written read. The language used paints a vivid picture of Moses and his life, growing up from child orphan to teenage thief and to an adult who has his own family unit. The interesting thing is that Moses’ life is so often shaped by political turmoil but it’s something that neither he nor the book really comments on, events happen and sometimes Moses doesn’t even really notice them.

There are a lot of references to various political leaders and the repressive politics of the Congo, having an understanding of that may have made the book more enjoyable, but it was still an accessible read. It has a lot of themes you can connect to, regardless of your knowledge of what life was like in 1970s Congo. There’s themes of loss, family, friendship and being forced to grow up fast.

The story is a quick read and there’s many funny moments. Whether that’s the situations Moses finds himself in, especially his antics in the orphanage, or through the dialogue between characters. The dialogue is quick, sharp and witty and is a great indicator as to what these characters and like and what they value.

Black Moses is an enjoyable read. At just under 200 pages the story speeds along as you follow Moses through his childhood to adulthood, leaning more about him and those he loves and loses along the way.

2.5?

The story started off alright but kinda fell apart in the end. I also wasn't too enamoured with the focus that the protagonist had on animal death throughout the second half of the story.

Starts well, and is interesting at points throughout, but the real story only picks up in the last 50ish pages and feels rushed.

I could not connect with this story at all. The last 50 pages or so were the most interesting. I felt like this was the writer's outline to the real story.

I've seen comparisons of this book to Oliver Twist, and I get why one might make that comparison, but I'm sorry, Black Moses, you're no Oliver Twist. The book is well-written, and I particularly enjoyed the first half. The plotting isn't terrible (although the second half does fall apart a bit.) However, it suffers from a lack of memorable and interesting characters (and this is where the Oliver Twist comparison really hurts Black Moses, because Dickens has many flaws as a writer but damn if he didn't know how to spin up a memorable character). Black Moses isn't a bad book, but there's nothing here that's going to stick with me, either.