Finalist for the Man Booker International Prize 2015 Michel is ten years old, living in Pointe Noire, Congo, in the 1970s. His mother sells peanuts at the market, his father works at the Victory Palace Hotel, and brings home books left behind by the white guests. Planes cross the sky overhead, and Michel and his friend Lounès dream about the countries where they'll land. While news comes over the radio of the American hostage crisis in Tehran, the death of the Shah, the scandal of the Boukassa diamonds, Michel struggles with the demands of his twelve year old girlfriend Caroline, who threatens to leave him for a bully in the football team. But most worrying for Michel, the witch doctor has told his mother that he has hidden the key to her womb, and must return it before she can have another child. Somehow he must find it. Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty is a humorous and poignant account of an African childhood, drawn from Alain Mabanckou's life.

A “touching, furious, sharp, and very funny” novel of an immigrant teenage girl finding her own identity in France (Booklist). The Paradise projects are only a few metro stops from Paris, but it feels like a different world. Doria’s father, aka the Beard, has headed back to their hometown in Morocco, leaving her and her mom to cope with their mektoub, their destiny, alone. They have a little help—from a social worker sent by the city, a psychiatrist sent by the school, and a thug friend who recites Rimbaud. It seems like fate has dealt them an impossible hand, but Doria might still make a new life—“with bravado, humor, and a healthy dose of rage” (St. Petersburg Times). “[A] sassy, spunky tale . . . Doria has what it takes to storm any barricade.” —The Hartford Courant “[Doria is] as likable as Holden Caulfield or Prep’s Lee Fiora. Readers will cheer. Highly recommended.” —Library Journal, starred review “A promising addition to the world’s literary voices.” —The Miami Herald “Moving and irreverent, sad and funny, full of rage and intelligence. Her voice is fresh, and her book a delight.” —Laila Lalami, bestselling author of The Moor’s Account