Alain Mabanckou, a Franco-Congolese writer, will be at Emory on Thursday, March 26, at 5:30 p.m. in 208 White Hall for a discussion entitled “Migrant Selves | A Round Table with Alain Mabanckou.”

The round table, which is free and open to the public, will feature a discussion of Mabanckou’s career trajectory as a writer and his works, followed by a Q&A session.

On March 24, it was announced that Mabanckou is a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, to be awarded in May in London. This literary prize is awarded each year for the best original novel written in the English language and published in the United Kingdom.

“The Department of French and Italian is extremely excited that Alain Mabanckou will be joining us for this year's Écrivains d'Aujourd'hui (Writers of Today), especially as we just learned he is a finalist for the prestigious Man Booker International Prize,” according to graduate students Marion Tricoire and Blair Watson.

Mabanckou’s work engages with contemporary questions of identity, migration, race, language and the role of the writer in today's world, says Watson.

“This is exactly the type of engagement that the Department of French and Italian wants to share with undergraduate students and the Emory community at large,” notes Tricoire.

The event is co-sponsored by Atlanta Francophonie Committee; the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States; the Consulate General of France in Atlanta; the Hightower Fund; Laney Graduate School; the Institute of African Studies, the Institute of Liberal Arts; the Departments of English and of African American Studies; the Global and Postcolonial Studies Program; the French Enrichment and Response Association; the Department of Comparative Literature Graduate Speakers Committee.

For more information, french.emory.edu/events/.