Tram 83

Longlisted for The Man Booker International Prize 2016

Tram 83 is Fiston’s first novel, originally published in French by Éditions Métailié. The novel has received multiple awards, including the PEN Translates Award 2015, French Voices Award 2014 and the Grand Prix SGDL du Premier Roman 2014.

In a war-torn African city-state tourists of all languages and nationalities converge with students, ex-pats and locals. They have only one desire: to make a fortune by exploiting the wealth of the country, both mineral and human. As soon as night falls, they go out to abandon themselves in Tram 83, the only nightclub of the city, the den of all iniquities. Lucien, a professional writer, fleeing the exactions and the censorship of the Back-Country, finds refuge in the city thanks to Requiem, a friend. Requiem lives mainly on theft and on swindle while Lucien only thinks of writing and living honestly. Around them gravitate gangsters and young girls, retired or runaway men, profit-seeking tourists and federal agents of a non-existent State.

Tram 83 plunges the reader into the atmosphere of a gold rush as cynical as it is comic and colourfully exotic. It’s an observation of human relationships in a world that has become a global village, an African-rhapsody novel hammered by rhythms of jazz.