morebedsidebooks's review
4.0
Born in the far south of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Fiston Mwanza Mujila's collection The River in the Belly originally appeared in a bilingual French/German edition (trans Ludwig Hartinger) in Austria where Mujila has lived for many years. Like in the verve of different languages, some works may survive on the page fine, but I imagine Mujila’s verse best alive when at a poetry slam. However, thanks to the Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith you can further experience his recitals during a celebratory event of the collection with two of his translators and editor David Shook.
half_book_and_co's review
3.0
The poems in Fiston Mwanza Mujila's The River in the Belly (translated from French by J. Bret Maney) revolve around the Congo River but also adds other bodies of waters, themes of exile and rememberance.
The Congo River here is not a romanticized place, but appears as object and subject of a violent history and present, of colonial and post-colonial exploitation, the river as a witness - but with agency. Mujila even laments in one of the poems even: "its complicit silence/ makes me sick...".
Having "the river in the belly" as the title puts it is not a serene image of belonging but it is troubling: A lot of the imagery evolves around sickness, nauseau, and yes, diarrhea. The poems in their entirety built up to a visceral depiction of the effects of violence and trauma accross generations - and the position of the exiled writer in the mids of that.
"as the river offs itself in the ocean
I go off to spill my guts"
If you have read Fiston Mwanza Mujila's Tram 83 you know that his style is very musical - and that is true for many of these poems too. Would love to hear them read aloud by Mujila. I did find some of the imagery (and phrasings) a bit repetitive (and not as in echoes and adding layers). There were also some gendered images I found more irksome.
All the poems are called "Solitude" and numbered (some have additional title lines). The blurb describes solitude as "a short poetic form lending itself to searing observation and troubled humour, prone to unexpected tonal shifts and lyrical U-tone". I wasn't convinced by this framing as the poems do not necessarily follow a very specific form. There are a lot of more short form poems but there are also substantially longer ones which are also called "Solitude". I just did not see the specific causality between form and content implied by the blurb. What I found more interesting was that the poems are numbered but they are not presented from the lowest to the highest number but seemingly mixed. I read the book from front to back but I would be interested to re-read the collection and read them by number to see if that opens new connections and layers.
The Congo River here is not a romanticized place, but appears as object and subject of a violent history and present, of colonial and post-colonial exploitation, the river as a witness - but with agency. Mujila even laments in one of the poems even: "its complicit silence/ makes me sick...".
Having "the river in the belly" as the title puts it is not a serene image of belonging but it is troubling: A lot of the imagery evolves around sickness, nauseau, and yes, diarrhea. The poems in their entirety built up to a visceral depiction of the effects of violence and trauma accross generations - and the position of the exiled writer in the mids of that.
"as the river offs itself in the ocean
I go off to spill my guts"
If you have read Fiston Mwanza Mujila's Tram 83 you know that his style is very musical - and that is true for many of these poems too. Would love to hear them read aloud by Mujila. I did find some of the imagery (and phrasings) a bit repetitive (and not as in echoes and adding layers). There were also some gendered images I found more irksome.
All the poems are called "Solitude" and numbered (some have additional title lines). The blurb describes solitude as "a short poetic form lending itself to searing observation and troubled humour, prone to unexpected tonal shifts and lyrical U-tone". I wasn't convinced by this framing as the poems do not necessarily follow a very specific form. There are a lot of more short form poems but there are also substantially longer ones which are also called "Solitude". I just did not see the specific causality between form and content implied by the blurb. What I found more interesting was that the poems are numbered but they are not presented from the lowest to the highest number but seemingly mixed. I read the book from front to back but I would be interested to re-read the collection and read them by number to see if that opens new connections and layers.
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