Over at Three Percent Chad W. Post is continuing his trip through the long list of the mainstream translation award. The latest book to come under the microscope is In the United States of Africa by Abdourahman Waberi. The book is set in alternate present in which, as Post explains, we are asked to imagine:
what would it be like if Africa were America and the United States and Europe were third world countries where the whiteness of your skin was a disadvantage, a mark of poverty and prejudice
The author is from Djibouti and wrote originally in French. The translation is by David and Nicole Ball.