Uploaded September 2023 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
A conversation with Emmanuel Dongala and Will Mountain Cox at the American Library in Paris. Filmed on 20/09/2023 with a live audience both in person and on Zoom.
Emmanuel Dongala, "the most accomplished novelist from Africa since Chinua Achebe," made a special appearance at the Library to discuss the new English edition of The Stone Breakers: A Classic Novel of Labor Resistance.
The novel tells the story of a feminist uprising among a group of workers in a gravel pit. What begins as a village protest escalates to a state-wide rebellion that confronts the corrupt leadership and challenges the status quo set by the government and the mining corporations. Dongala appeared in conversation with Will Mountain Cox, author of With Paris in Mind and the forthcoming debut novel, Roundabout.
About the speakers:
Born in the Republic of Congo in 1941, Emmanuel Dongala is a scientist and author who came to the United States in 1997 during the civil war in his native country and was offered a professorship at Bard College. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in Fiction in 1999. Dongala is the author most recently of the acclaimed novel The Bridgetower Sonata, as well as Johnny Mad Dog, Little Boys Come from the Stars, and The Fire of Origins. He is the recipient of the 2011 Prix Ahmadou Kourouma Award and his most recent novel The Bridgetower Sonata was shortlisted for the Prix Albertine in 2022. This novel is currently under option to French film director David Lanzmann for a limited series.
Will Mountain Cox is the author of With Paris in Mind. His writing has been published in Forever Magazine, Hobart, Spectra Poets, The Drunken Canal and Vol.1 Brooklyn. In 2013, Will co-founded the Belleville Park Pages. He holds degrees from Boston University and from Sciences Po in Paris, where he was named Graduate of Honor.
Evenings with an Author is generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg.
A conversation with Emmanuel Dongala and Will Mountain Cox at the American Library in Paris. Filmed on 20/09/2023 with a live audience both in person and on Zoom.
Emmanuel Dongala, "the most accomplished novelist from Africa since Chinua Achebe," made a special appearance at the Library to discuss the new English edition of The Stone Breakers: A Classic Novel of Labor Resistance.
The novel tells the story of a feminist uprising among a group of workers in a gravel pit. What begins as a village protest escalates to a state-wide rebellion that confronts the corrupt leadership and challenges the status quo set by the government and the mining corporations. Dongala appeared in conversation with Will Mountain Cox, author of With Paris in Mind and the forthcoming debut novel, Roundabout.
About the speakers:
Born in the Republic of Congo in 1941, Emmanuel Dongala is a scientist and author who came to the United States in 1997 during the civil war in his native country and was offered a professorship at Bard College. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in Fiction in 1999. Dongala is the author most recently of the acclaimed novel The Bridgetower Sonata, as well as Johnny Mad Dog, Little Boys Come from the Stars, and The Fire of Origins. He is the recipient of the 2011 Prix Ahmadou Kourouma Award and his most recent novel The Bridgetower Sonata was shortlisted for the Prix Albertine in 2022. This novel is currently under option to French film director David Lanzmann for a limited series.
Will Mountain Cox is the author of With Paris in Mind. His writing has been published in Forever Magazine, Hobart, Spectra Poets, The Drunken Canal and Vol.1 Brooklyn. In 2013, Will co-founded the Belleville Park Pages. He holds degrees from Boston University and from Sciences Po in Paris, where he was named Graduate of Honor.
Evenings with an Author is generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg.
