The best known books set in each country: Republic of Congo

Posted on 2 August 2026 by fromtheheartofeurope

The Republic of Congo, often referred to as Congo-Brazzaville to avoid confusion with its much larger neighbor the Democratic Republic of Congo (aka Congo-Kinshasa), is on the western coast of Africa, straddling the equator. Its northern neighbors are Cameroon and the Central African Republic; the Democratic Republic of Congo borders it to the east and south, along with the Cabinda enclave of Angola also to the south; to the west are the Atlantic Ocean and Gabon.

Its history since independence from France in 1960 has been a dismaying sequence of single-party Communist-leaning regimes punctuated by military coups, with two full-blown civil wars in 1993-94 and 1997-99. At the end of the second civil war, President Dennis Sassou, who claimed to have won the 1997 elections, was installed in power with help from the Angolan army, and has stayed there ever since.

In 2016 I actually got to know the then main opposition leader, Guy Brice Parfait Kolélas; he stood in the 2021 presidential election, and came second but got less than 9% of the total vote. It did not matter to him, because tragically he died of COVID on the day of the election, while on a plane flying to France for medical treatment.

These days the Republic of Congo’s economy depends on oil exports. There are untapped mineral resources which will no doubt become more important as the developed world searches for critical raw materials. 70% of the population lives in one of the two big cities in the south, Pointe-Noire and Brazzaville, or along the railway line connecting them; the north and centre are very sparsely inhabited. The official languages are French, Kituba and Lingala, these last two being local languages of the Bantu family.

See here for the methodology of these posts, though NB that I am now also using numbers from StoryGraph. Books are disqualified if less than 50% of them is set in the current boundaries of the Republic of Congo.

Title	Author	GR raters	LT owners	SG reviews
Black Moses	Alain Mabanckou	2,324	246	446
Broken Glass	Alain Mabanckou	2,085	279	339
No Mercy: A Journey Into the Heart of the Congo	Redmond O’Hanlon	1,825	749	92
African Psycho	Alain Mabanckou	1,211	186	325
Memoirs of a Porcupine	Alain Mabanckou	1,243	205	188
Tomorrow I’ll Be Twenty	Alain Mabanckou	710	93	80
Johnny Mad Dog	Emmanuel Dongala	454	112	63
The Death of Comrade President	Alain Mabanckou	618	60	74

There was a fair amount of confusion with the Democratic Republic of Congo this week, but I think I successfully sifted for the books set on the northwestern side of the river.

One writer dominates here, Alain Mabanckou, born in Pointe-Noire in 1966, and now teaching literature at UCLA. Most of his books are explicitly set in the Republic of Congo.

This week’s overall winner, also on Goodreads and StoryGraph, is Black Moses (original title Petit Piment, “Little Pepper”) which is an Oliver Twist-like story of a lad making good in Pointe-Noire in the 1980s and 1990s.

Broken Glass is about the lives and travels of the patrons of a Congolese pub; I am taking a chance that more of it is set in-country than not.

African Psycho is about a man who calls on the spirit of a dead murderer to plan his own crime.

Memoirs of a Porcupine is told by a porcupine which has a mystical spiritual link with a human.

Tomorrow I’ll Be Twenty is a more frankly autobiographical novel drawing on Mabanckou’s own childhood.

The Death of Comrade President (original title Les cigognes sont immortelles, “Storks are Immortal”) is about a boy growing up in Pointe-Noire who has to protect his family when the president of the country, to whom they are related, is assassinated.

Two other writers feature this week. Redmond O’Hanlon’s No Mercy: A Journey to the Heart of the Congo, originally published just as Congo Journey, is this week’s LibraryThing winner (by quite some way). It is about a journey through the jungle to find a mysterious dinosaur-like creature. I checked, and it’s quite clear that it’s set on the Brazzaville side of the river.

Johnny Mad Dog is by Congo’s other well known writer, Emmanuel Dongala, and is about a child soldier in an African civil war of the 1990s. English Wikipedia thinks it is set in Rwanda or Liberia, and the film adaptation is definitely set in Liberia, but French Wikipedia and the other sources I have consulted in French are fairly sure that the original book is set in the Republic of Congo.

Including the StoryGraph numbers didn’t change the top eight, but did move Redmond O’Hanlon down from the top spot to third place.

As noted above, I scratched my head about a couple of the books included on the list; the one I excluded at the last moment was Brazzaville Beach by William Boyd, where although the framing narrative is set near Brazzaville, the core of the novel is set on a chimpanzee reserve in an unnamed country which is probably Angola and definitely speaks Portuguese rather than French. Otherwise it would have easily topped this week’s table.

It’s an all-male list this week. The top women writers from the Republic of Congo who I found on Goodreads and LibraryThing are Mambou Aimée Gnali (best known work set in Congo: L’or des femmes) and Adèle Caby-Livannah (best known work set in Congo: Les contes de la Pleine Lune: Congo), but with rather low numbers in each case. I did not find any books by women writers from the Republic of Congo on StoryGraph.

I have no books on my own shelves relating to the Republic of Congo.

Across the Atlantic next for El Salvador; then back to Europe for Denmark; then over to the far side of Asia for Singapore; then back west for Lebanon.

The 2025 MPC elections, run as a multi-member process

Posted on 2 August 2026 by fromtheheartofeurope

The results for the WSFS Mark protection Committee election are out!

Given that the Business Meeting yesterday voted to conduct future elections (from 2027, if it is ratified next year) as single multi-member counts, rather than repeated single-seat counts as at present, I was asked to produce my analysis of how that would have worked with this year’s vote.

(Disclosure: I voted for Warren Buff, so my vote started with him and was not transferred in any of the counts, either in real life or in my simulation.)

We know the number of first preferences counted in each round, and we can work out the transfers from Alana Vincent and Andrew January as follows:

	Round 1		Round 2		Round 3
Alana Vincent	27	-27	0		0
Andrew January	25	+23	48	-48	0
Warren Buff	12	+3	15	+18	33
Joni Dashoff	11		11	+8	19
Todd Dashoff	3		3	+5	8
Judy Bemis	3		3		3
Arturo Serrano	2		2	+6	8
Gary Blog	1		1	+4	5
Linda Ross-Mansfield	1		1		1
Roseanna Pendlebury	0		0	+7	7
not transferred		+1	1		1

With 85 votes in total and three places to elect, the quota is 85/(3+1)+.001 = 21.251
Both Alana Vincent and Andrew January exceed the quota on the first count, and are elected, Alana Vincent first with a surplus of 5.749 and Andrew January second with a surplus of 3.749.

Where do Alana’s votes go?
1 is not transferred
3 go to Warren Buff
23 go to Andrew January, and are then transferred along with the rest of his votes in the real-life Round 3.
For purposes of the thought experiment, I’m going to assume that Andrew’s original votes, and the ones he inherited from Alana, behaved similarly to each other, and split ties in Andrew’s favour.
So, let’s assume that the number of voites transferred from Alana to the next candidate after Andrew was as follows:

Warren Buff	12
Joni Dashoff	4
Todd Dashoff	2
Judy Bemis	0
Arturo Serrano	3
Gary Blog	2
Linda Ross-Mansfield	0
Roseanna Pendlebury	3
not transferred	1

The surplus value of these votes is Alana’s surplus (5.749) divided by the number of transferable votes (26) and rounded down: 0.221
So the second count looks like this:

	Count 1		Count 2
Alana Vincent	27	-5.749	21.251
Andrew January	25	–	25
Warren Buff	12	+2.652	14.652
Joni Dashoff	11	+0.884	11.884
Todd Dashoff	3	+0.442	3.442
Judy Bemis	3		3
Arturo Serrano	2	+0.663	2.663
Gary Blog	1	+0.442	1.442
Linda Ross-Mansfield	1		1
Roseanna Pendebury	0	+0.663	0.663
not transferred		+0.003	0.003

(The extra .003 in the Non-Transferable row is an accounting artefact to take account of rounding.)

Next we transfer Andrew January’s first preference votes. Again I’m assuming that they split much the same way as the votes he got from Alana Vincent, as follows:

Warren Buff	9
Joni Dashoff	4
Todd Dashoff	3
Judy Bemis	0
Arturo Serrano	3
Gary Blog	2
Linda Ross-Mansfield	0
Roseanna Pendlebury	4
not transferred	0

The surplus value of these votes is Andrew’s surplus (3.749) divided by the number of transferable votes (25) and rounded down: 0.149
So the third count looks like this:

	Count 1	Count 2		Count 3
Alana Vincent	27	21.251		21.251
Andrew January	25	25	-3.749	21.251
Warren Buff	12	14.652	+1.341	15.993
Joni Dashoff	11	11.884	+0.596	12.480
Todd Dashoff	3	3.442	+0.447	3.889
Judy Bemis	3	3		3
Arturo Serrano	2	2.663	+0.447	3.110
Gary Blog	1	1.442	+0.298	1.740
Roseanna Pendlebury	0	0.663	+0.596	1.259
Linda Ross-Mansfield	1	1		1
not transferred		0.003	+0.024	0.027

Linda Ross-Mansfield has the fewest votes at this stage. We know from the real-life election that her vote transferred to Warren Buff, so the fourth count looks like this:

	Count 1	Count 2	Count 3		Count 4
Alana Vincent	27	21.251	21.251		21.251
Andrew January	25	25	21.251		21.251
Warren Buff	12	14.652	15.993	+1	16.993
Joni Dashoff	11	11.884	12.480		12.480
Todd Dashoff	3	3.442	3.889		3.889
Arturo Serrano	2	2.663	3.110		3.110
Judy Bemis	3	3	3		3
Gary Blog	1	1.442	1.740		1.740
Roseanna Pendlebury	0	0.663	1.259		1.259
Linda Ross-Mansfield	1	1	1	-1
not transferred		0.003	0.027		0.027

Roseanna Pendlebury now has the fewest votes – the 7 that she got from Alana Vincent and Andrew January.
We know that in real life, 1 of these was not transferred, 3 went to Warren Buff and 1 each to Joni Dashoff, Todd Dashoff and Artur Serrano.
We don’t know which votes came from Alana and which from Andrew, but let’s imagine that the 3 from Alana went to Warren and the other 4 split evenly.
So the fifth round looks like this.

	Count 1	Count 2	Count 3	Count 4		Count 5
Alana Vincent	27	21.251	21.251	21.251		21.251
Andrew January	25	25	21.251	21.251		21.251
Warren Buff	12	14.652	15.993	16.993	+0.663	17.656
Joni Dashoff	11	11.884	12.480	12.480	+0.149	12.629
Todd Dashoff	3	3.442	3.889	3.889	+0.149	4.038
Arturo Serrano	2	2.663	3.110	3.110	+0.149	3.259
Judy Bemis	3	3	3	3		3
Gary Blog	1	1.442	1.740	1.740		1.740
Roseanna Pendlebury	0	0.663	1.259	1.259	-1.259
Linda Ross-Mansfield	1	1	1
not transferred		0.003	0.027	0.027	+0.149	0.176

Gary Blog now has the fewest votes – his own first preference, and 2each from Andrew January and Alana Vincent.
In real life, his first preference went to Warren Buff and the other 4evenly between Warren Buff, Joni Dashoff, Todd Dashoff and Arturo Serrano.
I’m going to imagine that the 2 votes that started with Alana went to Warren and Joni, and the 2 votes that started with Andrew went to Todd and Arturo.
So the sixth round looks like this:

	Count 1	Count 2	Count 3	Count 4	Count 5		Count 6
Alana Vincent	27	21.251	21.251	21.251	21.251		21.251
Andrew January	25	25	21.251	21.251	21.251		21.251
Warren Buff	12	14.652	15.993	16.993	17.656	+1.221	18.877
Joni Dashoff	11	11.884	12.480	12.480	12.629	+0.221	12.850
Todd Dashoff	3	3.442	3.889	3.889	4.038	+0.149	4.187
Arturo Serrano	2	2.663	3.110	3.110	3.259	+0.149	3.408
Judy Bemis	3	3	3	3	3		3
Gary Blog	1	1.442	1.740	1.740	1.740	-1.740
Roseanna Pendlebury	0	0.663	1.259	1.259
Linda Ross-Mansfield	1	1	1
not transferred		0.003	0.027	0.027	0.176		0.176

Judy Bemis now has the fewest votes – her 3 first preferences.
We know that 2 of these went to Joni Dashoff and 1 to Warren Buff.
So the seventh round looks like this:

	Count 1	Count 2	Count 3	Count 4	Count 5	Count 6		Count 7
Alana Vincent	27	21.251	21.251	21.251	21.251	21.251		21.251
Andrew January	25	25	21.251	21.251	21.251	21.251		21.251
Warren Buff	12	14.652	15.993	16.993	17.656	18.877	+1	19.877
Joni Dashoff	11	11.884	12.480	12.480	12.629	12.850	+2	14.850
Todd Dashoff	3	3.442	3.889	3.889	4.038	4.187		4.187
Arturo Serrano	2	2.663	3.110	3.110	3.259	3.408		3.408
Judy Bemis	3	3	3	3	3	3	-3
Gary Blog	1	1.442	1.740	1.740	1.740
R Pendlebury	0	0.663	1.259	1.259
L Ross-Mansfield	1	1	1
not transferred		0.003	0.027	0.027	0.176	0.176		0.176

Arturo Serrano now has the fewest votes – his 2 first preferences, and also 3 votes from each of Alana and Arthur.
We know that 1 of his first preferences transferred to Warren, but the other went to Alana, and we have no good information about the rest.
For the sake of illustration let’s split the first preference votes evenly between Warren and Joni, and the others evenly between the three remaining candidate.
So the eighth round looks like this:

Arturo Serrano now has the fewest votes – his 2 first preferences, 3 votes from Alana and 5 votes from Andrew.
We know that one of his first preferences transferred to Warren, but the other went to Alana in the first instance, and we have no good information about the rest.
For the sake of illustration let’s split the 2 first preference votes evenly between Warren and Joni, the 3 votes from Alana between all three remaining candidates, and the 5 votes from Andrew 2 to Warren, 2 to Joni and 1 to Todd.
So the eighth round looks like this:

	C1	C2	C3	C4	C5	C6	C7		C8
Alana Vincent	27	21.251	21.251	21.251	21.251	21.251	21.251		21.251
Andrew January	25	25	21.251	21.251	21.251	21.251	21.251		21.251
Warren Buff	12	14.652	15.993	16.993	17.656	18.877	19.877	+1.519	21.396
Joni Dashoff	11	11.884	12.480	12.480	12.629	12.850	14.850	+1.519	16.369
Todd Dashoff	3	3.442	3.889	3.889	4.038	4.187	4.187	+0.370	4.557
Arturo Serrano	2	2.663	3.110	3.110	3.259	3.408	3.408	-3.408
Judy Bemis	3	3	3	3	3	3
Gary Blog	1	1.442	1.740	1.740	1.740
R Pendlebury	0	0.663	1.259	1.259
L Ross-Mansfield	1	1	1
not transferred		0.003	0.027	0.027	0.176	0.176	0.176		0.176

Warren Buff now exceeds the quota and is elected third, after Alana Vincent and Andrew January.

There are various improvements that could be made to the presentation of the above, but I think this captures the likely flow of voting, without too many heroic assumptions.

The process would be completed in 8 rounds of counting, rather than the 14 that it took in real life.
There were 76 transfers of votes here, compared to 84 in real life.
The result was actually the same as in real life; but that was because the opposition to the three elected candidates was less than a quarter of the total vote.

Hopefully we can ratify this change for next year.

Sargassa, by Sophie Burnham, and my Astounding Award 2026 votes

Posted on 1 August 2026 by fromtheheartofeurope

Voting in this year’s Hugos closes on 8 August! Go do it!

1) My top vote in this category goes to Sophie Burnham, author of the one novel I had not previously read, Sargassa. The second paragraph of its third chapter is:

The long stretch of summer was just beginning, and already burdened by an oppressive heat that stuck heavy on his skin and clothes. His stepmother Naevia had taken to winding herself in cool strips of linen soaked in water and aloe before hiding in the tiled bathhouse with his little sister Selah, who was six at the time and still too little to be very interesting. And though she’d expressly forbidden him from going out into the sun, Naevia wasn’t his mima, and Arran had slipped away to join the other boys from his elementary in the shallows that ran along the lush private shores of Luxana’s Arborem district.

I thought this was excellent. We start off in an alternate timeline where an extension of the Roman Empire survives in North America, and we have young people involved with deadly palace politics and incipient revolution. I was really enjoying that, and then the writer puts an extra twist on the situation just after the three-quarter mark which made me enjoy it even more. The sequel was also in the Hugo packet, and I’ll read it in due course, but the first was enough for me to determine my vote for Burnham. You can get Sargassa here.

2) Antonia Hodgson, represented by her novel The Raven Scholar, which I already wrote up. Second paragraph of third chapter:

Today, Bersun was plainly dressed. An iron band for a crown, stamped with an ∞ – sacred symbol of the Eternal Path. His black tunic was slashed with five scarlet claw marks, a reversal of his bodyguards’ uniform. He wore chain mail beneath his tunic, and a longsword at his belt. Orrun was at peace, the rebellion a long-faded scar. But Bersun was a warrior to the bone. Even now, after more than two decades on the throne, he looked more natural dressed as one.

Hodgson is apparently already well known as a writer of eighteenth-century crime novels; this is her first fantasy, set in a world (or at least a country) where eight totemic elemental animals (including the titular Raven) dominate human culture, and the new king is determined in a series of Hunger Games-style trials. It’s an intricate and well constructed plot, as leading characters turn out to be completely different to who we thought they were, and indeed the game plan of the bad guys turns out to be completely different to what it looked like. I found the brutal violence a bit ick though. You can get The Raven Scholar here.

3) Kamilah Cole, represented by her novel So Let Them Burn, which I read last year. Second paragraph of third chapter:

Dinner had been served. Usually, her parents would wait for the whole family to be home before even setting the table, but not when she was here. When Aveline Renard Castell, the gods-blessed ruler of San Irie, arrived in Deadegg to visit the Vincent family, they brought out the good plates and their best manners. Which was annoying, because she was, well, the absolute worst.

Story of magically gifted teenage girl military leaders, which interestingly is a sequel to an unpublished adventure but works regardless. Lots of high politics and dragons. You can get it here.

4) Jared Pechaček, represented by his novel The West Passage, which I read last year. Second paragraph of third chapter:

Pell had always liked the refectory, with the quiet, half- conscious liking one feels for something one has known since childhood. A clerestory of tiny square windows ran along the eastern wall, letting in morning sunlight and evening breezes. Vast old tapestries covered the stone walls. Their rich colors had dimmed, many were moth- eaten, and some had fallen, but the stories and strange figures they held made her feel as if she were a creature of legend herself. Bats roosted in the south rafters, pigeons flew in and out, and ivy curled in at the windows, but even in its state of decay the refectory held some clear beauty quite separate from the ancient chaos of the rest of the palace.

A nicely worked out secondary world with some odd dynastic quirks. You can get it here.

5) H.H. Pak, represented by her story “Never Eaten Vegetables”, which is a Best Novelette finalist this year. Second paragraph of third section:

“Hello,” says the frog.

Generation starship with all kinds of issues between bottled brains and AIs. Some cute stuff but felt it wasn’t fully under control.

6) Molly O’Neill, represented by an extract from her novel Greenteeth. Second paragraph of third chapter:

I was stiff from my sleep and wanted to get up. I coughed loudly and rustled the reeds and branches of my nest more than I usually do. I didn’t want to startle her but Temperance stayed still, her chin resting on her knees. Her face was perfectly blank and pale, devoid of any expression, even when I scuttled past her to dangle my feet in the water. I looked back at her and tried to smile without showing any of my teeth. This was difficult to manage and a few of the first row popped out. I gave up and stopped smiling.

Clunky prose, doesn’t get the intersection between modern characterization and ancient lore, too much “look what a cute idea”!

That’s it for my Hugo votes this year, at least the ones I am making public. Happy voting, all!

From the Heart of Europe

Books, politics, languages and life

Monthly Archives: August 2026

The best known books set in each country: Republic of Congo

The 2025 MPC elections, run as a multi-member process

Sargassa, by Sophie Burnham, and my Astounding Award 2026 votes