The ACF London and the Institut Français London are delighted to welcome the acclaimed Congolese/Austrian novelist, dramatist and poet Fiston Mwanza Mujila along with his translator Roland Glasser to present his second novel The Villain’s Dance. Fiston and Roland will read selected passages from the work, as well as some of Fiston’s poetry. In conversation with Rosie Goldsmith, they will explore the themes of the novel, the translation process and what it means to be a writer working in and between multiple languages and cultures. The event will conclude with an audience Q&A session.
Copies of The Villain’s Dance will be available for purchase/signing in both the English and German translations as well as the original French edition.
This event will be primarily in English.
The novel is set in Zaire in the late 1990s. President Mobutu’s thirty-year reign is tottering. In Lubumbashi, the stubbornly homeless Sanza has fallen in with a trio of veteran street kids led by the devious Ngungi. A chance encounter with the mysterious Monsieur Guillaume seems to offer a way out . . . Meanwhile in Angola, Molakisi has joined thousands of fellow Zairians hoping to make their fortunes hunting diamonds, while Austrian Franz finds himself roped into writing the memoirs of the charismatic Tshiamuena, the ‘Madonna of the Cafunfo Mines’. Things are drawing to a head, but at the Mambo de la Fête, they still dance the Villain’s Dance from dusk till dawn.
Fiston Mwanza Mujila was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo and lives in Austria. His debut novel, Tram 83, won the German International Literature Award and the Prix littéraire du Monde, while its English translation (by Roland Glasser) won the Etisalat Prize for Literature and was longlisted for the International Booker Prize. His second novel, The Villain’s Dance, was a National Book Award finalist. Two collections of his poetry have been published in English: The River in the Belly and The Slaughterhouse of Dreams (both translated by J. Bret Maney). He also writes plays and opera libretti, and performs his texts in collaboration with contemporary musicians. In 2025, he was awarded the Franz Nabl Prize by the City of Graz. His writing responds to political turbulence in his native country and frequently foregrounds its debt to jazz.
Roland Glasser grew up in London, studied French and Theatre Studies at Aberystwyth and Film and Dramatic Arts at the University of Caen, before spending a decade living in Paris, where he developed a successful career in translation and theatre lighting design. He translates widely across both fiction and non-fiction, and was shortlisted for the Scott-Moncrieff Prize for his translation of Adéline Dieudonné’s best-selling Real Life. He has contributed articles and essays to a range of publications and is a co-founder of The Starling Bureau, a London-based collective of literary translators.
Rosie Goldsmith is an award-winning journalist specializing in arts and foreign affairs. A BBC staff Senior Broadcast Journalist for twenty years, she travelled the world and presented several flagship programmes. Today she combines journalism with chairing and curating arts and literary events in the UK and across the world. Known also as a champion of international literature, translation and language learning, she promotes them whenever she can. She is Founder and Director of the European Literature Network, Editor-in-Chief of The Riveter magazine, Artistic Director of the European Writers’ Festival and was Chair of the Judges of the EBRD Literature Prize 2018-2020, a prize that she helped set up. She is presenter of the Slightly Foxed books podcast.
