He is best known for his novels and non-fiction writing depicting the experience of contemporary Africa and the African diaspora in France, including Broken Glass (2005) and the Prix Renaudot-winning Memoirs of a Porcupine (2006).

He further contends that categories such as nation, race, and territory fall short of encapsulating reality, and urges writers to create works that deal with issues beyond these subjects.

Mabanckou dedicated himself increasingly to writing after the publication of his first novel, Bleu-Blanc-Rouge (Blue-White-Red), which won him the Grand prix littéraire d'Afrique noire in 1999.

Mabanckou is best known for his fiction, notably Verre cassé (Broken Glass), a comic novel centred on a Congolese former teacher and life in the bar he now frequents.

The book is a magic realism-inspired reworking of a folk tale into a psychological portrait of Kibandi, a young Congolese man's descent into violence.

Just as the text uses the notion of doubles as a key idea in the development of its theme of power and sacrifice, African tribes believe twins to be harbingers of health and prosperity in a family.

The novel is narrated by one of these doubles, a porcupine, who is telling a baobab tree of the years he spent with Kibandi, his "master," establishing his subservient role.

After the two carry out a string of murders in their village, even once violating the basic principle of Congolese magic of never harming twins, given their sacred place in tradition, Kibandi dies and the porcupine remains alive, and turns to the baobab to tell his story.