Blaise Ndala

Blaise Ndala was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country he left in 2003 for Belgium, where he studied law. He moved to Ottawa in 2007 and worked first as a teacher of French as a second language, then as a federal public servant. In 2014, he published his first novel, J’irai danser sur la tombe de Senghor, published by Éditions l’Interligne, for which he won the 2015 Ottawa Book Award. His second novel, Sans capote ni kalachnikov, was published in January 2017 by Mémoire d’encrier and was proclaimed the grand winner at the 2019 Combat national des livres on ICI Radio-Canada Première; it was defended by journalist Marie-Maude Denis, representing Ontario.