Vast Central African state, independent from Belgium in 1960 (formerly Zaire).
The Belgian colonial origins of the Congo state.
A people's history of the DRC from colonialism through independence.
Set in an unnamed newly-independent Central African country on a great river, widely read as a fictionalized portrait of Mobutu-era Zaire/DRC; the setting is deliberately unnamed, so the DRC match is an informed inference rather than an explicit statement in the text.