African Books - Page 5

Song for Night

Chris Abani

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"Not since Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird or Agota Kristof's Notebook Trilogy has there been such a harrowing novel about what it's like to be a young person in a war. That Chris Abani is able to find humanity, mercy, and even, yes, forgiveness, amid such devastation is something of a miracle."-Rebecca Brown, author of The End of Youth

"The moment you enter these pages, you step into a beautiful and terrifying dream. You are in the hands of a master, a literary shaman. Abani casts his spell so completely-so devastatingly-you emerge cleansed, redeemed, and utterly haunted."-Brad Kessler, author of Birds in Fall

Part Inferno, part Paradise Lost, and part Sunjiata epic, Song for Night is the story of a West African boy soldier's lyrical, terrifying, yet beautiful journey through the nightmare landscape of a brutal war in search of his lost platoon. The reader is led by the voiceless protagonist who, as part of a land mine-clearing platoon, had his vocal chords cut, a move to keep these children from screaming when blown up, and thereby distracting the other minesweepers. The book is written in a ghostly voice, with each chapter headed by a line of the unique sign language these children invented. This book is unlike anything else ever written about an African war.

Chris Abani is a Nigerian poet and novelist and the author of The Virgin of Flames, Becoming Abigail (a New York Times Editor's Choice), and GraceLand (a selection of the Today Show Book Club and winner of the 2005 PEN/Hemingway Prize and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award). His other prizes include a PEN Freedom to Write Award, a Prince Claus Award, and a Lannan Literary Fellowship. He lives and teaches in California.

Beethoven Was One-Sixteenth Black: And Other Stories

Nadine Gordimer

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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"You’re not responsible for your ancestry, are you . . . But if that’s so, why have marched under banned slogans, got yourself beaten up by the police, arrested a couple of times; plastered walls with subversive posters . . . The past is valid only in relation to whether the present recognizes it."

In this collection of new stories Nadine Gordimer crosses the frontiers of politics, memory, sexuality, and love with the fearless insight that is the hallmark of her writing. In the title story a middle-aged academic who had been an anti-apartheid activist embarks on an unadmitted pursuit of the possibilities for his own racial identity in his great-grandfather’s fortune-hunting interlude of living rough on diamond diggings in South Africa, his young wife far away in London. “Dreaming of the Dead” conjures up a lunch in a New York Chinese restaurant where Susan Sontag and Edward Said return in surprising new avatars as guests in the dream of a loving friend. The historian in “History” is a parrot who confronts people with the scandalizing voice reproduction of quarrels and clandestine love-talk on which it has eavesdropped.“Alternative Endings” considers the way writers make arbitrary choices in how to end stories—and offers three, each relating the same situation, but with a different resolution, arrived at by the three senses: sight, sound, and smell.

When Rain Clouds Gather (AWS African Writers Series)

Bessie Head

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

A compelling look at life in rural Botswana 4 out of 5 stars.
11 of 11 people found this review helpful.

"When Rain Clouds Gather," the novel by Bessie Head, tells the story of a black South African refugee named Makhayo. He crosses the border into Botswana and becomes part of the village of Golema Mundi, whose members are experimenting with new agricultural methods under the tutelage of a white Englishman named Gilbert Balfour. Makhaya quickly becomes entwined in the political and social lives of Gilbert and the villagers.

This book offers a fascinating look at rural African life. Head's topics include social and political change, conflict between science and traditional ways, tribalism, the role of traditional African chiefs, religion, race relations, and male-female relations.

Overall, a compelling story. The author bio at the beginning of the book notes that Head was herself born in South Africa and eventually was granted Botswanan citizenship. For a good companion text to this novel, try "the Villagers," by Jorge Icaza.

Editorial Review:

The poverty-stricken village of Golema Mmidi, in the heart of rural Botswana, offers a haven to the exiles gathered there. Makhaya, a political refugee from South Africa, becomes involved with an English agricultural expert and the villagers as they struggle to upgrade their traditional farming methods with modern techniques. The pressures of tradition, the opposition of the local chief, and, above all, the harsh climate threaten to bring tragedy to the community, but strangely, there remains a hope for the future.

The Life and Times of Michael K

J.M. Coetzee

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 46 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A tale at once subsumed by race and yet never mentioning it 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Literary historians credit much of Ireland's rich literary tradition to its often tragic history. No surprise then that the nation of South Africa, likewise so rich in grief that it might as well diamonds, has produced so many extraordinary writers, two of whom, Coetzee included, who can boast a Nobel Prize. Which brings us to one of his many fine novels, the Life and Times of Michael K.

Telling the tale of a black man caught in the twisted and violent web of Apartheid might appear at first an obvious tale, but then again, so might the story of a child who turned to crime in London in the 19th century or one of a boy and his friend journeying down the Mississippi. It is in this vein which one must see The Life and Times of Michael K, one which captures a place and an age. Other reviewers have focused on the tale of the central character, Michael K, so I would instead look at another aspect of the novel. Despite writing about a place and a story where race surrounds every character and facet like smog, Coetzee never once tells us anyone's race. At first I found this strange, discerning it in its broad aspects but finding the absence the stated fact more than a little strange. It was then that a south African friend explained to me that while I could tell only the characters' races in the broadest sense, she could tell it easily, immediately, and down to which subgroup each belonged. Indeed, like an Englishman knowing the class of a countrymen by their accent, she knew this based on job, dress, and dialogue.

This then is to me part of the genius of Coetzee's novel, giving his reader a story that is at once subsumed by race and yet never mentioning it. True, as some complain, Michael K does not grow to a character larger than life, becoming some hero; no he is a simple man, living to the best of his common ability in a world where evil is so common that it deserves no mention.

I would be remiss not to mention Coetzee's gift for prose, his ability to distill a scene or a feeling down to a few words, like grain alcohol. Many Americans remain unfortunately ignorant of this writer and his country's other extraordinary authors, like Freed and Gordimer. This is a tragedy, which I urge every reader to correct.

Editorial Review:

In a South Africa torn by civil war, Michael K sets out to take his mother back to her rural home. On the way there she dies, leaving him alone in an anarchic world of brutal roving armies. Imprisoned, Michael is unable to bear confinement and escapes, determined to live with dignity. Life and Times of Michael K goes to the centre of human experience -- the need for an interior, spiritual life, for some connections to the world in which we live, and for purity of vision.

Ways of Dying: A Novel

Zakes Mda

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Winner of the M-Net Book Prize
Shortlisted for the CNA and Noma Awards

In Ways of Dying, Zakes Mda's acclaimed first novel, Toloki is a "professional mourner" in a vast and violent city of the new South Africa. Day after day he attends funerals in the townships, dressed with dignity in a threadbare suit, cape, and battered top hat, to comfort the grieving families of the victims of the city's crime, racial hatred, and crippling poverty. At a Christmas day funeral for a young boy Toloki is reunited with Noria, a woman from his village. Together they help each other to heal the past, and as their story interweaves with those of their acquaintances this elegant short novel provides a magical and painful picture of South Africa today.

Ways of Dying was awarded South Africa's prestigious M-Net Book Prize, awarded by the TV channel M-Net to books written in one of South Africa's official languages, and was shortlisted for the Central News Agency (CNA) Award and the Noma Award, an Africa-wide prize founded by Shoichi Noma, onetime president of Kodansha International.

The Pickup

Nadine Gordimer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 33 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Very insightful ... 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

After reading the first few pages of "The Pickup", I was determined to reach it's conclusion. The story unfolds of two personalities that are as different as night and day. Here are two people who see the intimate workings of the world through two distinct sets of senses and whose common threads, rather than intertwine with each other's realities, run directly parallel to one another. Theirs is the story of two people who are using one another to fill a void that neither can fill because they are not grounded in the present with an eye toward the future but instead are reliving the past through each other, trying to circumvent the truths that eventually bring them to an awakening of what they are looking for in life. It's an insightful treatment of diversity in relationships that are more about codependency than they are about love.

Editorial Review:

When Julie Summers's car breaks down on a sleazy street in a South African city, a young Arab mechanic named Abdu comes to her aid. Their attraction to one another is fueled by different motives. Julie is in rebellion against her wealthy background and her father; Abdu, an illegal immigrant, is desperate to avoid deportation to his impoverished country. In the course of their relationship, there are unpredictable consequences, and overwhelming emotions will overturn each one's notion of the other. Set in the new South Africa and in an Arab village in the desert, The Pickup is "a masterpiece of creative empathy . . . a gripping tale of contemporary anguish and unexpected desire, and it also opens the Arab world to unusually nuanced perception" (Edward W. Said).

Radicalism and Cultural Dislocation in Ethiopia, 1960-1974 (Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora)

Messay Kebede

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Editorial Review:

During the 1960s and early 1970s, a majority of Ethiopian students and intellectuals adopted a Marxist-Leninist ideology with fanatic fervor. The leading force in an uprising against the imperial regime of Emperor Haile Selassie, they played a decisive role in the rise of a Leninist military regime. In this original study, Messay Kebede examines the sociopolitical and cultural factors that contributed to the radicalization of the educated elite in Ethiopia, and how this phenomenon contributed to the country's uninterrupted political crises and economic setbacks since the Revolution of 1974.BR> Offering a unique, insider's perspective garnered from his direct participation in the student movement, the author emphasizes the role of the Western education system in the progressive radicalization of students and assesses the impact of Western education on traditional cultures. The most comprehensive study of the role of students in modern Ethiopian political history to date, Radicalism and Cultural Dislocation in Ethiopia, 1960-1974/ opens the door for discussion and debate on the issue of African modernization and the effects of cultural colonization. Messay Kebede is professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Dayton and is author of Survival and Modernization -- Ethiopia's Enigmatic Present: A Philosophical Discourse (1999).

Nelson Mandela's Favorite African Folktales

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"A treasure for everyone in the family."—Bill Cosby

Nelson Mandela's Favorite African Folktales is a cause for celebration, landmark work that gathers in one volume many of Africa's most cherished folktales. Mandela, a Nobel Laureate for Peace, has selected these thirty-two tales with the specific hope that Africa's oldest stories, as well as a few new ones, be perpetuated by future generations and be appreciated by children throughout the world.

In these "beloved stories, morsels rich with the gritty essence of Africa," we meet, among many others, a Kenyan lion named Simba, a snake with seven heads and a trickster from Zulu folklore; we hear the voices of the scheming hyena and learn from a Khoi fable how animals acquired their tails and horns. Several creation myths tell us how the land, its animals, and its people all came into existence under a punishing sun or against the backdrop of a spectacularly beautiful mountain landscape. Whether warning children about the dangers of disobedience or demonstrating that the underdog can—and often does—win, these stories, through their depiction of wise animals as well as evil monsters, are "universal in their portrayal of humanity, beasts, and the mystical."

What is particularly exciting about this book is that many of the stories, in their oral form, are almost as old as Africa itself. Most of them were, in fact, first told in various African tongues around evening fires in centuries past—tales from, for example, the San and the Khoi, the original hunter-gatherers and livestock herders of Southern Africa. Translated into English and other European languages chiefly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from their original languages—be they Karanga, Nguni, Xhosa, or one of many others—these folktales are a testament to the craft of storytelling and the power of myth.

Accompanied by dozens of enchanting, specially commissioned color paintings, Nelson Mandela's Favorite African Folktales—culled from African countries as far-flung as Morocco, Nigeria, Uganda, and Kenya—presents a fountain of precious knowledge that will be treasured by children, as well as adults, for years to come.

Girls at War

Chinua Achebe

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Great stories by a master writer 5 out of 5 stars.
38 of 38 people found this review helpful.

This is an impressive collection of short stories that covers a twenty-year period of Achebe's writing. They also cover a period of history in his native Nigeria that spans from the late colonial period to the Biafran war. In them Achebe explores various aspects of a predominant theme in his work, i.e. tradition vs. modernism in his country (as introduced by British colonial administration). The various stories offer glimpses into the lives of people from various classes and walks of life. Achebe has a concise and eloquent writing style; he has an almost singular talent for making very pertinent observations in an extremely pithy fashion. Thus, for example, in the few pages of a story like "Dead Man's Path," Achebe brings to life the problems which ensue from the drive for quick modernization, the desire to adhere to tradition and the hypocrisy of Nigeria's colonial administrators. Also impressive is Achebe's mastery of narrative styles, i.e. first person, omiscient, etc. These stories can be read on their own, or as a supplement to Achebe's similarly powerful novels.

Editorial Review:

Twelve stories by the internationally renowned novelist which recreate with energy and authenticity the major social and political issues that confront contemporary Africans on a daily basis.

Second-Class Citizen

Buchi Emecheta

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Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

To be what you are, and not what you are supposed to be 4 out of 5 stars.
13 of 13 people found this review helpful.

"Second Class Citizen" is the story of Adah, a resourceful, intelligent girl from Nigeria who comes to Great Britain shortly after Nigeria gained independence in 1960. Going to Great Britain was a dream she pursued with determination against the wishes of the family of her husband, who had departed for Great Britain before her, and against the traditional role which her native culture saw fit for women. Adah is not so much disappointed with what she finds in Great Britain (surprisingly, since she expected to find the "kingdom of heaven" there) but with the lack of change in her husband who neither can nor wants to question his traditional ways. On top of that he is lazy, bad tempered, and spoilt. He does not care for his wife, he cares for the money she brings home so that he can slouch on the couch and otherwise follow his whims.

Adah brings an interesting aspect to racism: You are only a victim if you think of yourself as a victim. For her part, she never accepts that she is regarded as a "second class citizen" because she is black or because she is a woman. Her husband, on the other hand, wants to fit in and actually tries to conform to the society's racist view of him. He has lost his sense of dignity, but Adah has not. She draws great strength from her determination to lead a better life, to get an education, to give a better life to her children, and to become a writer.

The style in which the novel is narrated is very plain and simple, just in line with Adah's sraightforward, practically minded character. It is quite unemotional and creates a certain distance between Adah and the reader. Beneath Adah's tough surface, however, one can sense the pain she feels at not being loved by her husband "for what she was and not just because she could work and hand over her money like a docile child."

"Second Class Citizen" is an impressive portrait of human dignity under pressure, and of the the sheer will of an individual to persist and to be what she knows she can be.

Editorial Review:

A poignant story of a resourceful Nigerian woman who overcomes strict tribal domination of women and countless setbacks to achieve an independent life for herself and her children.