AFRICA - GENERAL
[ AFRICA - Folklore ]Abrahams, Roger D. (editor). African Folktales. New York. 1983. Pantheon Books. 0394502361. Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library. 357 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Bascove.
DESCRIPTION- This masterful addition to the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library illuminates a vast and ancient tradition of storytelling across the African continent. Out of the deep forest and the broad savannah, from the campsites, kraals, and villages of over forty tribes, the voices of the storytellers weave imaginative myths of creation and tales of epic deeds, chilling ghost stories with nightmarish demons and violent twists, ribald tales of mischief and magic in the animal and human realms. Drawing on sources that range from the notes of the earliest missionaries to the most recent works of anthropologists and ethnographers, the distinguished American folklorist Roger Abrahams renders nearly one hundred stories in a voice reverberating with the rhythm of the drum, revealing to us these exotic folktales universal concerns while vividly evoking their unique, dramatic roots in the song, dance, and ritual performance of the African world.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Roger Abrahams is currently Kenan Professor for the Humanities and Anthropology at Scripps and Pitzer Colleges in Claremont, California. He is a former president of the American Folklore Society. His most recent books are AFTER AFRICA (with John Szwed) and THE MAN-OF-WORDS IN THE WEST INDIES.
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Achebe, Chinua and Innes, C. L. (editors). African Short Stories. Portsmouth. 1987. Heinemann. 0435905368. African Writers Series. The last of the AWS series given a series number. AWS titles after this are not numbered. 159 pages. paperback. AWS270. Cover design by Keith Pointing. Cover illustration by Christine Tongue. Originally published in AWS series 1985.
DESCRIPTION- ‘A fine anthology, well selected, well ordered, and altogether a pleasure to read. The editors have chosen twenty stories by twenty different writers from all over Africa, grouping them geographically into four different sections: West, East, North, and Southern Africa. They have done a particularly good job of balancing the work of lesser-known, younger writers with established figures: David Owoyele as well as Achebe, Abdulrazak Gurnah as well as Ngugi, Ahmed Essop as well as Nadine Gordimer and Bessie Head.' - World Literature Today. African short stories. Includes 'The false prophet' by Sembene Ousmane, 'Certain winds from the south' by Ama Ata Aidoo, 'The apprentice' by Odun Balogun, 'The will of Allah' by David Owoyele, 'Civil peace' by Chinua Achebe, 'The gentlemen of the jungle' by Jomo Kenyatta, 'The green leaves' by Grace Ogot, 'Bossy' by Abdulrazak Gurnah, 'The spider's web' by Leonard Kibera, 'Minutes of glory' by Ngugi wa Thiong'o, 'An incident in the Ghobashi household' by Alifa Rifaat, 'A handful of dates' by Tayeb Salih, 'A conversation from the third floor' by Mohamed El-Bisatie, 'Papa, snake & I' by B. L. Honwana, 'The bridegroom' by Nadine Gordimer, 'The betrayal' by Ahmed Essop, 'Protista' by Dambudzo Marechera, 'The coffee-cart girl' by Ezekiel Mphahlele, 'Snapshots of a wedding' by Bessie Head, and 'Reflections in a cell' by Mafika Gwala.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - CHINUA ACHEBE published THINGS FALL APART in 1958. It was followed by NO LONGER AT EASE (AWS 3) and ARROW OF GOD (AWS 16). A MAN OF THE PEOPLE (AWS 31) aroused widespread interest on publication at the time of the January 1966 coup because of its prophetic ending. The effects of his novels, and of his editorship of the African Writers Series has had a dramatic impact on the development of the literature of Africa. Some of the stories in GIRLS AT WAR (AWS 100) and some of the poems in BEWARE SOUL BROTHER (AWS 120) are set in the war. His essays were published in 1975 under the title MORNING YET ON CREATION DAY (Heinemann). He was educated at Government College, Umuahia and University College, Ibadan. By the time he left the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1966 he had become Director of External Broadcasting. Since the war he has been at the Universities of Nigeria, Massachusetts and Connecticut. He has now returned to Nsukka. Among many recent honours has been the award of a Fellowship of the Modern Languages Association of America and of Doctorates at the Universities of Stirling and Southampton. He has recently followed Heinrich Boll, the Nobel prizewinner, as the recipient of the Scottish Arts Council's Neil Gunn Fellowship. Chinua Achebe is best known as a novelist. But the years of the Nigerian crisis and the civil war were not, for both practical and psychological reasons, a time for work on full-length novels. He found poetry a means of expressing his distress, even though few of the poems speak directly of the war. He has added some new poems to this collection which has already been published in Nigeria. C. L. Innes, a lecturer and literary critic of African and Caribbean literature, has taught English and Comparative Literature at universities in Australia, the United States and England, where she lectures at the University of Kent. She has co-edited Critical Perspectives on Chinua Achebe (Heinemann) and published a number of articles on African, Australia,, and Irish literature. Her most recent books are The Devil's Own Mirror: The Irish and the African in Modern Literature (Three Continents Press, Washington, D.C.) and Chinua Achebe Cambridge University Press).
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Achebe, Chinua and Innes, C. L. (editors). The Heinemann Book of Contemporary African Short Stories. Oxford. 1992. Heinemann. 043590566x. African Writers Series. 200 pages. paperback. Cover design by Stafford & Stafford. Cover illustration by Christopher Corr.
DESCRIPTION- Capturing the diversity of African writing from across the anthology draws together well-established authors and the best of new From the harsh realities of South Africa, elegantly described by Nobel Prize winner Nadine Gordimer, to the fantastic world of Booker Prize winner Ben Okri, from the magic realism of Mozambican Mia Couto, to the surreal world of Ghanaian Kojo Laing, the editors have distilled the essence of contemporary African writing. Blending the supernatural and the secular, the market-place and the shrine, this anthology gives the reader a taste of the full range of African literary styles.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - CHINUA ACHEBE published THINGS FALL APART in 1958. It was followed by NO LONGER AT EASE (AWS 3) and ARROW OF GOD (AWS 16). A MAN OF THE PEOPLE (AWS 31) aroused widespread interest on publication at the time of the January 1966 coup because of its prophetic ending. The effects of his novels, and of his editorship of the African Writers Series has had a dramatic impact on the development of the literature of Africa. Some of the stories in GIRLS AT WAR (AWS 100) and some of the poems in BEWARE SOUL BROTHER (AWS 120) are set in the war. His essays were published in 1975 under the title MORNING YET ON CREATION DAY (Heinemann). He was educated at Government College, Umuahia and University College, Ibadan. By the time he left the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1966 he had become Director of External Broadcasting. Since the war he has been at the Universities of Nigeria, Massachusetts and Connecticut. He has now returned to Nsukka. Among many recent honours has been the award of a Fellowship of the Modern Languages Association of America and of Doctorates at the Universities of Stirling and Southampton. He has recently followed Heinrich Boll, the Nobel prizewinner, as the recipient of the Scottish Arts Council's Neil Gunn Fellowship. Chinua Achebe is best known as a novelist. But the years of the Nigerian crisis and the civil war were not, for both practical and psychological reasons, a time for work on full-length novels. He found poetry a means of expressing his distress, even though few of the poems speak directly of the war. He has added some new poems to this collection which has already been published in Nigeria. C. L. Innes, a lecturer and literary critic of African and Caribbean literature, has taught English and Comparative Literature at universities in Australia, the United States and England, where she lectures at the University of Kent. She has co-edited Critical Perspectives on Chinua Achebe (Heinemann) and published a number of articles on African, Australia,, and Irish literature. Her most recent books are The Devil's Own Mirror: The Irish and the African in Modern Literature (Three Continents Press, Washington, D.C.) and Chinua Achebe Cambridge University Press).
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Achebe, Nwando. Female Monarchs and Merchant Queens in Africa. Athens. 2020. Ohio University Press. 9780821424070. 4.25 x 7. Ohio Short Histories of Africa. 16 illustrations. 224 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- The latest in the Ohio Short Histories of Africa series, Female Monarchs and Merchant Queens in Africa offers readers an unparalleled history of the remarkable African women who occupied positions of power, authority, and influence. In this unapologetically African-centered monograph, Nwando Achebe considers the diverse forms and systems of female leadership in both the physical and spiritual worlds, as well as the complexities of female power in a multiplicity of distinct African societies. From Amma to the goddess inkosazana, Sobekneferu to Nzingha, Nehanda to Ahebi Ugbabe, Candace to Omu Okwei and the daughters or umuada of Igboland, Female Monarchs and Merchant Queens in Africa documents the worlds and life histories of elite African females, female principles, and (wo)men of privilege. Organized chronologically and by theme, Achebe pieces together the worlds and experiences of African females from African-derived sources, especially language; Achebe explores the meaning and significance of names, metaphors, symbolism, cosmology, chronicles, songs, folktales, proverbs, oral traditions, traditions of creation, and more. From centralized to small-scale egalitarian societies, patrilineal to matrilineal systems, North Africa to Africa south of the Sahara, Female Monarchs and Merchant Queens in Africa offers an unparalleled history of the remarkable African women who occupied positions of power, authority, and influence.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Nwando Achebe, the Jack and Margaret Sweet Endowed Professor of History at Michigan State University, is the award-winning author of six books, including Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings; Female Power and Authority in Northern Igboland, 1900–1960; and The Female King of Colonial Nigeria: Ahebi Ugbabe.
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Anyidoho, Kofi. The Word Behind Bars and the Paradox of Exile. Evanston. 1997. Northwestern University Press. 9780810113930. Foreword by Jane Guyer. 288 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- The Word Behind Bars and the Paradox of Exile grew out of a workshop that brought together a group of African writers, including many who suffered imprisonment in their home countries and/or exile abroad. For some, the workshop prompted their first attempt to write about their experiences and to compare them with others whose life and art had come under similar constraints. This collection represents their assessments--in prose, poetry, and drama--of the many facets of the exile experience. The papers are as graphic, eloquent, and thought-provoking as they are varied in their subject matter and mode of communication. A powerful fusion of the personal and the political, The Word Behind Bars and the Paradox of Exile offers a timely perspective on conditions of literary production in many parts of Africa today.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kofi Anyidoho is a poet, literary scholar, and a specialist in African and African-heritage literatures. He is a senior faculty member of the Department of English and the acting director of the School of Performing Arts at the University of Ghana, Legon.
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Armes, Roy. African Filmmaking: North and South of the Sahara. Bloomington. 2006. Indiana University Press. 9780253218988. 6.125 x 9.25. "12 b&w photos. 256 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- African cinema is a vibrant, diverse, and relatively new art form, which continues to draw the attention of an ever-expanding worldwide audience. African Filmmaking is the first comprehensive study in English linking filmmaking in the Maghreb with that in the 12 independent states of francophone West Africa. Roy Armes examines a wide range of issues common to filmmakers throughout the region: the socio-political context, filmmaking in Africa before the mid-1960s, the involvement of African and French governments, questions of national and cultural identity, the issue of globalization, and, especially, the work of the filmmakers themselves over the past 40 years, with particular emphasis on younger filmmakers. Armes offers a wealth of information and a unique perspective on the history and future of African filmmaking.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Roy Armes is Emeritus Professor of Film at Middlesex University and author of numerous books on cinema, including Postcolonial Images: Studies in North African Film (IUP, 2005), Arab and African Film Making (with Lizbeth Malkmus), and Dictionary of North African Film Makers.
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Armes, Roy. Dictionary of African Filmmakers. Bloomington. 2008. Indiana University Press. 9780253351166. 7 x 10. 416 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Compiled by eminent Africanist film scholar Roy Armes, Dictionary of African Filmmakers is an inclusive, comprehensive treatment of films and filmmaking on the African continent. The dictionary covers African feature filmmaking from the first locally produced films to today's thriving film industry, listing 5,415 films made by 1,253 filmmakers in 37 countries. Part 1 includes information on filmmakers and provides date and place of birth, training or film experience, other creative activities, and a list of feature films produced. Part 2 presents a national chronology, filmography, and bibliography for each country producing feature films. Part 3 indexes film titles and provides translations into English or French where appropriate. This book is an essential reference tool for anyone who wants to know more about the vibrant and exciting world of African film.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Roy Armes is Professor Emeritus of Film at Middlesex University in the United Kingdom. He has published many works on film, including Arab and African Film Making (with Lizbeth Malkmus), Dictionary of North African Film Makers, Postcolonial Images (IUP, 2005), and African Filmmaking (IUP, 2006).
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Asante, Molefi Kete and Abarry, Abu S. (editors). African Intellectual Heritage: A Book of Sources. Philadelphia. 1996. Temple University Press. 1566394023. 828 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Organized by major themes such as creation stories, and resistance to oppression, this collection gather works of imagination, politics and history, religion, and culture from many societies and across recorded time. Asante and Abarry marshal together ancient, anonymous writers whose texts were originally written on stone and papyri and the well-known public figures of more recent times whose spoken and written words have shaped the intellectual history of the diaspora. Within this remarkably wide-ranging volume are such sources as prayers and praise songs from ancient Kemet and Ethiopia along with African American spirituals; political commentary from C.L.R. James, Malcolm X, Mary McLeod Bethune, and Joseph Nyerere; stirring calls for social justice from David Walker, Abdias Nacimento, Franzo Fanon, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Featuring newly translated texts and documents published for the first time, the volume also includes an African chronology, a glossary, and an extensive bibliography. With this landmark book, Asante and Abarry offer a major contribution to the ongoing debates on defining the African canon.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Molefi Kete Asante is Professor and Chair of African American Studies at Temple University and author of several books, including THE AFROCENTRIC IDEA and THE HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL ATLAS OF AFRICAN AMERICANS. Abu S. Abarry is Assistant Chair of African American Studies at Temple University.
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Bambote. Daba's Travels From Ouadda To Bangui. New York. 1970. Pantheon Books. 0394820509. Translated from the French John Buchanan-Brown. Illustrated by George Ford. 170 pages. hardcover. Cover illustration by George Ford.
DESCRIPTION- Based on the author's childhood. Daba was born in Ouadda, in what is now the Central African Republic. His mother often told him about the terrible dry season that year, when elephants, buffaloes and antelopes stampeded through the countryside in a frenzied search for water. Even panthers stalked the bush around the village, often carrying innocent sheep. Safe near his parents' hut, Daba listened to the story time and time again. And as he grew, loved and protected, there grew in him a strength of spirit and a deep love for his native village.But Daba was not destined to live his live in Ouadda. When he was still a young boy, he left his beloved home on the first of a series of journeys that would lead him farther and farther away--even to France. For Daba's parents wanted him to be educated, a rare and special privilege not often enjoyed by poor village children.The life, history and tradition of the people of the Central African Republic are described with great feeling by Bambote, for Daba's Travels is a recollection of his own childhood and youth.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bambote was born in Ouadda, Central African Republic. He studied both in Africa and in France, and holds graduate degrees in international affairs, sociology, and journalism. In 1965 he was appointed director of information for the Central African Republic. He now teaches at Laval University in Quebec. He has written several books, for children and adults, including DIRGE FOR A HERO OF AFRICA. Born in Brooklyn, illustrator George Ford has spent some time traveling and painting in the West Indies and Mexico. He now lives and works in Harlem, where he lends his talents to groups working in the community. Mr. Ford has studied at Pratt Institute, Cooper Union, and the School of Visual Arts, and holds a degree in Art Education from C.C.N.Y. This is the third book on Africa that he has illustrated.
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Bargna, Ivan. Africa. Berkeley. 2009. University of California Press. 9780520259744. Dictionaries of Civilizations series. 388 pages. paperback. 5000 copy first printing.
DESCRIPTION- This spectacular volume, at once a concise resource guide and a fascinating read, brings the dazzling variety of sub-Saharan Africa to life with its inviting, innovative approach. Africa tells its story through hundreds of breathtaking full-color, full-page images of people, landscapes, artworks, and artifacts accompanied by extended explanatory captions, relevant quotations, and concise overviews of topics such as art, religion, colonialism, slavery, and popular culture. Attentive to the ways in which we have constructed and deconstructed meanings of Africa, the crisp text encompasses recent understandings of history. The book explores the contemporary dimension as well, illuminating throughout the dynamic, multicultural, and complex nature of African societies. It includes a map of precolonial Africa, a chronology of events, and a list of the museums where visitors can view much of the art featured in the volume. With its innovative organization, wideranging coverage, and up-to-date information, this highly original guide presents Africa as a living, changing entity.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ivan Bargna teaches at the University of Milano, Bicocca, and is the author of Arte Africana.
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Beier, Ulli (editor). Political Spider: Stories From 'Black Orpheus'. New York. 1969. Heinemann. 0435900587. African Writers Series. 118 pages. paperback. AWS58. Cover illustration by Georgian Beier.
DESCRIPTION- Many of the best-known names in African writing made an early appearance in the pioneering magazine Black Orpheus. This selection gathers together some of their stories and extracts from novels. Most were written in English but there are also translations from Yoruba, French and Portuguese. CONTENTS: Introduction; THE AFRICAN TRADITION - Kako by D. O. Fagunwa; Ajaiyi and the Witch Doctor by Amos Tutuola; The Mouth that commits an Offence by Bajare Gbadamosi; Political Spider by Andrew Salkey; The Third Gift by Jan Carew; THE ISLAMIC WORLD - A Beautiful Wedding by Mohaaed Dib; The Descendants by Ousmane Soce; Zebra by Mouloud Mammeri; Ambiguous Adventure by Cheikh Amidou Kane; THE MODERN WORK - Revenge by Henri Krea; The Hands of the Blacks by Luis Bernardo Honwana; Blankets by Alex La Guma; The Voter by Chinua Achebe; PEOPLE - Uncle Ben's Choice by Chinua Achebe; Certain Winds from the South by Ama Ata Aidoo; Constable by O. R. Dathorne; The Bark by Bishr Fares.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - ULLI BEIER, having acted as a catalyst in the publication of Nigerian writers and the showing of Nigerian artists, is now in charge of the teaching of literature in English in the University of Papua and New Guinea. He was the editor of Black Orpheus and was a founder of the Mbari Clubs of Ibadan and Oshogbo. His publications are numerous, vital and important.
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Beier, Ulli (editor). The Origin of Life and Death: African Creation Myths. London. 1966. Heinemann. African Writers Series. 65 pages. paperback. AWS23. Cover illustration by Suzanne Wenger.
DESCRIPTION- THE ORIGIN OF LIFE AND DEATH is a collection of creation myths from all parts of Africa. The stories are colourful and inventive, and as answers given by man to the problems and mysteries of life and death they are as valid as Genesis and make as fascinating reading. Some ideas will be new and startling to people reared on the Muslim or Christian traditions: all are exciting and stimulating because they throw new light on man's relationship to God and on hi attempt to come to terms with the supernatural sand the inevitable.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - ULLI BEIER, having acted as a catalyst in the publication of Nigerian writers and the showing of Nigerian artists, is now in charge of the teaching of literature in English in the University of Papua and New Guinea. He was the editor of Black Orpheus and was a founder of the Mbari Clubs of Ibadan and Oshogbo. His publications are numerous, vital and important.
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Belcher, Stephen (editor). African Myths of Origin. New York. 2005. Penguin Books. 0140449450. 511 pages. paperback. Cover - Ethiopian painted screen shwoing the story of the Queen of Sheba.
DESCRIPTION- Gathering a wide range of traditional African myths, this landmark new collection offers tales of heroes battling mighty serpents and monstrous birds, brutal family conflicts and vengeance, and desperate migrations across vast and alien lands. From accounts of the inventive wiles of animal-creators and a community fleeing a giant crocodile, to the heroic story of the cripple Sunjata who rose to found an empire, all the narratives here concern origins. They offer a kaleidoscopic picture representative of the rich cultures and societies of the African continent; the ways of life, the peoples - from small hunting bands to great empires - and the states that have taken shape over many generations and environments. Arranged to allow easy identification of regional patterns and connections, this volume reworks traditional stories in a language intended for the general reader. The introduction explores the vital significance of these time-honoured myths of origin, their history and development over the years. This edition also includes detailed maps that place the tales in geographic context.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Stephen Belcher was born in Cairo, Egypt and spent much of his childhood in Africa and Europe. He holds a doctorate from Brown University, has taught at Pennsylvania State University, and currently teaches at the University of Kankan in the Republic of Guinea.
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Bennett, Herman L. African Kings and Black Slaves: Sovereignty and Dispossession in the Early Modern Atlantic. Philadelphia. 2018. University of Pennsylvania Press. 9780812250633. The Early Modern Americas. 6 x 9. 224 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- As early as 1441, and well before other European countries encountered Africa, small Portuguese and Spanish trading vessels were plying the coast of West Africa, where they conducted business with African kingdoms that possessed significant territory and power. In the process, Iberians developed an understanding of Africa's political landscape in which they recognized specific sovereigns, plotted the extent and nature of their polities, and grouped subjects according to their ruler. In African Kings and Black Slaves, Herman L. Bennett mines the historical archives of Europe and Africa to reinterpret the first century of sustained African-European interaction. These encounters were not simple economic transactions. Rather, according to Bennett, they involved clashing understandings of diplomacy, sovereignty, and politics. He unearths the ways in which Africa's kings required Iberian traders to participate in elaborate diplomatic rituals, establish treaties, and negotiate trade practices with autonomous territories. And he shows how Iberians based their interpretations of African sovereignty on medieval European political precepts grounded in Roman civil and canon law. In the eyes of Iberians, the extent to which Africa's polities conformed to these norms played a significant role in determining who was, and who was not, a sovereign people - a judgment that shaped who could legitimately be enslaved. Through an examination of early modern African-European encounters, African Kings and Black Slaves offers a reappraisal of the dominant depiction of these exchanges as being solely mediated through the slave trade and racial difference. By asking in what manner did Europeans and Africans configure sovereignty, polities, and subject status, Bennett offers a new depiction of the diasporic identities that had implications for slaves' experiences in the Americas.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Herman L. Bennett is Professor of History at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is author of Colonial Blackness: A History of Afro-Mexico and Africans in Colonial Mexico: Absolutism, Christianity and Afro-Creole Consciousness, 1570–1640.
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Bergman, Billy. Goodtime Kings: Emerging African Pop. New York. 1985. Quill/Morrow. 0688021921. 144 pages. paperback. Cover design by Rod Gonzalez.
DESCRIPTION- At one time it was drums alone that rocked crowds in celebrations across Africa. In recent years in open-air dance halls, however, the musicians have been welcoming back musical ideas that left Africa with the slavers and returned enriched by new harmonies and instruments. Successive waves of bajiro, calypso, rhumba, soul, funk, rock, and reggae have come to be blended with traditional rhythms, and have spawned the exuberant sounds of highlife, juju, kiri-kiri, makossa, afro-beat, and Congolese rhumba and soukous bands. While surveying the historical backgrounds and developments of the different styles, Goodtime Kings focuses on the flashy figures and supergroups that are igniting the enthusiasm of young audiences throughout the world. Among those included are: King Sunny AdE and His African Beats; Fela Anikulapo Kuti; Prince Nico Mbarga; Tabu Ley Rochereau; Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey; Franco; Orchestre Jazira; Manu Dibango; Olatunji; Bebe Manga; Sonny Okosun; Miriam Makeba; Les Ambassadeurs; Pierre Akendengue; Juluka; Alhaji (Chief) Kolington; Maryse EwanjE; Mwanda Jean Bosco; and many, many more. The first book to spotlight this dynamic new pop sensation, with mail-order sources for hard-to-find records and a wealth of photographs, Goodtime Kings - another volume in the exciting new Planet Rock series - is an indispensable listener's guide.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY -
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Boahen, A. Adu. African Perspectives on Colonialism. Baltimore. 1989. Johns Hopkins University Press. 9780801839313. 144 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- This history deals with the twenty-year period between 1880 and 1900, when virtually all of Africa was seized and occupied by the Imperial Powers of Europe. Eurocentric points of view have dominated the study of this era, but in this book, one of Africa's leading historians reinterprets the colonial experiences from the perspective of the colonized.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Albert Kwadwo Adu Boahen (May 24, 1932 - May 24, 2006) was a Ghanaian academic, historian, and politician. He was an academic at the University of Ghana from 1959 to 1990, since 1971 as a professor. As a politician, he notably was a candidate in the 1992 Ghanaian presidential election, representing the main opposition New Patriotic Party.
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Bown, Lalage (editor). Two Centuries of African English: A Survey and Anthology of Non-fictional English Prose by African Writers Since 1769. London. 1973. Heinemann. 043590132x. African Writers Series. 212 pages. paperback. AWS132. Cover photographs - Top left: William Blyden; Top right: Tom Mboya; Bottom left: Kwame Nkrumah; Bottom right: Olaudah Equiano.
DESCRIPTION- This anthology is designed to show some of the ways in which English has been used by Africans since the language was imported into Africa. It includes such varied items as a letter written by a West African shop-keeper in 1769, a 1963 essay by a Malawian on African character, a comment on Julius Nyerere by Tom Mboya, a
DESCRIPTIONby the South African novelist Peter Abrahams of a West Indian revivalist church service and the preamble of the OAU Charter. There are special sections on the spoken word, political tracts and autobiography and travel and altogether twelve countries are represented. For most readers this will be a book of discovery of the length of time Africans have written in English and the variety of well-crafted non-fictional prose they have produced.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Lalage Jean Bown (born 1 April 1927) was the Professor of Adult Education at Ahmadu Bello University. She read History at Oxford and has worked in university adult education in Africa since 1949, at the Universities of Ghana, Makerere and Ibadan. She was Director of Extra-Mural Studies for the initial five years of the University of Zambia before returning to Nigeria, in 1971. She is Secretary of the African Adult Education Association and was the original organizing secretary of the International Congress of Africanists. She says "My first name being a classical Greek one for a woman who talks a lot, I was obviously destined for lecturing!”
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Brooks, Charlotte K. (editor). African Rhythms: Selected Stories & Poems. New York. 1974. Pocket Books. 0671487582. Photographs by Walter H. Brooks. Paperback Original. 238 pages. paperback. Cover photo by DeWys Inc.
DESCRIPTION- After a long history of imperialistic oppression, native African voices are speaking out and must be incorporated into the mainstream of world literature. This anthology is an introduction to the little-known treasury of African writing. A strong thread of tradition runs through the selections, from early creation myths to contemporary stories and poems on African life. Three photographic essays plus photos throughout the text give an added sense of the beauty and depth of a re-emerging culture.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY -
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Bruner, Charlotte (editor). The Heinemann Book of African Women's Writing. Portsmouth. 1993. Heinemann. 0435906739. African Writers Series. 224 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- A contemporary selection of 22 African women's shortstories that vividly portray the everyday concerns of women's lives. The stories, divided into sections from north, south, east and west, cover such themes as the exploitation of serving girls, the experience of women behind veils, enduring friendships, the achievement of social power, independence of thought, and the affirmation of personal identity. These are new writers recording the new Africa with a fresh perspective. Authors whose stories are included in this landmark collection are: (Northern Africa) -- Nawal El Saadawi, Assia Djebar, Gisele Halimi, Leila Sebbar, Andree Chedid; (Southern Africa) --Tsitsi Dangarembga, Bessie Head, Jean Marquard, Zoe Wicomb, Sheila Fugard, Farida Karodia; (Eastern Africa) -- Evelyn Awuor Ayodo, Violet Dias Lannoy, Daisy Kabaragama, Lina Magaia; (Western Africa) -- Catherine Obianuju Acholonu, Ifeoma Okoye, Zaynab Alkali, Orlanda Amarilis, Aminata Maiga Ka.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Charlotte H. Bruner (1917–1999) was an American scholar who was one of the first in the United States to write extensively about, and translate the work of, African women writers.
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Bruner, Charlotte H. (editor). Unwinding Threads: Writing By Women in Africa. Oxford. 1994. Heinemann. 0435909894. African Writers Series. 246 pages. paperback. Cover design by Touchpaper. Cover illustration by Claire Bushe.
DESCRIPTION- An anthology of 24 short stories and excerpts from novels by African women writers from many parts of the continent. They reveal a wealth of experiences and themes, such as the cultural conflict between East and West, the coming of independence, and the plight of women is Islamic societies.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Charlotte H. Bruner (1917–1999) was an American scholar who was one of the first in the United States to write extensively about, and translate the work of, African women writers. She was inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame in 1997. Charlotte Hughes Johnston was born May 8, 1917 in Urbana, Illinois, to Charles Hughes Johnston and Nell Converse (Bomar) Johnston. She received her undergraduate education at the University of Illinois (B.A., 1938) and her M.A. from Columbia University in 1939. That same year, she married David Kincaid Bruner, who would become a faculty member in the Department of English and Speech at Iowa State College (which later became Iowa State University). They had two children, Nell and Charles. Bruner joined the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures as a professor of French at Iowa State College in 1954 and retired from the university in 1987 after more than three decades of teaching and research. As a scholar, she dedicated her career to writing about and publishing translations of literature by African women, helping to create a wider public for these writers. She edited two volumes of short stories by African women: The Heinemann Book of African Women's Writings (1993) and Unwinding Threads (1994) and was one of several editors for The Feminist Companion to Literature in English (1990). She has been called an outstanding pioneer in the fields of both African studies and world literature, pursuing her studies at a time when American academics were largely uninterested in African literature and taught mainly European classics. In the early 1970s, Bruner and David spent a year in Africa interviewing African writers, and on their return three dozen of their interviews were aired as a series of radio programs entitled "Talking Sticks". From 1980 to 1986, Bruner cohosted (with David) a weekly series of radio programs, "First Person Feminine", in which she read from and discussed international women's literature. Bruner served as vice-president of the African Literature Association. She was inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame in 1997, two years before her death on December 4, 1999. Her name is inscribed in the university's Plaza of Heroines.
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Bruner, Charlotte H. (editor). Unwinding Threads: Writing By Women in Africa. Portsmouth. 1992. Heinemann. 0435902563. African Writers Series. 208 pages. paperback. AWS256. Cover design by Diana Overton.
DESCRIPTION- An African woman writing fiction today has to be exceptional. She has to defy prevailing tradition to speak out as an individual. This anthology contains short stories and extracts from novels by women all over Africa. The pioneer West Africans wrote to raise national pride for their countries' coming independence. Southern African activists raise their voices against political and economic repression and racism. Northern African women seek to lift their veils to emerge from the enforced domesticity and female servitude. The experience, the goal, the language, the audience, differ from one writer to another. However, their works all affirm, as Doris Lessing wrote: ‘that filter which is a woman's way of looking at life has the same validity as that filter which is a man's way.'
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Charlotte H. Bruner (1917–1999) was an American scholar who was one of the first in the United States to write extensively about, and translate the work of, African women writers. She was inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame in 1997. Charlotte Hughes Johnston was born May 8, 1917 in Urbana, Illinois, to Charles Hughes Johnston and Nell Converse (Bomar) Johnston. She received her undergraduate education at the University of Illinois (B.A., 1938) and her M.A. from Columbia University in 1939. That same year, she married David Kincaid Bruner, who would become a faculty member in the Department of English and Speech at Iowa State College (which later became Iowa State University). They had two children, Nell and Charles. Bruner joined the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures as a professor of French at Iowa State College in 1954 and retired from the university in 1987 after more than three decades of teaching and research. As a scholar, she dedicated her career to writing about and publishing translations of literature by African women, helping to create a wider public for these writers. She edited two volumes of short stories by African women: The Heinemann Book of African Women's Writings (1993) and Unwinding Threads (1994) and was one of several editors for The Feminist Companion to Literature in English (1990). She has been called an outstanding pioneer in the fields of both African studies and world literature, pursuing her studies at a time when American academics were largely uninterested in African literature and taught mainly European classics. In the early 1970s, Bruner and David spent a year in Africa interviewing African writers, and on their return three dozen of their interviews were aired as a series of radio programs entitled "Talking Sticks". From 1980 to 1986, Bruner cohosted (with David) a weekly series of radio programs, "First Person Feminine", in which she read from and discussed international women's literature. Bruner served as vice-president of the African Literature Association. She was inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame in 1997, two years before her death on December 4, 1999. Her name is inscribed in the university's Plaza of Heroines.
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Busby, Margaret (editor). Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent From the Ancient Egyptian to the Present. New York. 1992. Pantheon Books. 067941634x. 1089 pages. hardcover. Jacket photograph by Thomas Heinser. Jacket design by Marjorie Anderson.
DESCRIPTION- A monumental literary enterprise, DAUGHTERS OF AFRICA is the most comprehensive anthology ever attempted of oral and written literature by women of African descent, the world over throughout the ages. From the ancient Egyptian queen Hatshepsut to contemporary writers such as Terry McMillan, Alice Walker, and Buchi Emecheta, DAUGHTERS OF AFRICA aims to chart a new literary canon. Arranged chronologically, this anthology brings together the works of more than two hundred authors from Africa, North America, the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. It offers translations not only from African languages but from, among others, Dutch, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish. It draws from a wealth of genres: autobiography, memoirs, oral history, letters, diaries, short stories, novels (experimental, historical, science fiction), poetry, drama, humor, non-fiction (political, feminist, anthropological), journalism, speeches, essays, folklore. DAUGHTERS OF AFRICA includes a substantial introduction, biographical headnotes, annotation, and bibliographies of sources and further readings. A signal achievement - and cause for joyous celebration of unity in diversity - DAUGHTERS OF AFRICA intends to reclaim a place in literary history for women of African descent by capturing the immense range of their accomplishments.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - MARGARET BUSBY is a leading figure in Black and literary cultural forums in Britain. Born in Ghana, she gained an Honours degree in English from London University, after which she co-founded publishers Allison & Busby and was Editorial Director from 1967 to 1987. She was Editorial Director of Earthscan Publications from 1987 to 1990. She broadcasts on radio and television and has written articles and reviews for many publications, including the Guardian, New Statesman & Society, Africa Forum, West Africa, Third World Quarterly, and South.
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Busby, Margaret (editor). New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent. New York. 2019. Amistad Press. 9780062912985. 1001 pages. hardcover. Front cover design: The Book Designers.
DESCRIPTION- The companion to the classic anthology Daughters of Africa - a major international collection that brings together the work of more than 200 women writers of African descent, celebrating their artistry and showcasing their contributions to modern literature and international culture. Twenty-five years ago, Margaret Busby's Daughters of Africa was published to international acclaim and hailed as “an extraordinary body of achievement. a vital document of lost history” (Sunday Times) and “the ultimate reference guide” (Washington Post). New Daughters of Africa continues that tradition for a new generation. This magnificent follow-up to the original landmark anthology brings together fresh and vibrant voices that have emerged from across the globe in the past two decades, from Antigua to Zimbabwe and Angola to the United States. Key figures, including Margo Jefferson, Nawal El Saadawi, Edwidge Danticat, and Zadie Smith, join popular contemporaries such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Imbolo Mbue, Yrsa Daley-Ward, Taiye Selasi, and Chinelo Okparanta in celebrating the heritage that unites them. Each of the pieces in this remarkable collection demonstrates an uplifting sense of sisterhood, honors the strong links that endure from generation to generation, and addresses the common obstacles female writers of color face as they negotiate issues of race, gender, and class and address vital matters of independence, freedom, and oppression. A glorious portrayal of the richness, magnitude, and range of these visionary writers, New Daughters of Africa spans a range of genres - autobiography, memoir, oral history, letters, diaries, short stories, novels, poetry, drama, humor, politics, journalism, essays, and speeches - demonstrating the diversity and extraordinary literary achievements of black women who remain underrepresented, and whose contributions continue to be underrated in world culture today. CONTRIBUTORS include: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie • Yrsa Daley Ward • Edwidge Danticat • Phillippa Yrsa De Villiers • Esi Edugyan • Eve Ewing • Nikki Finney • Roxane Gay • Margo Jefferson • Barbara Jenkins • Imbolo Mbue • Nnedi Okorafor • Chinelo Okparanta • Minna Salami • Zadie Smith • and more!
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Margaret Busby OBE was born in Ghana and educated in Britain. She co-founded Allison & Busby, publishing C.L.R. James, Buchi Emecheta, Nuruddin Farah amongst many others, and became Director of Earthscan. She has been a literary awards judge, including the Caine, Baileys and Commonwealth prizes, served on the boards of PEN, Wasafiri and the Royal Literary Fund, and collected many honors, including the 2015 Henry Swanzy Award. She lives in London.
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Calder, Angus / Mapanje, Jack / Peterse, Cosmo (editors). Summer Fires: New Poetry of Africa. London. 1983. Heinemann. 0435902571. African Writers Series. 116 pages. paperback. AWS257.
DESCRIPTION- An anthology of entries from the BBC Arts and Africa Poetry Award.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Angus Lindsay Ritchie Calder (5 February 1942 – 5 June 2008) was a Scottish writer, historian, and poet. Initially studying English literature, he became increasingly interested in political history and wrote a landmark study on Britain during the Second World War in 1969 entitled The People's War. He subsequently wrote several other historical works but became increasingly interested in literature and poetry and worked primarily as a writer, though often holding a number of university teaching positions. A socialist, he was a prominent Scottish public intellectual during the 1970s and 1980s. Jack Mapanje was born in Malawi in 1944 and has lived in Malawi and Britain. He is a poet and theoretical linguist, his first collection of poems Of Chameleons and Gods was published by Heinemann in 1981. On its second reprint, Of Chameleons and Gods was banned in Malawi and Mapanje was subsequently detailed in Mikuyu Maximum Detention Centre near Zomba for three years, seven months and sixteen days. No charges were brought against him. He was released in May 1991 following intense pressure from fellow writers and activists. His second title The Chattering Wagtails of Mikuyu Prison (1993) was also published in the AWS. He is a distinguished academic currently based at the University of Leeds. He lives in England with his wife Mercy and three children. Cosmo George Leipoldt Pieterse (born 1930 in Windhoek, Namibia) is a South African playwright, actor, poet, literary critic and anthologist. Cosmo Pieterse went to the University of Cape Town and taught in Cape Town until leaving South Africa in 1965. He was banned under the Riotous Assemblies Act of 1962. He subsequently taught in London and at Ohio University in the United States: arriving at Ohio University in 1970, he became a tenured faculty member in 1976. However, after travelling to meet his London publisher in 1979 he was denied re-entry to the US on classified information, allegedly for being "a suspected communist". In London, in the later 1960s and early '70s, Pieterse worked for the BBC World Service at Bush House and for the Transcription Centre, an organisation that under the direction of Dennis Duerden recorded and broadcast the works of African writers in Europe and Africa. Also an occasional actor, Pieterse appeared in The Burning, a 1968 30-minute short drama film directed by Stephen Frears. As a poet, Pieterse has been characterised as producing work that is very "European in its tone, metaphors, and delivery", as Laura Linda Holland writes: "Cosmo Pieterse's poems, like those of [Dennis] Brutus, are heavily inundated with Western influences, concerns, and motifs while retaining a definite African bias. .Cosmo Pieterse uses his love of words to create poetry of hope and renewal." Pieterse edited several anthologies of plays and poetry for the African Writers Series published by Heinemann.
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Campbell, Ian. The Addis Ababa Massacre: Italy's National Shame. New York. 2017. Oxford University Press. 9780190674724. 448 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- In February 1937, following an abortive attack by a handful of insurgents on Mussolini's High Command in Italian-occupied Ethiopia, 'repression squads' of armed Blackshirts and Fascist civilians were unleashed on the defenseless residents of Addis Ababa. In three terror-filled days and nights of arson, murder and looting, thousands of innocent and unsuspecting men, women and children were roasted alive, shot, bludgeoned, stabbed to death, or blown to pieces with hand-grenades. Meanwhile the notorious Viceroy Rodolfo Graziani, infamous for his atrocities in Libya, took the opportunity to add to the carnage by eliminating the intelligentsia and nobility of the ancient Ethiopian empire in a pogrom that swept across the land. In a richly illustrated and ground-breaking work backed up by meticulous and scholarly research, Ian Campbell reconstructs and analyses one of Fascist Italy's least known atrocities, which he estimates eliminated 19-20 per cent of the capital's population. He exposes the hitherto little known cover-up conducted at the highest levels of the British government, which enabled the facts of one of the most hideous civilian massacres of all time to be concealed, and the perpetrators to walk free.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ian Campbell, a development consultant specializing in East Africa, has been studying and writing on Ethiopia since 1988. The author of several scholarly papers on various aspects of Ethiopian cultural history, his works on the Italian occupation (1936-41) include The Plot to Kill Graziani and The Massacre of Debre Libanos.
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Carretta, Vincent. Equiano the African: Biography of a Self-Made Man. Athens. 2005. University of Georgia Press. 0820325716. 436 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration - 'Portrait of a Negro Man, Olaudah Equiano', 1780s.
DESCRIPTION- A controversial look at the most renowned person of African descent in the eighteenth-century. In this widely aclaimed biography, historian Vincent Carretta gives us the authoritative portrait of Olaudah Equiano (c.1745–1797), the former slave whose 1789 autobiography quickly became a popular polemic against the slave trade and a literary classic. Sailor, entrepreneur, and adventurer, Equiano is revealed here as never before, thanks to archival research on an unprecedented scale - some of which even indicates that Equiano may have lied about his origins to advance the antibondage struggle with which he became famously identified. A masterpiece of scholarship and writerly poise, this book redefines an extraordinary man and the turbulent age that shaped him. Vincent Carretta, a professor of English at the University of Maryland, has edited scholarly editions of the works of Equiano and of Equiano's contemporaries Ignatius Sancho, Ottobah Cugoano, and Phillis Wheatley.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Vincent Carretta is a professor of English at the University of Maryland. He is the author or editor of more than ten books, including scholarly editions of the writings of Olaudah Equiano, Phillis Wheatley, Ignatius Sancho, and Ottobah Cugoano. His most recent books are EQUIANO, THE AFRICAN: BIOGRAPHY OF A SELF-MADE MAN, winner of the Annibel Jenkins Prize, and THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF PHILIP QUAQUE, THE FIRST AFRICAN ANGLICAN MISSIONARY, coedited with Ty M. Reese.
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Cartey, Wilfred (editor). Palaver: Modern African Writings. New York. 1970. Thomas Nelson. 184 pages. hardcover. Jacket woodcut by Wendy Kindred.
DESCRIPTION- Come let us ‘Earth-Palaver.' Let us together talk or simply rap; let us explore and discuss. Let us note and tell about the relationships, whether they be harmonious or discordant, of African peoples to their vast continent, their links to its earth. For a palaver is a coming-together to converse, to confer, to relate what is so deep a part of African oral tradition and wisdom. Let us palaver with twentieth-century poets, novelists, and dramatists who remain African even when they receive international recognition. Their voices are diverse: a Muslim of the Sudan, a prisoner in South Africa, and varied: an Ethiopian folklorist, a playwright of the Niger Delta. The African's feelings and beliefs about his vast continent are revealed by these writers in a way that surpasses nonfiction. Dr. Wilfred Cartey, professor of Comparative Literature and Culture both at City College and Columbia University in New York, introduces not only those who come together in this ‘Earth-Palaver' but also their words, their palaver. The literature selected is contemporary, but it is also old - full of folk myths which live in the oral traditions of Africa today. Beginning with a creation myth and ending with ‘But Still, Woman and Love,' the cycle is complete. The rhythms of the seasons, the life of the compounds, the tilling of the land, and its exploitation by man make up the intervening parts. Come, join this palaver on modern Africa and feel with its writers the bittersweet, the comical, the dramatic, the elemental.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Dr. Wilfred Cartey was distinguished professor of black studies at City College, a post he had held since 1973. He became blind as an adult but continued to write and was the author of some 30 books, his brother said. His best-known works are "Whispers From a Continent" (1971), about African literature and European languages; "The House of Blue Lightning" (1973), a volume of poetry; and "Children of Lalibela" (1985), about a trip to Ethiopia. Born in Port of Spain in Trinidad, Dr. Cartey received a bachelor's degree from the University of West Indies in 1955, then attended Columbia University, where he earned a master's degree and a doctorate in comparative literature. He taught literature and black studies at Columbia from 1957 to 1969, then taught at City College.
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Cartey, Wilfred (editor). Whispers From a Continent: The Literature of Contemporary Black Africa. New York. 1969. Random House. 397 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Joseph del Gaudio.
DESCRIPTION- The literature of black Africa over the last thirty years is apocalyptic. Now in this unique book Wilfred Cartey evokes the sounds and rhythms of novelists, and playwrights from diverse parts of Africa - from Nigeria in the west to Kenya in the east. from the Cameroun to Malewe, from Gambia to the Congo to the Malagasi Republic, from Senegal to South Africa - and shows how the African oral literary tradition has persisted throughout the upheaval and destructions brought on by European colonialism. The new African literature now flowering so abundantly derives not only from these oral traditions but also from the encounter between African and European civilizations. It dramatizes the ambiguities and consequences of the wrenching experience of colonialism - the alienation and flight of the black African, his exile and homesickness, his search for self and revolt. and the final return to belief and faith in which he is reborn. Wilfred Cartey divides his book by these themes and, without preconceptions or theories, offers, as Germaine Bree writes: ‘. an objective but penetrating approach to the underlying preoccupations, obsessions, aspirations of black Africans in all their diversity.' This narrative of the literature of sub-Saharan Africa over the last several decades is, then, a passionate autobiography of the black African seen through an amazing range of writers who tell of his experience and who by their imagination link that experience with his origins. The author, who is himself a poet, creates a vast kente cloth in which appear the designs and patterns that portray the many realities and circumstances of African life - the search for the political kingdom in chaos, racial encounters in apartheid, the philosophical aesthetic of negritude, the evolving religions and rituals. He also highlights the images and symbols, which when woven together, give this literature a distinctive African spirit. ‘Wilfred Cartey's Whispers from a Continent is a must. He has taken time to give us authentic material and to allow us to make our own analyses and draw our own conclusions. Dr. Cartey does not just shout about lost culture, he retrieves it.' - Stokely Carmichael.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Dr. Wilfred Cartey was distinguished professor of black studies at City College, a post he had held since 1973. He became blind as an adult but continued to write and was the author of some 30 books, his brother said. His best-known works are "Whispers From a Continent" (1971), about African literature and European languages; "The House of Blue Lightning" (1973), a volume of poetry; and "Children of Lalibela" (1985), about a trip to Ethiopia. Born in Port of Spain in Trinidad, Dr. Cartey received a bachelor's degree from the University of West Indies in 1955, then attended Columbia University, where he earned a master's degree and a doctorate in comparative literature. He taught literature and black studies at Columbia from 1957 to 1969, then taught at City College.
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Chinweizu (editor). Voices From Twentieth-Century Africa: Griots and Towncriers. London. 1988. Faber & Faber. 0571149294. 416 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- If you have ever wondered whether there were more to African literature than Africa's Nobel Prize winners, here is the anthology which answers your questions. Voices from Twentieth-Century Africa redraws the map of African literature in an even-handed treatment of its traditions: the popular and the academic, the oral and the written, the folk and the elite; and we find both literature translated from indigenous African languages, and literature composed in the languages of Africa's alien Conquerors. There are short stories, extracts from novels and epics, fables, parables, songs, satires, dirges, boasts, laments, and epigrams: As to subject, it takes in all the diverse facets of African life: love, hate, war, affairs of state; Africa's flora and fauna; religion, death, birth, marriage; and natural disasters: flood, famine, drought. Together these pieces make a compelling and evocative picture of African life in the twentieth century.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Chinweizu (born 26 March 1943) is a Nigerian critic, essayist, poet, and journalist. Though he has identified himself and is known simply as Chinweizu, he was born Chinweizu Ibekwe. While studying in the United States during the Black Power movement, Chinweizu became influenced by the philosophy of the Black Arts Movement. He is commonly associated with Black orientalism and emerged as one of the leading figures in contemporary Nigerian journalism, writing a highly influential column in The Guardian of Lagos. Chinweizu was born in 1943 in the town of Eluoma, in Isuikwuato in the part of Eastern Region of Nigeria that is known today as Abia State. He was educated at Government Secondary School, Afikpo, and later attended college at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he studied philosophy and mathematics, earning a bachelor of science degree in 1967, the year of the outbreak of civil war in Nigeria, which lasted two and a half years. At the time living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Chinweizu founded and edited the Biafra Review (1969–70). He enrolled for a Ph.D. at the State University of New York (SUNY), Buffalo, under the supervision of political scientist Claude E. Welch Jr. Chinweizu apparently had a disagreement with his dissertation committee and walked away with his manuscript, which he got published as The West and the Rest of Us: White Predators, Black Slavers, and the African Elite by Random House in 1975. He took the book to SUNY, Buffalo, where he demanded, and was promptly awarded, his Ph.D. in 1976, one year after he had published the dissertation. Thus, the publication settled his disagreement with his advisers in his favour. Chinweizu started teaching overseas, at MIT and San Jose State University. He had returned to Nigeria by the early 1980s, working over the years as a columnist for various newspapers in the country and also working to promote Black orientalism in Pan-Africanism. In Nigeria, he became a literary critic, attacking what he saw as the elitism of some Nigerian authors, particularly Wole Soyinka and he was editor of the Nigerian literary magazine, Okike. Chinweizu's notable intervention on this theme came in the essay "The Decolonization of African Literature" (later expanded into the 1983 book Toward the Decolonization of African Literature), to which Soyinka responded in an essay entitled "Neo-Tarzanism: The Poetics of Pseudo-Transition". Chinweizu's other works is Anatomy of Female Power, in which he discusses gender relations. Chinweizu has argued that the Arab colonization and Islamization of Africa is no different from European imperialism. The violent conquests, forced conversions and slavery perpetrated by European Christians were also perpetrated by Arab Muslims. In fact, the colonization and enslavement of Africa by Arabs began before the Europeans and continues to this day in Sudan, Mauritania and other countries in the Sahel region. Recently he published a comparative digest that shows the parallel history of European and Arab atrocities against indigenous Africans. He has been critical of the popular illusion that Islam is free of slavery and racism. Islam and Arabian culture are just as much foreign invasive forces as Christianity and European culture.
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Chipasula, Stella and Frank Chipasula (editors). The Heinemann Book of African Women's Poetry. Portsmouth. 1995. Heinemann. 0435906801. African Writers Series. 227 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- This first major anthology of African women's poetry offers an extensive selection of poetry by women all over the African continent. The poems address wide-ranging human concerns such as love, motherhood, death, colonial domination, and human dignity. They employ a variety of styles from the conversational to the didactic. Contributors include Ama Ata Aidoo, Noemia de Sousa, Queen Hatshepsut, Micere Githae Mugo, and Zindzi Mandela.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Originally from Malawi, Stella and Frank Chipasula now live in the United States.
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Conteh-Morgan, John and Olaniyan, Tejumola (editors). African Drama and Performance. Bloomington. 2004. Indiana University Press. 9780253217011. 6.125 x 9.25. 1 bibliog., 1 index. A Research in African Literatures Book. 288 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- African Drama and Performance is a collection of innovative and wide-ranging essays that bring conceptually fresh perspectives, from both renowned and emerging voices, to the study of drama, theatre, and performance in Africa. Topics range from studies of major dramatic authors and formal literary dramas to improvisational theatre and popular video films. South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commissions are analyzed as a kind of social performance, and aspects of African performance in the diaspora are also considered. This dynamic volume underscores theatre’s role in postcolonial society and politics and reexamines performance as a form of high art and everyday social ritual. Contributors are Akin Adesokan, Daniel Avorgbedor, Karin Barber, Nicholas Brown, Catherine Cole, John Conteh-Morgan, Johannes Fabian, Joachim Fiebach, Marie-José Hourantier, Loren Kruger, Pius Ngandu Nkashama, Isidore Okpewho, Tejumola Olaniyan, Ato Quayson, Sandra L. Richards, Wole Soyinka, Dominic Thomas, and Bob W. White.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - John Conteh-Morgan is Associate Professor of French and African American and African Studies at The Ohio State University. He is author of Theatre and Drama in Francophone Africa and editor of Research in African Literatures. Tejumola Olaniyan is Professor of English and African Languages and Literatures at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is author of Scars of Conquest/Masks of Resistance.
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Courlander, Harold. A Treasury of African Folklore. New York. 1975. Crown. 0517516705. Illustrations by Enrico Arno. 617 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Enrico Arno.
DESCRIPTION- ‘In his tales, myths, epics and legends, the African bridges back to the morning of his creation, asserts the worth and weaknesses of the human species, ponders on courage, life and death, and reflects the learning of centuries about the character of man.' - Harold Courlander. An eminent novelist and folklorist, Harold Courlander is the author of many well-known books about the traditions, lore and oral literature of various peoples in Africa and the New World. In this present work, A Treasury of African Folklore, he gives us an extensive and unique collection of lore, recollections, epics, traditions, beliefs and tales from widespread regions of the African continent. Here, in this oral literature, is to be found the real ‘inner Africa,' revealing the nature of the world and man as Africans have seen them over the centuries. This Treasury explores the unwritten literature of the Sudan, the West Coast, the Bantu regions, the eastern grasslands and the northeastern Horn, taking note of the diverse histories, origin myths and tales of the Hausa, Kanuri, Yoruba. Ashanti, Mbundu, Nyanga, Hottentot, Zulu, Shangaan, Amhara and Mensa peoples and numerous others. It reflects the widely differing cultures and traditions to be found in sub-Saharan Africa, the differing concepts of creation and existence, and the social values that have motivated clans, tribes and kingdoms in their pursuit of a meaningful life and an understanding of the physical and spiritual attributes of the world around them. In their heroic tales and epic poetry, Africans have preserved a link to an ancient past that is still dimly remembered. In their myths they retain the spirit of wonder and awe of the early days when humans first sought to explain the mysteries of the natural elements, and the wonders, delights and terrors of life. In their legends are preserved the sense of humans in quest of their special destiny. And their poetry reflects the human debt to the Architect of the world for their existence, while their tales express the humor, ironies and vanity of everyday life. A Treasury of African Folklore will prove to be an exciting and meaningful reading experience to those who are interested in any aspect of life on the African continent, and it will be a horn of plenty for those whose central interest is folklore. To those who have a particular interest in Afro-American folklore it will be enormously meaningful. One comes away from this book with an awareness of an African literary achievement as remarkable as African. sculpture.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Harold Courlander (September 18, 1908 - March 15, 1996) was an American novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist, an expert in the study of Haitian life. The author of 35 books and plays and numerous scholarly articles, Courlander specialized in the study of African, Caribbean, Afro-American (U.S.), and American Indian cultures. He took a special interest in oral literature, cults, and Afro-American cultural connections with Africa. Courlander was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, the son of noted American painter, David Courlander of Detroit, Michigan. Courlander received a B.A. in English from the University of Michigan in 1931. At the University of Michigan, he received three Avery Hopwood Awards (one in drama and two in literary criticism). He attended graduate school at the University of Michigan and Columbia University. He spent time in the 1930s on a farm in Romeo, Michigan. There, he built a one-room log cabin in the woods where he would spend much of his time writing. With the prize money from the Hopwood Awards, Courlander took his first field trip to Haiti, inspired by the writings of William Buehler Seabrook. In 1939, he published his first book about Haitian life entitled HAITI SINGING. Over the next 30 years, he traveled to Haiti more than 20 times. His research focused on religious practices, African retentions, oral traditions, folklore, music, and dance. His book, THE DRUM AND THE HOE: LIFE AND LORE OF THE HAITIAN PEOPLE, published in 1960, became a classic text for the study of Haitian culture. Courlander also took numerous field trips to the southern United States, recording folk music in the 1940s and 1950s. From 1947–1960, he served as a general editor of Ethnic Folkways Library (he actually devised the label name) and recorded more than 30 albums of music from different cultures (e.g., the cultures of Indonesia, Ethiopia, West Africa, Haiti, and Cuba). In 1950, he also did field recordings in Alabama later transcribed by John Benson Brooks. In the 1960s, Courlander began a series of field trips to the American Southwest to study the oral literature and culture of the Hopi Indians. His collection of folk tales, PEOPLE OF THE SHORT BLUE CORN: TALES AND LEGENDS OF THE HOPI INDIANS, was issued in 1970 and was quickly recognized as an indispensable work in the study of oral literature. From 1942-43, during World War II, Harold Courlander served as a historian for the Air Transport Command for the Douglas Aircraft Project 19 in Gura, Eritrea. Courlander then worked as a writer and editor for the Office of War Information in New York and Bombay, India, from 1943-46. From 1946 until 1956, he worked as a news writer and news analyst for the Voice of America in New York City. He was an information specialist and speech writer for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations from 1956–1957. He was a writer and editor for The United Nations Review from 1957–1960. From 1960 until 1974, Courlander was African specialist, Caribbean specialist, feature writer, and senior news analyst for the Voice of America in Washington, D.C. Always sympathetic to the plight of animals, Courlander, in his later years would write with his rescued, mixed German Shepherd dog, Sandy, at his side. Even in the 1990s, Courlander still used the same Royal typewriter he had purchased in the 1940s. Courlander never learned typing as they teach it in school and always typed his manuscripts using two fingers. Courlander wrote seven novels, his most famous being THE AFRICAN, published in 1967. The novel was the story of a slave's capture in Africa, his experiences aboard a slave ship, and his struggle to retain his native culture in a hostile new world. In 1978, Courlander filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, charging that Alex Haley, the author of ROOTS, had copied 81 passages from his novel. Courlander's pre-trial memorandum in the copyright infringement law suit stated: ‘Defendant Haley had access to and substantially copied from The African. Without The African, Roots would have been a very different and less successful novel, and indeed it is doubtful that Mr. Haley could have written ROOTS without the African. Mr. Haley copied language, thoughts, attitudes, incidents, situations, plot and character.' In his Expert Witness Report submitted to federal court, Professor of English, Michael Wood of Columbia University, stated: ‘The evidence of copying from THE AFRICAN in both the novel and the television dramatization of Roots is clear and irrefutable. The copying is significant and extensive. ROOTS. .plainly uses THE AFRICAN as a model: as something to be copied at some times, and at other times to be modified, but always it seems, to be consulted. ROOTS takes from THE AFRICAN phrases, situations, ideas, aspects of style and plot. ROOTS finds in The African essential elements for its depiction of such things as a slave's thoughts of escape, the psychology of an old slave, the habits of mind of the hero, and the whole sense of life on an infamous slave ship. Such things are the life of a novel; and when they appear in ROOTS, they are the life of someone else's novel.' After a five-week trial in federal district court, Courlander and Haley settled the case with a financial settlement and a statement that ‘Alex Haley acknowledges and regrets that various materials from THE AFRICAN by Harold Courlander found their way into his book ROOTS.' During the trial, presiding U.S. District Court Judge Robert J. Ward stated, ‘Copying there is, period.' In a later interview with BBC Television, Judge Ward stated, ‘Alex Haley perpetrated a hoax on the public.' During the trial, Alex Haley had maintained that he had not read THE AFRICAN before writing ROOTS. Shortly after the trial, however, a minority studies teacher at Skidmore College, Joseph Bruchac, came forward and swore in an affidavit that he had discussed with Haley THE AFRICAN in 1970 or 1971 and had, in fact, given his own personal copy of THE AFRICAN to Haley. This event took place a good number of years prior to the publication of ROOTS.
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Couto, Mia / Mukasonga, Scholastique / Chiziane, Paulina / Nunn, Cedric / Brookshaw, David. Imagine Africa. Brooklyn. 2015. Archipelago Books. 9780914671183. 256 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Imagine Africa and its theme of "Revolution" is introduced by Georges Lory who opens the collection with his essay, "Poets to your quills, Africa is taking off". Through a collage of poems, essays, fiction, and visual art, Imagine Africa gives us a glimpse of a kaleidoscopic contemporary Africa.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Antonio Emílio Leite Couto (born July 5, 1955), better known as Mia Couto, is a world-renowned Mozambican writer. Scholastique Mukasonga (born 1956) is a French-Rwandan author born in the former Gikongoro province of Rwanda. In 2012, she won the prix Renaudot and the prix Ahmadou-Kourouma for her book Our Lady of the Nile. Paulina "Poulli" Chiziane (born 4 June 1955, Manjacaze, southern province of Gaza, Mozambique) is an author of novels and short stories in the Portuguese language. She was awarded the 2021 Camões Prize for literature, awarded to writers from Portuguese-speaking countries. Cedric Nunn (born 1957) is a South African photographer and educator. He is known for his photography depicting South Africa before and after the end of apartheid. David Brookshaw was born in London. He is Professor of Luso-Brazilian Studies at Bristol University, UK, with a specialist interest in postcolonial literatures in Portuguese, comparative literature,and literary translation. He has translated a number of books by Mia Couto, including most recently Sleepwalking Land (2006), and A River Called Time (in press). Read LessHe has also compiled an anthology of stories by the Portuguese writer José Rodrigues Miguéis, who lived for many years in New York City, The Polyhedric Mirror: Tales of American Life, as well as translating stories of immigrant life in North America by the Portuguese/Azorean/New England writer Onésimo Almeida, Tales from the Tenth Island, both of which were published in 2006.
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Currey, James. Africa Writes Back: The African Writers Series and the Launch of African Literature. Oxford/Johannesburg/Athens/Ibadan/Nairobi/Harare/Dar es Salaam. 2008. James Currey/Wits University Press/Ohio University Press/HEBN/Weaver Press/Mkuki na Nyota. 9781847015020. 60 black and white illustrations. 350 pages. paperback. Cover portrait photographs by George Hallett.
DESCRIPTION- CONTENTS: Publishing & selling the African Writers Series - The portfolio & George Hallett's covers - Main dates - INTRODUCTION The establishment of African literature - Publishing Chinua Achebe - WRITERS FROM WEST AFRICA Nigeria: The country where so much started - Negritude from Senegal to Cameroun - Magical realism from Ghana, The Gambia & Sierra Leone - WRITERS FROM EAST AFRICA Towards the oral & the popular in Kenya, Uganda & Tanzania - Publishing WRITERS FROM THE HORN & NORTH-EASTERN AFRICA Emperors in Ethiopia Publishing Nuruddin Farah - Arab authors in Egypt & Sudan - WRITERS FROM SOUTH AFRICA Writers of resistance - Publishing Alex la Guma - Publishing Dennis Brutus - Publishing Bessie Head - Publishing Mazisi Kunene - WRITERS FROM SOUTHERN AFRICA: Guns & guerrillas in Mozambique & Angola - Zambia Shall be Free - Death & detention in Malawi - The struggle to become Zimbabwe - Publishing Dambudzo Marechera - CONCLUSION Is there still a role for the African Writers Series? - African Writers Series by Year of Publication. 17 June 1958 was the date of publication of the hardback of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart by Heinemann. This provided the impetus for the foundation of the paperback African Writers Series in 1962 with Chinua Achebe as its Editorial Adviser. This narrative, drawing liberally on the correspondence with the authors, concentrates on the adventurous first twenty-five years. '. not only the story of a publishing enterprise of great significance; it is also a large part of the story of African literature and its dissemination in the latter half of the twentieth century. 'The manuscript is full of the drama of that enterprise, the drama of dealing with the mother house, William Heinemann, of dealing with the often intractable political constraints dominating the intellectual space in various ways across Africa, and not least of all of dealing with the writers themselves - with their ambitions, their temperaments, their financial needs and, at times, their perception of a colonial relationship between themselves and a European publishing house. 'It is teeming with people: not just the writers, but with the managers of the AWS branches in Nigeria and East Africa and the many people, often leaders in their own right, all providing comment and advice on proposals, drafts and manuscripts in a spirit of astonishing good will, all doing their best according to their situation to foster the growth of African literature.' - Clive Wake, Emeritus Professor of Modern Languages, University of Kent at Canterbury. 'It is worth the price of the book for the chapter on ‘Publishing Dambudzo Marechera' alone.' - Bernth Lindfors, Emeritus Professor of African Literature, University of Texas at Austin.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - James Currey was the Editorial Director at Heinemann Educational Books in charge of the African Writers Series from 1967 to 1984
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Dathorne, O. R. and Feuser, Willfried (editors). Africa in Prose. Baltimore. 1969. Penguin Books. 384 pages. paperback. AP24. Cover design by Patrick McGreeth.
DESCRIPTION- This original Penguin collection covers writing in European and native languages from the whole African continent in the last hundred years. It adds depth and perspective to our understanding of Africa's current literary revolution. This, as the editors make clear, is not a spontaneous creation, but was produced over a period of time by minds grappling with the changing realities of emergent Africa, and adapting to their own use the received linguistic tools to express them. This anthology reveals the beginnings of the African novel written in French and English, the recent attempt to write prose in vernacular languages, and the experimental writing which is now taking place. Many of the translations have never before appeared in English. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - O. R. Dathorne was born in Guyana in 1934 and lived in England between 1953 and 1959. He did graduate and postgraduate work at the universities of London and Sheffeld and holds a doctorate from Shemeld. He has published two novels as well as poetry and edited several anthologies of African and Caribbean literature. Some of his published articles have appeared in Phylon in the United States, The Times Literary Supplement and London Magazine in Britain and in Black Orpheus, the Nigerian magazine which he helped to edit for some time. He has broadcast and appeared on television in Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Germany, and made two documentaries for the Commonwealth Office of Information which were seen throughout the world. He taught English at two universities in Nigeria before assuming his present appointment with UNESCO in Sierra Leone. Unable to take up the offer of a professorship at Wisconsin, he recently made a lecture tour of the United States. Willfried F. Feuser has been Professor of French and head of the department of modern languages at the University of Ife since 1968. Born in 1928 at St Tömis in Germany, he studied modern languages and education at the universities of Würzburg and Freiburg in Breisgau, working in a variety of jobs to pay his fees. As an exchange student at the University of Dayton, Ohio, he became interested in the literature of the American Negro, and it was in this subject that he gained his doctorate from Freiburg. He taught German at the University of Glasgow, and in 1960 he joined the staff of the University of Ibadan, where he taught French until 1968. He has contributed articles, translations and reviews on modern languages and African literature as well as Nigerian history and education to various African, British, French and German periodicals, and has broadcast or appeared on television in Nigeria, Germany and Brazil. His lectures on African and Afro-American literature, delivered in Brazil in 1966, have been published as Aspeitos da literatura do mondo negro (1968), He is married and has two children.
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David, Jay and Harrington, Helise (editors). Growing Up African: Black Africans Recount Their Childhoods in Tribal. Colonial, and Independent Africa. New York. 1971. Morrow. Foreword by Associate Professor Edris Makward of the University of Wisconsin. 287 pages. hardcover. Jacket by Carol Favilla.
DESCRIPTION- A poignant, revealing volume that brings over three centuries of black African history alive. These thirty-five selections, almost all autobiographical, portray what it was like to grow up in Africa. Divided into three chronological sections, Growing UP African describes childhood experiences in tribal Africa, in the often brutal, psychologically disturbing era of Western Colonialism and in the frequently militant yet conflicting modern age of black-nationalist and independent Africa. Contributors include many of Africa's acclaimed writers and well-known leaders: Leopold Senghor, Kwame Nkrumah, Camara Laye, David Diop, James Ngugi, Ezekial Mphalele, Peter Abrahams, and many more. The editors, in their introduction, write: ‘In Growing UP African most of the childhood experiences are about moments of discovery, of children becoming aware of new dimensions to their own environments. In a larger context, we hope this collection will also provide for the reader moments of discovery, of historical and present-day Africa, of the Africa of children, of human Africa. For we believe that when all of us begin to appreciate the cultural heritage of others, then the possibility of international understanding will not seem so remote.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - JAY DAVID is the editor of the critically acclaimed book Growing Up Black, as well as many other volumes. HELISE HARRINGTON graduated from Stanford University and received a master's degree in African History from Columbia University.
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Davidson, Basil. Africa in Modern History. New York. 1978. Pelican Books. 0140221050. 431 pages. paperback. The cover shows the structure on the facade of the Festival Hall in Lagos, built in 1977 for FESTAC.
DESCRIPTION- This book is a history of modern Africa, from the 1880s to the present day, by way of the development of African political ideas and practice. It is a history that is here considered, above all, from the standpoint of nationalism through the twentieth century. Through long previous development, the Africans of the nineteenth century had organized themselves into a very large number of communities. A hundred years later, through an extraordinary and perhaps unique experience, they became organized into some fifty nations, forty-six on a count of the mid-70s with several more on the way. One phase of history came to an end. Another evidently began, and now continues. Why? How? What ideas have steered, and steer, this transformation? Few writers have done more to analyze and explain the history and culture of Africa than Basil Davidson. Few by their long and intimate experiences are better qualified to answer these questions. In this important new synthesis, Basil Davidson writes from the belief that the new history of Africa flows organically out of the old, and it is otherwise inexplicable. The ‘colonial period' is seem not as an episode but as an interlude of complex, often contradictory consequences precisely because the new imperialism did not operate in a vacuum, but with the crowded arena of African society.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Basil Risbridger Davidson MC (9 November 1914 - 9 July 2010) was a British historian, writer and Africanist, particularly knowledgeable on the subject of Portuguese Africa prior to the 1974 Carnation Revolution. He wrote several books on the current plight of Africa. Colonialism and the rise of African emancipation movements were central themes of his work. He was an Honorary Fellow of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.
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Davidson, Basil. Let Freedom Come: Africa in Modern History. Boston. 1978. Atlantic Monthly Press/Little Brown. 0316174351. 431 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Jeanyee Wong.
DESCRIPTION- The New York Review of Books has praised Basil Davidson as ‘the most effective popularizer of African history and archeology outside Africa, and certainly the one best trusted in Black Africa itself.' Davidson's previous, acclaimed works, among them The Lost Cities of Africa, African Slave Trade, The African Past, and The African Genius, have laid the groundwork for Let Freedom Come, the capstone to his brilliant oeuvre on Africa. A book that could not be written until now because of limitations imposed by Britain's Official Secrets Act, Let Freedom Come presents the history of sub-Saharan Africa in this century, from the death throes of European imperialism to the birth pangs and often bloody adolescences of the newly independent African nations. It is a history considered above all from the standpoint of nationalism during the twentieth century. Through long previous development, the Africans of the nineteenth century had organized themselves into a very large number of communities. A hundred years later, through an extraordinary and perhaps unique experience, they became organized into some fifty nations. What events and ideas have steered, and continue to steer, this transformation? The author draws upon his unexcelled command of modern African history, society, and culture, at the same time reemphasizing that Africa had evolved her own cities, civilizations, indeed empires as great as any in Western Europe before the first Europeans ever ventured onto the continent. Writing from this belief that the new history of Africa flows organically out of the old, Davidson envisions a purely African revolution in the near future, from whose outcome will emerge a new African consciousness and wholly new institutions rooted in African history.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Basil Risbridger Davidson (9 November 1914 - 9 July 2010) was a British historian, writer and Africanist, particularly knowledgeable on the subject of Portuguese Africa prior to the 1974 Carnation Revolution. He wrote several books on the current plight of Africa. Colonialism and the rise of African emancipation movements were central themes of his work. He was an Honorary Fellow of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.
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Davidson, Basil. The African Genius: An Introduction to African Social and Cultural History. Boston. 1969. Atlantic Monthly Press/Little Brown. 367 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Jeanyee Wong.
DESCRIPTION- Basil Davidson's books have played a leading role in changing the whole climate of informed opinion about African culture. The African Genius is likely to be the most influential, the most popular, and the most widely read. What did the slaves bring with them from Africa? What are the foundations for modern African civilizations? What can black Americans take and use from the African experience? What kinds of civilizations have thrived in Africa, and what were their dynamics of achievement and change? Basil Davidson asks and answers these questions, among others, in this new volume in a series that includes the highly acclaimed Lost Cities of Africa (which won the Anisfield-Wolf Award), Black Mother: The Years of the African Slave Trade and The African Past. The latest book takes another step forward seeking to put flesh on the chronological bones of African experience, the names and dates and lists of kings. The book is divided into five sections: Africa's World: the social structures of a number of traditional African societies (nomadic, trading, agricultural) and how their members have lived in harmony with their social regulations. Social Charters: the mechanisms which have kept these societies in tune with their past and with what African society has conceived to be the ruling forces of nature. Structures of Belief: the ways in which African religions exercise social control. Mechanisms of Change: the varieties of governmental structure in Africa, and how these systems withstood the coming of European colonialism. The Deluge and Today: the most topical section - dealing with Africa's contemporary aspirations to independence from European control and how modern attitudes and social change have been incorporated with the ancient life-ways. ‘If the history of Africa seems a jungle, it is more likely to be a jungle of ignorance. Through it, paths are even now being cut, and one of the foremost pathfinders is Basil Davidson.' - Professor Roland Oliver, School of Oriental and African Studies, London University. ‘Mr. Davidson has helped to sweep away some of the most pernicious misconceptions about Africa Mr. Davidson knows Africa intimately at first hand; as he goes on, he is also making himself one of the best interpreters to the public of its history.' - Professor Gwendolen M. Carter Northwestern University.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Basil Risbridger Davidson MC (9 November 1914 - 9 July 2010) was a British historian, writer and Africanist, particularly knowledgeable on the subject of Portuguese Africa prior to the 1974 Carnation Revolution. He wrote several books on the current plight of Africa. Colonialism and the rise of African emancipation movements were central themes of his work. He was an Honorary Fellow of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.
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Davidson, Basil. The Black Man's Burden: Africa & the Curse of the Nation-State. New York. 1992. Times Books. 081291998x. 356 pages. hardcover. Cover: Artwork on the jacket is a detail of a British Empire Marketing Board poster (circa 1930).
DESCRIPTION- Basil Davidson is among the most widely read and respected of Africa's historians, and is, as Roland Oliver, author of THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF AFRICA, has observed, ‘the one best trusted in Black Africa itself.' Now, in this often brilliant, unfailingly provocative work, he traces the roots of Africa's independence movement and puts the continent's present-day political instability into historical perspective. Emerging from foreign rule in the 1950s, the African people looked hopefully toward a future of independence and self-determination. But today Africa is a continent in crisis. The root cause, argues Davidson, lies in a historical irony - Africa's liberators, reluctant to embrace Africa's own history, chose to form nation-states based on fundamentally flawed European models. Thus, the sectarian strife of Europe was reproduced in Africa, compromising the new nations almost from the moment of their birth. Filled with stimulating insights, THE BLACK MAN'S BURDEN tackles some of the most vexing and fundamental questions of our time. Davidson begins with an inquiry into the pathology of nationalism and tribalism, and shows how they have collided in modern Africa. He demonstrates how the colonial legacy deformed (almost from the start) the project of African liberation. For African freedom fighters, mostly schooled in Western ways, could only imagine an African future inspired by the very West whose shackles they sought to break. Even the language of their discourse was derived from the West. Thus, they turned their backs on whatever might have proved useful and usable from their own African heritage. The creation of nation-states, like the Janus-faced nature of nationalism itself, proved, in the event, to be not so much liberating as suffocating. The state, Davidson argues, became a monster, its ever-inflating bureaucracy enrolled in the service of a particular family or ethnic group or tribe or alliance of tribes. Others, in an effort to resist the depredations of the state (or in a refusal to recognize its legitimacy), sought refuge in networks of tribal solidarity and community. Intelligent, passionate, sophisticated, Davidson explores the evolution of nationalism as it has unfolded in both Africa and Europe. He sheds light into Obscure corners, combines scholarship with enthusiasm, and accomplishes that rare feat of turning the reader inside out in order to view the world with fresh eyes. He concludes with a reflection on movements of renewal and democracy that are now pushing their way across the continent. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Basil Risbridger Davidson MC (9 November 1914 - 9 July 2010) was a British historian, writer and Africanist, particularly knowledgeable on the subject of Portuguese Africa prior to the 1974 Carnation Revolution. He wrote several books on the current plight of Africa. Colonialism and the rise of African emancipation movements were central themes of his work. He was an Honorary Fellow of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.
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Davidson, Basil. The Search For Africa: History, Culture, Politics. New York. 1994. Times Books. 0812922786. 373 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Archie Ferguson. The artwork on the jacket is a detail of an eighteenth-century English color engraving, depicting the city of Loango, near the mouth of the Congo River on the west coast of Africa. Courtesy of the Granger Collection, New York.
DESCRIPTION- ‘Basil Davidson is thoroughly familiar with the classical sources, and he is also in close touch with the current work and thinking of specialists in contemporary historical and archeological research in Africa. Not the least of his gifts is his capacity for compelling narrative and clear exposition.' - J. D. FAGE, author of A History of Africa. For more than forty years, Basil Davidson has been writing on Africa, helping to lift the curtain of ignorance that has too long cloaked that astonishing continent with its many vibrant peoples. In more than twenty books, from The Lost Cities of Africa to The African Genius to The Black Man's Burden, he has contributed to one of the truly liberating achievements of the twentieth century: the reinstallation of Africa's peoples within the culture of the world. Moreover, Davidson has done so with a spirit of infectious adventure and vitality and commitment. That spirit, fleshed out with deep research and attired in elegant style, has drawn countless readers to subjects otherwise approachable only by experts. Taken together, his any writings have made the excitement of intellectual discovery palpable for us all. In the course of his fruitful career Davidson has written many shorter pieces as well, and the best of these are collected for the first time in The Search for Africa. These penetrating essays, essential to understanding the passionate spirit of this founder of modern African studies, provide the background and perspective needed to understand a continent whose upheavals continue to shake the world. In them, Basil Davidson joins the heated debate over Africanism, Eurocentrism, and the historical role of Africa. He does so with unmatched erudition and solidarity. Readers new to his work will appreciate Davidson's clarity of style, a result of his disciplined and candid thinking. Because he has a passion and respect for African culture and the African peoples, Davidson debunks Western myths about Africa, and anyone ignorant of its realities will learn much from his engaged presentation. His very tone is that of a man who is primarily concerned with truth. The Search for Africa begins with an essay on the roots and contributions of Africa's ancient kingdoms and proceeds to a meditation on the invention of racism and the meanings of Africanism. Next is a dissection of the South African system of legalized servitude, its origins and consequences. This is followed by an examination of the struggles of Africans to free themselves from the imperial powers, in the course of which Davidson grapples with the ambiguities of nationalism. The book ends with a reflection on what the author calls the ‘curse of Columbus.' In a wider sense, The Search for Africa forms a bridge between the three parallel enterprises of history, culture, and politics. It reveals how culture justifies itself by history, how history influences culture, and how politics threads its way through both. It is an indispensable capstone to a remarkable career.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Basil Risbridger Davidson MC (9 November 1914 - 9 July 2010) was a British historian, writer and Africanist, particularly knowledgeable on the subject of Portuguese Africa prior to the 1974 Carnation Revolution. He wrote several books on the current plight of Africa. Colonialism and the rise of African emancipation movements were central themes of his work. He was an Honorary Fellow of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.
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Davidson, Basil. Which Way Africa? the Search For a New Society. Baltimore. 1967. Penguin Books. Penguin African Librarry. 229 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- A man would have to be very brave or very foolhardy to try to forecast precisely the pattern of Africa's future. Where events outrun the printing-presses, discretion is the better part of omniscience. In "Which Way Africa?" Basi Davidson, the well-known writer on African affairs, has steered clear of political ju-ju. Instead -- and infinitely more to the purpose -- he has made what is the only up-to-date and comprehensive analysis in English -- and probably in any language -- of the social, economic and political motives, myths, ideas and beliefs which underly modern African nationalism.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Basil Risbridger Davidson MC (9 November 1914 - 9 July 2010) was a British historian, writer and Africanist, particularly knowledgeable on the subject of Portuguese Africa prior to the 1974 Carnation Revolution. He wrote several books on the current plight of Africa. Colonialism and the rise of African emancipation movements were central themes of his work. He was an Honorary Fellow of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.
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Davis, Andrea A. Horizon, Sea, Sound: Caribbean and African Women's Cultural Critiques of Nation. Evanston. 2022. Northwestern University Press. 9780810144583. Series: Critical Insurgencies. 3 b-w images. 312 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- In Horizon, Sea, Sound: Caribbean and African Women’s Cultural Critiques of Nation, Andrea Davis imagines new reciprocal relationships beyond the competitive forms of belonging suggested by the nation-state. The book employs the tropes of horizon, sea, and sound as a critique of nation-state discourses and formations, including multicultural citizenship, racial capitalism, settler colonialism, and the hierarchical nuclear family. Drawing on Tina Campt’s discussion of Black feminist futurity, Davis offers the concept future now, which is both central to Black freedom and a joint social justice project that rejects existing structures of white supremacy. Calling for new affiliations of community among Black, Indigenous, and other racialized women, and offering new reflections on the relationship between the Caribbean and Canada, she articulates a diaspora poetics that privileges our shared humanity. In advancing these claims, Davis turns to the expressive cultures (novels, poetry, theater, and music) of Caribbean and African women artists in Canada, including work by Dionne Brand, M. NourbeSe Philip, Esi Edugyan, Ramabai Espinet, Nalo Hopkinson, Amai Kuda, and Djanet Sears. Davis considers the ways in which the diasporic characters these artists create redraw the boundaries of their horizons, invoke the fluid histories of the Caribbean Sea to overcome the brutalization of plantation histories, use sound to enter and reenter archives, and shapeshift to survive in the face of conquest. The book will interest readers of literary and cultural studies, critical race theories, and Black diasporic studies.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - ANDREA A. DAVIS is an associate professor in the Department of Humanities and special advisor on anti-Black racism strategies in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York University, Toronto. A former director of the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean, she is the coeditor of Jamaica in the Canadian Experience: A Multiculturalizing Presence.
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Davis, Andrea A. Horizon, Sea, Sound: Caribbean and African Women's Cultural Critiques of Nation. Evanston. 2022. Northwestern University Press. 9780810144590. Series: Critical Insurgencies. 3 b-w images. 312 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- In Horizon, Sea, Sound: Caribbean and African Women’s Cultural Critiques of Nation, Andrea Davis imagines new reciprocal relationships beyond the competitive forms of belonging suggested by the nation-state. The book employs the tropes of horizon, sea, and sound as a critique of nation-state discourses and formations, including multicultural citizenship, racial capitalism, settler colonialism, and the hierarchical nuclear family. Drawing on Tina Campt’s discussion of Black feminist futurity, Davis offers the concept future now, which is both central to Black freedom and a joint social justice project that rejects existing structures of white supremacy. Calling for new affiliations of community among Black, Indigenous, and other racialized women, and offering new reflections on the relationship between the Caribbean and Canada, she articulates a diaspora poetics that privileges our shared humanity. In advancing these claims, Davis turns to the expressive cultures (novels, poetry, theater, and music) of Caribbean and African women artists in Canada, including work by Dionne Brand, M. NourbeSe Philip, Esi Edugyan, Ramabai Espinet, Nalo Hopkinson, Amai Kuda, and Djanet Sears. Davis considers the ways in which the diasporic characters these artists create redraw the boundaries of their horizons, invoke the fluid histories of the Caribbean Sea to overcome the brutalization of plantation histories, use sound to enter and reenter archives, and shapeshift to survive in the face of conquest. The book will interest readers of literary and cultural studies, critical race theories, and Black diasporic studies.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - ANDREA A. DAVIS is an associate professor in the Department of Humanities and special advisor on anti-Black racism strategies in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York University, Toronto. A former director of the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean, she is the coeditor of Jamaica in the Canadian Experience: A Multiculturalizing Presence.
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De Grandsaigne, J. and Nmamonu, S. (editors). African Short Stories: An Anthology. New York. 1985. St Martin's Press. 031201029x. 199 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Storytelling today in parts of Africa has the distinction of existing both in its more or less original form - - part of the oral tradition - - and in a body of written literature. For the last thirty years the written story has been thriving in African countries, especially those where English is the literary medium. Yet while the storyteller still holds an honored place in traditional society, the short story writer has so far received little recognition. Critics tend to see the African short story as a footnote to the novel, as an exercise in style, or as a beginner's work, not as a contribution to African literature and a reflection of African Life. This collection of stories exemplifies major trends in the short story and consequently in Africa's view of itself. Present day needs, aspirations, and anxieties inform the stories often to the total exclusion of the past. Tradition, if included in the narrative, is always considered in its relation with the modern day. In the African short story the old and new never come to terms. Nor does either extremity by itself constitute a satisfactory solution to a hero's dilemma. To escape the pull of both tradition and the new order of things, the hero seeks out the new world, the in - between place, the town, but there he finds many of the difficulties he originally tried to escape. Several of the writers included here bring their humor to this predicament, while others simply present the tragedy. Recurrent themes among these eighteen stories include race relations, colonialization, war and its aftermath, religion and witchcraft, country life, town life with its multiple aspects of sex, alcoholism, prostitution, violence, and love. This anthology gives deserved recognition to the literary value of individual works and to the short story genre in Africa. CONTENTS: Introduction; Resurrection: Rive; Civil Peace: Achebe; In the cutting of a Drink: Aldo; Ding Dong Bell: Annan; Weekend of Carousal: Chishimba: The Ivory Dancer: Ekwensi; A Man Can Try: Jones; Death by the Waterfall: Gbadamosi; A Silent Song: Kibera; Blankets: La Guma; Lexieographicide: Lo Liyong; Ivory Banlges: Ng 'Maryo; The Master of Doornvlei: Mphahlele; The Tender Crop i; Mulikita; The Coming of the Dry Season: Mungoshi; The Return: Ngugi; The Truly Married Woman: Nicol; The Nlghtmare: Saidi; Bibliography.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - J. de Grandsaigne is with the University of Zambia.
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Denny, Neville (editor). Pan African Short Stories: An Anthology for Schools. London. 1965. Nelson. Illustrated By Louis Mwaniki. 223 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- This volume contains a varied selection of modern African writing; it is, to be specific, an anthology of modern African short stories. They are all African and they are all modern in the sense that they have been written, over the past few years, by Africans deeply concerned to explore and appraise the realities of life in Africa today. The writers are all preoccupied with the experience of individual Africans adjusting themselves to life in a continent where the pace of change is faster than that which any other people has ever known. Many of their authors have won international recognition in other fields - Chinua Achebe, William Conton, Cyprian Ekwensi and James Ngugi as novelists, Gabriel Okara as a poet, Ezekiel Mphahlele as essayist and critic - but all of them seem to find in shorter fiction the form in which they can best say what it means to be an African in Africa today. These stories are therefore representative of some of the more interesting work being done in what seems to me the most important and exciting branch of modern African literature, the hard and exacting mode of the modern short story. The stories come from all over Africa south of the Sahara: from Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, from Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, from the Cape and the Transvaal. But wherever they come from, and wherever the action in them takes place, the stories are all concerned with the real and serious affairs of men, with what is universal in the hearts of men, and with the vision of an ideal humanity. - FROM THE INTRODUCTION.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY -
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Derrick, Jonathan. Africa's `Agitators': Militant Anti-colonialism in Africa and the West, 1918-1939. New York. 2008. Oxford University Press. 9780199326662. 494 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- The period between the two World Wars were the peak years of the colonial empires, but they were not unchallenged. Individuals and organisations called for major reforms and an end to white supremacy and colonial rule, contributing first to local unrest and protest and then to anticolonial activity not only in Africa but the United States and Europe as well. In this compelling history, Jonathan Derrick recounts the opposition to British and French rule practised both by Africans living on the continent and by European anticolonialists and members of the Black Diaspora. He covers campaigns waged by an early incarnation of the ANC and other groups in South Africa who fought against legal and other aspects of white minority rule. He also analyses the Kikuyu protests against the settler regime in Kenya; Marcus Garvey's African American movement and its role in sparking interest in Africa; the Étoile Nord Africaine, formed mainly by Algerians in France, that called for the independence of French North Africa; protests led by European critics against forced labour in Kenya and French Equatorial Africa; and the activity of small militant groups like the Ligue de Défense de la Race Nègre (LDRN) in France and George Padmore's International African Service Bureau (IASB) in Britain. Derrick also examines the role of the Comintern and Western Communist parties that were opposed to Western colonialism and ready to support militant action against it. He shows that, although colonial rulers greatly feared the spectre of Communism in Africa, actual Communist activity was in fact quite small. The onset of the Second World War pushed colonial issues to the background, but as Derrick argues, in the long term the anti-colonialists of the interwar era helped pave the way for later decolonisation.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - A freelance editor and scholar, Jonathan Derrick has a DPhil in history from Magdalen College, University of Oxford. For twenty years he was on the editorial staff of West Africa Magazine, London. He has published several scholarly articles on African history and is the co-author, with Professor Ralph Austen, of Middlemen of the Cameroons River: The Duala and their Hinterland, c.1600-c.1960 (Cambridge University Press, 2000)
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Desai, Guarav (editor). Teaching the African Novel. New York. 2009. Modern Language Association. 9781603290388. Options for Teaching. 434 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- What is the African novel, and how should it be taught? The twenty-three essays of this volume address these two questions and in the process convey a wealth of information and ideas about the diverse regions, peoples, nations, languages, and writers of the African continent. Topics include Ngugi wa Thiong'o's favoring of indigenous languages and literary traditions over European; the special place of Marxism in African letters; the influence of Frantz Fanon; women writers and the sub-Saharan novel; the Maghrebian novel;the novel and the griot epic in the Sahel;Islam in the West African novel; ovels in Spanish from Equatorial Guinea; apartheid and postapartheid fiction; African writers in the diaspora; globalization in East African fiction; teaching Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart to students in different countries; the Onitsha market romance. The volume editor, Gaurav Desai, writes, "The point of the volume is to encourage a reading of Africa that is sensitive to its history of colonization but at the same time responsive to its present multiracial and multicultural condition."
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Guarav Desai is chair of the Department of English at Tulane University and has served as codirector of its African and African Diaspora Studies Program. He is the author of Subject to Colonialism: African Self-Fashioning and the Colonial Library (2001) and has coedited Postcolonialisms: An Anthology of Cultural Theory (2005). His articles have appeared in journals such as Cultural Critique, Genders, Research in African Literatures, and Representations.
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Diawara, Manthia. African Cinema: Politics and Culture. Bloomington. 1992. Indiana University Press. 0253317045. 208 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Drawing on political science, economics, history, and cultural studies, Diawara provides an insider's account of the development and current status of African cinema. He discusses such issues as film production and distribution, and film aesthetics from the colonial period to the present. CONTENTS: Anglophone African Production; Zairian production; France's Contribution to the Development of Film Production in Africa; The Artist as the Leader of the Revolution: The History of the Federation Panafricaine des Cineastes; The Situation of National and International Film Production in Francophone Africa; Film Production in Lusophone Africa: Toward the Kuxa Kenema in Mozambique; Film Distribution and Exhibition in Francophone Africa; The Present Situation of the Film Industry in Anglophone Africa; African Cinema and Festivals: FESPACO; African Cinema Today.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Manthia Diawara (born December 19, 1953) is a Malian writer, filmmaker, cultural theorist, scholar, and art historian. He holds the title of University Professor at New York University (NYU), where he is Director of the Institute of Afro-American Affairs. Diawara was born in Bamako, Mali, and received his early education in France. He later received a PhD from Indiana University in 1985. Prior to teaching at NYU, Diawara taught at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California at Santa Barbara. Much of his research has been in the field of black cultural studies, though his work has differed from the traditional approach to such study formulated in Britain in the early 1980s. Along with other notable recent scholars, Diawara has sought to incorporate consideration of the material conditions of African Americans to provide a broader context for the study of African diasopric culture. An aspect of this formulation has been the privileging of "Blackness" in all its possible forms rather than as relevant to a single, perhaps monolithic definition of black culture. Diawara has contributed significantly to the study of black film. In 1992, Indiana University Press published his African Cinema: Politics & Culture and in 1993, Routledge published a volume he edited entitled Black-American Cinema. A filmmaker himself, Diawara has written and directed a number of films. His 1998 book In Search of Africa is an account of his return to his childhood home of Guinea and was published by Harvard University Press. Diawara is the editor-in-chief of Renaissance Noire, a journal of arts, culture, and politics dedicated to work that engages contemporary Black concerns. He serves on the advisory board of October, and is also on the editorial collective of Public Culture. In 2003, Diawara released We Won't Budge: A Malaria Memoir, the title a tribute to Salif Keita's anthemic protest song "Nou Pas Bouger". The book was described by The Village Voice as "by turns elegiac, unsentimental, angry, and wise. .his story unfolds in the triumphant days post-1960 (when Mali gained independence from France), trips into reverie for a youth spent in thrall to rock and roll, and evokes his awakenings to art and racism in the West." Diawara serves on the board of TransAfrica Forum, alongside Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover, and Walter Mosely, which supported Barack Obama's successful candidacy for President in 2008. In 2015, he was featured in the documentary Sembene! on the life and career of legendary Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembene, a filmmaker Diawara himself profiled in his own documentary on the filmmaker, Sembene: the Making of African Cinema.
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Drachler, Jacob. African Heritage. New York. 1969. Collier.Macmillan. 286 pages. paperback. 05052.
DESCRIPTION- Intimate views of the great heritage of Black Africans and Black Americans. AFRICAN HERITAGE, an anthology of writings by and about Africans, provides a new and deep insight into the Black African, reflects the profusion of lifestyles to be found on the African continent, and conveys a vivid portrait of a rich and varied cultural tradition. In Part One, ‘A.frican Voices,' the people reveal themselves through their traditional oral literature, tales, proverbs and songs, and through the works of the new African thinkers, writers and poets, among them Jomo Kenyatta, Birago Diop, Camara Laye, Ezekiel Mphahele and Albert Luthuli. Part Two, ‘Afro-American Responses,' presents reflections on their heritage by distinguished artists of African descent, among them Rene Maran, Pearl Primus and St. Clair Drake. In Part Three, ‘Through the Eyes of Others,' the African land and its people are movingly depicted by non-Africans - scholars and writers who have lived and worked there for many years and who offer acute and realistic observations on an Africa they know and love, among them Melville J. Herskovits, Joyce Cary, Thomas L. Hodgkin and Elspeth Huxley.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jacob Drachler, a teacher and artist, and a member of the African Studies Association, has pursued an active interest in African life and literature for many years. .
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Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt. The World and Africa. New York. 1947. Viking Press. 276 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- DuBois never relented in attacks upon imperialism, especially in Africa. (His book entitled THE WORLD AND AFRICA was written as a contradiction to the pseudo-historians who consistently omitted Africa from world history.) In 1945 he served as an associate consultant to the American delegation at the founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco. He charged the world organization with planning to be dominated by imperialist nations and not intending to intervene on the behalf of colonized countries. He announced that the fifth Pan-African Congress would convene to determine what pressure could be applied to the world powers. W.E.B. Du Bois' THE WORLD AND AFRICA, which refutes the racist thesis primarily associated with Eurocentric historians that of all the continents, Africa had made no contribution to world history and civilization. Du Bois's main objectives in this celebratory book, as in his classic SOULS OF BLACK FOLK, were threefold: to write the history and culture of the people of Africa and African descent; to enable African Americans to identify with Africa as a proud and dignified source of identity that could be placed on an equal footing with Europe, Asia, and North America; and to posit Africa's humanism and rich heritage as a compelling argument against racism and colonialism. Du Bois believed that freedom was whole and indivisible, that Black people in America would not be completely free until Africa was liberated and emancipated in modernity; his Pan-Africanism was born out of the consciousness of freedom as a common goal for Black and Brown people. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (February 23, 1868 - August 27, 1963) was a black civil rights activist, leader, Pan-Africanist, sociologist, educator, historian, writer, editor, poet, and scholar. He became a naturalized citizen of Ghana in 1963 at the age of 95. David Levering Lewis, a biographer, wrote, ‘In the course of his long, turbulent career, W. E. B. Du Bois attempted virtually every possible solution to the problem of twentieth-century racism - scholarship, propaganda, integration, national self-determination, human rights, cultural and economic separatism, politics, international communism, expatriation, third world solidarity.' W. E. B. Du Bois was born on Church Street on February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, at the south-western edge of Massachusetts, to Alfred Du Bois and Mary Silvina Burghardt Du Bois, whose February 5, 1867, wedding had been announced in the Berkshire Courier. Alfred Du Bois had been born in Haiti. Their son was born 5 months before the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, and added to the U.S. Constitution. Alfred Du Bois was descended from free people of color, including the slave-holding Dr. James Du Bois of Poughkeepsie, New York, a physician. In the Bahamas, James Du Bois had fathered three sons, including Alfred, and a daughter, by his slave mistress. Du Bois was also the great-grandson of Elizabeth Freeman (‘Mum Bett‘), a slave who successfully sued for her freedom, laying the groundwork for the eventual abolition of slavery in Massachusetts. Du Bois was born free and did not have contact with his biological father. He blamed his maternal grandparents for his father's leaving because they did not take kindly to him. Du Bois was very close to his mother Mary, who was from Massachusetts. Du Bois moved frequently when he was young, after Mary suffered a stroke which left her unable to work. They survived on money from family members and Du Bois' after-school jobs. Du Bois wanted to help his mother as much as possible and believed he could improve their lives through education. Some of the neighborhood whites noticed him, and one allowed Du Bois and his mother to rent a house from him in Great Barrington. While living there, Du Bois performed chores and worked odd jobs. Du Bois did not feel differently because of his skin color while he was in school. In fact, the only times he felt out of place were when out-of-towners would visit Great Barrington. One such incident occurred when a white girl who was new in school refused to take one of his fake calling cards during a game. The girl told him she would not accept it because he was black. He then realized that there would always be some kind of barrier between whites and others. Young Du Bois may have been an outsider because of his status, being poor, not having a father and being extremely intellectual for his age; however, he was very comfortable academically. Many around him recognized his intelligence and encouraged him to further his education with college preparatory courses while in high school. This academic confidence led him to believe that he could use his knowledge to empower African Americans. Du Bois was awarded a degree from Fisk University in 1888. During the summer following graduation from Fisk, Du Bois managed the Fisk Glee Club. The club was employed at a grand luxury summer resort on Lake Minnetonka in suburban Minneapolis, Minnesota. The resort was a favorite spot for vacationing wealthy American Southerners and European royalty. Du Bois and the other club members doubled as waiters and kitchen workers at the hotel. Observing the drinking, rude and crude behavior and sexual promiscuity of the rich white guests of the hotel left a deep impression on the young Du Bois. Du Bois entered Harvard College in the fall of 1888, having received a $250 scholarship. He earned a bachelor's degree cum laude from Harvard in 1890. In 1892, received a stipend to attend the University of Berlin. While a student in Berlin, he travelled extensively throughout Europe, and came of age intellectually while studying with some of the most prominent social scientists in the German capital, such as Gustav von Schmoller. In 1895, Du Bois became the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University. After teaching at Wilberforce University in Ohio and the University of Pennsylvania, he established the department of sociology at Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University). Du Bois wrote many books, including three major autobiographies. Among his most significant works are The Philadelphia Negro (1899), The Souls of Black Folk (1903), John Brown (1909), Black Reconstruction (1935), and Black Folk, Then and Now (1939). His book The Negro (1915) influenced the work of several pioneer Africanist scholars, such as Drusilla Dunjee Houston and William Leo Hansberry. In 1940, at Atlanta University, Du Bois founded Phylon magazine. In 1946, he wrote The World and Africa: An Inquiry Into the Part that Africa has Played in World History. In 1945, he helped organize the historic Fifth Pan-African Conference in Manchester, England. While prominent white voices denied African American cultural, political and social relevance to American history and civic life, in his epic work, Reconstruction Du Bois documented how black people were central figures in the American Civil War and Reconstruction. He demonstrated the ways Black emancipation - the crux of Reconstruction - promoted a radical restructuring of United States society, as well as how and why the country turned its back on human rights for African Americans in the aftermath of Reconstruction. This theme was taken up later and expanded by Eric Foner and Leon F. Litwack, the two leading contemporary scholars of the Reconstruction era. In total, Du Bois wrote 22 books, including five novels, and helped establish four journals. Du Bois was the most prominent intellectual leader and political activist on behalf of African Americans in the first half of the twentieth century. A contemporary of Booker T. Washington, the two carried on a dialogue about segregation and political disenfranchisement. He was labeled ‘The Father of Pan-Africanism.' In 1905, Du Bois along with Minnesota attorney Fredrick L. McGhee and others helped to found the Niagara Movement with William Monroe Trotter. The Movement championed, among other things, freedom of speech and criticism, the recognition of the highest and best human training as the monopoly of no caste or race, full male suffrage, a belief in the dignity of labor, and a united effort to realize such ideals under sound leadership. The alliance between Du Bois and Trotter was, however, short-lived, as they had a dispute over whether or not white people should be included in the organization and in the struggle for Civil Rights. Du Bois felt that they should, and with a group of like-minded supporters, he helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. In 1910, he left his teaching post at Atlanta University to work as publications director at the NAACP full-time. He wrote weekly columns in many newspapers, including the Chicago Defender, the Pittsburgh Courier and the New York Amsterdam News, three African-American newspapers, and also the Hearst-owned San Francisco Chronicle. For 25 years, Du Bois worked as Editor-in-Chief of the NAACP publication, The Crisis, which then included the subtitle A Record of the Darker Races. He commented freely and widely on current events and set the agenda for the fledgling NAACP. Its circulation soared from 1,000 in 1910 to more than 100,000 by 1920. Du Bois published Harlem Renaissance writers Langston Hughes and Jean Toomer. As a repository of black thought, the Crisis was initially a monopoly, David Levering Lewis observed. In 1913, Du Bois wrote The Star of Ethiopia, a historical pageant, to promote African-American history and civil rights. The seminal debate between Booker T. Washington and Du Bois played out in the pages of the Crisis with Washington advocating a philosophy of self-help and vocational training for Southern blacks while Du Bois pressed for full educational opportunities. Du Bois thought blacks should seek higher education, preferably liberal arts. Du Bois believed blacks should challenge and question whites on all grounds, but Washington believed assimilating and fitting into the ‘American' culture is the best way for Blacks to move up in society. While Washington states that he didn't receive any racist insults until later on his years, Du Bois said Blacks have a ‘Double-Conscious' mind in which they have to know when to act ‘White' and when to act ‘Black'. Booker T. Washington felt that teaching was a duty but Du Bois felt it was a calling. Du Bois became increasingly estranged from Walter Francis White, the executive secretary of the NAACP, and began to question the organization's opposition to racial segregation at all costs. Du Bois thought that this policy, while generally sound, undermined those black institutions that did exist, which Du Bois thought should be defended and improved, rather than attacked as inferior. By the 1930s, Lewis said, the NAACP had become more institutional and Du Bois, increasingly radical, sometimes at odds with leaders such as Walter White and Roy Wilkins. In 1934, after writing two essays in the Crisis suggesting that black separatism could be a useful economic strategy, Du Bois left the magazine to return to teaching at Atlanta University. In 1909, W. E. B. Du Bois addressed the American Historical Association (AHA). According to David Levering Lewis, ‘His would be the first and last appearance of an African American on the program until 1940.' In a review of the second book in Lewis's biographies of Du Bois, Michael R. Winston observed that, in understanding American history, one must question ‘how black Americans developed the psychological stamina and collective social capacity to cope with the sophisticated system of racial domination that white Americans had anchored deeply in law and custom.' Winston continued, ‘Although any reasonable answer is extraordinarily complex, no adequate one can ignore the man (Du Bois) whose genius was for 70 years at the intellectual epicenter of the struggle to destroy white supremacy as public policy and social fact in the United States.' Du Bois was investigated by the FBI, who claimed in May 1942 that ‘[h]is writing indicates him to be a socialist,' and that he ‘has been called a Communist and at the same time criticized by the Communist Party.' Du Bois visited Communist China during the Great Leap Forward. Also, in the March 16, 1953 issue of The National Guardian, Du Bois wrote ‘Joseph Stalin was a great man; few other men of the 20th century approach his stature.' Du Bois was chairman of the Peace Information Center at the start of the Korean War. He was among the signers of the Stockholm Peace Pledge, which opposed the use of nuclear weapons. In 1950, at the age of 82, he ran for the U.S. Senate on the American Labor Party ticket in New York and received 4% of the vote. Although he lost, Du Bois remained committed to the progressive labor cause and in 1958, joined Trotskyists, ex-Communists and independent radicals in proposing the creation of a united left-wing coalition to challenge for seats in the elections for the New York state senate and assembly. He was indicted in the United States under the Foreign Agents Registration Act and acquitted for lack of evidence. W. E. B. Du Bois became disillusioned with both black capitalism and racism in the United States. In 1959, Du Bois received the Lenin Peace Prize. In 1961, at the age of 93, he joined the Communist Party USA. Du Bois was invited to Ghana in 1961 by President Kwame Nkrumah to direct the Encyclopedia Africana, a government production, and a long-held dream of his. When, in 1963, he was refused a new U.S. passport, he and his wife, Shirley Graham Du Bois, became citizens of Ghana, renouncing his US citizenship. Du Bois' health had declined in 1962, and on August 27, 1963, he died in Accra, Ghana at the age of ninety-five, one day before Martin Luther King, Jr.'s ‘I Have a Dream‘ speech. At the March on Washington, Roy Wilkins informed the hundreds of thousands of marchers and called for a moment of silence. . AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963) was internationally renowned as a writer, scholar, and activist. Among his published works are THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLKS, JOHN BROWN, and BLACK RECONSTRUCTION: AN ESSAY TOWARD A HISTORY OF THE PART WHICH BLACK FOLK PLAYED IN THE ATTEMPT TO RECONSTRUCT DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA, 1860 - 1880. He also wrote other major fiction, including DARK PRINCESS.
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Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt. The World and Africa: An Inquiry Into the Part Which Africa Has Played in World History. New York. 1969. International Publishers. An enlarged edition, including essays on the personalities and future of the nations of Africa. 352 pages. paperback. Nw 48.
DESCRIPTION- In this classic review of African history, Dr. Du Bois documents the historic injustices of the rape of Africa from the slave trade to its partition by the big powers. But he does this against a background of the vast contributions of ancient and modern Africa to world culture, industry and peace. Here are gathered the little-known facts which have been concealed by a conspiracy of silence among historians. To the original text have been added articles and essays written by Dr. Du Bois since 1955 on the emerging new nations and personalities of Africa, thus bringing his work into current history.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963) was internationally renowned as a writer, scholar, and activist. Among his published works are THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLKS, JOHN BROWN, and BLACK RECONSTRUCTION: AN ESSAY TOWARD A HISTORY OF THE PART WHICH BLACK FOLK PLAYED IN THE ATTEMPT TO RECONSTRUCT DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA, 1860 - 1880. He also wrote other major fiction, including DARK PRINCESS.
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Duffy, James. Portugal in Africa. Baltimore. 1963. Penguin Books. 240 pages. paperback. AP3.
DESCRIPTION- Everyone knows that Portugal is ‘Britain's oldest Ally', but that is precisely where for most of us our knowledge both begins and ends. Although the recent crisis in Angola focused the world attention on Portugal's African colonies, all too little was known about either the immediate causes of conflict or the wider issue of Portugal's long rule in Africa. This is the first book to offer the general reader an authoritative and detailed study of Portugal in Africa. It is a fascinating story of prazero and soba, missionary and explorer, assimilado and slave, of brilliant promise and squalid achievement. The procession of explorers, governors, chiefs, and slave-traders takes the reader from the first figures of exploration in the fifteenth century to the final façade of the Salazar regime and shows how the crescendo of imperial delusion, set against the brutal reality of five centuries of exploitation, led at last to the bloodshed of Angola. Portuguese Africa borders on the Congo, South West Africa, and the Central African Federation. The historical experience which Mr. Duffy relates is therefore of the greatest importance not only for Angola and Mocambique but for the future of Africa as a whole.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - James Duffy was the Managing Director of Crossroads Press, Executive Secretary of the African Students Association, and a pioneering historian of Africa.
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Egejuru, Phanuel Akubueze. Towards African Literary Independence. Westport. 1980. Greenwood Press. 0313223106. 173 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Egejuru interviews nine writers, six West Africans and one each from Kenya, Algeria, and South Africa, arranging the material by topic. Her provocative questions elicit interesting and sometimes bristling replies. An informative introduction examines the role of the Negritude movement in the development of African literature, and biographical notes are supplied. CONTENTS: Introduction; Who is the Audience of African Literature?; The Place of Foreign Languages in African Literature; Publication and Distribution; Who Influenced the Writers?; What Distinguishes One as an African Writer?; The Novel Genre in African Literature; Africa, the Only Topic of African Literature; Writers Discuss Their Works; Conclusion; Biographical Notes; Index.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Phanuel Akubueze Egejuru has studied in Nigeria, Senegal, Ivory Coast and France. He migrated to the University of Minnesota and graduated Magna cum Laude, French. Moving to UCLA, she obtained her M.A., M.P.H. and Ph.D. in Comp. Lit. She taught at UCLA, and in Tanzania, New York, Nigeria, and Rhode Island before Loyola. A Professor of English at Loyola, Egejuru taught Composition, Short Fiction, Black Literature and Black Aesthetics. She also taught nineteenth-century British fiction and Victorian England. She has published books in literary criticism, a novel, and poeticized proverbs.
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Equiano, Olaudah. Equiano's Travels: His Autobiography; The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa the African. London. 1969. Heinemann. 0435900102. African Writers Series. Abridged and edited by Paul Edwards. 198 pages. paperback. AWS10. Originally published in AWS series 1967.
DESCRIPTION- Olaudah Equiano was born in 1745 in a village east of the Niger River in what is now Nigeria. In 1789 his book THE INTERESTING NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF OLAUDAH EQUIANO OR GUSTAVUS VASSA THE AFRICAN was published in London. This is his own account of his varied and adventurous life in the years between. At the age of ten he was captured by slave traders and taken to the southern states of America. He was sold to a planter in the West Indies and worked there and aboard slave ships sailing between the Caribbean and England. Afterwards he worked aboard naval and merchant ships, including slave ships, before he saved enough money to buy his freedom at the age of twenty-one. He visited the Mediterranean, and took part in Phipps' expedition to the Arctic (1773) as well as crossing the Atlantic several times. As an ardent member of the Anti-Slavery movement he came to know several of the leaders of the movement such as Granville Sharp. He was appointed Commissary of Stores for the freed returning to Sierra Leone. His book was famous in its time. Between 1789 and 1827 it ran into seventeen editions in Britain and the United States, as well as translations into Dutch and German. For a long time it has been unobtainable but it is of great literary and historical importance in the context of African writing. This slightly abridged edition (the original book in two volumes is 526 pages long) has been prepared by Paul Edwards, formerly of the University of Edinburgh and of the University College of Sierra Leone. He has provided an introduction on Equiano as a writer and personality as well as full explanatory notes on the text.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745 - 31 March 1797), known in his lifetime as Gustavus Vassa, was a prominent African in London, a freed slave who supported the British movement to end the slave trade. His autobiography, published in 1789 and attracting wide attention, was considered highly influential in gaining passage of the Slave Trade Act 1807, which ended the African trade for Britain and its colonies. Since the late 20th century, there has been some debate on his origins, but most of his account has been extensively documented. His last master was Robert King, an American Quaker merchant who allowed Equiano to trade on his own account and purchase his freedom in 1766. Equiano settled in England in 1767 and worked and traveled for another 20 years as a seafarer, merchant, and explorer in the Caribbean, the Arctic, the American colonies, South and Central America, and the United Kingdom. In London Equiano (identifying as Gustavus Vassa during his lifetime) was part of the Sons of Africa, a black group who opposed the slave trade, and he was active among leaders of the anti-slave trade movement in the 1780s. He published his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789), which depicted the horrors of slavery. The first-known slave narrative, it went through nine editions and aided passage of the British Slave Trade Act of 1807, which abolished the African slave trade. Since 1967, his memoir has been regarded as the 'true beginning of modern African literature.' As a free man, Equiano had a stressful life; he had suffered suicidal thoughts before he became a born again Christian and found peace in his faith. After settling in London, in 1792 Equiano married an English woman named Susannah Cullen and they had two daughters. He died in 1797 in London; his gravesite is unknown. Equiano's death was recognized in Britain as well as by American newspapers. Plaques commemorating his life have been placed at buildings where he lived in London. Since the late 20th century, when his autobiography was published in a new edition, he has been increasingly studied by a range of scholars, including many from Nigeria.
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Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative. New York. 2018. Oxford University Press. 9780198707523. Edited by Brycchan Carey. Oxford World's Classics. 432 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative, in which the author describes his birth in Africa, his enslavement and transportation to America, and his journey from slavery to freedom, was published just a few days before the British parliament first debated the abolition of the slave trade in 1789. As a first-hand account of the horrors of slavery, it was a vital part of the campaign to end that accursed trade, but the book is far more than merely a political pamphlet. It is the most important African autobiography of the eighteenth century, telling the story of a life of high adventure on land and sea, from the Caribbean to the North Pole via America, Turkey, and Great Britain, in a style that remains lively and engaging to this day. This new edition includes an introduction surveying the recent debates about Equiano's birthplace and identity, and showing how the book achieved its increasingly central position among the great works of eighteenth-century literature.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745 – 31 March 1797), known for most of his life as Gustavus Vassa, was a writer and abolitionist from, according to his memoir, the Eboe region of the Kingdom of Benin (today southern Nigeria). Enslaved as a child, he was taken to the Caribbean and sold as a slave to a Royal Navy officer. He was sold twice more but purchased his freedom in 1766. As a freedman in London, Equiano supported the British abolitionist movement. He was part of the Sons of Africa, an abolitionist group composed of Africans living in Britain, and he was active among leaders of the anti-slave trade movement in the 1780s. He published his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789), which depicted the horrors of slavery. It went through nine editions in his lifetime and helped gain passage of the British Slave Trade Act 1807, which abolished the slave trade. Equiano married an English woman named Susannah Cullen in 1792 and they had two daughters. He died in 1797 in Westminster. Since the late 20th century, when his autobiography was published in a new edition, he has been increasingly studied by a range of scholars, including from his homeland. Brycchan Carey is an expert in the cultural history of slavery and its abolition. He is the author of From Peace to Freedom: Quaker Rhetoric and the Birth of American Antislavery, 1658-1761 (Yale UP, 2012), and British Abolitionism and the Rhetoric of Sensibility: Writing, Sentiment, and Slavery, 1760-1807 (Palgrave, 2005). His most recent collection, Quakers and Abolition, co-edited with Geoffrey Plank, was published by the University of Illinois Press in 2014.
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Equiano, Olaudah. The Kidnapped Prince: The Life of Olaudah Equiano. New York. 1995. Knopf. 0679856196. Introduction by Henry Louis Gates Jr. Adapted by Ann Cameron. 144 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Dan Andreasen. Back cover: Portrait of Olaudah Equiano courtesy the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
DESCRIPTION- In 1755, a young African boy was kidnapped, hidden in an enormous sack, and carried off into slavery. So began a series of journeys that would take him halfway around the world - and a struggle for freedom that would make him famous. Later, when he wrote his autobiography, it became an international bestseller. In unforgettable words and scenes, he showed the world the evils of slavery - and so, helped to end it. The little boy stuffed into a bag had to struggle with injustice, heartbreak, and his own despair. But deep inside him were his hidden treasures: courage, intelligence, a love of adventure, and unconquerable faith. He triumphed. His name was Olaudah Equiano. This is his story. In her sensitive adaptation, Ann Cameron has made a landmark book accessible to twentieth-century readers while faithfully maintaining Olaudah Equiano's singular voice. Includes a map of Olaudah Equiano's travels and six pages of historical illustrations.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745 - 31 March 1797), known in his lifetime as Gustavus Vassa, was a prominent African in London, a freed slave who supported the British movement to end the slave trade. His autobiography, published in 1789 and attracting wide attention, was considered highly influential in gaining passage of the Slave Trade Act 1807, which ended the African trade for Britain and its colonies. Since the late 20th century, there has been some debate on his origins, but most of his account has been extensively documented. His last master was Robert King, an American Quaker merchant who allowed Equiano to trade on his own account and purchase his freedom in 1766. Equiano settled in England in 1767 and worked and traveled for another 20 years as a seafarer, merchant, and explorer in the Caribbean, the Arctic, the American colonies, South and Central America, and the United Kingdom. In London Equiano (identifying as Gustavus Vassa during his lifetime) was part of the Sons of Africa, a black group who opposed the slave trade, and he was active among leaders of the anti-slave trade movement in the 1780s. He published his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789), which depicted the horrors of slavery. The first-known slave narrative, it went through nine editions and aided passage of the British Slave Trade Act of 1807, which abolished the African slave trade. Since 1967, his memoir has been regarded as the 'true beginning of modern African literature.' As a free man, Equiano had a stressful life; he had suffered suicidal thoughts before he became a born again Christian and found peace in his faith. After settling in London, in 1792 Equiano married an English woman named Susannah Cullen and they had two daughters. He died in 1797 in London; his gravesite is unknown. Equiano's death was recognized in Britain as well as by American newspapers. Plaques commemorating his life have been placed at buildings where he lived in London. Since the late 20th century, when his autobiography was published in a new edition, he has been increasingly studied by a range of scholars, including many from Nigeria.
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Etherton, Michael (editor). African Plays for Playing, Volume 2. London. 1976. Heinemann. African Writers Series. paperback. AWS179.
DESCRIPTION- Includes Monkey on the tree by Uwa Udensi, Black mamba two by Godfrey Kabwe Kasoma and The tradedy of Mr. No-balance by Victor Eleame Musinga.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Michael Etherton is a specialist in popular theatre in the developing world and in the development of Nigerian drama. He was reader in Drama at Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria.
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Etherton, Michael (editor). African Plays for Playing. London. 1975. Heinemann. 0435901656. African Writers Series. Selected and edited by Michael Etherton. paperback. AWS165.
DESCRIPTION- Plays by Nuwa Sentongo, Jacob Hevi & Segun Ajibade.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Michael Etherton is a specialist in popular theatre in the developing world and in the development of Nigerian drama. He was reader in Drama at Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria.
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Fage, J. D. A History of Africa. New York. 1978. Knopf. 0394474902. With 17 illustrations and photographs and 21 maps. 534 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Janet Odgis.
DESCRIPTION- In this latest volume in the highly acclaimed series The History of Human Society, Professor J. D. Fage gives us a major summatory work, a powerful narrative history of the entire continent of Africa, from its origins in prehistoric times to the present day. Professor Fage, one of the leading historians in the field, has dedicated his entire career to disproving the clichE that Africa is a continent without a history.' Now he puts his massive knowledge to work to encompass, in a single volume, the story of man's past in Africa, from pre-Neolithic beginnings to our own time. His purpose: to make us understand that our own history offers no unique model of human development, and that Africa's growth must be charted in its own terms. The book is organised in four major sections. The opening part covers the first appearance of African man, especially adapted to his environment (c. 50,000 B.C.), and the origins of African society from the moment when agriculture and other skills made possible the first large-scale societies and civilisations with their own political and economic institutions. The second section details the impact of Islam (beginning in the 7th century) and the influence exerted by the Arab empire in North and West Africa, which was profoundly to shape many cultures on the continent for centuries to come. The third follows Africa through the age of European expansion, from the launching in the 15th century of white exploration and trade through the whole era of the slave trade, to the explosion of Western conquest and dominance in every part of the continent in the 19th century, and shows how African societies adjusted to these influences and turned them to their own use. The final section deals with Africa in the modern world, through the colonial period of settlement to the current era, with its resumption of independence by the peoples of the continent as foreign empires foundered and broke in postwar years. The book is an extraordinary overview of a vast and complex area and a vast and complex history, one that allows us to understand Africa's own development before, during, and beyond its involvement with Europe and Asia.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - John Donnelly Fage (3 June 1921 - 6 August 2002) was a British historian. He was noted for his work on African history. Fage was born in 1921 in Teddington, Middlesex, England. He attended Cambridge University (Magdalene College) for his undergraduate studies, Master's and Ph.D. (1949, The achievement of self-government in southern Rhodesia, 1898–1923). After his post-graduate studies, Fage joined the newly founded University of Gold Coast (now University of Ghana) at Accra, which was formed under the Asquith Commission and had a 'scheme of special relationship' with the University of London. He spent a decade here (1949–1959), developing his interest in the history of Western Africa, and particularly the African Slave Trade, on which he was to publish extensively over the coming decade. The University started facing funding problems after 1955, and many of the senior Cambridge staff left. In 1957, after Ghana gained independence, he was appointed its Deputy Principal. However, in 1959 he returned to Britain to join the School of Oriental and African Studies (1959–1963) and then the University of Birmingham, where he founded the Centre of West African Studies (CWAS). Here he spent two very productive decades (1963–1984), holding several senior administrative posts including Vice-Principal (1981–1984). Fage's early work includes Introduction to the History of West Africa (Cambridge University Press 1955, three editions), which was rewritten as A History of West Africa: An introductory survey (Cambridge U.P. 1969). His An Atlas of African History (London: Edward Arnold 1958) is a widely known reference (2nd ed. 1978). The ambitious 600-page A History of Africa (London: Hutchinson 1978), covers the entire continent from the Neolithic to the late twentieth century, was widely referenced (4th ed. Routledge 2002). In a long collaboration with Roland Oliver (who was his contemporary at Cambridge and visited him in Ghana), he founded the Journal of African History, and also edited the authoritative eight-volume Cambridge history of Africa, (1975 to 1986). Their Short History of Africa (Penguin 1962) ran to six editions (1988), and has been translated into twelve languages. Fage died, aged 81, at Machynlleth, Wales.
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Fairman, Tony. Bury My Bones But Keep My Words: African Tales for Retelling. New York. 1992. Henry Holt. 080502333x. Illustrated by Meshack Asare. 192 pages. hardcover. Cover Illustration by Meshack Asare.
DESCRIPTION- ‘A tale in a book is like a drum in a museum; it's silent, it's dead, it's just there doing nothing. And that's sad because tales are for telling; they're for laughter, they're for singing, for sharing. So writes Tony Fairman about this rich mixture of traditional and contemporary stories. As he retells exciting stories about people who are greedy, clever stories about people who are foolish and arrogant, and suspenseful stories about evil spirits and gentle maidens, he describes the African setting, the people, the sights, sounds, and smells. He shows how listeners sing, move, and ask questions during the tellings. And he shows the reader how to take the stories off the page and bring them to life in their own retellings so that anybody can make their stories dance and laugh and rattle along. Meshack Asare's illustrations capture the atmosphere of the stories and help bring them to life on the page as well as off!
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Tony Fairman teaches English to non-English-speaking people. He has taught English to Pakistanis, Indians, and Vietnamese people living in England, to Germans in Germany, and to Africans in Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, and Botswana. While in Africa he heard and began to tell some of these stories. Eventually he wrote them down in this, which is his first book. He lives in England. Meshaek Asare is a Ghanaian writer and artist whose work has been published in many different places and languages. His books have won a number of international prizes, including a UNESCO citation. He travels frequently and widely in Africa. He works in England.
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Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. London. 1965. MacGibbon & Kee. Translated from the French by Constance Farrington. 255 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- THE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH (French: Les Damnes de la Terre, first published 1961), Frantz Fanon's seminal work on the trauma of colonization made him the leading anti-colonialist thinker of the twentieth century. Written at the height of the Algerian war for independence from French colonial rule, it analyses the role of class, race, national culture and violence in the struggle for freedom. Fanon, himself a psychotherapist, explored the psychological effect of colonization on the psyche of a nation as well as its broader implications for building a movement for decolonization. Showing how decolonization must be combined with building a national culture, this passionate analysis of relations between the West and the Third World is still illuminating about the world today. A controversial introduction to the text by Jean-Paul Sartre presents the thesis as an advocacy of violence (which Sartre had also examined in his voluminous Critique of Dialectical Reason). This focus derives from the book's opening chapter 'Concerning Violence' which is a caustic indictment of colonialism and its legacy. It discusses violence as a means of liberation and a catharsis to subjugation. Homi K. Bhabha argues that Sartre's opening comments have led to a limited approach to the text that focuses on the promotion of violence. Further reading reveals a thorough critique of nationalism and imperialism which also develops to cover areas such as mental health and the role of intellectuals in revolutionary situations. Fanon goes into great detail explaining that revolutionary groups should look to the lumpenproletariat for the force needed to expel colonists. The lumpenproletariat in traditional Marxist theories are considered the lowest, most degraded stratum of the proletariat, especially criminals, vagrants, and the unemployed, who lacked class consciousness. Fanon uses the term to refer to those inhabitants of colonized countries who are not involved in industrial production, particularly peasants living outside the cities. He argues that only this group, unlike the industrial proletariat, has sufficient independence from the colonists to successfully make a revolution against them. Also important is Fanon's view of the role of language and how it molds the position of ‘natives‘, or those victimized by colonization. The original title of the book is an allusion to the opening words of The Internationale.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Frantz Fanon was born in 1925 in Fort-de-France, Martinique. He studied medicine in France, and later specialized in psychiatry. Out of his experiences in a hospital in Algeria during the French-Algerian war, his sympathies turned toward the rebels. He joined the revolution and became its most articulate spokesman. His book, THE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH, has become a manifesto for the Third World.
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Fanon, Frantz. Toward the African Revolution. New York. 1967. Monthly Review Press. Translated from the French by Haakon Chevalier. 197 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- FRANTZ FANON - psychiatrist, writer, revolutionary - gives vivid expression in these essays to the vast complexity of the life of the ‘colonized,' its diverse aspects and interrelations, and its sameness: the colonized man ‘feels himself emptied, without life, in a bodily struggle with death, a death on this side of death, a death in life.' Fanon also exposes the close relationship that exists between colonized and colonizer. The world of the first is a response to all the forms of oppression of the second - social, cultural, economic, and political. Thus, Fanon lays bare such a unity of the world that his readers cannot pose as observers, as third parties; they are accused or accusers. To Fanon, there were no real differences in the lives and in the struggles carried on by Algerians, West Indians, and Africans. He gives to all the same raison d'être, and that is why Algeria's war of liberation went beyond Algeria itself to reach all of Africa, as the assassination of Patrice Lumumba touched the entire colonized world. That is why, too, this book has much more than historic interest. For who could pretend that racism and colonialism have disappeared from our world with the coming to independence of previously colonized countries? TOWARD THE AFRICAN REVOLUTION consists of writings Fanon published for the most part between 1952 and 1961. Though they were written at different times and places for different purposes, their unity is real; they are all part of the same struggle for the total recognition of men depersonalized by the oppression of colonialism.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Frantz Fanon was born in the West Indies on the island of Martinique. From there he went to France to study medicine, specializing in psychiatry. On completing his studies he accepted a post as psychiatric physician on the staff of a hospital outside of Algiers, where he was able to observe scientifically the psychological effects of colonization. As a black brought up in a French colony, he had also lived that experience personally. These factors, combined with his extraordinary clearness of vision and strength of commitment, rendered Fanon an especially eloquent spokesman for colonized peoples. It was in Algeria that he chose to exercise his commitment - to live and to struggle beside colonized people like himself, against the exploitation of man by man. He became one of the most articulate champions of the Algerian Revolution - and of those oppressed by colonialism and neo-colonialism the world over. He died of cancer in 1961 at the age of 36.
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Fauvelle, Francois-Xavier. The Golden Rhinoceros: Histories of the African Middle Ages. Princeton. 2018. Princeton University Press. 9780691181264. Translated from the French by Troy Tice. 264 pages. hardcover. Jacket and interior illustrations by Roland Sarkany. Jacket design by Chris Ferrante.
DESCRIPTION- A leading historian reconstructs the forgotten history of medieval Africa. From the birth of Islam in the seventh century to the voyages of European exploration in the fifteenth, Africa was at the center of a vibrant exchange of goods and ideas. It was an African golden age in which places like Ghana, Nubia, and Zimbabwe became the crossroads of civilizations, and where African royals, thinkers, and artists played celebrated roles in the globalized world of the Middle Ages. The Golden Rhinoceros brings this unsung era marvelously to life, taking readers from the Sahara and the Nile River Valley to the Ethiopian highlands and southern Africa. Drawing on fragmented written sources as well as his many years of experience as an archaeologist, Francois-Xavier Fauvelle painstakingly reconstructs an African past that is too often denied its place in history - but no longer. He looks at ruined cities found in the mangrove, exquisite pieces of art, rare artifacts like the golden rhinoceros of Mapungubwe, ancient maps, and accounts left by geographers and travelers - remarkable discoveries that shed critical light on political and architectural achievements, trade, religious beliefs, diplomatic episodes, and individual lives. A book that finally recognizes Africa's important role in the Middle Ages, The Golden Rhinoceros also provides a window into the historian's craft. Fauvelle carefully pieces together the written and archaeological evidence to tell an unforgettable story that is at once sensitive to Africa's rich social diversity and alert to the trajectories that connected Africa with the wider Muslim and Christian worlds.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Francois-Xavier Fauvelle is senior fellow at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Toulouse, France, and one of the world's leading historians of ancient Africa. The author and editor of numerous books, he has conducted archaeological digs in South Africa, Ethiopia, and Morocco.
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Feldmann, Susan (editor). African Myths and Tales. New York. 1963. Dell. A Laurel Paperback Original. INtroduction by Susan Feldmann. 318 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- An original collection of wonderful stories about men and animals and gods, about supernatural events and everyday happenings, of love, hate, jealousy, trickery and magic.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY -
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Fisher, Allan G. B. and Fisher, Humphrey J. Slavery and Muslim Society in Africa. Garden City. 1972. Anchor/Doubleday. 219 pages. paperback. A774. Cover: George Giusti.
DESCRIPTION- The work had its origins as a presentation of Sahara und Sudan, the monumental travelogue of Gustav Nachtigal, a German physician who travelled in various African countries between 1869 and 1874. His references to slavery form a thread running through this book.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Allan George Barnard Fisher (26 October 1895 in Christchurch, New Zealand - 8 January 1976 in London, England) was a noted New Zealand born economist. Perhaps his most notable contribution was to investigate economic development in terms of the sequential dominance of different sectors of the economy: the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors (three-sector theory). Allan was born in New Zealand but moved with his parents to Australia, where he attended the Scotch College and the University of Melbourne. From 1916 to early 1918, Allan served in the Australian Army at the 14th Australian General Hospital at Cairo and Port Said, later moving to Palestine and spending 5 months on the Jaffa-Jerusalem road with the Australian 5th Camel Corps Field Ambulance. On his return to the University of Melbourne in 1919 he became a lecturer in the philosophy department. He gave a talk on 'Palestine and Jerusalem', copies of which are in the University of Melbourne Library and the British Library. Fisher on a camel in Palestine during army service with the Australian Army in the first world war. In 1924 he gained his PhD from the London School of Economics. The notes he made on lectures attended are in the LSE archives. He returned to Australia in 1925 and was Professor of Economics at the University of Otago from 1925 to 1935. In 1930 and 1931 Allan was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship, which enabled him to travel and study in China, Russia, Poland, Geneva, England and the United States. During 1936-1937, Allan was Professor of Economics at the University of Western Australia in Perth. In 1938 the family moved to England, when Allan accepting the Price Research Professorship at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, familiarly known as Chatham House, in London and became Professor of International Economics in London. This involved trips to Scandinavia and the Balkans, and in 1939, the family moved to Oxford. Lectures given by AGB Fisher are included in a special online archive issue from Chatham house 1934 Alan became chief editor, Economist, Bank of New South Wales. During the War, he paid two visits to the United States, to an F.A.O. preparatory commission and 1944 was Counsellor at the New Zealand Legation in Washington D.C. He also attended the Bretton Woods Conference as well as the 1946 Paris Peace Conference, before taking up his job later that year, on the staff of the International Monetary Fund. Allan retired in 1960 and lived in England for the remainder of his life.
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Fourie, Corlia. Ganekwane and the Green Dragon: Four Stories From Africa. Morton Grove. 1994. Albert Whitman & Company. 0807527440. Illustrated by Christian Arthur Kingue Epanya. 40 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- The traditions of Western fairy tales and African oral storytelling are beautifully combined with bold and colorful illustrations in a collection of stories that celebrate the ingenuity and compassion of four young heroines. ‘The tales in Ganekwane and the Green Dragon are made-up stories with their origins in the African oral tradition as well as the traditional fairy tale of Western Europe. What I personally like about these two traditions, and have employed in Ganekwane, is the fact that the ‘underdog' wins against all odds. But as a woman, it was also important for me to create more active heroines than the mainly passive ones I came to know from both of these storytelling traditions. All the stories were originally written in Afrikaans. The names of the characters have their origins in the Zulu language.' - Corlia Fourie.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Cornelia Hilda Kühn (born 11 December 1944) is an Afrikaans writer known under the pen-name Corlia Fourie. She won the ATKV-prize for the short story anthology Liefde en geweld and the MER prize for Die towersak en ander stories. In 1995, she received the Alba Bouwer Prize.
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Fuchs, Peter. African Decameron: Folk Tales From Central Africa. New York. 1963. Obolensky. 203 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- During his study of a Central African tribe, the ethnologist, Peter Fuchs, cajoled the best story tellers into repeating their tales to him. The result is this collection of witty, surprising and exotic stories, now translated into English. The Hadjerai tell these stories for the amusement of people of all ages - this is their literature and this is one of the ways they have a good time together. The tales are highly imaginative and entertaining: plants, animals, people and unusual beasts carry on outrageously and all too humanly. The reader has a book rather than an elderly woman with a pipe to get his stories from, but, like the Hadjerai, he can sit down, relax and prepare for some high humor, fantasy and amazing drama. PETER FUCHS is well known in Europe for his lively and readable studies of Central African and Saharan tribes. This book, originally entitled AFRIKANISCHES DEKAMERONE, is the second of his works to be translated into English. The first, THE LAND OF VEILED MEN, was a descriptive account of his stay with the Tuareg, a Saharan tribe.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Peter Fuchs was born in Vienna, Austria, and lives there now. He studied at the Ethnological Institute of the Vienna University, and received his Ph.D. in 1954. He has made several expeditions to Africa to observe the ways of life of various peoples and is an enthusiastic lecturer as well as author. In 1960 he was made the Ethnological Editor of the Encyclopaedia Cinematographica.
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Gikandi, Simon. Reading the African Novel. London/Nairobi/Portsmouth. 1988. James Currey/Heinemann Kenya/Heinemann. 0435080180. 172 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Simon Gikandi applies the techniques of contemporary criticism to the study of the relationship between form and content in the work of eleven leading writers from Africa. Reading the African Novel is an ambitious study which makes an imaginative contribution to the understanding of fiction whether it is written in English or is accessible through the medium of English. Simon Gikandi shows that narrative form, whether-it is rooted in the African oral tradition or in more self-conscious modernist techniques, enables the novelist to engage and illuminate distinctive periods of African history. In this way the novelist can challenge and change the reader's perception of the African experience. The work is the result of years of involvement with theories of fiction and the relationship between sociology and aesthetics in the novel. 'a most sensitive, perceptive, intelligent and mature piece of literary criticism such as one rarely finds. I don't think I have read anything, for example, as good on Beti as Gikandi's section on Mission to Kala; in this chapter he displays very well indeed the successful accomplishment of his aim to examine the relationship between form and content, and provides us, through his approach, with (l dare say it) the most illuminating examination of Beti's novel we have so far had. The approach is one that, as Gikandi says, most critics avoid, preferring to concentrate on themes; but in a good writer the form is not only the vehicle but also, often, part of the content; Gikandi does us all a service by facing the difficulties of the task and pulling it off so well. How well, and clearly, he discusses irony!. The presentation is clear, accessible and impressive in its authority of tone. This latter is to some extent strengthened by his knowledge of, and effective use of references to, contemporary critical theorists.' - Clive Wake, Emeritus Professor of Modern French and African Literature, University of Kent at Canterbury.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Simon Gikandi is Assistant Professor of English in California State University. He was born in Kenya and took his first degree at the University of Nairobi. He made an imaginative editorial contribution to the publishing of new titles and new authors in the African Writers Series while working with Heinemann Kenya, while working on the English novel at the University of Edinburgh and while completing his doctorate at Northwestern.
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Gikandi, Simon. The Oxford History of the Novel in English: The Novel in Africa and the Caribbean since 1950. New York. 2016. Oxford University Press. 9780199765096. Oxford History of the Novel in English. 608 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Why did the novel take such a long time to emerge in the colonial world? And, what cultural work did it come to perform in societies where subjects were not free and modes of social organization diverged from the European cultural centers where the novel gained its form and audience? Answering these questions and more, Volume 11, The Novel in Africa and the Caribbean since 1950 explores the institutions of cultural production that exerted influence in late colonialism, from missionary schools and metropolitan publishers to universities and small presses. How these structures provoke and respond to the literary trends and social peculiarities of Africa and the Caribbean impacts not only the writing and reading of novels in those regions, but also has a transformative effect on the novel as a global phenomenon. Together, the volume's 32 contributing experts tell a story about the close relationship between the novel and the project of decolonization, and explore the multiple ways in which novels enable readers to imagine communities beyond their own and thus made this form of literature a compelling catalyst for cultural transformation. The authors show that, even as the novel grows in Africa and the Caribbean as a mark of the elites' mastery of European form, it becomes the essential instrument for critiquing colonialism and for articulating the new horizons of cultural nationalism. Within this historical context, the volume examines works by authors such as Chinua Achebe, Nadine Gordimer, George Lamming, Jamaica Kincaid, V.S. Naipaul, Zoe Wicomb, J. M. Coetzee, and many others.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Simon Gikandi is Assistant Professor of English in California State University. He was born in Kenya and took his first degree at the University of Nairobi. He made an imaginative editorial contribution to the publishing of new titles and new authors in the African Writers Series while working with Heinemann Kenya, while working on the English novel at the University of Edinburgh and while completing his doctorate at Northwestern.
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Gleason, Judith Illsley. This Africa: Novels By West Africans in English and French. Evanston. 1965. Northwestern University Press. 186 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- The first study of African novels as such, This Africa is both a literary history and a survey of what in fact is the state of the art today. Although the novel is a form of cultural expression relatively new to Africa, there are a good many early works from English- and French-speaking West Africa, which, through their very existence, enable one to distinguish certain styles and traditions. These styles and traditions are discussed in relation to their ostensible scenes: ‘Novels of the Village,' ‘Novels of the City,' and ‘Novels of Psychic Life.' Mrs. Gleason includes such writers as Chinua Achebe, Cyprian Ekwensi, Mongo Beti and Camara Laye - as well as others less well known to the general public. Naturally, the novel in West Africa cannot be viewed without reference to the most intrusive historical, political, and educational factors. These Mrs. Gleason treats in scope fully adequate to their importance. This Africa will be of interest both to students of African affairs and to students of literature, as well as to general readers concerned with the humanistic aspects of modern Africa south of the Sahara.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - The author of six books, Judith Gleason has traveled extensively to Africa and the Caribbean.
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Gurnah, Abdulrazak (editor). Essays on African Writing: A Re-evaluataion. Oxford. 1993. Heinemann. 0435917625. 178 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Writers like Chinua Achebe and Ngugi Wa Thiong'o are considered founding figures in African literature. This new collection of essays takes a fresh look at such major literary figures from the world of African writing. It reappraises literary criticism to date, and challenges readers' assumptions. An invaluable introduction to the undergraduate student, each essay concentrates on a fundamental aspect of the writer's work. CONTENTS: Simon Gikandi on Chinua Achebe; Adewale Maia-Pearce on Ayi Kwei Armah; Rashidah Ismaili Abubakr on Mariama Ba; Frank M. Chipasula on Dennis Brutus; Teresa Dovey on J. M. Coetzee; Derek Wright on Nuruddin Farah; Mark Kinkead-Weekes on Nadine Gordimer and Doris Lessing; Craig MacKenzie on Bessie Head; Belinda Jack on Jean-Baptiste Tati Loutard; Abdulrazak Gurnah on Ngugi wa Thiong'o; Gabriel Gbadamosi on Wole Soyinka.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - ABDULRAZAK GURNAH is Lecturer in English at the University of Kent.
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Hamilton, Russell G. Voices From An Empire: A History of Afro-Portuguese Literature. Minneapolis. 1975. University of Minnesota Press. 0816607451. 320 pages. hardcover. The pattern shown on the jacket is that of a traditional shawl or sash worn by women of the Cape Verde Islands. During the slave trade these panos d’obra, woven from island-grown cotton on crude looms, were used as articles of barter on the nearby West African Coast.
DESCRIPTION- Voices From an Empire was first published in 1975. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. The literature of the various regions of Lusophone Africa has received relatively little critical attention compared with that which has been focused on the work of writers in the English- and French- speaking countries of Africa. With the profound changes which are occurring in the social and political structures of Lusophone Africa, there is particular need for the comprehensive look at Afro-Protuguese literature which this account provides. Professor Hamilton traces the development of this literature in the broad perspective of it social, cultural, and aesthetic context. He discusses the whole of the Afro-Portuguese literary phenomenon, as it occurs on the Cape Verde archipelago, in Guinea-Bissau, on the Guinea Gulf islands of Sao Tome and Principe, in Angola, and in Mozambique. In an introduction he discusses some basic questions about Afro-Protuguese literature, among them, the matter of a definition of this body of writing, the implications of the concept of negritude, the role of Portugal and Brazil in Afro-Portuguese literature, and the social and cultural significance of the dominant literary themes found in the various regions of Lusophone Africa. Because he sees the regionalist movement in Angola as the most significant in terms of a neo-African orientation, he begins the book with an extensive study of the literature of that country. Many examples of afro-Portuguese poetry are given, both in the originallanguage and in the English translation. There is a bibliography, and a map shows the African regions of study.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Russell G. Hamilton was the first African American dean of a Vanderbilt school or college. Hired by Vanderbilt in 1984 to lead the Graduate School as dean for graduate studies and research, he served in that capacity for 16 years. He continued on faculty as a professor of Spanish and Portuguese until he was awarded emeritus status in 2002. During his term as dean, the university made strides in recruiting African American doctoral students and supporting them through the completion of their degrees. In the 1990s, he headed the university's Committee for Recruitment and Retention of Minority Faculty. “Russell Hamilton was a true pioneer whose ability to bring people together to advance Vanderbilt's growth brought distinction to the university's academic mission and inspired us all,” said Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos. “He was deeply respected and admired, and we can all learn a great deal from Dean Hamilton's legacy of recognizing and empowering his colleagues. His dedicated service as dean and transformative achievements paved the way for so many.” While he was Graduate School dean, the university added three Ph.D. programs, in anthropology, nursing science and the interdisciplinary neuroscience program. A modest man, Hamilton shared credit for the accomplishments with his associates. “If I've done one thing right, it is that I've made some good choices with respect to Graduate School administrators and staff. I've surrounded myself with good people and I inherited good people,” he told the Vanderbilt Register in 1999. Born in New Haven, Conn., he grew up in New England among the United States' largest Portuguese population. His father was a skilled chemical operator and his mother worked as a secretary. “There was never any doubt in my mind (about going to college),” Hamilton told a reporter from the Nashville Banner in 1985. “I wanted to be a professor.” He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Connecticut and a master's from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He then studied in Brazil for two years before completing work on his Ph.D at Yale University. Hamilton was hired by the University of Minnesota as an assistant professor in 1964 and eventually became a full professor and associate dean for faculty before moving to Vanderbilt. As dean for graduate studies and research at Vanderbilt, Hamilton established the Graduate Student Travel grant program to help students with expenses when they traveled to present their research; initiated Graduate Student Research Day to give graduate students the opportunity to recognize the accomplishments of fellow students; expanded the Dissertation Enhancement Award with increased funding to add to student research resources; and increased the Honors Fellowship Program to help recruit the best applicants. “I was privileged to work with Dean Hamilton for 16 years,” said Marian McAlpin, an administrative assistant at the Graduate School at Vanderbilt. “He was a gentle soul, compassionate, the perfect gentleman and scholar.” His son David Dean Hamilton called him a loving father and “a very generous mentor and colleague to the many academics he encountered and worked with.” A scholar of Portuguese language and Brazilian and Lusophone African literatures, the dean took particular joy in teaching and advising his graduate students, whom he frequently invited to his home for dinners prepared by his wife, Cherie Hamilton, an author of books on Portuguese and other international cuisine. In addition to his Vanderbilt responsibilities, Hamilton served as chair of the board of the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) and headed the CGS Task Force to examine the role and nature of the doctoral dissertation. He was also on the CGS Committee on Minorities, a member of the National Advisory Committee on the Compact for Faculty Diversity and the advisory board for the African Training for Leadership and Advanced Skills Project. “Russell Hamilton was the epitome of a gentleman and a scholar,” said Mouzon Siddiqi, program coordinator for the Graduate Program in Economic Development at Vanderbilt. “His mild manner and kind spirit filled his surroundings, making everyone around him feel at ease; his presence was calming. He was a great listener and was truly interested in Vanderbilt's graduate students and their studies.” Hamilton wrote two books, Literatura Africana, Literatura Necessária and Voices from an Empire: A History of Afro-Portuguese Literature. His awards include the Mary Cady Tew Prize for the most promising doctoral student in Romance languages at Yale; the Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal awarded to outstanding graduate alumni of Yale; and the Louise Williams Educational Service Award from the alumni association of the Dixwell Community House in New Haven, Conn.
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Harrow, Kenneth W. (editor). Faces of Islam in African Literature. Portsmouth. 1991. Heinemann. 0435080253. 332 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- For nearly a millennium Islam has been present in sub-Saharan Africa, profoundly marking the culture, society, and religion of more than a third of the continent. In spite of this fact, critics oddly perpetuate the notion that black African literatures are an amalgam of traditional African and Western literary cultures. Islam has been ignored, unseen, or glossed over. And yet, in the works of many prominent African writers Islam provides the key component. This volume represents the first attempt in English criticism to redress the imbalance that has existed in contemporary scholarship. These essays restore to its proper place the role of Islamic tradition in the study of African literature, focusing on Islam in the works of many African authors including Camara Laye, Cheikh Hamidou Kane, SembEne Ousmane, Birago Diop, and HampåtE Bå. In addition, there are special studies on Islam in Songhay epics, Swahili and Somali poetry, Senegalese film, on the role of Sufism and Mouridism, with broader comparative analyses including Said's Orientalist approach, and the role of women. Two historical essays on East African and West African Islam provide the volume with essential contextual information as well as the disciplinary approaches needed to complement purely literary criticism. What emerges with force from these varied approaches is that ' 'Islam' is not a single entity whose presence can be simply dissected and analyzed in essentialized form. The two historical essays make it clear that Islam was not a monolithic force that entered the virgin territory of African soil from its Arabic homeland. Rather, Islam grew in Africa, as elsewhere, multifoliated, rich, competitive, and dense, and nowhere identical with its form in other reaches. To locate Islam in African literature is to dislocate a multiplicity of faces, and to constitute anew the contours of African literary discourse. Contributors: Ali Jimale Ahmed, Denise Asfar, Gabriel Asfar, Ann Biersteker, Debra Boyd-Buggs, Mbye B. Cham, Sonia Ghattas-Soliman, Thomas A. Hale, Kenneth W. Harrow, Lemuel Johnson, George Lang, Edris Makward, David Robinson, Eric Sellin, Ibrahim Noor Shariff, Jay Spaulding, l. C. Tcheho.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kenneth W. Harrow is Distinguished Professor of English at Michigan State University. His work focuses on African cinema and literature and diaspora and postcolonial studies.
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Henderson, Gwyneth (editor). African Theatre: Eight Prize-winning Plays for Radio. London. 1973. Heinemann. 0435901346. African Writers Series. 150 pages. paperback. AWS134.
DESCRIPTION- Includes the plays - 'Make Like Slaves' by Richard Rive; 'Station Street' by A. K. Mustapha; 'Sweet Scum of Freedom' by J. Singh; 'Double Attack' by C. C. Umeh; 'Scholarship Woman' by D. Clems; 'The Transistor Radio' by K. Tsaro-Wiwa; 'Family Spear' by E. N. Zirimu; and 'Sign of the Rainbow' by W. Ogunyemi.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Gwyneth Henderson for two decades was the head of the BBC World Service’s training department. She was born in Whitby, North Yorkshire, to John Henderson, a civil engineer, and his wife, Catherine (nee Bodycombe). Because of her father’s work, Gwyneth grew up in various places, including Nigeria, where she developed a lifelong interest in Africa. After attending school in St Albans, Hertfordshire, she first trained to be a teacher, and then, in the early 1960s, joined the BBC in London as a studio technician. In the late 60s she moved on to become a radio producer in the African Service at Bush House, the home of the BBC’s overseas services. There she specialised in arts and educational programmes, and helped to pioneer African Theatre – a project whereby listeners were invited to submit radio plays and the best were aired. After a spell working on radio programmes, including a documentary series on recent history made with, and presented by, the journalist James Cameron, in 1977 she was chosen to run the World Service training operation, which embraced journalism, presenting and other radio broadcasting skills. The range of the training expanded greatly under Gwyneth’s guidance and increasingly attracted outside demand for its expertise. Early in her tenure she herself spent six months training broadcasters in Hong Kong under a Commonwealth aid scheme, and after the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia her department became the “go to” place for newly emerging democracies to send journalists to study broadcasting best practice. A key course for high-flying broadcasters from such countries was a six-week immersion in British journalism called Media in the UK. In 2000 Gwyneth retired early from the BBC, but her career in the service continued. She chaired the Open Society Foundation’s media programme, which allocated funds for media projects around the world, and ran training courses for the US overseas broadcasters Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty at its Prague studios. She also co-founded the charity Media Defence (originally called Media Legal Defence Initiative), which provides legal help globally to journalists facing attempts to muzzle them, and chaired its trustees for nine years. With a keen eye for spotting talent, Gwyneth went out of her way to improve opportunities for women and members of under-represented communities, and encouraged staff recruited to the BBC’s language services to widen their career ambitions. Gwyneth Henderson died in 2023 at the age of 80.
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Henderson, Gwyneth and Pieterse, Cosmo (editors). Nine African Plays for Radio. London. 1973. Heinemann. 0435901273. African Writers Series. 185 pages. paperback. AWS127.
DESCRIPTION- Nine African plays for the radio: Sunil's Dilemma, The Soldiers, The Trial of Busumbala, The Prisoner, the judge and the jailer, Oh how dearly I detest thee, Lagos, yes Lagos, Beyond the Line, Full Cycle, and Company Pot.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Cosmo George Leipoldt Pieterse (born 1930 in Windhoek, Namibia) is a South African playwright, actor,[1] poet, literary critic and anthologist.
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Hirji, Karim F. The Enduring Relevance of Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Montreal. 2017. Daraja Press. 9780995222397. 122 pages. paperback. Cover design by Base X Studio.
DESCRIPTION- Soon after its publication in 1972, Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (HEUA) gained global popularity among progressive students, scholars and activists, and people concerned with African affairs. His innovative application of the method of political economy was a prime contributor to shifting the paradigm for rendition of the continent's past as well as for visualizing its possible trajectory. Because it stridently took the traditional historians of Africa and the prevailing neo-colonial order to task, it was also vociferously criticized by the defenders of the status quo. In these neoliberal times, its visibility has waned. Mainstream scholars and pundits from and outside of Africa proclaim that it is no longer a relevant work for Africa. In The Enduring Relevance of Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Karim F Hirji makes a systematic case that, on the contrary, Rodney's seminal work retains its singular value for understanding where Africa has come from, where it is going, and charting a path towards genuine development for the people of Africa. Hirji considers Rodney in his unitary persona as a historian, theoretician and activist. He begins by outlining the publication history and contents of HEUA, and noting the comments it has drawn from varied quarters. This is followed by a depiction of the global context within which it saw the light of the day and the flowering of progressive thought and vision in those vibrant times. The retrogressive reversal, in thought and social reality, that has transpired since then is summed up next. An assessment of how HEUA has weathered this storm is also provided. The next chapter presents a brief portrait of Rodney as a revolutionary, with the focus on his seven years at the University of Dar es Salaam. This is followed by an overview of the methodological framework utilized in HEUA. These five chapters lay the foundation for the main substantive part of Hirji's book. This part begins with a detailed evaluation of the criticisms that have been levelled at HEUA. Subsequently, by a review of eight textbooks of general African history in common use today is provided. The aim here is to assess the persistence, if any, of ideas of the type promoted by Rodney in such books and identify the manner in which HEUA is directly depicted therein. Do these books give an adequate and fair depiction of Rodney to modern day students? The penultimate chapter argues for the continued relevance of Rodney and his seminal text for Africa (and the world) in this anti-people, pro-capital, pro-imperial neoliberal era. Hirji concludes with a lively account of his own interactions over six years with Walter Rodney. With the focus on the issue of building socialism in Tanzania, a key dimension in the evolution of Rodney's thinking is described in a critical spirit. The fundamental question addressed is, in our often dark, demoralizing political environment, what do Rodney and his life have to teach us on the matter of navigating between hope and struggle? The conclusion emerging from this book is that in the first place most of the criticisms of the content, style and practical value of HEUA lack merit. The representation of Rodney in mainstream books is as well replete with distortions, unfair selectivity and political bias. Hirji's succinct work is a consistent, coherent defence of an intellectual giant, an astute historian and a compassionate revolutionary who lived and died for humanity. It is an essential read for anyone with an interest in African history, and the fate of Africa and the regions that are historically related to it.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Karim F. Hirji is a retired Professor of Medical Statistics and a Fellow of the Tanzania Academy of Sciences. A recognized authority on statistical analysis of small sample discrete data, the author of the only book on the subject, he received the Snedecor Prize for Best Publication in Biometry from the American Statistical Association and International Biometrics Society for the year 1989. He has published many papers in the areas of statistical methodology, applied biomedical research, the history and practice of education in Tanzania, and written numerous essays on varied topics for the mass media and popular magazines.
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Hughes, Langston (editor). An African Treasury. New York. 1960. Crown. 207 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Franz Hess.
DESCRIPTION- Only a continent in ferment could produce a book like this - lively, moving, outraged, desperate, rich in humor - in short, a reading experience as exciting and varied as Africa itself. Over six years in preparation, AN AFRICAN TREASURY paints perhaps the most authentic portrait yet of this troubled, and still unknown, land, because here, for the first time, speaks the voice of native Africa - the black Africans themselves. ‘What white writers think of the once ‘Dark Continent' we long have known,' says Mr. Hughes. ‘These pages tell what black writers think.' And what a story they have to tell! From strange and wonderful primitive folk stories to the polished political persuasions of United Nations delegates, from scholarly studies of the language of drums to raw cries of protest at the policies of apartheid, from vigorous work songs to the lyricism of native poetry, even from the amusing notes in a lonely hearts column, the picture emerges: Africa, a land of contradictions as dramatic as the anguish - and hope - that is sweeping across it like fire. The initial conception of this TREASURY stemmed from a short-story contest for indigenous South African writers sponsored by the editors of Drum, the Johannesburg magazine for nonwhites. Mr. Hughes was asked to be one of the judges, and as he read through the submissions (‘many of them in longhand, often very hard to read, but pages which moved, surprised and quite delighted me'), he became more and more excited; here was a vast trove of writing which, until quite recently, was scarcely known - to say nothing of ever having been published outside Africa. He requested more material, and from all over Africa the replies began to flow in - to form the nucleus of AN AFRICAN TREASURY. All of these writings, no matter how different their approach and content, point toward a single goal. The Africans even have a term for it: ‘African personality.' It is a term that should be followed by a question mark, really, because no continent so vast can be summed up in a single DESCRIPTION; yet a distinctive and clearly recognizable personality does exist. It is broad enough to encompass the humor of Todd Matshikiza's monthly column in Drum; it shines through Can Themba's nostalgic reminiscences of the torn-down shebeens of Sophiatown (which may remind readers of the late John McNulty's pieces in The New Yorker about his favorite Third Avenue bars); it cries out through such moving protest pieces as Phyllis Ntantala's WIDOWS OF THE RESERVES. But no matter how contradictory it may seem, it is a personality, as Mr. Hughes points out, ‘founded on a common bond, a common yearning, that may be best described by the stirring concluding response at the momentous Accra Conference: Mayibuye, Afrika! Freely translated, that means ‘Long live Africa!' but the literal translation is: ‘Come back, Africa!' Often called the poet laureate of the Negro people, Langston Hughes's writings are known - and read - the world over. His works include novels (NOT WITHOUT LAUGHTER, TAMBOURINES TO GLORY), poetry, A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE NEGRO IN AMERICA, humorous sketches (the enormously popular Simple stories), autobiography, plays, lyrics (for the smash hit Street Scene), etc. Two adaptations of his writing have even achieved great success on stage: SIMPLY HEAVENLY and SHAKESPEARE IN HARLEM.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Langston Hughes (1902-1967) was born in Joplin, Missouri, and grew up in Kansas, Illinois, and Ohio. He moved to New York City when he was 19 years old to attend Columbia University. He was one of the most versatile writers of the artistic movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. Though known primarily as a poet, Hughes also wrote plays, essays, novels, and a series of short stories that featured a black Everyman named Jesse B. Semple. His writing is characterized by simplicity and realism and, as he once said, ‘people up today and down tomorrow, working this week and fired the next, beaten and baffled, but determined not to be wholly beaten.'
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Hughes, Langston (editor). Poems From Black Africa. Bloomington. 1963. Indiana University Press. 160 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by George Sadek.
DESCRIPTION- ‘To understand Africa today, it is wise to listen to what its poets say. Certainly the poetry of contemporary Africa indicates its emotional climate. a pride in and a love of the African heritage, physically, spiritually and culturally.' Thus Langston Hughes, in introducing this first major anthology of African poetry, points up the significance of a literary achievement little known to the American reader. Included are works by thirty-six poets from ten countries, among them Abioseh Nicol, whose poetry Mr. Hughes describes as ‘quietly moving and deeply personal;' Kobina Parkes, ‘kaleidoscopically vivid and almost tribal in [his] imagery;' Gabriel Okara, ‘sensitive and strange and semi-mystic to the Western reader.' In the works of Dennis Osadebay and Michael Dei-Anang, 'poet and pamphleteer meet to cry aloud for African freedom;' while in SEdar Senghor's poems ‘French sophistication and the tall drums of Senegal lock arms.' Most of the works are modern in style, and are remarkable in combining Western influences with ancient tribal chants or the jolly rhymes of village feasts. The best African poetry, according to Mr. Hughes, ‘bears the stamp of the African personality, and most of its emotional aura might be included within the term negritude - that 'anti-racist racism,' as Sartre called it, of black Africa's concentration on the rediscovery of self.' ‘Written poetry in Africa today,' Mr. Hughes concludes, 'is moving away from the bench of the missionary school to walk abroad beneath the cocoa palms and listen for inspiration to the native songs in many tongues. Soon African poetry will capture the essence of these songs and recreate them on paper. Meanwhile, it walks with grace and already is beginning to achieve an individuality quite its own.'
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Langston Hughes (1902-1967) was born in Joplin, Missouri, and grew up in Kansas, Illinois, and Ohio. He moved to New York City when he was 19 years old to attend Columbia University. He was one of the most versatile writers of the artistic movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. Though known primarily as a poet, Hughes also wrote plays, essays, novels, and a series of short stories that featured a black Everyman named Jesse B. Semple. His writing is characterized by simplicity and realism and, as he once said, ‘people up today and down tomorrow, working this week and fired the next, beaten and baffled, but determined not to be wholly beaten.'
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Isaacman, Allen F. and Isaacman, Barbara S. African Leaders of the Twentieth Century, Volume 2: Cabral, Machel, Mugabe, Sirleaf. Athens. 2022. Ohio University Press. 9780821424742. Ohio Short Histories of Africa. 840 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- This omnibus edition brings together concise and up-to-date biographies of Amílcar Cabral, Samora Machel, Robert Mugabe, and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. African Leaders of the Twentieth Century, Volume 2 complements courses in history and political science and is an informative collection for general readers. Amílcar Cabral: A Nationalist and Pan-Africanist Revolutionary, by Peter Karibe Mendy - Amílcar Cabral's charismatic and visionary leadership, his pan-Africanist solidarity and internationalist commitment to "every just cause in the world," remain relevant to contemporary struggles for emancipation and self-determination. This concise biography is an ideal introduction to his life and legacy. Mozambique's Samora Machel: A Life Cut Short, by Allen F. Isaacman and Barbara S. Isaacman - From his anti-colonial military leadership to the presidency of independent Mozambique, Samora Machel held a reputation as a revolutionary hero to the oppressed. Although killed in a 1987 plane crash, for many Mozambicans his memory lives on as a beacon of hope for the future. Robert Mugabe, by Sue Onslow and Martin Plaut - For some, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe was a liberation hero who confronted white rule and oversaw the radical redistribution of land. For others, he was a murderous dictator who drove his country to poverty. This concise biography reveals the complexity of the man who led Zimbabwe for its first decades of independence. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf,, by Pamela Scully - Nobel Peace Prize-winner and two-time Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf speaks to many of the key themes of the twenty-first century. Among these are the growing power of women in the arenas of international politics and human rights; the ravaging civil wars of the post-Cold War era in which sexual violence is used as a weapon; and the challenges of transitional justice in building postconflict societies.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Allen F. Isaacman, Regents Professor of History at the University of Minnesota and Extraordinary Professor at the University of Western Cape, is the author of seven books, including the co-authored (with Barbara Isaacman) Dams, Displacement, and the Delusion of Development, winner of the ASA Book Prize (formerly Herskovits Award) and the AHA Klein Prize in African History. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has won fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations, among others. Barbara S. Isaacman, a retired criminal defense attorney, worked with the Mozambican Woman’s Movement (O.M.M.) and taught at the Law Faculty of the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane while living in Mozambique in the late 1970s. She wrote Mozambique—Women, the Law, and Agrarian Reform and co-authored with Allen several books, including the award-winning Dams, Displacement, and the Delusion of Development. Peter Karibe Mendy is professor of history and Africana studies at Rhode Island College, Providence. His numerous publications include Colonialismo Português em África: A Tradição da Resistência na Guiné-Bissau, 1879–1959 and (with coauthor Richard A. Lobban) the Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, Volume 4. Sue Onslow is deputy director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study at the University of London. She has written widely on British foreign policy and decolonization, and southern Africa in the Cold War era. Martin Plaut is senior research fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study at the University of London. He was Africa editor, BBC World Service News, until 2013. He has since published three books on South Africa and Eritrea, including Promise and Despair: The First Struggle for a Non-Racial South Africa. He has advised the UK Foreign Office and the US State Department on African affairs. Pamela Scully is professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies and of African studies at Emory University. Her most recent book is the coauthored biography Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus: A Ghost Story and a Biography.
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Jack, Ian (editor). Granta 92: The View from Africa. New York. 2005. Granta Publications. 1929001223. 256 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- This issue of Granta reveals what the Africans themselves think about their continent with its diverse cultures and classes among its many nations. Granta 92 includes new writing from such literary superstars as J.M. Coetzee, Zakes Mda, Emmanuel Dongala, and Tahar Ben Jelloun. It also includes a nonfiction piece by Daniel Bergner about a former LAPD policeman who now works for the United Nations training police in war-torn Liberia.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ian Grant Jack (7 February 1945 – 28 October 2022) was a British reporter, writer and editor. He edited the Independent on Sunday, the literary magazine Granta and wrote regularly for The Guardian.
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Jahn, Janheinz / Schild, Ulla / Nordmann, Almut. Who's Who in African Literature?. Tubingen. 1972. Horst Erdmann Verlag. 3771101530. Published for the German Africa Society. 411 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- This book is the first endeavor to collect the biographies of more than 400 Sub-Saharan African writers. Apart from detailed biographical data, the writers' works, literary and others, are enumerated, the contents indicated, and evaluations and judgements on important works given by competent critics. Thus, this volume is a useful guide to written African literature. An index of countries and an index of languages will provide a convenient help for scholars and librarians. Portrait photographs of leading contemporary African authors enhance the documentary value of this work.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Janheinz Jahn (23 July 1918 in Frankfurt on Main - 20 October 1973 in Messel, Darmstadt-Dieburg) was a German writer and influential scholar of literature from sub-Saharan Africa. Jahn studied drama and Arabic Studies in Munich in the Thirties. After that he spent two years studying Italian art history in Perugia. In 1939 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht. Until 1946 he was in British captivity, where he worked as an interpreter. After the war he worked as a freelance writer and speaker. In 1949 he published Diwan of Al-Andalus, a collection of adaptations of works by Hispano-Arab poets of the 10th to 13th century. In 1951 Jahn met the Senegalese poet and future President LEopold SEdar Senghor in Frankfurt on Main. After that he has devoted himself to the collection of African literature of Negritude, which he acquainted himself with through bibliographies, translations and essays. From 1966 to 1968 he was Secretary General of the German PEN clubs. Senghor appointed him Senegal's honorary consul. Of all his intellectual contributions, the one for which Jahn attained worldwide renown is Muntu: Umrisse der neoafrikanische Kultur (in English "Muntu: An Outline of Neo-African Culture." It was first published in German in 1958. The English translation "Muntu: African Culture and the Western World" was first published in 1961 by Grove Press. The New York Times called the book ". a rare piece of scholarship. " (Faber and Faber published the book in London in 1961 under the title "Muntu: An Outline of Neo-African Culture."). Jahn's wife Edith chose, in 1968, to commit suicide, possibly taking the lives of their two children Aurel and Dominic. In the aftermath Jahn lived in partnership with the literary scholar Ulla Schild (1938–1998). In 1970 he was awarded the Johann Heinrich Voss Prize for Translation of the German Academy for Language and Literature. Jahn died in October 1973 of a heart attack at his home in Messel. Ulla Schild was born in Berlin on 17 November 1938 and spent most of her childhood in Strasbourg (Alsace) and after the war in Oberkirch (Schwarzwald). In 1951 she moved with her parents to Karlsruhe, where she passed the Abitur in 1957. In 1958, she attended a study of German and English studies at the University of Heidelberg, and at the same time lectured on African-related lectures. After ten semesters, she enrolled in a study of ethnology, specializing in "modern African literature" (Schild 1981). In the late 1960s, Ulla Schild finally became acquainted with Janheinz Jahn, who inspired her with his enthusiasm for "neo-African" literature. This encounter became "decisive for her future life" (Riesz 1999: 306) and moved her from 1968 as a freelance journalist to write about (neo) African literatures - over the course of her life more than 100 articles and reviews (Czernik and Olivares Canas 1999 ). As an employee of Janheinz Jahn, Ulla Schild worked closely with him and, together with this and Almut Nordmann, published the Who's Who in African Literature. Ulla Schild died, after a serious illness, on 22 February 1998 in Mainz. Almut Nordmann (born July 25, 1947) was educated at Heidelberg University and has a Ph. D. on African literature in German.
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Jahn, Janheinz. Neo-African Literature: A History of Black Writing. New York. 1969. Grove Press. Translated from the German by Oliver Coburn & Ursula Lehrburger. 301 pages. hardcover. GP-529. Cover design by Kuhlmann Associates.
DESCRIPTION- Africa's cultural heritage is increasingly acknowledged as a major force shaping the consciousness of America's black community, and the rediscovery of the African past continues to throw new light on the achievements of black artists in the United States, Yet there has never been an attempt to relate the origins of black writing-both in the U.S. and elsewhere-to the African tradition. Janheinz Jahn has now undertaken the first full-scale investigation of the elements common to literature of black Americans, the new literatures now arising in the infant African nations, and in all the other major areas-such as Latin America and the West Indies-where peoples of African descent have kept alive, in whatever modified form, the cultural past brought from the African continent. The book is divided into four main sections, The first deals with the cultural and historical background of neo-African literature (work which is heir to two traditions-African and Western), containing accounts of the little-known works of writers of African descent, such as Juan Latino who wrote Latin verse in sixteenth-century Spain and the black ‘educational guinea-pigs' of the Age of Enlightenment. ‘The African Scene' includes chapters on oral literature, Hausa and Swahili writing, and ‘protest' and ‘apprentice' work in European and African languages throughout the African continent. ‘The American Scene' deals comprehensively with verse and prose in Latin America and the West Indies as well as in the United States, including studies of the Blues and Calypso, Voodoo and the Spiritual. In ‘The New Problems' Mr. Jahn discusses the achievements, meaning, and the direction of modern African literature. Each chapter of this scholarly yet immensely readable work is followed by an extensive bibliography. In the growing list of books by and about black writers, this book stands as an indispensable source of knowledge. Janheinz Jahn is a distinguished European scholar whose book, Muntu: An Outline of Neo-African Culture, has come to be recognized as a key text in contemporary discussions of neo-African culture. Mr. Jahn has also written Through African Doors: Experiences and Encounters in West Africa. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Janheinz Jahn (July 23, 1918, Frankfurt, Germany - October 20, 1973, Messel, Germany), the author of Muntu, was a noted scholar and editor. He wrote several books on African culture and was the editor of Black Orpheus, a publication dedicated to African and African-American literature and art. He died in 1973.
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Jaji, Tsitsi Ella. Africa in Stereo: Modernism, Music, and Pan-African Solidarity. New York. 2014. Oxford University Press. 9780199936373. 0 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Africa in Stereo analyzes how Africans have engaged with African American music and its representations in the long twentieth century (1890-2011) to offer a new cultural history attesting to pan-Africanism's ongoing and open theoretical potential. Tsitsi Jaji argues that African American popular music appealed to continental Africans as a unit of cultural prestige, a site of pleasure, and most importantly, an expressive form already encoded with strategies of creative resistance to racial hegemony. Ghana, Senegal and South Africa are considered as three distinctive sites where longstanding pan-African political and cultural affiliations gave expression to transnational black solidarity. The book shows how such transnational ties fostered what Jaji terms 'stereomodernism. ' Attending to the specificity of various media through which music was transmitted and interpreted-poetry, novels, films, recordings, festivals, live performances and websites-stereomodernism accounts for the role of cultural practice in the emergence of solidarity, tapping music's capacity to refresh our understanding of twentieth-century black transnational ties.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - TSITSI ELLA JAJI is an associate professor of African and African American studies at Duke University. She is the author of Africa in Stereo: Modernism, Music, and Pan-African Solidarity.
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James, Adeola (editor). In Their Own Voices: African Women Writers Talk. Portsmouth. 1990. Heinemann. 0852555075. 162 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Interviews with Ama Ata Aidoo, Zaynab Alkali, Buchi Emecheta, Pamela Kola, Ellen Kuzwayo, Joyce Ochieng, Molara Ogundipe-Leslie, Muthoni Likimani, Penina Muhando, Micere Mugo, Rebeka Njau, Flora Nwapa, Asenath Odaga, Ifeoma Okoye, 'Zulu Sofola. 'This book makes a strong and compelling statement about the position of women writers and women in contemporary Africa using the words of the writers themselves', says Dennis Duerden the author of African Writers Talk. This clear purpose informs the questions which Adeola James asks the fifteen women writers. Some of the questions concern all writers, whether male or female. Dr James discusses outside influences and whether their work pays deliberate attention to local traditions There is much discussion of the question of language: do the writers choose to write in English? Are they forced by circumstances to use English? Do they use their own languages? Do they use a lingua franca such as Swahili? She also asks in which ways the writers are concerned with women's issues. Do social attitudes in Africa hamper these women in their writing? The answers are often frank and to the point. She has chosen to interview aspiring as well as well-known writers. Established names such as Ama Ata Aidoo, Buchi Emecheta, Ellen Kuzwayo, Flora Nwapa and Micere Mugo are there, At the same time she has talked to younger writers about questions such as whether publishers go for the names of the sixties and ignore the new talent of the present day.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Adeola James, born in Nigeria, is Head of the Department of English in the University of Guyana.
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James, C. L. R. A History of Pan-African Revolt. Washington DC. 1969. Drum and Spear Press. Introduction by Marvin Holloway. 151 pages. paperback. cover design by workshop.
DESCRIPTION- A historical survey of Black resistance covering revolt in the Pan-African world since the days of the San Domingo Revolution by the author of THE BLACK JACOBINS and BEYOND A BOUNDARY. To the original manuscript which appeared in FACT in 1938, James has added the important events from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. This study includes material on - San Domingo; The Old United States; The Civil War; Revolts in Africa; The Old Colonies; Religious revolts in the New Colonies; The Congo; The Union of South Africa; Marcus Garvey; Negro Movements in recent Years; Epilogue: The History of African Revolt; A Summary of 1939-1969; index. ‘A History of Pan-African Revolt is one of those rare books that continues to strike a chord of urgency, even half a century after it was first published. Time and time again, its lessons have proven to be valuable and relevant for understanding liberation movements in Africa and the diaspora. Each generation who has had the opportunity to read this small book finds new insights, new lessons, new visions for their own age… No piece of literature can substitute for a crystal ball, and only religious fundamentalists believe that a book can provide comprehensive answers to all questions. But if nothing else, A History of Pan-African Revolt leaves us with two incontrovertible facts. First, as long as Black people are denied freedom, humanity and a decent standard of living, they will continue to revolt. Second, unless these revolts involve the ordinary masses and take place on their own terms, they have no hope of succeeding.' - Robin D.G. Kelley.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Cyril Lionel Robert James (4 January 1901–19 May 1989) was an Afro-Trinidadian journalist, socialist theorist and writer. Born in Trinidad and Tobago, then a British Crown colony, James attended Queen's Royal College in Port of Spain before becoming a cricket journalist, and also an author of fiction. He would later work as a school teacher, teaching among others the young Eric Williams. Together with Ralph de Boissière, Albert Gomes and Alfred Mendes, James was a member of the anti-colonialist Beacon Group, a circle of writers associated with The Beacon magazine.
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James, George G. M. Stolen Legacy: The Greeks Were Not the Authors of Greek Philosophy, But the People of North Africa, Commonly Called the Egyptians. New York. 1954. Philosophical Library. 190 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- This book aims to show that (a) the Greeks were not the authors of Greek philosophy but the people of North Africa, commonly called the Egyptians; (b) Greek philosophy constitutes the Stolen Legacy which the African Continent has bequeathed to civilization; (c) The Stolen Legacy has had two main results: - (i) False and unmerited praise given to the Greeks for centuries. (ii) Unprovoked prejudice and humiliation directed against the African people for centuries, because their contribution to civilization has been misrepresented and hidden from them. It is intended to stimulate (a) Race pride and self respect among the Black people, by the revelation of their true place in the history of culture. (b) A reformation of race relations. (c) Scientific research in the field of the Memphite Theology of Egypt. It offers to the world a new philosophy of Negro Redemption as the modus operandi of social emancipation.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - George Granville Monah James (November 9, 1893 - June 30, 1956) was a Guyanese-American historian and author, known for his 1954 book Stolen Legacy, which argues that Greek philosophy and religion originated in ancient Egypt. James was born in Georgetown, Guyana. His parents were Reverend Linch B. and Margaret E. James. James earned bachelor's and master's degrees at Durham University in England and gained his doctorate at Columbia University in New York. He was Professor of Logic and Greek at Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina, before working at Arkansas AM&N College in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. James died soon after publishing Stolen Legacy in 1954. James was a freemason and was associated with Prince Hall Freemasonry. James was the author of the widely circulated Stolen Legacy: The Greeks Were Not the Authors of Greek Philosophy, But the People of North Africa, Commonly Called the Egyptians (also known as Stolen Legacy: Greek Philosophy is Stolen Egyptian Philosophy), first published in 1954. In this book, James claims that, among other things, the ancient Greeks were not the original authors of Greek philosophy, which he argues was mainly based on ideas and concepts that were borrowed without acknowledgment, or indeed stolen, from the ancient Egyptians. He argues that Alexander the Great "invaded Egypt and captured the Royal Library at Alexandria and plundered it", that Aristotle's ideas came from these stolen books and that he established his school within the library. The book draws on the writings of freemasonry to support its claim that Greco-Roman mystery religion originates from an "Egyptian Mystery System". James invokes Ancient Greek sources such as Herodotus who describe the cultural debt of Greece to Egypt. He also mentions prominent Greek philosophers such as Pythagoras and Plato who are said to have studied in Egypt. He attributes Democritus's use of the term atom (indivisible particle) to the Egyptian deity Atum, who symbolizes completeness and indivisibility. Stolen Legacy has strongly influenced the Afrocentric school of history, including leading exponents such as Asa Hillaird, Yosef Ben-Jochannan and Molefi Kete Asante.
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Jean, Clinton M. Behind the Eurocentric Veils: The Search For African Realities. Amherst. 1991. University of Massachusetts Press. 0870237578. Foreword by James Jennings. 113 pages. hardcover. Jacket art: Sixteenth-century Ife bust of Olokun from Nigeria.
DESCRIPTION- A contribution to the rapidly developing field of Afrocentric studies, this book is a thoughtful critique of Eurocentric traditions of social and historical analysis - principally Marxist and liberal orientations--and an argument in favor of studying African history and culture from a specifically Afrocentric point of view. According to Clinton M. Jean, there is a poor fit between European theories and African realities, and this disjunction has contributed to a tragic history of racism and colonial exploitation. He argues for the historical priority of African culture and for the acceptance of African communal structures as models for peaceful, nonexploitative social organization elsewhere in the world. This is not a dispassionate work of ‘value-free' social science, but rather an engaged statement of a position, designed to question the assumptions of such conventional approaches and to promote constructive debate. It draws on Jean's experience as a Trinidadian who received his professional education in American universities.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY -
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Kapuscinski, Ryszard. The Shadow of the Sun. New York. 2001. Knopf. 0679454918. Translated from the Polish by Klara Glowczewska. 336 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Ryszard Kapuscinski arrived in Africa in 1957, at the beginning of the end of colonial rule - the ‘sometimes dramatic and painful, sometimes enjoyable and jubilant' rebirth of a continent. The Shadow of the Sun sums up the author's experiences (‘the record of a forty-year marriage') in this place that became the central obsession of his remarkable career. From the hopeful years of independence through the bloodcurdling disintegration of nations such as Nigeria, Liberia, Rwanda, and Angola, Kapuscinski recounts great social and political changes as seen through the prism of the ordinary African. He looks at the rough-and-ready physical world and identifies the true geography of Africa - a little-understood spiritual universe, an African way of being. And he offers a moving portrait of Africa in the wake of two epoch-making changes: the arrival of AIDS and the definitive departure of the white man. Kapuscinski's rare humanity invests his subject with a dignity and grandeur unmatched by any other writer on the Third World, and his unique ability to discern the universal in the particular has never been more powerfully displayed than in this work. The Shadow of the Sun is a masterpiece from a modern master
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ryszard Kapuscinski, Poland's most celebrated foreign correspondent, was born in 1932. After graduating with a degree in history from Warsaw University, he was sent to India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to report for the Polish news, which began his lifelong fascination with the Third World. During his four decades reporting on Asia, Latin America, and Africa, he befriended Che Guevara, Salvador Allende, and Patrice Lumumba; witnessed twenty-seven coups and revolutions; and was sentenced to death four times. His earlier books - Shah of Shahs (about the Iranian Revolution), The Emperor (about the fall of Ethiopia's Haile Selassie), Imperium (about the fall of the Soviet Union), Another Day of Life (about the last days of Portuguese Angola), and The Soccer War (a compendium of reportage from the Third World) - have been translated into nineteen languages.
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Keller, Kathleen. Colonial Suspects: Suspicion, Imperial Rule, and Colonial Society in Interwar French West Africa. Lincoln. 2018. University of Nebraska Press. 9780803296916. France Overseas: Studies in Empireand Decolonization - A. J. B. JOHNSTON, JAMES D. LE SUEUR, and TYLER STOVALL, series editors. 6 x 9. 1 map, index. 270 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- A Vietnamese cook, a German journalist, and a Senegalese student - what did they have in common? They were all suspicious persons kept under surveillance by French colonial authorities in West Africa in the 1920s and 1930s. Colonial Suspects looks at the web of surveillance set up by the French government during the twentieth century as France's empire slipped into crisis. As French West Africa and the French Empire more generally underwent fundamental transformations during the interwar years, French colonial authorities pivoted from a stated policy of “assimilation” to that of “association.” Surveillance of both colonial subjects and visitors traveling through the colonies increased in scope. The effect of this change in policy was profound in a “culture of suspicion” became deeply ingrained in French West African society. Kathleen Keller notes that the surveillance techniques developed over time by the French included “shadowing, postal control, port police, informants, denunciations, home searches, and gossip.” This ad hoc approach to colonial surveillance mostly proved ineffectual, however, and French colonies became transitory spaces where a global cast of characters intermixed and French power remained precarious. Increasingly, French officials - in the colonies and at home - reacted in short-sighted ways as both perceived and real backlash occurred with respect to communism, pan-Africanism, anticolonialism, black radicalism, and pan-Islamism. Focusing primarily on the port city of Dakar (Senegal), Keller unravels the threads of intrigue, rumor, and misdirection that informed this chaotic period of French colonial history. “Colonial Suspects explores the obsessive French colonial preoccupation with constructing otherness, monitoring outsiders, and persecuting those at the poorest margins of white society. From high-profile criminal cases to intimate lives, the book offers a fine-grained perspective on the culture of suspicion pervading the policing of subversion - real and imagined - within France's West African colonies after World War I.” - Martin Thomas, professor of history at the University of Exeter and author of Empires of Intelligence: Security Services and Colonial Disorder after 1914. “Colonial Suspects breaks new ground and has compelling tie-ins to current debates over surveillance that will resonate with students and academics in the field. One of the most exciting things about it is how it shows that interwar French West Africa was in some ways a global crossroads.” - Elizabeth A. Foster, associate professor of history at Tufts University and the author of Faith in Empire: Religion, Politics, and Colonial Rule in French Senegal, 1880–1940.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kathleen Keller is an associate professor of history at Gustavus Adolphus College.
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Killam, Douglas and Rowe, Ruth. The Companion to African Literatures. London/Bloomington. 2000. James Currey/Indiana University Press. 0253336333. 322 pages. hardcover. Cover: Adire cloth in a pattern called Ibadan dun (Ibadan is sweet), reproduced with the kind permission of John Picton.
DESCRIPTION- The Companion to African Literatures is a comprehensive guide to work written in English or widely available in translation from other languages. Alphabetical format includes: Authors' biographical details and major publications; Selected individual books; Literary genres: drama, poetry, the novel, the short story, popular literature, oral tradition and folklore, anthologies, biography and autobiography, children's literature, literary magazines; Selected African languages with published literatures; Wider themes: the links with literature in major African languages, Afro-American, Afro-British and Caribbean literature, religion and politics, war literature, women in literature, censorship; Literary discourse, influences and movements: black consciousness, feminism and literature, negritude, Africanist discourse, literary theory and criticism; Special topic entries: apartheid, Maghrebi literature, Nigeria-Biafra war, Onitsha market literature, publishing in sub-Saharan Africa, writing systems.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Douglas Killam was Professor of Commonwealth Literature at the University of Guelph, Ontario, having previously taught at the Universities of Ibadan, Lagos, Dar es Salaam and at Fourah Bay College. He was Editor, for twelve years, of WLWE (World Literature Written in English). Ruth Rowe teaches in the English Department of the University of Guelph, she was an Editor of WLWE and the Canadian Journal of African Studies. Bernth Lindfors is Professor of English and African Literatures in the University of Texas at Austin. Alain Ricard is Research Professor of the CNRS at the African Studies Centre, (Centre d'Etudes d'Afrique noire), University of Bordeaux. Gerald M. Moser is Professor Emeritus of Portuguese and Spanish at the Pennsylvania State University, having previously taught at the Universities of Wisconsin and Illinois.
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Komey, Ellis Ayitey and Mphahlele, Ezekiel (editors). Modern African Stories. London. 1964. Faber & Faber. 227 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Included in this anthology are Nigerians: Wole Soyinka, playwright and poet; China Achebe, novelist; John Pepper Clark, poet and playwright; Gabriel Okara, poet; Christopher Okigbo, poet; Mabel Segun, poetess; Amos Tutuola, novelist; Cyprian Ekwensi, novelist; Onuora Nzekwu, novelist; David Owoyele and Nkem Nwankwo, fiction writers. Then there are the Ghanaians: poets such as Kwesi Brew, Awoonor Williams, Efua Sutherland and fiction writers like Kwabena Annan, Adelaide Casely-Hayford. The work of Christiana Aidoo's, Ato Bedwei's and Sarif Easmon's provide a strong sense of local colour, while Kwabena Annan exhibits a quiet but penetrating humour, and Peter Kwame Buahin takes a more bombastic appraoch. Adelaide Casely-Hayford's story of a man who has come to symbolize the younger generation's return to things African, much to the father's disgust; there is the conflict between the nationalism of a 'been-to' and the practical sense of a sailor in William Conton's story; the colonial sex dilemma in Eldred Jones's tale. We are treated to Abioseh Nicol's well-measured-prose; the restrained language of Chinua Achebe, which throws into bold relief impending tragedy that no one can stop; and then there are Nkem Nwankwo's pathos, the fatalism of David Owoyele's characters and Cyprian Ekwensi's sophisticated sense of detail. Amos Tutuola is still with us and continues to weave myths around us in his peculiar fashion. The Kenyans, Grace Ogot and James Ngugi, explore the strange twists of irony that we experience in the fatalism of Africa: one brought about by the action of two young lovers who cheat the gods, and the other by the action of a young man whose soul has been soaked in the Christian aura of guilt. In Alex la Guma's story we see the ordeal of a mother as she runs into a police net while her children, innocently demand coffee in a nagging refrain; James Matthews' highly self-conscious and brutal sense of irony is inescapable. As Richard Rive's and Alfred Hutchinson's imagery piles up layer upon layer, we come close to the bone of sheer physical and mental suffering. There is also Can Themba's unrelieved tension. Casey Motsisi who, incidentally, is the youngest of all represented in this volume, is the only South African here who can take time off to laugh at the whole grotesque southern scene. These South Africans move in a literary world apart from that of the white writers in their country. Whereas the latter easily fill in the British tradition, the Africans take their cues from American Negro literature and from realists like Dickens and some of the Russians. CONTENTS: Introduction; Cut Me a Drink - CHRISTIANA A. AIDOO / Ghana; Ding Dong Bell - KWABENA ANNAN / Ghana; Death of a Boy - CHINUA ACHEBE / Nigeria; Me and the Fish God - ATO BEDWEI / Ghana; This is Experience Speaking - PETER KWAME BUAHIN / Ghana; Mista Courifer - ADELAIDE CASELY-HAYFORD / Ghana; The Blood in the Washbasin - WILLIAM CONTON / Sierra Leone; Roya - R. SARIF EASMON / Sierra Leone; A Stranger from Lagos - CYPRIAN ERWENSI / Nigeria; Coffee for the Road - ALEX LA GUMA / South Africa; Machado - ALFRED HUTCHINSON / South Africa; A Man Can Try - ELDRED DUROSIMI JONES / Sierra Leone; I Can Face You - ELLIS KOMEY / Ghana; The Second Coming - JAMES MATTHEWS / South Africa; On the Beat - Sketches of South African Life - CASEY MOTSISI / South Africa; Grieg on a Stolen Piano - EZEKIEL MPHAHLELE / South Africa; A Meeting in the Dark - JAMES NGUGI / Kenya; The Judge's Son - ABIOSEH NICOL / Sierra Leone; The Gambler -NKEM NWANKWO / Nigeria; The Rain Came - GRACE A. OGOT / Kenya; The Crooks - GABRIEL OKARA / Nigeria; The Will of Allah - DAVID OWOYELE / Nigeria; Rain - RICHARD RIVE South Africa; Feather Woman of the Jungle - AMOS TUTUOLA / Nigeria; The Dube Train - CAN THEMBA / South Africa.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Es'kia Mphahlele (17 December 1919 - 27 October 2008) was a South African writer, educationist, artist and activist celebrated as the Father of African Humanism and one of the founding figures of modern African literature. He was given the name Ezekiel Mphahlele at birth but changed his name to Es'kia in 1977. His journey from childhood in the slums of Pretoria to literary icon was an odyssey both intellectually and politically. As a writer, he brought his own experiences in and outside South Africa to bear on his short stories, fiction, autobiography and history, developing the concept of African humanism. He skilfully evoked the black experience under apartheid in Down Second Avenue (1959). It recounted his struggle to get an education and the setbacks he experienced in his teaching career. Mphahlele wrote two autobiographies, more than 30 short stories, two verse plays and a number of poems. He is deemed as the "Dean of African Letters". He was the recipient of numerous international awards. In 1969, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature, and in 1984, he was awarded the Order of the Palm by the French government for his contribution to French Language and Culture. He was the recipient of the 1998 World Economic Forum Crystal Award for Outstanding Service to the Arts and Education. In 1998, former President Nelson Mandela awarded Mphahlele the Order of the Southern Cross, then the highest recognition granted by the South African Government (equivalent today to the Order of Mapungubwe)
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Kromberg, Steve and Ogude, James (editors). Soho Square: A Collection of New Writing From Africa. London. 1992. Bloomsbury Books. 0747513325. Paperback Original. Illustrations by Jeff Fisher. 287 pages. paperback. Jacket design by Jeff Fisher.
DESCRIPTION- In 1992 Soho Square takes a lightning trip around Africa, gathering creative work from writers - known and unknown - across the continent. There are exiles returning to Africa after decades: Dennis Brutus, Mandla Langa, Baleka Kgositsile, Keorapestse Kgositsile; and exiles returning after centuries: Sterling Plumpp, Frank Wilderson. Weaving in and out of their lines are stories of the enslavement of African People and their countries. From Nigeria and Kenya come Silas Obadiah, Tom Ochola, Henry Indangasi, Tanure Ojaide, Peter Amuka, Jonathan Kariara, and Arthur Luvai with tales of disillusionment, lost idelas, and abused love. Egypt's Sherif Hetata sees himself reflected in a passing caravan, while in Zimbabwe Shimmer Chinodya observes how passing time casts new shadows on colonial people and days. There are voices from Mozambique and voices from South Africa where turbulent transition is expressed through tales of victories, violence, and betrayal. Oral poet Madlinyoka Ntanzi calls on the image of a horned viper when singing Mandela's oeaises while Zakes Mda expresses doubt through blossoms and butterflies. There is new work from (amongst others) Stephen Gray, Frank Meinjies, Liz Gunner and Kelwyn Sole alongside the contribution of Novel prize-winner Nadine Gordimer who peers into the future of African literature int eh 21st century. CONTENTS: STEVE KROMBERG/JAMES OGUDE Introduction; MIA COUTO/Mozambique - Caramel Rose; JONATHAN KARIARA/Kenya - And Africa; AMA ATA AIDOO/Ghana - Heavy Moments; WILMA STOCKENSTRÖM/South Africa - Africa Love; STERLING PLUMPP/Afro-USA - Weaver; SHIMMER CHINODYA/Zimbabwe - Among the Dead; DENNIS BRUTUS/South Africa - Goree; IVAN VLADISLAVC/South Africa - The Brothers; ARTHUR I. LUVAI/Kenya - Silent Watcher at Sea; SILAS OBADIAH/Nigeria - When Tomorrow Is Too Far; MADLINYOKA NTANZ1/South Africa - Praise Poem to Nelson Mandela; ZAKES MDA/South Africa - Blossoms and Butterflies; MANDLA LANGA/South Africa - Proud Flesh; TOM A. OCHOLA/Kenya - A Return to African Quarters; UNGULANI BA KA KHOSA/Mozambique - The orgy of the Deranged; BALEKA KGOSITSILE/South Africa - Where is Home; LIZ GUNNER/South Africa - The Two of Us/The Mandela Days; HENRY INDANGASI/Kenya - The Smoke; FRANK MEINTJIES/South Africa - Rhythms of Passage 1; CORNELIA SMITH/South Africa - The White Dove; PETER AMUKA/Kenya - Late; KELWYN SOLE/South Africa - Go Home and Do Not Sleep; ARI SITAS/South Africa - Deaths on the Job; TANURE OJAIDE/Nigeria - The Crow's Gift; LESEGO RAMPOLOKENG/South Africa - Fragments of a Rainbow Revolution; KEORAPETSE KGOSITSILE/South Africa - I Am; VUSI BHENGU/GOODMAN KIVAN/NESTER LUTHULI/GLADMAN NGUBO/NOVEMBER MARASTA SHABALALA/ South Africa - The Man Who Could Fly; FRANK WILDERSON/Afro-USA - 25 December, 1986. Tangier, Morocco; EVELYN HOLTZHAUSEN/South Africa - The Voyeur; STEPHEN GRAY/South Africa - Letters to Pratt; SHERIF HETATA/Egypt - Caravan; NADINE GORDIMER/South Africa - Turning the Page.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - South African Steve Kromberg and Kenyan James Ogude teach African literature at eh University of Witwatersrand. James Ogude is a prolific reviewer of African Literature and Steve Kromberg is a poet and short-story writer.
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Larson, Charles R. (editor and introduction). African Short Stories: A Collection of Contemporary African Writing. New York. 1970. Collier/Macmillan. Introduction by Charles R. Larson. 210 pages. paperback. 05271.
DESCRIPTION- AFRICA UNVEILED. This extraordinary anthology offers a panorama of contemporary Africa in all its humor, vitality, wit, and tragedy. Its ten contributors include Ezekiel Mphahlele, Alex La Guma and James Matthews from South Africa; Amos Tutuola, West Nigeria; Nuwa Sentongo and Barbara Kimenye, Uganda; James Ngugi, Kenya; Cameron Duodu, Ghana; Sylvain Bemba, the Congo; and Abioseh Nicol, Sierra Leone. Seven of these stories receive their first American publication in this volume. A tour-de-force of modern African literature, African Short Stories ranges from folk tales masterfully retold to sophisticated and caustic stories of protest and culture clash. Amos Tutuola's "The Complete Gentleman" is the surreal legend of a lady's love for an irresistible dandy - who has rented all the parts of his body. Sylvain Bemba's 'The Dark Room" offers a grotesque Jekyll - Hyde encounter between a brilliant black madman and an alien Paris. Ezekiel Mphahlele's "Mrs. Plum" evokes the education of a young black servant in a "liberal" white home. Story by story, this dazzling spectrum reveals the mind and spirit of that endlessly fascinating, infinitely varied Dark Continent, Africa.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - CHARLES R. LARSON is General Editor of the Collier Books African/ American library.
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Larson, Charles R. (editor). Under African Skies: Modern Stories. New York. 1997. Farrar Straus Giroux. 0374211787. 315 pages. hardcover. Jacket art - 'Struggle Between Life And Death' by Erhabor Emokpae. Jacket Design By Michael Ian Kaye.
DESCRIPTION- Spanning a wide geographical range, UNDER AFRICAN SKIES features prominent as well as younger African writers, including many women, from Chinua Achebe and Bessie Head to Ben Okri and Sindiwe Magona. Written originally in English, Portuguese, and French, the stories take us from colonial to post-colonial Africa, from civil war to struggles with apartheid and AIDS, to a new South Africa of cellular phones and middle-class angst. Reflecting the stunning diversity in African literature-from that based on traditional storytelling to a very African magical realism-the stories include Ken Saro-Wiwa's apocalyptic portrait of the innocent martyr; Amos Tutuola's hilariously surreal story of a woman who becomes bewitched by a ‘complete gentleman' who is, in fact, only a skull on borrowed limbs; Es'kia Mphahlele's story of an African ‘madam' who has a peculiar relationship with her dog; and Mandla Langa's comic account of a man who turns hair loss into business success. UNDER AFRICAN SKIES gives rich testimony to the resilience of this century's African writers, too many of whom have faced censorship, exile, even death. The collection includes detailed biographical notes and, wherever possible, textual commentaries by the writers themselves. Powerful, intriguing, and essentially non-Western, these stories offer an unforgettable introduction to contemporary African literature. Contributors include - AMOS TUTUOLA (Nigeria), CAMARA LAYE (Guinea), BIRAGO DIOP (Senegal), SEMBENE OUSMANE (Senegal), LUIS BERNARDO HONWANA (Mozambique), NGUGI WA THIONG'O (Kenya), TAYEB SALIH (Sudan), ES'KIA MPHAHLELE (South Africa), GRACE OGOT (Kenya), AMA ATA AIDOO (Ghana), CHINUA ACHEBE (Nigeria), BESSIE HEAD (South Africa), SIMILIH M. CORDOR (Liberia), RENE PHILOMBE (Cameroon), TIJAN M. SALLAH (Gambia), KEN SARO-WIWA (Nigeria), DON MATTERA (South Africa), YVONNE VERA (Zimbabwe), VERONIQUE TADJO (Ivory Coast), BEN OKRI (Nigeria), ALEXANDER KANENGONI (Zimbabwe), MZAMANE NHLAPO (Lesptho), STEVE CHIMOMBO (Malawi), SINDIWE MAGONA (South Africa), NURUOOIN FARAH (Somalia), MANOLA LANGA (South Africa).
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - CHARLES R. LARSON pioneered courses in African, African American, and Third World literature. The author of numerous critical volumes, including The Emergence of African Fiction, and the editor of several anthologies, he teaches at American University, Washington D.C. He lives with his family in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
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Leslau, Charlotte and Leslau, Wolf (compilers). African Proverbs. White Plaines. 1985. Peter Pauper Press. 0880880252. Decorations by Jeff Hill. 61 pages. hardcover. Jacket by Scharr Design.
DESCRIPTION- It is said that ‘Proverbs are the daughters of experience.' Here then is a collection of such daughters - valuable, humorous, and wise - from a diverse group of lands and tribes.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Wolf Leslau was born on November 14, 1906. in Krzepice, 20 miles northwest of the famed city of Czestochowa. He was orphaned at a young age, but an older brother kept the family functioning, and at eighteen, he graduated from a Polish high school that devoted a considerable part of its curriculum to Hebrew and Jewish subjects; such schools were common in the reconstituted Polish state after World War I. In his teen years, he joined the left-wing Zionist movement Ha-Shomer Ha-Tsa'ir and after high school, prepared himself for moving to Israel and life in a kibbutz. The British, however, refused him an entry permit to Palestine, apparently because he showed signs of having had tuberculosis. His mother, who died from the disease, would seat him on her lap and share her food with him when he was a child, and Wolf was sure that he contracted the disease from her. Instead of tilling the soil of Palestine, he was destined to break ground of a different sort. A series of peregrinations ensued, which reached their happy culmination two decades later in Los Angeles. The first step, in 1926, was a move to Vienna, where he enrolled in the Hebrew Pedagogium. The Pedagogium boasted faculty of university caliber, but Wolf was more interested in a working agreement between the school and the University of Vienna, which allowed students in the former to enroll in the latter. At the University, he studied Akkadian, Arabic, and a subject far off the beaten path that he found especially intriguing--the South Arabic family of languages. Not least of all, soon after arriving in Vienna, he met Charlotte Halpern, who would be his affectionate and supportive partner for more than seventy years. In 1931, Wolf moved with Charlotte to Paris in order to study with Marcel Cohen, an expert on the languages of Ethiopia. He received diplomas in South Arabic and the Ethiopian languages, a language family related to South Arabic; as a dissertation, he wrote an etymological dictionary of Sokotri, one of the South Arabic dialects; and he began teaching South Arabic and Ethiopian languages. After the French capitulated in 1940, he and Charlotte fled to the South. He was interned by the Vichy authorities, managed to get released, and with the help of a relief agency, escaped to New York in 1942, together with Charlotte and their infant daughter. He held part time positions at an Ecole des hautes Etudes that had been created in New York for refugee scholars, at the Asia Institute, and at the New School for Social Research. In 1951, he received an appointment at Brandeis, was still an associate professor in 1955, and was not especially happy with the atmosphere at Brandeis, which was in its infancy. Then he and Paul Dodd, dean of Letters and Science at UCLA, were introduced. UCLA had begun a program in Hebrew with the help of funds contributed by members of the Jewish community and it committed itself to funding a permanent position should the experiment succeed. The university was now ready to fulfill its commitment, but Dodd envisaged something grander--a Department of Near Eastern Languages and a Center for Near Eastern Studies. The meeting with Wolf was a meeting of kindred spirits. After Dodd made short work of having the appropriate faculty committee affix its stamp of approval, Wolf was hired in 1955 as Professor of Hebrew. He was housed in the Department of Classics, and a Professor of Arabic, Irfan Kawar (Shahid), was appointed and housed in Oriental Languages. Wolf was added to the Committee on Near Eastern Studies, became chairman of the Committee in the following year, and then made one of his many contributions to the university by recommending, and pushing for, the appointment of Gustave Von Grunebaum as the first Director of a Center for Near Eastern Studies. Both men had the ear of the Administration, each gave the other unstinting cooperation, and the days were happy ones when funding was plentiful. Further appointments in Near Eastern languages and in the social sciences followed. In 1959, the university established a department of Near Eastern Languages; for a time it was a department of Near Eastern and African Languages and eventually chose for itself its current name, the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. The initial faculty consisted of professors of Hebrew, Semitic, Arabic, and Persian-Turkish, who had hitherto been housed in the Departments of Classics and Oriental Languages. Wolf was chairman, a capacity in which he served until 1965. Despite having had no previous administrative experience, he was strikingly adept at the job, establishing a warm rapport with the university administration and proving himself an efficient and visionary departmental administrator. In those days, the chancellor had a yearly reception for faculty. A few remaining souls - their hair long since gone white - may recall how Wolf would gather new faculty before the reception and, like a proud mother hen escorting her chicks, present them to the chancellor and deans so that they could see how well university resources were being utilized. More likely than not, he would knock on the administration's door a short time later to request funding for an additional appointment. The Leslau-Von Grunebaum “master plan” gave the Department form and direction as it grew, although not every element was implemented. The university deemed other demands more pressing, for example, than professorships in the languages and literatures of all the Eastern Churches--Armenian, Geez, Syriac, and even Georgian. The Department today has a healthy Armenian program and offers courses in the Syriac language, but the other components of the Eastern Church concept fell by the wayside. Wolf nonetheless sowed the seeds that developed into the breadth and strengths of today's Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. For his dictionary of Sokotri, he relied on materials collected by Austrian researchers who, early in the nineteenth century, visited the areas where the language was spoken. He was eager, however, to do his own field work, and after the war, from 1946 into the 70's, made repeated trips to Ethiopia in order to record languages and dialects that were spoken in outlying pockets but had no writing system. He wrote down what he heard on index cards and when tape recorders became available - and he was able to convince customs officers, with a helpful word from Emperor Haile Selassie himself, to allow the mysterious machine into the country without the payment of a king's ransom in fees - he employed that device as well. One of the deans would ask him when he returned from field trips: “Well, Wolf, how many new languages did you discover this time?” On returning to the United States, and then when the Emperor was deposed and travel to Ethiopia was no longer feasible, he resorted to informants from Ethiopia who happened to be here. An ingenious tactic of his was to have a speaker of one of the village dialects who was also literate in Amharic write down, in his native tongue and in Amharic characters, his recollections of village life. A number of volumes in this vein, representing various languages and dialects, were later published, in transliteration and translation, under the title Ethiopians Speak. They still serve linguists and anthropologists. Wolf molded the materials he gathered into a prodigious number of publications, and his full bibliography, which includes an invaluable reference grammar and dictionary of Amharic, as well as studies in Hebrew, Arabic, and general Semitics, exceeds 300 entries. His approach, once he had recorded materials, was more along the lines of traditional philology than of modern linguistics. His final book, published in 2004, The Verb in Masqan as Compared with Other Gurage Dialects, was based on material gathered decades earlier. Anyone reading the introduction would visualize an author at the height of his scholarly powers; it is hard to comprehend how the book could have come from the hands of a frail ninety-seven year old with failing eye sight. Upon completing the Masqan book, Wolf, as a matter of course, turned to a study of yet another of the Gurage dialects, Gogot. But age had finally taken its toll, and he was unable to bring that project to completion. He was recognized as the world authority on Ethiopian languages. Grover Hudson of Michigan State University describes him in an obituary as “the greatest Semiticist linguist of the post-war generation.” Among the many honors that he received, he especially cherished the Haile Selassie Prize for Ethiopian Studies--he was the second recipient, Marcel Cohen having been the first--and an honorary degree from the Hebrew University. Charlotte Leslau died in 1998, and Wolf, full of days, on November 18, 2006.
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Leslau, Charlotte and Leslau, Wolf. African Folk Tales. Mount Vernon. 1963. Peter Pauper Press. Illustrated by Grisha Dotzenko. 62 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Tales include: 'The Marriage of the Mouse', 'How the Milky Way came to Be', 'The Midwife of Dakar' and 'How Mighty is the White Man?' Folk tales and myths serve as a means of handing down traditions and customs from one generation to the next in Africa. For several generations, stories from Africa have traditionally been passed down by word of mouth. Often, after a hard day's work, the adults would gather the children together by moonlight, around a village fire and tell stories. This is traditionally called Tales by Moonlight.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Wolf Leslau was born on November 14, 1906. in Krzepice, 20 miles northwest of the famed city of Czestochowa. He was orphaned at a young age, but an older brother kept the family functioning, and at eighteen, he graduated from a Polish high school that devoted a considerable part of its curriculum to Hebrew and Jewish subjects; such schools were common in the reconstituted Polish state after World War I. In his teen years, he joined the left-wing Zionist movement Ha-Shomer Ha-Tsa'ir and after high school, prepared himself for moving to Israel and life in a kibbutz. The British, however, refused him an entry permit to Palestine, apparently because he showed signs of having had tuberculosis. His mother, who died from the disease, would seat him on her lap and share her food with him when he was a child, and Wolf was sure that he contracted the disease from her. Instead of tilling the soil of Palestine, he was destined to break ground of a different sort. A series of peregrinations ensued, which reached their happy culmination two decades later in Los Angeles. The first step, in 1926, was a move to Vienna, where he enrolled in the Hebrew Pedagogium. The Pedagogium boasted faculty of university caliber, but Wolf was more interested in a working agreement between the school and the University of Vienna, which allowed students in the former to enroll in the latter. At the University, he studied Akkadian, Arabic, and a subject far off the beaten path that he found especially intriguing--the South Arabic family of languages. Not least of all, soon after arriving in Vienna, he met Charlotte Halpern, who would be his affectionate and supportive partner for more than seventy years. In 1931, Wolf moved with Charlotte to Paris in order to study with Marcel Cohen, an expert on the languages of Ethiopia. He received diplomas in South Arabic and the Ethiopian languages, a language family related to South Arabic; as a dissertation, he wrote an etymological dictionary of Sokotri, one of the South Arabic dialects; and he began teaching South Arabic and Ethiopian languages. After the French capitulated in 1940, he and Charlotte fled to the South. He was interned by the Vichy authorities, managed to get released, and with the help of a relief agency, escaped to New York in 1942, together with Charlotte and their infant daughter. He held part time positions at an Ecole des hautes Etudes that had been created in New York for refugee scholars, at the Asia Institute, and at the New School for Social Research. In 1951, he received an appointment at Brandeis, was still an associate professor in 1955, and was not especially happy with the atmosphere at Brandeis, which was in its infancy. Then he and Paul Dodd, dean of Letters and Science at UCLA, were introduced. UCLA had begun a program in Hebrew with the help of funds contributed by members of the Jewish community and it committed itself to funding a permanent position should the experiment succeed. The university was now ready to fulfill its commitment, but Dodd envisaged something grander--a Department of Near Eastern Languages and a Center for Near Eastern Studies. The meeting with Wolf was a meeting of kindred spirits. After Dodd made short work of having the appropriate faculty committee affix its stamp of approval, Wolf was hired in 1955 as Professor of Hebrew. He was housed in the Department of Classics, and a Professor of Arabic, Irfan Kawar (Shahid), was appointed and housed in Oriental Languages. Wolf was added to the Committee on Near Eastern Studies, became chairman of the Committee in the following year, and then made one of his many contributions to the university by recommending, and pushing for, the appointment of Gustave Von Grunebaum as the first Director of a Center for Near Eastern Studies. Both men had the ear of the Administration, each gave the other unstinting cooperation, and the days were happy ones when funding was plentiful. Further appointments in Near Eastern languages and in the social sciences followed. In 1959, the university established a department of Near Eastern Languages; for a time it was a department of Near Eastern and African Languages and eventually chose for itself its current name, the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. The initial faculty consisted of professors of Hebrew, Semitic, Arabic, and Persian-Turkish, who had hitherto been housed in the Departments of Classics and Oriental Languages. Wolf was chairman, a capacity in which he served until 1965. Despite having had no previous administrative experience, he was strikingly adept at the job, establishing a warm rapport with the university administration and proving himself an efficient and visionary departmental administrator. In those days, the chancellor had a yearly reception for faculty. A few remaining souls - their hair long since gone white - may recall how Wolf would gather new faculty before the reception and, like a proud mother hen escorting her chicks, present them to the chancellor and deans so that they could see how well university resources were being utilized. More likely than not, he would knock on the administration's door a short time later to request funding for an additional appointment. The Leslau-Von Grunebaum “master plan” gave the Department form and direction as it grew, although not every element was implemented. The university deemed other demands more pressing, for example, than professorships in the languages and literatures of all the Eastern Churches--Armenian, Geez, Syriac, and even Georgian. The Department today has a healthy Armenian program and offers courses in the Syriac language, but the other components of the Eastern Church concept fell by the wayside. Wolf nonetheless sowed the seeds that developed into the breadth and strengths of today's Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. For his dictionary of Sokotri, he relied on materials collected by Austrian researchers who, early in the nineteenth century, visited the areas where the language was spoken. He was eager, however, to do his own field work, and after the war, from 1946 into the 70's, made repeated trips to Ethiopia in order to record languages and dialects that were spoken in outlying pockets but had no writing system. He wrote down what he heard on index cards and when tape recorders became available - and he was able to convince customs officers, with a helpful word from Emperor Haile Selassie himself, to allow the mysterious machine into the country without the payment of a king's ransom in fees - he employed that device as well. One of the deans would ask him when he returned from field trips: “Well, Wolf, how many new languages did you discover this time?” On returning to the United States, and then when the Emperor was deposed and travel to Ethiopia was no longer feasible, he resorted to informants from Ethiopia who happened to be here. An ingenious tactic of his was to have a speaker of one of the village dialects who was also literate in Amharic write down, in his native tongue and in Amharic characters, his recollections of village life. A number of volumes in this vein, representing various languages and dialects, were later published, in transliteration and translation, under the title Ethiopians Speak. They still serve linguists and anthropologists. Wolf molded the materials he gathered into a prodigious number of publications, and his full bibliography, which includes an invaluable reference grammar and dictionary of Amharic, as well as studies in Hebrew, Arabic, and general Semitics, exceeds 300 entries. His approach, once he had recorded materials, was more along the lines of traditional philology than of modern linguistics. His final book, published in 2004, The Verb in Masqan as Compared with Other Gurage Dialects, was based on material gathered decades earlier. Anyone reading the introduction would visualize an author at the height of his scholarly powers; it is hard to comprehend how the book could have come from the hands of a frail ninety-seven year old with failing eye sight. Upon completing the Masqan book, Wolf, as a matter of course, turned to a study of yet another of the Gurage dialects, Gogot. But age had finally taken its toll, and he was unable to bring that project to completion. He was recognized as the world authority on Ethiopian languages. Grover Hudson of Michigan State University describes him in an obituary as “the greatest Semiticist linguist of the post-war generation.” Among the many honors that he received, he especially cherished the Haile Selassie Prize for Ethiopian Studies--he was the second recipient, Marcel Cohen having been the first--and an honorary degree from the Hebrew University. Charlotte Leslau died in 1998, and Wolf, full of days, on November 18, 2006.
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Lewis, David Levering. The Race To Fashoda: European Colonialism & African Resistance in the Scramble For Africa. New York. 1988. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 1555840582. 305 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration: 'Italian Prisoners Arriving at Djibouti Under Ethiopian Escort.' from the cover of L'Illustration (September 5, 1896). Jacket design by Paul Gamarello. Author's photograph by Dennis Connors.
DESCRIPTION- Before 1870, the abandoned Egyptian fortress at Fashoda, on an obscure juncture of the White Nile, meant little to the outside world - or indeed, to most Africans. But suddenly because of emerging rivalries between the Western powers, the rise of European colonialism, and its own strategic location, Fashoda became the focal point of an intense and bloody campaign involving England, France, Belgium, Germany, and Italy. This struggle also, unwittingly, gave rise to a burgeoning resistance movement on the part of Black Africa - a movement that would culminate in the independence rebellions of the twentieth century. Based on a wealth of previously unpublished documents, THE RACE TO FASHODA tells in tense, fascinating detail the story of Europe's incursions into Africa in the nineteenth century - and, for the first time, tells it from the perspective of the Africans themselves, many of whom were waging an arduous, often successful war against encroachment. Along the way, David Levering Lewis demonstrates how the race to Fished, one of the most grueling episodes in the ‘Scramble for Africa,' fostered the European political tensions that would lead inexorably to World War I and forever change the face of the Western world. Here is a story as complex and stirring as any adventure tale, with a cast of characters to match: the driven, manipulative explorer Henry Morton Stanley, who slaughtered thousands for the benefit of the front pages back home; African resistance fighters Tippu Tip and Samori Ture, among the first to organize their compatriots against the European onslaught; Captain Jean-Baptiste Marchand, the consummate career officer, who fought the Africans, the British, and his country's unstable political climate to be the first to reach Fashoda - only to be ordered, once there, to hand it over to the British; Herbert Kitchener, Marchand's great rival, whose ingenious railroad brought him closer and closer to victory as the race drew to its climax; Abdullahi, the Sudan's xenophobic khalifa, who paradoxically found himself ruler of the continent's most contested piece of real estate; King Leopold II of Belgium, who pursued his share of the Congo with the sly acquisitiveness of a spoilt child; the shrewd Ethiopian monarch Menilek II, who swiftly learned how to use European vanity and conflicting interests to his own advantage; and the enigmatic Austrian Jew Eduard Schnitzer, who, as ‘Emin Pasha,' retreated into the jungle and commanded a private native army with all the resourcefulness of Conrad's Mr. Kurtz. With its dramatic reconstructions and provocative viewpoint, THE RACE TO FASHODA will stand as an insightful, compelling addition to our understanding of this key moment in modern history. Includes 16 pages of black-and-white photographs and 5 maps. David Levering Lewis is Martin Luther King, Jr., Professor of History at Rutgers University He has been awarded fellowships by the Woodrow Wilson International Center, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the National Humanities Center, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. His previous books include KING: A BIOGRAPHY; PRISONERS OF HONOR, A STUDY OF THE DREYFUS AFFAIR; DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: A BICENTENNIAL HISTORY; and WHEN HARLEM WAS IN VOGUE, a social history of the Harlem Renaissance. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - David Levering Lewis holds the Martin Luther King, Jr., chair in history at Rutgers University. Educated at Fisk and Columbia universities and the London School of Economics, Dr. Lewis is the author of numerous acclaimed books, including KING: A BIOGRAPHY, WHEN HARLEM WAS IN VOGUE, THE RACE TO FASHODA, and, W. E. B. DU BOIS: BIOGRAPHY OF A RACE, 1868 - 1919, winner of the Pulitzer and Bancroft Prizes for biography.
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Lindqvist, Sven. Exterminate the Brutes: One Man’s Odyssey Into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide. New York. 1996. New Press. 1565843347. Translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate. 179 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Evan Gaffney. Jacket illustration: The Submission of King Prempeh, The Final Humiliation, The Graphic, February 29, 1896.
DESCRIPTION- Exterminate All the Brutes is a unique study of Europe's dark history in Africa, written in the form of a travel diary and a historical examination of European racism over the past two centuries. Like Edward Said's Orientalism, Lindqvist's book examines the history of European racism, setting Conrad's Heart of Darkness in context and tracing the legacy of the writings of European explorers and theologians, politicians and historians, from the late eighteenth century on, in an effort to help us understand that most terrifying of Conrad's lines, "Exterminate all the brutes." Lindqvist argues that the harrowing racism that led to the Holocaust in the twentieth century had its roots in European colonial policy of the preceding century. This is an argument that was made in Hannah Arendt's celebrated Origins of Totalitarianism, but Lindqvist approaches it differently, with the insights of an artist and biographer. "Exterminate All the Brutes" raises questions uniquely appropriate to the current American debate on the depth and costs of racism today.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Sven Lindqvist (born April 28, 1932) is a Swedish author of mostly non-fiction, whose works include Exterminate All the Brutes and A History of Bombing. Sven Lindqvist was born in Stockholm in 1932. He holds a PhD in History of literature from Stockholm University (his thesis, in 1966, was on Vilhelm Ekelund) and a 1979 honorary doctorate from Uppsala University. In 1960–1961, he worked as cultural attache at the Swedish embassy in Beijing, China. From 1956–86 he was married to Cecilia Lindqvist, with whom he had two children. In 1986 he married the economist Agneta Stark. He lives in the Södermalm area of central Stockholm.
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Maja-Pearce, Adewale (editor). The Heinemann Book of African Poetry in English. Portsmouth. 1990. Heinemann. 0435913239. African Writers Series. 224 pages. paperback. Cover design by Vinston Bair. . Originally published in the AWS series 1990.
DESCRIPTION- A PAPERBACK ORIGINAL. 'The Maja-Pearce selection reinforces the sense of wonderment that so many varieties of poetic dialect can emerge through one language.' - New Statesman & Society. 'Adewale Maja-Pearce presents an impressive array of African poets without recourse to ideological discrimination. This volume is capable of changing and influencing the minds of those unfamiliar with African literature in verse.' - West Africa. This anthology aims to represent the best African poetry written in English over the last thirty years. It does not pretend to be a comprehensive collection but is a reflection of the excellence to be found within a tradition which, once known as 'emergent', has indisputably arrived. A sense of development over time has been captured by Adewale Maja-Pearce through the chronological placing of the poets. Familiar names such as Wole Soyinka, Dennis Brutus and Kojo Laing are present along with the new talent of a younger generation which includes Chenjerai Hove and Gabriel Gbadamosi. Naturally, each poem is unique, each style particular to one poet, but there is a common achievement present in the work of all - the art of having allied courageously the conditions of African society with the craft of poetry.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Adewale Maja-Pearce (born 1953) is an Anglo-Nigerian writer, journalist and critic, who is best known for his documentary essays. He is the author of several books, including the memoirs In My Father's Country (1987) and The House My Father Built (2014), several other non-fiction titles and a collection of short stories entitled Loyalties and Other Stories (1986). Adewale Maja-Pearce was born in London, England, to British and Yoruba parents. He grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, attending St. Gregory's College, Obalende (1965–69), and returned to Britain to be educated at the University College of Wales, Swansea (BA, 1972–75), and at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University (1984–86), where he gained a Master of Arts degree in African studies. He was employed a researcher at Index on Censorship and became the journal's Africa Editor (1986–97), as well as being Series Editor of the Heinemann African Writers Series (1986–94). Having returned to Nigeria, he lives in Surulere, Lagos, in a house inherited by his father, which he has written about in his 2014 memoir The House My Father Built. Maja-Pearce runs an editorial services agency called Yemaja, as well as a small publishing company, The New Gong. Maja-Pearce has written in various genres, his early published work featuring short stories drawing on his Nigerian background, with his collection Loyalties and Other Stories appearing in 1986. Most notable, however, as an essayist, he has written several non-fiction books, including the 2005 Remembering Ken Saro-Wiwa and Other Essays, which in the opinion of critic Uzor Uzoatu 'affords us the opportunity of dipping into the immense world of Maja-Pearce as he, in twenty-three heartfelt essays and reviews, illuminates the benighted mores of modern Nigeria, the identity question in South Africa … and engages with seminal minds across the world. This book is a treasure, a profound testament.' Maja-Pearce was the editor of Christopher Okigbo's Collected Poems (1986), as well as of anthologies such as The Heinemann Book of African Poetry in English (1990) and Who's Afraid of Wole Soyinka?: Essays on Censorship (1991), and also wrote the 1998 and 1999 annual reports on human rights violations in Nigeria. His memoirs include 1987's In My Father's Country: A Nigerian Journey and, most recently, The House My Father Built (2014), which the reviewer for the online magazine Bakwa described in the following terms: 'a harrowing tale of Nigeria as it then was (1993-1999); a memoir of Adewale Maja-Pearce's quest to possess his birth right, his country and personal dignity. Mr Maja-Pearce presents the greatest cast of characters in the history of Nigerian literature. And nothing comes close, no clichE, except you consider Basi and Company by Ken Saro-Wiwa.' Maja-Pearce has written journalism, essays and reviews for a range of international publications, among them The New York Times, Granta, The London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The London Magazine, and Prospect. He became a contributing opinion writer for The International New York Times in 2013. Maja-Pearce is married to the artist/activist Juliet Ezenwa.
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Maja-Pearce, Adewale. Who's Afraid of Wole Soyinka? Essays On Censorship. Oxford. 1991. Heinemann. 0435909770. 128 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- In this collection of essays, Adewale Maja-Pearce analyses contemporary African politics and society with absolute candour. Drawing on his own observations in African countries, and on conversations with journalists, intellectuals, students, artists, taxi drivers and businessmen, he is ruthless in exposing the human rights violations perpetrated by African rulers and governments, and unstinting in his admiration for the courage of individuals who risk liberty and life by standing up to tyranny. With a passionate conviction that 'Africa must monitor Africa', Maja-Pearce probes and scrutinises some of the more unpalatable truths about Africa today: the contempt of African rulers for their 'subjects'; the moral bankruptcy of military dictatorships and one-party rule; censorship, state-sponsored terrorism and naked greed; Islamic fundamentalism and the dangerous slide towards theocratic rule in certain countries. He exposes the collusion of Western governments and the IMF in the subjugation of African peoples and the double standards and lingering racism of Western commentators on African affairs. It is a bleak vision, tempered by glimpses of hope. Born of an English mother and Nigerian father,
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Adewale Maja-Pearce (born 1953) is an Anglo-Nigerian writer, journalist and critic, who is best known for his documentary essays. He is the author of several books, including the memoirs In My Father's Country (1987) and The House My Father Built (2014), several other non-fiction titles and a collection of short stories entitled Loyalties and Other Stories (1986). Adewale Maja-Pearce was born in London, England, to British and Yoruba parents. He grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, attending St. Gregory's College, Obalende (1965–69), and returned to Britain to be educated at the University College of Wales, Swansea (BA, 1972–75), and at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University (1984–86), where he gained a Master of Arts degree in African studies. He was employed a researcher at Index on Censorship and became the journal's Africa Editor (1986–97), as well as being Series Editor of the Heinemann African Writers Series (1986–94). Having returned to Nigeria, he lives in Surulere, Lagos, in a house inherited by his father, which he has written about in his 2014 memoir The House My Father Built. Maja-Pearce runs an editorial services agency called Yemaja, as well as a small publishing company, The New Gong. Maja-Pearce has written in various genres, his early published work featuring short stories drawing on his Nigerian background, with his collection Loyalties and Other Stories appearing in 1986. Most notable, however, as an essayist, he has written several non-fiction books, including the 2005 Remembering Ken Saro-Wiwa and Other Essays, which in the opinion of critic Uzor Uzoatu "affords us the opportunity of dipping into the immense world of Maja-Pearce as he, in twenty-three heartfelt essays and reviews, illuminates the benighted mores of modern Nigeria, the identity question in South Africa … and engages with seminal minds across the world. This book is a treasure, a profound testament." Maja-Pearce was the editor of Christopher Okigbo's Collected Poems (1986), as well as of anthologies such as The Heinemann Book of African Poetry in English (1990) and Who's Afraid of Wole Soyinka?: Essays on Censorship (1991), and also wrote the 1998 and 1999 annual reports on human rights violations in Nigeria. His memoirs include 1987's In My Father's Country: A Nigerian Journey and, most recently, The House My Father Built (2014), which the reviewer for the online magazine Bakwa described in the following terms: "a harrowing tale of Nigeria as it then was (1993-1999); a memoir of Adewale Maja-Pearce's quest to possess his birth right, his country and personal dignity. Mr Maja-Pearce presents the greatest cast of characters in the history of Nigerian literature. And nothing comes close, no clichE, except you consider Basi and Company by Ken Saro-Wiwa." Maja-Pearce has written journalism, essays and reviews for a range of international publications, among them The New York Times, Granta, The London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The London Magazine, and Prospect. He became a contributing opinion writer for The International New York Times in 2013. Maja-Pearce is married to the artist/activist Juliet Ezenwa.
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Malan, Robin (editor). Ourselves in Southern Africa: An Anthology of Southern African Writing. New York. 1989. St Martin's Press. 0312031947. 208 pages. hardcover. Front cover photograph: Hutchison Photographic Library.
DESCRIPTION- Ourselves in Southern Africa is a highly stimulating critical anthology covering a broad spectrum of literature from rural and urban South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. With a deeply held conviction that literature can help to overcome social and political divisions by encouraging communication, Robin Malan has selected pieces which in their diversity reflect many complex experiences in Southern Africa today. The anthology is structured around a number of themes such as ‘Speaking of Ourselves,' ‘In the Country,' ‘In the city.' At the end of each part there are points for discussion which explore both artistic and political perspectives. Footnotes on the texts provide background information and definitions of African words and phrases. There are comprehensive biological notes on the authors, together with lists for further reading. Designed for use in schools and colleges, this anthology will prove invaluable to all students of Southern African literature.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Robin Malan has worked in English teaching and theatre in education all his life (his poetry anthologies Inscapes, New Inscapes and Worldscapes are among his many compilations for school use). He has taught in the Department of Drama at Stellenbosch University and tutored in the English Department at the University of Cape Town. He does volunteer work for Triangle Project, the organisation caring for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community. In 2001 he was awarded the Molteno Medal for lifetime service to literature by the Cape Tercentenary Foundation, on the Council of which he now sits.
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Malkmus, Lizbeth and Armes, Roy. Arab and African Film Making. London/Atlantic Highlands. 1991. ZED Books. 0862329175. 264 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- This is the first in-depth study in English of Arab and African film making. Though neglected in most film histories, cinema in these two parts of the world is not merely of local interest or valuable only for the sociological insights it provides; rather it constitutes an experience of alternative images, other narratives. Despite the difficulties they have had to face - scant sources, inadequate archives, and erratic viewing opportunities - the authors explore the conditions of film production in colonial and post-colonial times, and compare the impact and influence of film with other media. They also look at the internal dynamics of cinematic expression in relation to both Western models and local cultural patterns. The informed analyses and abundant information in this book, including a particularly useful dictionary of film makers, will not only be of value to students of film, but will also enhance the appreciation and pleasure of the generally interested filmgoer.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Lizbeth Malkmus holds a doctorate in Arabic Literature, has written numerous articles on Arab film, and has collaborated in making a film for the Arts Council of Great Britain. Roy Armes is currently Reader in Film at Middlesex Polytechnic. He has written a dozen books on the cinema, including the widely acclaimed Third World Film Making and the West.
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Mapanje, Jack (editor). Gathering Seaweed: African Prison Writing. Portsmouth. 2002. Heinemann. 0435912119. African Writers Series. 328 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- This anthology introduces the African literature of incarceration to the general reader, the scholar, the activist and the student. The visions and prison cries of the few African nationalists imprisoned by colonialists, who later became leaders of their independent dictatorships and in turn imprisoned their own writers and other radicals, are brought into sharper focus, thereby critically exposing the ironies of varied generations of the efforts of freedom fighters. Extracts of prose, poetry and plays are grouped into themes such as arrest,interrogation, torture, survival, release and truth and reconciliation. Contributors include: Kunle Ajibade, Obafemi Awolowo, Steve Biko, Breyten Breytenbach, Dennis Brutus, Nawal El Saadawi, M J Kariuki, Kenneth Kaunda, Caesarina Kona Makhoere, Nelson Mandela, Emma Mashinini, Felix Mnthali, Augustino Nato, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Kwame Nkrumah, Abe Sachs, Ken Saro Wiwa, Wole Soyinka, and Koigi wa Wamwere. Although an often harrowing indictment of the history, culture and politics of the African continent and the societies from which this literature comes, the anthology presents excellent prose, poetry and drama, which stands up in its own right as serious literature to be cherished, read and studied.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jack Mapanje was born in Malawi in 1944 and has lived in Malawi and Britain. He is a poet and theoretical linguist, his first collection of poems Of Chameleons and Gods was published by Heinemann in 1981. On its second reprint, Of Chameleons and Gods was banned in Malawi and Mapanje was subsequently detailed in Mikuyu Maximum Detention Centre near Zomba for three years, seven months and sixteen days. No charges were brought against him. He was released in May 1991 following intense pressure from fellow writers and activists. His second title The Chattering Wagtails of Mikuyu Prison (1993) was also published in the AWS. He is a distinguished academic currently based at the University of Leeds. He lives in England with his wife Mercy and three children.
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Mazrui, Ali A. A World Federation of Cultures: An African Perspective. New York. 1976. Free Press. 508 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Mike McIver.
DESCRIPTION- In this book, an African political scientist outlines a strategy for achieving global peace and social justice which is based not on the notion of world government, but on the concept of world culture. Analyzing the economic, technological, and educational forces which are now in fact globalizing culture, Dr. Mazrui explores the political significance and potentialities of this great transformation. The author proposes a federation of cultures in which every child would learn a world language, a regional language, and a national, or communal, language; in which global institutions would be composed of national, regional, which would and linguistic delegates; and promote a process of achieving world reform of cultures and the through the integration realization of a common human consensus. A World Federation of Cultures examines in detail the central problem of such global cultural convergence - the overwhelming dominance of Western culture in the rest of the world, To overcome this cultural bias, Dr. Mazrui spells out the necessity for regional autonomy, which would allow for cultural convergence without cultural dependency. A unique and important contribution to global thinking, this book offers a fresh perspective on the role of culture in global reform. It provides an in-depth analysis of the various components of culture, illuminating major issues such as kinship, race, sex, religion, caste and class, and language. A World Federation of Cultures outlines a provocative long-term program for achieving a world of peace without dominance.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ali Al'amin Mazrui (24 February 1933 - 12 October 2014), was an academic professor, and political writer on African and Islamic studies and North-South relations. He was born in Mombasa, Kenya. His positions included Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York, and Director of the Center for Afro-American and African Studies at the University of Michigan. He produced the television documentary series The Africans: A Triple Heritage.
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Mazrui, Ali A. The Africans: A Triple Heritage. Boston. 1986. Little Brown. 0316552003. 336 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Mark English, courtesy of The Annenberg/CPB Project. Jacket design by Amy C. Warden.
DESCRIPTION- The Africans is a challenging examination of the soul of modern Africa by leading scholar Ali A. Mazrui. Split by what Mazrui calls its triple heritage, Africa today is a product of three major influences: indigenous traditions, Western culture, and Islamic culture. The Africans provides a fascinating look at how the conflict or synthesis of these forces has determined in great part the situation in African states today. Mazrui covers geography, culture, religion, economics, politics, and even sports, illustrating how the triple heritage is present in the relationship between city and countryside, soldiers and politicians, the elite and the masses, the religious and the secular, and between a longing for autonomy and dependence upon imported cultures. The traditions of violence dramatically reflect the triple heritage: indigenous warrior tradition; the Islamic jihad, or holy war; and the Western-bred guerrilla struggle. The most recent arrival, Western culture, seemingly has had the most profound effect on African life; colonial boundaries and Western-style states, armies, and bureaucracies are found throughout the continent. But in reality, as Mazrui shows, these institutions have not taken root or produced stability in Africa: Western borders have served mostly to enclose battlegrounds; Western-style armies stage coups; bureaucracies are corrupt; roads, railroads, and factories stand unfinished, in need of repair, or in disuse. Mazrui points out that imperialism transmitted capitalist greed to Africa without capitalist discipline, resulting in Western materialism without Western rationalism. Africa north and south is torn between cultures and is at a crucial juncture in its history. What does the future hold? Mazrui suggests that the decay of Africa's colonial institutions may be a ‘curse of the ancestors' upon the compact made by Westernized Africans with the twentieth century, and that, with time, indigenous African ways and traditions will reassert themselves and take hold again. This provocative work will help us understand how and why that must happen.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ali Al'amin Mazrui (24 February 1933 - 12 October 2014), was an academic professor, and political writer on African and Islamic studies and North-South relations. He was born in Mombasa, Kenya. His positions included Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York, and Director of the Center for Afro-American and African Studies at the University of Michigan. He produced the television documentary series The Africans: A Triple Heritage.
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Mbiti, John S. African Religions and Philosophy. Garden City. 1970. Anchor/Doubleday. 0385037139. 384 pages. paperback. A754. Cover design by Rolf Bruderer.
DESCRIPTION- AFRICAN RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHY introduces the reader to the most important aspect of African life. ‘African man,' A writes John S. Mbiti, ‘lives in a religious universe. Both that world and practically all his activities in it are seen and experienced through religious understanding and meaning.' This comprehensive study indicates in itself just how extensive religious influences in Africa are. It includes such wide-ranging subjects as the concepts which define God, death, time, and morality, the religious orientation of various rites and social relationships, the influence of foreign religions, and the search for new values. The author, a theologian well-versed in world as well as African religions, philosophies, languages, and literature, conveys both the uniqueness and the universalities of his native culture. Few such scholarly books are as sensitively and readably written as Mr. Mbiti's.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - John Samuel Mbiti (born 30 November 1931) is a Kenyan-born Christian religious philosopher and writer. He is an ordained Anglican priest, and as of 2005 a canon. Born in Kenya, Mbiti studied in Uganda and the United States, taking his doctorate in 1963 at the University of Cambridge, UK. He taught religion and theology in Makerere University, Uganda from 1964 to 1974 and was subsequently director of the World Council of Churches' Ecumenical Institute in Bogis-Bossey, Switzerland. He has held visiting professorships at universities across the world and published extensively on philosophy, theology and African oral traditions. Mbiti's seminal book, African Religions and Philosophy (1969), was the first work to challenge Christian assumption that traditional African religious ideas were "demonic and anti-Christian". His sympathetic treatment of traditional religions was based on massive field work. Mbiti is clear that his interpretation of these religions is from a firmly Christian perspective, and this aspect of his work has sometimes been severely criticized. Mbiti's research interests include theology in Africa and Asia, and ecumenism. He has also collaborated on a book of African proverbs, collected from across the continent. As of 2005, Mbiti is an Emeritus professor at the University of Bern and parish minister to the town of Burgdorf, Switzerland. He is married to Verena Mbiti-Siegenthaler and has four children.
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Mbiti, John S. Introduction to African Religion - 2nd Edition. Oxford. 1991. Heinemann. 0435940023. 216 pages. paperback. Cover design by Vinston Bair.
DESCRIPTION- Introduction to African Religion, is an essential introduction to the study of the riches of African heritage and will be invaluable in schools, colleges, libraries or for home use, throughout the world. In the light of new knowledge and the ever-increasing interest in African religions, this popular introduction has now been revised and updated to include: a section on African proverbs showing the religious and ethical insights in sayings handed down through the oral tradition; new photographs reflecting the spread of African religions across the African continent; a fully expanded reading list.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Canon Professor John Mbiti, an Anglican priest from Kenya, taught Theology and Religion for many years at Makerere University in Uganda. After that he served as Director of the Ecumenical Institute Bossey, of the World Council of Churches near Geneva, Switzerland. He has been visiting professor at many universities in Europe, America, Canada and Australia and has travelled widely in many countries. Professor Mbiti has published over 400 articles, reviews and books on theology, religion, philosophy and literature. Currently he is part-time professor at the University of Bern, and parish minister in Burgdorf, Switzerland. He is married to Verena and they have four children: Kyeni, Maria, Esther and Kavata.
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Melber, Henning. Dag Hammarskjold, the United Nations, and the Decolonisation of Africa. New York. 2019. Oxford University Press. 9780190087562. 296 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- In 1953 Dag Hammarskjold became the second Secretary-General of the United Nations--the highest international civil servant. Before his mission was cut short by a 1961 plane crash in then Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), he used his office to act on the basis of anti-hegemonic values, including solidarity and recognition of otherness. The dubious circumstances of Hammarskjold's death have received much attention, including a new official investigation, but have perhaps overshadowed his diplomatic legacy--one that has often been hotly contested. Henning Melber explores the years of African decolonization during which Hammarskjold was in office, investigating the scope and limits of his influence within the context of global governance. He paints a picture of a man with strong guiding principles, but limited room for maneuver, colliding with the essential interests of the big powers as the 'wind of change' blew over the African continent. His book is a critical contribution to the study of international politics and the role of the UN in the Cold War. It is also a tribute to the achievements of a cosmopolitan Swede.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Henning Melber is Director Emeritus of The Dag Hammarskjold Foundation and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London. He is also President of the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes, and Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria's Department of Political Sciences and at the University of the Free State's Centre for Africa Studies.
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Miller, James E. Jr. / O'Neal, Robert / McDonnell, Helen M. (editors). Black African Voices. Glenview. 1970. Scott Foresman. Paperback Original. 431 pages. paperback. Cover; Jimoh Bujraimoh: Bead work on cloth (oshogbo0.
DESCRIPTION- CONTENTS: Introductory Essay; Africa of My Grandmother's Singing: Curving Rhythms by Wilfred G. O. Cartey; Peter Abrahams / South Africa THE BLACKS (essay) from TELL FREEDOM (autobiography); Assoi Adiko / Ivory Coast THE DANCER (poem); Anonymous / Ghana ANANSI'S FISHING EXPEDITION (tale); Anonymous / Sudan SONG OF A MOTHER TO HER FIRST-BORN (poem); Anonymous / Ethiopia JUSTICE (tale); Anonymous / Ghana TALK (tale); Anonymous / Liberia HOW HAWK LEARNED OF THE SHALLOW HEARTS OF MEN (tale); Anonymous / Liberia HOW THE WORLD CHANGED (tale); Anonymous / Zanzibar SONG OF THE POOR MAN (poem); Anonymous / Nigeria THE TALKING SKULL (tale); Anonymous Four Tales From Togoland (tales) - THE EYE OF THE GIANT, THE SINGING CLOAK, THE GOURD FULL OF WISDOM, THE HUNTER WHO HUNTS NO MORE; R. E. G. Armattoe / Ghana THE LONELY SOUL (poem); J. Benibengor Blay / Ghana FUNERAL OF A WHALE (essay); J. P. Clark / Nigeria NIGHT RAIN (poem) and GIRL BATHING (poem); Bernard DadiE / Ivory Coast MEN OF ALL CONTINENTS (poem); Birago Diop / Senegal TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD (tale), THE WAGES OF GOOD (tale), FOREFATHERS (poem); David Diop / Senegal AFRICA (poem), LISTEN COMRADES (poem), HE WHO HAS LOST ALL (poem), YOUR PRESENCE (poem), DEFIANCE AGAINST FORCE (poem); R. Sarif Easmon / Sierra Leone THE FEUD (novella); C. O. D. Ekwensi / Nigeria RITUAL MURDER (short story), THE LAW OF THE GRAZING FIELDS (short story); D. O. Fagunwa / Nigeria THE FOREST OF THE LORD (novel excerpt); Alfred Hutchinson / South Africa ABOARD AN AFRICAN TRAIN (nonfiction); Kalungano / Mozambique DREAM OF THE BLACK MOTHER (poem); Jomo Kenyatta / Kenya THE GENTLEMEN OF THE JUNGLE (tale); Camara Laye / Guinea from THE AFRICAN CHILD (autobiography); Matei Markwei / Ghana LIFE IN OUR VILLAGE (poem); Tsegaye Gabre Medhen / Ethiopia HOME-COMING SON (poem); William Modisane / South Africa THE DIGNITY OF BEGGING (short story); Ezekiel Mphahlele / South Africa THE MASTER OF DOORNVLEI (short story); Abioseh Nicol / Sierra Leone LIFE IS SWEET AT KUMANSENU (short story); Rui Nogar / Mozambique POEM OF THE CONSCRIPTED WARRIOR (poem); Grace A. Ogot / Kenya THE RAIN CAME (short story); Lenrie Peters / Gambia HOMECOMING (poem), PARACHUTE (poem); Richard Rive / South Africa AFRICAN SONG (short story), NO ROOM AT SOLITAIRE (short story); James D. Rubadiri / Malawi STANLEY MEETS MUTESA (poem); Mabel Segun THE PIGEON-HOLE (poem), CONFLICT (poem); LEopold SEdar Senghor / Senegal PRAYER TO THE MASKS (poem), NIGHT OF SINE (poem), BE NOT AMAZED (poem); Wole Soyinka / Nigeria FADO SINGER (poem), SEASON (poem), I THINK IT RAINS (poem); Efua T. Sutherland / Ghana EDUFA (drama); Tshakatumba / Republic of the Congo MESSAGE TO MPUTU ANTOINETTE, GIRL OF THE BUSH, FRIEND OF MY CHILDHOOD (poem); Amos Tutuola / Nigeria ANIMAL THAT DIED BUT HIS EYES STILL ALIVE (tale), DON'T PAY BAD FOR BAD (tale); Discussion Questions; Biographies of Authors; Pronunciation Key; Index of Authors and Titles.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - JAMES E. MILLER, JR. was Professor of English, University of Chicago. He was awarded a Fulbright to Italy, 1958-1959, and is the author of Quests Surd and Absurd: Essays in American Literature, and other works. ROBERT O'NEAL was Professor and Chairman of the English Department, San Antonio College, and author of Teachers' Guide to World Literature for the High School and has been a contributor of articles to numerous professional publications. HELEN M. McDONNELL was Chairman, English Department, Ocean Township High School, Oakhurst, New Jersey, and a contributor of articles to many professional publications.
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Moore, Gerald and Beier, Ulli (editors). Modern Poetry From Africa. Baltimore. 1963. Penguin Books. 192 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- ‘LEWIS NKOSI, the South African journalist, wrote recently in the Observer,' Black consciousness really begins with the shock of discovery that one is not only black but is also non-white.' The resonance of this remark extends in many directions and will find its peculiar echoes in many situations. The black South African makes this discovery through being utterly rejected by a hostile white-dominated society. But his particular plight, tragic enough in itself, is not of much significance so far as the origin of the following poems is concerned. The discovery may, however, be made in utterly different circumstances. The French African made it precisely because of his acceptance - on certain terms - by a metropolitan white society. This society was quite prepared to forgive him his colour just so long as he would clothe it decently in the culture, religion, and manners of a Western civilization. The effect of this approach was to force upon him a reappraisal of what it meant to be a non-white in such a situation. Had his colour really no more significance than this? Was he not, after all, rather a black man existing in his own rich if ruined world than a non-white entering on sufferance into another? Thus the effect of the policy of assimilation was to turn the attention of the assimile back upon the one factor which the colonizer wanted him to forget - his blackness. Smothered by the paternal embrace of metropolitan culture, he escaped from it to examine his own with fresh eyes and new understanding.' - from the Introduction by the Editors. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - ULLI BEIER, having acted as a catalyst in the publication of Nigerian writers and the showing of Nigerian artists, is now in charge of the teaching of literature in English in the University of Papua and New Guinea. He was the editor of Black Orpheus and was a founder of the Mbari Clubs of Ibadan and Oshogbo. His publications are numerous, vital and important.
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Moore, Gerald and Beier, Ulli (editors). The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry: Fourth Edition. New York. 2007. Penguin Books. 9780140424720. Introduction by Ulli Beier. 448 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- A new edition of the definitive collection of modern poetry from Africa "Poetry, always foremost of the arts in traditional Africa," writes Gerald Moore, "has continued to compete for primacy against the newer forms of prose fiction and theatre drama." Now revised and expanded, this comprehensive anthology features the work of ninety-nine poets from twenty-seven countries; thirty-one of the poets appear here for the first time. War songs, satires, and political protests jostle with poems about love, nature, and the surprises of life, offering a rich and wide-ranging body of creative work.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Gerald Moore (born 1924) is an independent scholar living in Worthing, England. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He has taught at many universities, including Sussex, Hong Kong, Makerere, Ife, Port Harcourt, Jos and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His last teaching post was at Trieste. He is primarily a scholar of contemporary African anglophone and francophone poetry. With Ulli Beier, he edited the influential Modern Poetry from Africa (1963), a comprehensive anthology, republished in 1984 as The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry.
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Moore, Gerald. Seven African Writers. London. 1966. Oxford University Press. 108 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- There has been since the war a flowering of African creative writing in both French and English. The seven authors who are the subjects of this critical study are the poets Senghor (now President of Senegal) and Diop and the novelists Laye, Tutola, Achebe, Mphahlele and Beti. The book includes a detailed bibliography which has been brought up to date for this corrected reprint. 'Gerald Moore, who is perhaps Britain's leading authority on African writing, comes to his task with quiet enthusiasm, reflection, and warmth. Never does he approach his subject with the dry detachment and pedantic grandiloquence which mar so much literary criticism these days. He enters instead into the ‘worlds' created by these writers, observing them from within.' Mbella Sonne Dipoko in Africa Report New York. Gerald Moore was born in London in 1924 and educated at Cambridge University. In 1953 he went to Nigeria to work as an extra-mural tutor in the Ibo country. His interest in African literature dates from those years. In 1956 he went to Hong Kong University as their first director of extra-mural studies, but in 1960 he returned to Africa to direct the extra-mural department at Makerere College in Uganda. He is a member of the Committee of Black Orpheus, the Journal of African and Afro-Asian Literature, and has written regularly for this and other journals devoted to African writing. Together with Ulli Beier he has collected Modern Poetry from Africa (Penguin). He is now lecturing in African literature at the University of Sussex.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Gerald Moore (born 1924) is an independent scholar living in Worthing, England. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He has taught at many universities, including Sussex, Hong Kong, Makerere, Ife, Port Harcourt, Jos and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His last teaching post was at Trieste. He is primarily a scholar of contemporary African anglophone and francophone poetry. With Ulli Beier, he edited the influential Modern Poetry from Africa (1963), a comprehensive anthology, republished in 1984 as The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry.
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Morel, E. D. King Leopold’s Rule in Africa. New York. 1905. Funk & Wagnalls Company. With Fold-Out Map In the Back. 466 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Leopold II (9 April 1835 - 17 December 1909) was the second king of the Belgians. Born in Brussels the second (but eldest surviving) son of Leopold I and Louise-Marie of OrlEans, he succeeded his father to the throne on 17 December 1865 and remained king until his death. Leopold is chiefly remembered as the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State, a private project undertaken by the King. He used Henry Morton Stanley to help him lay claim to the Congo, an area now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Powers at the Berlin Conference agreed to set up the Free State in 1885, on the condition that the inhabitants were to be brought into the modern world and that all nations be allowed to trade freely. From the beginning, however, Leopold essentially ignored these conditions and ran the Congo brutally, by proxy through a mercenary force, for his own personal gain. He extracted a personal fortune from the Congo, initially by the collection of ivory, and after a rise in the price of rubber in the 1890s by forcing the native population to collect sap from rubber plants. His harsh regime was directly or indirectly responsible for the death of millions of people. The Congo became one of the most infamous international scandals of the early 20th century, and Leopold was ultimately forced to relinquish control of it to the government of Belgium. Leopold fervently believed that overseas colonies were the key to a country's greatness, and he worked tirelessly to acquire colonial territory for Belgium. Neither the Belgian people nor the Belgian government was interested, however, and Leopold eventually began trying to acquire a colony in his private capacity as an ordinary citizen. The Belgian government lent him money for this venture. After a number of unsuccessful schemes for colonies in Africa or Asia, in 1876 he organized a private holding company disguised as an international scientific and philanthropic association, which he called the International African Society. In 1878, under the auspices of the holding company, he hired the famous explorer Henry Morton Stanley to establish a colony in the Congo region.[3] Much diplomatic maneuvering resulted in the Berlin Conference of 1884–85, at which representatives of fourteen European countries and the United States recognized Leopold as sovereign of most of the area he and Stanley had laid claim to. On 5 February 1885, the result was the Congo Free State (later becoming, successively, the Belgian Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Zaire, and now the Democratic Republic of the Congo or DRC - not to be confused with Republic of the Congo formerly owned by France), an area 76 times larger than Belgium, which Leopold was free to rule as a personal domain through his private army, the Force Publique. The first economic focus of the colony was ivory, but this did not yield the expected levels of revenue. When the global demand for rubber exploded, attention shifted to the labor-intensive collection of sap from rubber plants. Abandoning the promises of the Berlin Conference in the late 1890s, the Free State government restricted foreign access and extorted forced labor from the natives. The abuses suffered were horrific, especially in the rubber industry, and included the effective enslavement of the native population, savage beatings, widespread killing, and frequent mutilation when the unrealistic quotas were not met. Missionary John Harris of Baringa, for example, was so shocked by what he had come across that he wrote to Leopold's chief agent in the Congo saying: ‘I have just returned from a journey inland to the village of Insongo Mboyo. The abject misery and utter abandon is positively indescribable. I was so moved, Your Excellency, by the people's stories that I took the liberty of promising them that in future you will only kill them for crimes they commit.' Estimates of the death toll range from two million to fifteen million. Determining precisely how many people died is next to impossible as accurate records were not kept. Louis and Stengers state that population figures at the start of Leopold's control are only ‘wild guesses', while E.D. Morel's attempt and others at coming to a figure for population losses were ‘but figments of the imagination' Adam Hochschild devotes a chapter of his book, KING LEOPOLD'S GHOST, to the problem of estimating the death toll. He cites several recent lines of investigation, by anthropologist Jan Vansina and others, examining local sources from police records, religious records, oral traditions, genealogies, personal diaries, and ‘many others', which generally agree with the assessment of the 1919 Belgian government commission: roughly half the population perished during the Free State period. Since the first official census by the Belgian authorities in 1924 put the population at about 10 million, that implies a rough estimate of 10 million dead.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Edmund Dene Morel, originally Georges Eduard Pierre Achille Morel de Ville (10 July 1873 - 12 November 1924), was a British journalist, author, pacifist, and politician. In collaboration with Roger Casement, Morel led a campaign against slavery in the Congo Free State, founding the Congo Reform Association and running the West African Mail. He played a significant role in the British pacifist movement during the First World War, participating in the foundation and becoming secretary of the Union of Democratic Control, at which point he broke with the Liberal Party. After the war he joined the Independent Labour Party. Bertrand Russell said of Morel, "No other man known to me has had the same heroic simplicity in pursuing and proclaiming political truth."
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Morel, E. D. The Black Man's Burden: The White Man in Africa From the Fifteenth Century to World War I. New York. 1969. Monthly Review Press. 241 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- In the first decades of this century, Edmund Morel was one of the world's outstanding authorities on Africa. ‘No living man,' wrote the British Nation, ‘has, by pen and voice alone, done so much to influence the destinies of Africa,' and the London Times credited his ' 'untiring industry' as ‘the most important factor in awakening both public and official opinion to the monstrous iniquity. perpetrated with ever-increasing cynicism and effrontery in the Congo Basin.' The first publication in 1920 of this book was thus an important event, and for at least two decades thereafter it remained a prime source of education and influence in the field of African history. Long out of print, its republication in this edition makes available a compact and authoritative history of the white man's invasion of black Africa. Morel reviews the history of each area of Africa, and describes the methods and techniques used by Western civilization to exterminate, enslave, and exploit the black populations and their cultures during five centuries. Accounts of the history of the slave trade, of Rhodesia, Morocco, Tripoli, the Congo, Angola, and other African regions provide an indispensable background for current events in those areas. After introductory sections and a brief history of the slave trade, the author divides his narrative into three main sections: ‘Episodes in the Struggle for the Soil,' ‘Episodes in the Establishment of Political Control,' and ‘Episodes in Capitalistic Exploitation.' While revolutionary trends in Africa since World War Il have far transcended Morel's reform proposals and his appeal to the conscience of white Europeans, his history and appreciation of the problems of Africa have become more timely than ever.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Edmund Dene Morel, originally Georges Eduard Pierre Achille Morel de Ville (10 July 1873 - 12 November 1924), was a British journalist, author, pacifist, and politician. In collaboration with Roger Casement, Morel led a campaign against slavery in the Congo Free State, founding the Congo Reform Association and running the West African Mail. He played a significant role in the British pacifist movement during the First World War, participating in the foundation and becoming secretary of the Union of Democratic Control, at which point he broke with the Liberal Party. After the war he joined the Independent Labour Party. Bertrand Russell said of Morel, "No other man known to me has had the same heroic simplicity in pursuing and proclaiming political truth."
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Mortimer, Mildred. Journeys Through the French African Novel. Portsmouth. 1990. Heinemann. 0435080423. 240 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Examining a group of representative texts, Mildred Mortimer raises the question: Why the preeminence of outer and inner (spatial and spiritual) voyages in the francophone African novel? Rooted in both the African oral tradition and the European novel, the journey motif that emerges in francophone African literature not only reflects cultural blending but also attests to African reality with its history of migration, exploration, and conquest. This book focuses on three factors that had not previously been studied in relation to one another: the importance of orature to African writing; literary bonds across the Sahara (links between Maghrebian and Sub-Saharan African fiction); and the distinction between men's and women's journeys. Mortimer traces these elements in the novel of initiation from Camara Laye's classic autobiography, L'Enfant noir, to LEila Sebbar's ShErazade. Although separated by gender and generation, these texts share a quest for lucidity and self-definition and come to grips with the problem of synthesizing two cultures, one dominant, the other marginalized. In the chapters that treat African women's fiction, Mortimer discerns increased movement of women into public space, a trajectory that is confirmed by self-expression both in the spoken and the written word, one that signals progressive liberation from the constraints of patriarchy. In addition to posing one dialectic, male versus female journeys, Mortimer's close reading of more than a dozen works discovers several: individual versus collective, inner versus outer, successful versus thwarted journeys. The emphasis is on process rather than product. Hence, the experience (physical, psychological, spiritual) rather than the destination engages the author and provides the reader with a productive approach to contemporary francophone African fiction. Contents: From the Colonialist to the African Novel (Joseph Conrad, Camara Laye); Cultural Conflict During the 1950s and 1960s (Mongo Beti, Cheikh Hamidou Kane); Catalyst for Change (Ousmane SembEne, Kateb Yacine); Independence Acquired - Hope or Disillusionment? (Ahmadou Kourouma, Mouloud Mammeri); Women's Voice (Mariama Bå, Assia Djebar); Women's Flight (Ken Bugul, LEila Sebbar).
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mildred Mortimer is Associate Professor of French and French African Literature at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her published works include Contes africains, Mouloud Mammeri, Ecrivain algErien, Assia Djebar, and numerous articles on francophone African fiction.
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Mphahlele, Ezekiel (editor). African Writing Today. Baltimore. 1967. Penguin Books. 347 pages. paperback. 2520. Cover design by John Sewell.
DESCRIPTION- Foreigners still begin at Calais for most English-speaking readers. Air travel and telstar may have reduced distances but how many of use despite the speed of modern communications, can name the dominant literary figures of contemporary European, African, or American countries? Or are familiar with what is being thought or written in these areas? We are isolated. And complacent. This new Penguin series is designed to break this sound-barrier of inertia, language, culture, and tradition. African Writing Today provides a cross-section (in translation, where necessary) of recent African work in English, French, and Portuguese from the following countries: Angola, Cameroun, Congo, Dahomey, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Moqambique, Nigeria, Ruanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa. Editor: Ezekiel Mphahlele. CONTENTS: Introduction; NIGERIA - Chinua Achebe - Extract from Arrow of God; Cyprian Ekwensi - Night of Freedom; Wole Soyinka - Extract from The Swamp / Dwellers / Requiem; Amos Tutuola - Extract from My Life in the Bush of Ghosts; Onuora Nzekwu - Extract from Blade Among the Boys; SIERRA LEONE - Abioseh Nicol - Life is Sweet at Kumansenu; Sarif Easmon - Bindeh's Gift; GHANA - Kwesi Brew - The Harvest; Christina Ama Ata Aidoo - The Message; George Awoonor-Williams - Rediscovery: KENYA - Kuldip Sondhi - Bad Blood; Joseph E. Kariuki - New Life; Grace Ogot - Tekayo; CONGO (Brazzaville) - Felix Tchikaya U'Tam'si - Presence; Sylvain Bemba - The Dark Room; CONGO (Leopoldville) - Antoine-Roger Bolamba - A Fisfful of News; RUANDA - Jean-Baptiste Mutabaruka - Song of the Drum; SENEGAL - Birago Diop - The Wages of Good; David Diop - To the Mystery-mongers; Ousmane SocE - Extract from Karim; Joseph Zobel - Flowers ! Lovely Flowers !; LEopold SEdar Senghor - Death of the Princess / Negro Mask; GUINEA - Camara Laye - Extract from The Radiance of the King; CAMEROUN - Mbella Sonne Dipoko - Autobiography / Love; Ferdinand Oyono - Extract from The Old Negro and the Medal; IVORY COAST - AkE Loba - Extract from Kocoumbo, The Black Student; DAHOMEY - Paulin Joachim - Burial; Jean Pliya - The Fetish Tree; GAMBIA - Lenrie Peters - 'After they put down their overalls'; SOUTH AFRICA - Ezekiel Mphahlele - Remarks on NEgritude / Extract from An African Autobiography; Richard Rive - Dagga-Smoker's Dream; Alex La Guma - Blankets; Can Themba - The Urchin; Dennjs Brutus - 'Let not this plunder be misconstrued'; Todd Matshikiza - Extract from Chocolates for My Wife; Mazisi Kunene - Universal Love; Lewis Nkosi - The Prisoner; ANGOLA - Agostinho Neto - Friend Mussunda; MOCAMBIQUE - J. Craveirinha - Poem of the Future Citizen / Song of the Negro on the Ferry; Luis Bernardo Honwana - Dina; Kalungano - Dream of the Black Mother; Rui Nogar - Poem of the Conscripted Warrior; Biographical Notes on authors.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Es'kia Mphahlele (December 17, 1919 - October 27, 2008) was a South African writer, academic, artist and activist. He was born as Ezekiel Mphahlele but changed his name to Es'kia in 1977. Mphahlele's first book of short stories, MAN MUST LIVE, was published in 1947. Banned from teaching by the apartheid government in 1951, Mphahlele supported himself and his family through a series of clerical jobs before leaving South Africa to teach in the British Protectorate of Basutoland. On his return to South Africa, Mphahlele soon found a job as a political reporter, sub-editor and fiction editor on the innovative popular magazine Drum, under its editors Anthony Sampson and later under Sylvester Stein, while studying for a Master's degree by correspondence at UNISA (The University of South Africa). Es'kia Mphahlele's life and work is currently found in the efforts of The Es'kia Institute, a non-governmental, non-profit organization based in Johannesburg. During the 1950s Mphahlele became increasingly politicized, and joined the African National Congress in 1955. Disappointed in ANC approach to matters of education - he later disassociated himself from the organization. In 1957, Mphahlele was offered a job teaching in a Church Mission Society school in Lagos, Nigeria. Unwilling to permit him to travel abroad because of his political activities, the South African government finally granted him a passport in September 1957. Mphahlele spent the following twenty years in exile: first in Nigeria, and subsequently in Kenya, where he was director of the Chemchemi Cultural Centre; Zambia; France and the United States, where he earned a doctoral degree from the University of Denver and taught at the University of Pennsylvania. Mphahlele returned to South Africa in 1977 and joined the faculty of the University of the Witwatersrand.
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Ndigirigi, Gichingiri (editor). Unmasking the African Dictator: Essays on Postcolonial African Literature. Knoxville. 2014. University of Tennessee Press. 9781621900559. 6’x 9’. Tennessee Studies in Literature, Volume 46. 312 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Kelly Gray.
DESCRIPTION- With A Foreword By Ngugi Wa Thiong'o. In Africa, the development of ‘dictatorship fiction' as a vehicle for depicting the authoritarian state arose more slowly than in other parts of the world. The dictator novel emerged earlier in Latin America, as the region's anticolonial disengagement preceded that of Africa. Thus, the Latin American variant of this literary genre has been extensively studied, but until now there has been no comparable exploration of the fictional and dramatic representations of tyrannical regimes in Africa. In Unmasking the African Dictator, Gchingiri Ndigirigi redresses that imbalance with a collection of essays that fully examine the figure of the ‘Big Man' in African arts. This volume features twelve articles from both established and emerging scholars who undertake representative readings of the African despot in fiction, drama, films, and music. Arranged chronologically, these essays cover postcolonial realities in a wide range of countries: Mali, Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal, the Congo, Nigeria, the Central African Republic, Somalia, Kenya, and Uganda. Included here are a variety of voices that illuminate the different aspects of dictator fiction in Africa and in the process enrich our understanding of the continent's literature, politics, and culture. This work features a foreword by formerly exiled Kenyan novelist, poet, and critic Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Ndigirigi's own extended introduction reviews the overarching themes found in the collection and summarizes each of the artistic works being examined while placing the individual essays in context. A pioneering study, Unmasking the African Dictator examines the works of several major authors of dictator fictions like Achebe, Ngugi, Farah, and Tamsi, among others. It is an ideal resource for both undergraduate and graduate courses on African literature, culture, and politics.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Gchingiri Ndigirigi is an associate professor of English at the University of Tennessee. He is the author of Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Drama and the Popular Theater Experiment.
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Newell, Stephanie. Readings in African Popular Fiction. Bloomington/Oxford. 2002. Indiana University Press/James Currey. 0253215102. 206 pages. paperback. Front cover: main picture O Bailey's African History Archives.
DESCRIPTION- 'This is a rich and intelligently conceived anthology. substantially extends both the areas of African writing usually available to students and scholars interested in African writing, and also the understanding of popular literature. the examples presented here demonstrate that 'subaltern voices' so often assumed to be silent or suppressed can be heard loud and clear Tone cares to locate oneself outside Western academies and networks. It will be an essential resource for scholars interested in African writing and culture, and more generally in postcolonial studies.' - Lyn Innes, Professor of Postcolonial Literature, University of Kent at Canterbury 'I know of no other book like this one and it provides an introduction to an extremely important but ignored cultural phenomenon an important field of African creative writing that has been invisible for the most part in North America and Europe. The range of articles examining the reading practices of the majority of Africans on the continent forces a reconsideration of the idea of ‘African Literature'.' - Eileen Julien, Professor of Comparative Literature and African Studies, Indiana University. In association with the International African Institute. CONTENTS: STEPHANIE NEWELL / Introduction; 1. West African Popular Fiction - GRAHAM FURNISS / Hausa Creative Writing in the 1930s: An Exploration in Postcolonial Theory; BRIAN LARKIN / Indian Films & Nigerian Lovers: Media & the Creation of Parallel Modernities; Primary Text I - Excerpts from Balaraba Ramat Yakubu / Alhaki Kwikwiyo translated from Hausa; DONATUS NWOGA / Onitsha Market Literature; DON DODSON / The Role of the Publisher in Onitsha Market Literature; Primary Text 2 - Reproduction of J.C. Anorue / How to Become Rich & Avoid Poverty; MISTY BASTIAN / Irregular Visitors: Narratives About Spirit Children in Southern Nigerian Popular Writing; ALAIN RICARD / Felix Couchoro: Pioneer of Popular Writing in West Africa?; RICHARD BJORNSON / Writing & Popular Culture in Cameroon; IME IKIDDEH / The Character of Popular Fiction in Ghana; 2. East African Popular Fiction - RAOUL GRANQVIST / Storylines, Spellbinders & Heartbeats: Decentring the African Oral - Popular Discourse; BERNTH LINDFORS / Romances for the Office Worker: Aubrey Kalitera & Malawi's White-Collar Reading Public; BODIL FOLKE FREDERIKSEN / Joe, the Sweetest Reading in Africa: Documentation & Discussion of a Popular Magazine in Kenya; Primary Text 3 - Cartoons, Stories & Covers from Joe magazine; NICI NELSON / Representations of Men & Women, City & Town in Kenyan Novels of the 1970s & 1980s; Primary Text 4 - Excerpts from Charles Mangua Son of Woman; J. ROGER KURTZ & ROBERT M. KURTZ / Language & Ideology in Postcolonial Kenyan Literature: The Case of David Maillu's Macaronic Fiction; Primary Text 5 - Excerpts from Ben R. Mtobwa / Dar es Salaam Usiku translated from Swahili; 3. Southern African Popular Fiction - NJABULO NDEBELE / Rediscovery of the Ordinary; MICHAEL CHAPMAN / African Popular Fiction: Consideration of a Category; PAUL GREADY / The Sophiatown Writers of the Fifties: The Unreal Reality of their World; DOROTHY DRIVER / Drum magazine (1951-9) & the Spatial Configurations of Gender; Primary Text 6 - Facsimiles of Front Covers, Articles, Letters & Advertisements from Drum magazine, 1952-5; ROGER FIELD / La Guma's Little Libby: The Adventures of Liberation Chabalala; Primary Text 7 - Little Libby Comic Strips by Alex la Guma; SARAH NUTTALL / Reading Lives; LINDY STIEBEL / Black 'Tecs: Popular Crime Thrillers by South African Black Writers in the Nineties; Primary Text 8 - Excerpts from Gomolemo Mokae / The Secret in my Bosom.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Stephanie Newell's research focuses on media audiences in colonial West Africa and creative writing as articulated through local print cultures, including newspapers, pamphlets, novels, and magazines. She is especially interested in the cultural histories of printing and reading in Africa, and the spaces for local creativity and subversive resistance in colonial-era newspapers. Her current book project, Newsprint Worlds: Local Literary Creativity in Colonial West Africa, focuses on the central role of African-owned newspapers in creating platforms and publics for the earliest West African creative writers in English.
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Newitt, Malyn. The Zambezi: A History. New York. 2022. Oxford University Press. 9781787387003. 424 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- The Zambezi is the fourth-longest river in Africa, and one of the continent's principal arteries of movement, migration, conquest and commerce. In this book, historian Malyn Newitt quotes rarely used Portuguese sources that throw vivid light on the culture of the river peoples and their relations with the Portuguese creole society of the prazos. Hitherto unused manuscript material illustrates Portuguese and British colonial rule over the people of the long-lived Lunda kingdoms, and the Lozi of the Barotse Floodplain. The Zambezi became a war zone during the 'Scramble for Africa', the struggle for independence and the civil wars that followed the departure of colonial powers. Recent history has also seen the river's wild nature tamed by the introduction of steamers and the building of bridges and dams. These developments have changed the character of the waterway, and impacted-often drastically-the ecological systems of the valley and those settled along its course. The Zambezi traces the history of the communities that have lived along this great river; their relationship with the states formed on the high veldt; and the ways they have adapted to the vagaries of the Zambezi itself, with its annual floods, turbulent rapids and dramatic gorges.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Malyn Newitt was deputy vice-chancellor of the University of Exeter, and the first holder of the Charles Boxer Chair, King's College London. He has authored more than twenty books on Portugal and Portuguese colonial history, including A Short History of Mozambique and Emigration and the Sea.
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Nolen, Barbara (editor). Africa Is Thunder and Wonder: Contemporary Voices from African Literature. New York. 1972. Scribners. 0684127261. Introduction by Abioseh Nicol. 272 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration from Wagogo Music Couple by K. Francis Msangi.
DESCRIPTION- The thunder and wonder that are Africa flash through these pages, illumining a broad cross-section of political, linguistic, and ethnic groups, highlighting an entire continent in the contemporary writings which have emerged from an ancient tradition of oral literature. The Africans have always been good storytellers; here they prove that the art of telling a good story serves our present as well as their past. Among the authors represented are LEopold Senghor, Bessie Head, Jomo Kenyatta. Many who have achieved a notable success were until now unavailable in U.S. imprints. Their stories, poems, and folktales reflect the love and hate, good and evil, humor and tragedy, the social and political conflict that are the abiding concern of important literature wherever it happens. But the voices of contemporary Africa also speak, with pride and understanding, of their own particularities, of old tribal ways and the challenges of the new, and dwell on the intimate details of daily life: the torrential downpours of the rainy season, the heat of the Harmattan, the city and country, the ordinary man, woman, child, and the extraordinary world of spirits next door to this. An informative preface to each selection helps the reader to view the author in the perspective of a triumphantly vital land of literature. As Dr. Nicol states in his introduction: The wonder and thunder of the African scene must be understood because of the increasingly important role that Africa is now playing in world affairs. And it is clear that a most useful introduction to the mind of the modern African can be found in his literature. The great opportunities for self-government and self-expression have gone hand-in-hand, amply reflected in the wide variety of imaginative and realistic writing included in this anthology. Africa Is Thunder and Wonder is illustrated by contemporary artists whose work exemplifies the best views from the ‘eyes' of a generation that speaks in the literary selections. Biographical notes about the artists are included. CONTENTS: Mother Africa. Africa's plea / Roland Tombekai Dempster -- Dry your tears, Africa / Bernard DadiE -- Africa, my Africa / David Diop -- Prayer to our masks / LEopold SEdar Senghor -- Kenya our motherland / John Mbiti -- The meaning of Africa / Abioseh Nicol. The world of spirits. My mother was a witch / D.O. Fagunwa and Wole Soyinka -- The fetish child / Samuel Asare Konadu -- Hausa tales. The man with the ugly wife ; The severed head / translated by H.A.S. Johnston -- Chief Sekota holds court / Bessie Head -- How a devil danced to death / A. Doris Banks Henries -- The television-handed ghostess / Amos Tutuola -- I see a lonely dead / Prince Modupe -- Images of death. The god of war (from the Yoruba tribe) ; The sorrow of Kodio (from the BaulE tribe) ; Death (from the Kuba tribe). Village voices. Sons of Africa. Coming of age / John S. Kado ; Out of disaster / R. Lucy Kuria -- Exile / Alhaji Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa -- The old man of Usumbura and his misery / Taban Lo Liyong -- Tekayo / Grace Ogot -- Chief priest of Ulu / Chinua Achebe -- The geography lesson / Mongo Beti -- My husband's tongue is bitter / Okot P'bitek -- The untilled field / Joseph Waiguru -- Three Soussou tales. The sweetest thing ; The moon ; The well -- The winner / Barbara Kimenye -- The epic of Liyongo / Muhammed Kijuma. People of the city. In the streets of Accra / Andrwe Amakwa Opoku -- The crooks / Gabriel Okara -- A day off / Anthony M. Hokororo -- With strings / Kuldip Sondhi -- The truly married woman / Abioseh Nicol -- The invitation / T.M. Aluko -- The suitcase / Ezekiel Mphahlele -- Coin diver / Cyprian Ekwensi -- The apprentices / Sembene Ousmane -- Guest of Chief Nanga / Chinua Achebe -- Butcherboy / Alex La Guma. The African personality. Parable of the eagle / James E.K. Aggrey -- The African abroad / William Conton -- Sundiata, hero-king of old Mali / D.T. Niane -- Master of ceremonies / Camara Laye -- The man who shared his hut / Jomo Kenyatta -- Call to the people / Peter Abrahams.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Barbara Nolen (1902-2003) was a literary editor who also wrote books about Africa and Mexico.
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Nwoga, Donatus Ibe (editor). West African Verse: An Anthology. London. 1969. Longmans. 243 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- This selection from the work of twenty West African poets, from the pioneers to the present day, and including translations from the French, has been chosen and annotated with a particu1ar view to the needs and interests, of secondary students, especially those preparing for the West African General Certificate of Education and School Certificate examination in English. ‘. a breakthrough in West African criticism. The introductory notes and analyses of the poems, lucidly presented, make this anthology an informative and enjoyable collection for the general reader interested in African poetry as well as for students who are to study the poems for examinations.' - West African Journal of Education.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Donatus Nwoga (30 July 1933 – 1991) was a poetry critic and professor of African literature at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Nwoga was from Mbaise in Imo State, Nigeria. He studied at St Brigid's School, Ahiara. In the 1950s, Nwoga studied at the University of London and then at Queen's University Belfast, where he attended classes with the poet Seamus Heaney. Nwoga was a founding editor of the student magazine Gorgon and likely the first person to publish Heaney's work. Nwoga and Romanus Egudu researched Igbo poetry and published a collection of translated into English. Nwoga taught with Chinua Achebe in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He was a member of organisations including the African Literature Association, the International African Institute, the Association for Commonwealth Language and Literature Studies, and The Folklore Society. Nwoga was the author of West African Verse: An Anthology, and Poetic Heritage: Igbo Traditional Verse, among other publications. Following Nwoga's death in 1991, Heaney wrote a tribute to him titled "A Dog Was Crying Tonight in Wicklow Also". The Institute of African Studies at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, launched a Dictionary of Igbo Proverbs in Nwoga's honour. A memorial lecture was in Nwoga's name was created at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.In the opening remarks of the 2020 lecture, Dean of the Faculty of Arts Nnanyelugo Okoro described Nwoga as "a humanist and intellectual elephant.
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Nyabola, Nanjala. Strange and Difficult Times: Notes on a Global Pandemic. New York. 2022. Oxford University Press. 9781787387805. 224 pages. paperback. Cover image: Galal Yousif, ‘Walk of Life’, Ink on paper, 2018.
DESCRIPTION- We had hoped that we lived in a world that would rally in the face of a common threat. Instead, we found that the collective good is abandoned for the economic and political benefit of a handful of people, and nationalist myths of exceptionalism rob billions of their right to survive. Strange and Difficult Times is a new essay collection looking at the biases, assumptions and moral failures in Western responses (both individual and collective, psychological and practical) to the 'crises' of the early twenty-first century. Nanjala Nyabola focusses on the big crisis of the current moment, Covid-19, and the world that it may leave in its wake. Condemning the ways in which the pandemic has exacerbated global inequalities, she argues against the lazy lens that attributes agency to the West and subjecthood to Africans and others in the Global South-drawing all of the aspects of the pandemic together into one structurally racist and ethically indifferent political and economic order. This is the Global South writing back against a system that wasn't designed to include or benefit it, in the voice of a representative with a keen understanding and first-hand experience of living and thinking within that system. Nyabola offers reflections on the future of the state, the purpose of government and the dangers of post-truth democracy. She presents the deepening of inequality via the 'new normal' of the 'post-Covid world', but which is in fact divided into societies that are post-Covid and those that have not been permitted to protect themselves and recover. And she takes a historical look at how African countries, governments, peoples and individuals have been treated and written about during past pandemics, including HIV/AIDS in the 80s and 90s, Ebola in the 2010s, and Spanish flu a century ago.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Nanjala Nyabola is a writer and political analyst based in Nairobi, Kenya. Her work focuses on the intersection between technology and politics, as well as migration and human mobility. A constant traveler, at the time of writing she has visited over seventy countries across four continents.
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Nyabola, Nanjala. Travelling While Black: Essays Inspired by a Life on the Move. New York. 2021. Oxford University Press. 9781787383821. 264 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- What does it feel like to move through a world designed to limit and exclude you? What are the joys and pains of holidays for people of colour, when guidebooks are never written with them in mind? How are black lives today impacted by the othering legacy of colonial cultures and policies? What can travel tell us about our sense of self, of home, of belonging and identity? Why has the world order become hostile to human mobility, as old as humanity itself, when more people are on the move than ever? Nanjala Nyabola is constantly exploring the world, working with migrants and confronting complex realities challenging common assumptions - both hers and others'. From Nepal to Botswana, Sicily to Haiti, New York to Nairobi, her sharp, humane essays ask tough questions and offer surprising, deeply shocking and sometimes funny answers. It is time we saw the world through her eyes.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Nanjala Nyabola is a writer and political analyst based in Nairobi, Kenya. Her work focuses on the intersection between technology and politics, as well as migration and human mobility. A constant traveller, at the time of writing she has visited over seventy countries across four continents.
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Obradovic, Nadezda (editor). Looking For a Rain God: An Anthology of Contemporary African Short Stories. New York. 1990. Fireside/Simon & Schuster. 0671701797. 284 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Corsillo/Manzone. Jacket illustration by George Corsillo.
DESCRIPTION- The Nobel Prize for Literature awarded in 1986 to Wole Soyinka of Nigeria was a clear signal that the work of African writers is becoming more and more recognized and celebrated throughout the world. Others, like Chinua Achebe and Bessie Head, have played major roles in popularizing African literature in the United States, and now their work and the work of twenty-four other established and emerging literary giants is in this anthology of twenty-six short stories. The represent all four corners of the continent, from Zimbabwe and Nigeria to Uganda and Sudan. They are men and women from varying cultures and circumstances, showcasing the enormous cultural mosaic of a rich and varied continent as well as their talents. This anthology, intended both for the initiated scholars of African literature and even more for general readers, assembles some of the most representative short stories written in English by Africans. It is a stunning collection of literary treasures that covers a wide range of topics - from madness to traditional customs to political oppression. Looking for a Rain God is must reading for anyone studying African culture, or who is interested in fine short fiction and in the human condition.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Nadezda Obradovic (January 6, 1936, Belgrade, Serbia - 2004, Belgrade, Serbia) was a Serbian-Yugoslavian translator.
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Okpaku, Joseph (editor). New African Literature and the Arts 2. New York. 1970. Thomas Y. Crowell in association with The Third Press. 251 pages. paperback. A-273. Cover design by Judith Woracek Barry. Front Cover: Depressed by Alirwana Mügalula Mukiibi.
DESCRIPTION- An African poet weeps for a black American child lynched in Mississippi. An anonymous pamphleteer of the Onitsha marketplace puts Shakespeare in the mouth of Lumumba: ‘I would care to inform you,' he tells Tshombe, ‘that the evil men do lives after them.' And a woman of Nigeria says of Biafra, 'We bleed we bleed /. We heard the echo before the voice.' NEW AFRICAN LITERATURE AND THE ARTS in its second volume broadens the spectrum and historical perspective of the first. Short stories, poetry, drama, and art combine in an anthology that reflects the current views and conflicts of the African people. Again as in Volume I the emerging African artist and writer is introduced and interpreted by qualified non-Africans to help orient the American readers. The question Of identity, between the old tribal and the new independence, appears in story and critique. A review of four Ghanaian novels cites the disillusion when tribal tradition is broken by the onset of Western educational values; one of the novels supports, lyrically, the validity of tribal and village customs. In a critique of THINGS FALL APART, however, by the Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, the inflexibly tribal protagonist becomes a spiritual outcast, lost to the old and incapable of the new, ‘outside the wall' at his death. The rising maturity of the African artist and the contribution of his indigenous vision make of this anthology a key to the history and culture of a changing African image and the emerging African continent.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - JOSEPH OKPAKU, editor of the New African Literature and the Arts, is a Nigerian playwright and engineer, and the most controversial young African critic today. After receiving a B.S. from Northwestern University and an M. S. from Stanford University, he completed studies for his Ph.D in theater at Stanford in 1968. He is the author of the BBC prize-winning play ‘Virtues of Adultery'; of the short novel Linder the Iroko Tree, which appeared in the Literary Review; of Nigeria-Biafra: Dilemma of Nationhood, a book on the Nigerian civil war; and co-author of Verdict: The Exclusive Picture Story of the Trial of the Chicago Eight. He is also president and executive publisher of The Third Press in New York, the first major black-owned trade book house.
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Oliver, Roland and Fage, J. D. A Short History of Africa. Baltimore. 1965. Penguin Books. 280 pages. paperback. AP2.
DESCRIPTION- The twentieth century, with its wars and revolutions, has shifted the centre of the world. For five hundred years before, the contending states of Europe had stretched across the seas, planting colonies, grasping materials and markets, transforming or destroying whole civilizations in their economic advance. Throughout these five hundred years, they radiated outwards, into the surrounding world. They saw history as they affected it, not as a process of which they were merely a part. With their mastery of the sea and the superior technology of their industrial growth, they erected Western civilization - Christian was an optional epithet - into an over-riding value. And then the centre shifted. Japan borrowed their technology ‘(to become the first imperial power outside the European consensus since Islam had burst suddenly out of the desert more than a thousand years before. Within a mere seventy years, vast legions of Africa and Asia shook off the political grasp of the West. Peking and New Delhi, Cairo and Accra joined London and Paris, Lisbon and New York as international capitals. With the shift in power has come too a shift in history. Asia has always been granted - however condescendingly - a history beyond European intrusion. But Africa was a dark continent, lit only by the flashes of foreign penetration. This is no longer so. The changes in political power have corrected the vision of a European-centred world. And research itself has excavated civilizations that had been beyond Europe's reach and so beyond her recognition. Africa has had its own rich sweep of events, outside those which European conquest and settlement have recorded. The era of European dominance is short even within the thin margin of human history. Long before, in the evolution of man himself, Africa had helped shape history. And while the centres of European culture flourished, decayed, and sprouted in then- turn, empires in Africa rose, ruled, resisted, and succumbed. Scholars studied and disputed in Timbuctu as in Paris, and what the Italians accomplished with pigment, the artists of Benin achieved with bronze. The cultures were different, but only on the horizontal. The vertical, the separation into superior and inferior, was a product of conquest. Much of Africa's past has now been excavated from ignorance and error. Yet the study of African history has hardly begun. Those who have undertaken it are the explorers of an unknown human heritage. Then discoveries are of much more than African moment. They must enrich man everywhere. - from the Foreword by Ronald Segal.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Roland Anthony Oliver (30 March 1923 - 9 February 2014) was an Indian-born English academic and Emeritus Professor of African history at the University of London. Throughout a long career he was an eminent researcher, writer, teacher, administrator and organiser, who had a profound effect on the development of African Studies in the United Kingdom. Oliver was born in Srinagar, Kashmir, India in 1923. Following his undergraduate and doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge between 1941 and 1948, Roland Oliver joined the staff of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, where he was successively Lecturer, Reader and Professor until his retirement in 1986. His appointment as a Lecturer in African history marked the beginnings of the contemporary academic field of African history. The African History Seminar that he founded and chaired at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) became the most important venue for the advancement of the academic discipline of African history anywhere in the world, and has profoundly influenced all subsequent scholarship on the subject. He travelled extensively throughout Africa in 1949-50 and 1957-58 and visited the continent almost every year since then. In 1953, 1957 and 1961 he organised international conferences on African history and archaeology, which did much to establish the subject as an academic discipline. He was a founding editor, with John Fage, in 1960 of the Journal of African History and, again with John Fage, in 1960 of the Cambridge History of Africa which appeared in eight volumes between 1975 and 1986. In 1963, he carried out a survey of 250 working Africanist academics in the United Kingdom and founded the African Studies Association of the UK (ASAUK) itself. He became its fourth President in 1966-67. Oliver was Visiting Professor at the University of Brussels (1961), Northwestern University (1962), and Harvard University (1967). From 1979 to 1993 he was president of the British Institute in Eastern Africa. The Cambridge History of Africa, and his influential Oxford History of East Africa, were produced in a decade between the late 1970s and late 1980s. These histories recognised and celebrated the long, rich history of Africa, which for the first half of the 20th Century was previously thought by historians to have only a history "created" by white travellers, administrators and settlers. In 2004, Oliver was awarded the Distinguished Africanist Award of the African Studies Association of the UK (ASAUK) and in 1993 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. He died on 9 February 2014 at the age of 90 in Frilsham, Berkshire, England. John Donnelly Fage (3 June 1921 - 6 August 2002) was a British historian. He was noted for his work on African history. Fage was born in 1921 in Teddington, Middlesex, England. He attended Cambridge University (Magdalene College) for his undergraduate studies, Master's and Ph.D. (1949, The achievement of self-government in southern Rhodesia, 1898–1923). After his post-graduate studies, Fage joined the newly founded University of Gold Coast (now University of Ghana) at Accra, which was formed under the Asquith Commission and had a 'scheme of special relationship' with the University of London. He spent a decade here (1949–1959), developing his interest in the history of Western Africa, and particularly the African Slave Trade, on which he was to publish extensively over the coming decade. The University started facing funding problems after 1955, and many of the senior Cambridge staff left. In 1957, after Ghana gained independence, he was appointed its Deputy Principal. However, in 1959 he returned to Britain to join the School of Oriental and African Studies (1959–1963) and then the University of Birmingham, where he founded the Centre of West African Studies (CWAS). Here he spent two very productive decades (1963–1984), holding several senior administrative posts including Vice-Principal (1981–1984). Fage's early work includes: Introduction to the History of West Africa (Cambridge University Press 1955, three editions), which was rewritten as A History of West Africa: An introductory survey (Cambridge U.P. 1969). His An Atlas of African History (London: Edward Arnold 1958) is a widely known reference (2nd ed. 1978). The ambitious 600-page A History of Africa (London: Hutchinson 1978), covers the entire continent from the Neolithic to the late twentieth century, was widely referenced (4th ed. Routledge 2002). In a long collaboration with Roland Oliver (who was his contemporary at Cambridge and visited him in Ghana), he founded the Journal of African History, and also edited the authoritative eight-volume Cambridge history of Africa, (1975 to 1986). Their Short History of Africa (Penguin 1962) ran to six editions (1988), and has been translated into twelve languages. Fage died, aged 81, at Machynlleth, Wales.
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Ortzen, Len (editor and translator). North African Writing. London. 1970. Heinemann. 0435900730. African Writers Series. Selected, translated, and with an introduction by Len Ortzen. 134 pages. hardcover. AWS73. Cover illustration by Nejib Belkhodja.
DESCRIPTION- In Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia a school of writers has developed over the last twenty years. They have been widely published in France, but their work has only occasionally been published in English translation in such journals as Black Orpheus and The London Magazine. This selection will thus provide, with the help of Len Ortzen's valuable introduction, a sample of some of North Africa's best writing. The Algerian war has obviously been a powerful influence on several of these writers; but all of them have a common urge to express the aspirations, bewilderment and resentment of their fellow countrymen in the period of decolonisation.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Len Ortzen (18 December 1912 – 15 January 1979) was an English writer and translator from French. Ortzen grew up in the East End of London, and his first novel, Down Donkey Row (1938), was appreciatively reviewed by Hugh Massingham as 'a picture, at once faithful and amusing, of the East End'. However, his second novel was not so well-received, and thereafter Ortzen stuck to translation and writing non-fiction. In the late 1930s he had moved to Paris, and after the war he and his wife ran a guest house in Brittany.
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Otele, Olivette. African Europeans: An Untold History. New York. 2021. Basic Books. 9781541619678. 507 pages. hardcover. Jacket image: Portrait of a Young Woman, Museum purchase, Saint Louis Art Museum.
DESCRIPTION- A dazzling history of Africans in Europe, revealing their unacknowledged role in shaping the continent Conventional wisdom holds that Africans are only a recent presence in Europe. But in African Europeans, renowned historian Olivette Otele debunks this and uncovers a long history of Europeans of African descent. From the third century, when the Egyptian Saint Maurice became the leader of a Roman legion, all the way up to the present, Otele explores encounters between those defined as "Africans" and those called "Europeans." She gives equal attention to the most prominent figures - like Alessandro de Medici, the first duke of Florence thought to have been born to a free African woman in a Roman village - and the untold stories - like the lives of dual-heritage families in Europe's coastal
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Olivette Otele is professor of the history of slavery at the University of Bristol and vice president of the Royal Historical Society. She is the first Black woman to be appointed to a professorial chair in history in the UK, and her writing has appeared in the Guardian, BBC Extra, and Times Higher Education. She lives in the UK.
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Padmore, George. The Life and Struggles of Negro Toilers. London. 1931. R.I.L.U. Magazine. 126 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- George Padmore's first major work appeared at this time, Life and Struggle of Negro Toilers, which dealt in some depth with working conditions of blacks around the world. Steeped as he was in Communist ideology, he was very critical of black leaders whom he considered of bourgeois inclination, such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey, and the political leadership of Liberia and Ethiopia.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - George Padmore (28 June 1903 - 23 September 1959), born Malcolm Ivan Meredith Nurse in Trinidad, was a leading Pan-Africanist, journalist, and author who left Trinidad in 1924 to study in the United States and from there moved to the Soviet Union, Germany, and France, before settling in London and, toward the end of his life, Accra, Ghana. Malcolm Ivan Meredith Nurse, better known by his pseudonym George Padmore, was born on 28 June 1903 in Arouca District, Tacarigua, Trinidad, then part of the British West Indies. His paternal great-grandfather was an Asante warrior who was taken prisoner and sold into slavery at Barbados, where his grandfather was born. His father, James Hubert Alfonso Nurse, was a local schoolmaster who had married Anna Susanna Symister of Antigua, a naturalist. Nurse attended Tranquillity School in Port of Spain, before going to St Mary's College for two years (1914 and 1915). He then transferred to the Pamphylian High School, graduating from there in 1918, after which he worked as a reporter with the Trinidad Publishing Company. In 1924, he travelled to the USA to take up medical studies at Fisk University in Tennessee. He had married earlier that year and his wife Julia Semper would later join him in America, leaving behind their daughter Blyden, who was born in 1925 and according to Nurse's instruction was named in honour of the African nationalist Edward Blyden. Nurse subsequently registered at New York University but soon transferred to Howard University. During his college years Nurse became involved with the Workers (Communist) Party and when engaged in party business adopted the name George Padmore (compounding the Christian name of his father-in-law, Constabulary Sergeant-Major George Semper, and the surname of the friend who had been his best man, Errol Padmore). Padmore officially joined the Communist Party in 1927 and was active in its mass organization targeted to black Americans, the American Negro Labor Congress. In March 1929 Padmore was a fraternal (non-voting) delegate to the 6th National Convention of the CPUSA, held in New York City. Padmore, an energetic worker and prolific writer, was tapped by Communist Party trade union leader William Z. Foster as a rising star and was taken to Moscow to deliver a report on the formation of the Trade Union Unity League to the Communist International later in 1929. Following the delivery of his report, Padmore was asked to stay on in Moscow to head the Negro Bureau of the Red International of Labour Unions (Profintern). He was even elected to the Moscow City Soviet, an institution roughly equivalent to city councils in the west. As head of the Profintern's Negro Bureau Padmore helped to produce pamphlet literature and contributed articles to Moscow's English-language newspaper, the Moscow Daily News. He was also used periodically as a courier of funds from Moscow to various foreign Communist Parties. As a deputy of the Moscow soviet, Padmore had served on the commission to investigate the [1930 racial] assault on [Robert] Robinson [in Stalingrad]. Even after he had renounced Communism in the mid-1930s, Padmore continued until his death in 1959 to cite the trial of Robinson's assailants as evidence that the USSR was the only country that had effectively eradicated racial discrimination. --The Human Tradition in the Black Atlantic, 1500-2000, p. 142, Meredith L. Roman. Rowman & Littlefield (November 16, 2009), ISBN 0742567303. In July 1930, Padmore was instrumental in organizing an international conference in Hamburg, Germany which launched a Comintern-backed international organization of black labour organizations called the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers (ITUCNW). Padmore lived in Vienna, Austria during this time, where he edited the monthly publication of the new group, The Negro Worker. In 1931, Padmore moved to Hamburg and accelerated his writing output, continuing to produce the ITUCNW magazine and writing more than 20 pamphlets in a single year. This German interlude came to an abrupt close by the middle of 1933, however, as the offices of the Negro Worker were ransacked by ultra-nationalist gangs following the Nazi seizure of power. Padmore was deported to England by the German government, while the Comintern placed the ITUCNW and its Negro Worker on hiatus in August 1933. Disillusioned by what he perceived as the Comintern's flagging support for the cause of the independence of colonial peoples in favor of the Soviet Union's pursuit of diplomatic alliances with the colonial powers themselves, Padmore abruptly severed his connection with the ITUCNW late in the summer of 1933. He was called upon by the Comintern's disciplinary body, the International Control Commission (ICC), to explain his unauthorized action. When he refused to do so, the ICC expelled him from the Communist movement on 23 February 1934. A phase of Padmore's political journey was at an end. One consequence of the time Padmore spent in the Soviet Union was an end of his time as a resident of the United States. As a non-citizen and a communist, Padmore was effectively barred from reentry to America once he had departed. Alienated from Stalinism, Padmore nevertheless remained a socialist and sought new ways to work for African independence from imperial rule. Relocating in France where he had an ally from his Comintern days, Garan KouyatE, Padmore set to work on a book -- How Britain Rules Africa. With the help of former heiress Nancy Cunard, he found a London agent and, eventually, a publisher (Wishart), which brought the book out in 1936, the year the publisher became Communist publishers Lawrence and Wishart. It was a time when publication of books by black men was rare in the United Kingdom. A Swiss publisher distributed a German translation in Germany. In 1934 Padmore moved to London, where he became the centre of a community of writers dedicated to pan-Africanism and African independence. His boyhood friend C. L. R. James was already there, writing and publishing, and had started International African Friends of Ethiopia in response to Italy's invasion of Ethiopia. That organization morphed into the International African Service Bureau (IASB), which became a centre for African and Caribbean intellectuals' anti-colonial activity. Padmore was chair, the Barbadian trade unionist Chris Braithwaite was its organising secretary, and James edited its periodical, International African Opinion, while an energetic British Guianese named Ras Makonnen handled the business end. Other key members included Jomo Kenyatta from Kenya and Amy Ashwood Garvey. As Carol Polsgrove has shown in Ending British Rule in Africa: Writers in a Common Cause, Padmore and his allies in the 1930s and 1940s - among them C. L. R. James, Kenya's Jomo Kenyatta, the Gold Coast's Kwame Nkrumah and South Africa's Peter Abrahams - saw publishing as a strategy for political change. They published small periodicals, which were sometimes seized by authorities when they reached the colonies. They published articles in other people's periodicals, for instance, the Independent Labour Party's New Leader. They published pamphlets. They wrote letters to the editor; and, thanks to the support of publisher Fredric Warburg (of Secker & Warburg), they published books. Warburg brought out Padmore's Africa and World Peace (1937), as well as books by both Kenyatta and James. In a Foreword to Africa and World Peace, Labour politician Sir Stafford Cripps wrote: 'George Padmore has performed another great service of enlightenment in this book. The facts he discloses so ruthlessly are undoubtedly unpleasant facts, the story which he tells of the colonization of Africa is sordid in the extreme, but both the facts and the story are true. We have, so many of us, been brought up in the atmosphere of 'the white man's burden', and have had our minds clouded and confused by the continued propaganda for imperialism that we may be almost shocked by this bare and courageous exposure of the great myth of the civilizing mission of western democracies in Africa.' The Biographical Note on the cover describes Padmore as European correspondent for the Pittsburgh Courier, Gold Coast Spectator, African Morning Post, Panama Tribune, Belize Independent and Bantu World. Before World War II, James left for the United States, where he met Kwame Nkrumah, a student from the Gold Coast who studied at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. James gave Nkrumah a letter of introduction to Padmore. When Nkrumah arrived in London in May 1945 intending to study law, Padmore met him at the station. It was the start of a long alliance. Padmore was then organizing the 1945 Manchester Pan-African Congress, attended not only the inner circle of the IASB but also by W. E. B. Du Bois, the American organizer of earlier Pan-African conferences. The Manchester conference helped set the agenda for decolonisation in the post-war period. Padmore used London as his base for over two decades, the flat he shared with his white English domestic partner and co-worker Dorothy Pizer becoming a crossroads for African nationalists. He was an energetic networker, sending articles out to newspapers across the world and maintaining a correspondence with both W. E. B. Du Bois and African-American novelist Richard Wright, then living in Paris. It was at Padmore's urging that Wright travelled to the Gold Coast in 1953 and wrote his book Black Power (1954). Before Wright left the Gold Coast, he gave a confidential report on Nkrumah to the American consul and later reported on Padmore himself to the American Embassy in Paris. According to the embassy's account, Wright said that Nkrumah was relying heavily on Padmore as he made plans for independence.[19] Indeed, the year Black Power came out Padmore was finishing a book that he hoped would be both a history and blueprint for African independence: Pan-Africanism or Communism? - an attempt to counter Cold War ideas of African independence movements as communist-inspired. As independence neared for the Gold Coast, the London community had splintered. In 1956 James had returned from the United States but Padmore and Pizer spoke of him with condescension in letters to Wright. Meanwhile, former Padmore ally Peter Abrahams published a roman à clef entitled A Wreath for Udomo (1956), which contained unflattering portrayals of the members of the London political community of which Abrahams had been a part, among them George Padmore (as the character 'Tom Lanwood'). But Padmore's alliance with Nkrumah held firm. From the time of Nkrumah's return to the Gold Coast in 1947 to lead the independence movement there, Padmore advised him in long detailed letters, wrote dozens of articles for Nkrumah's newspaper, the Accra Evening News, wrote a history of The Gold Coast Revolution (1953), and, with Dorothy Pizer (herself a writer and secretary) encouraged Nkrumah to write his own autobiography, which he did, publishing it in 1957, the year the Gold Coast became independent Ghana. Padmore accepted Nkrumah's invitation to move to Ghana, but his time there as Nkrumah's advisor on African affairs was difficult, and he was talking about leaving Ghana to settle elsewhere when he returned to London for treatment of cirrhosis of the liver. He died on 23 September 1959. A few days later, responding to rumours that he had been poisoned, Pizer typed out a detailed statement about his death, asserting that his liver condition had worsened in the previous nine months, before he sought London treatment from an old physician friend there, and had become serious enough to provoke the haemorrhages that led to his death. After Padmore's death, Nkrumah paid tribute to him in a radio broadcast. 'One day, the whole of Africa will surely be free and united and when the final tale is told, the significance of George Padmore's work will be revealed.' In the Pittsburgh Courier, George Schuyler said Padmore's writings had been 'an inspiration to the men who dreamed of a free Africa'. Padmore's physician friend, Cedric Belfield Clarke, wrote the obituary that ran in The Times, describing Padmore as a writer who wrote books and studied them. After a funeral service at a London crematorium, Padmore's ashes were interred at Christiansborg Castle in Ghana. The ceremony was broadcast in America by NBC television. Staying on in Accra, Dorothy Pizer wrote a preface for a French edition of Pan-Africanism or Communism and began research for a biography of Padmore. However, as she told Nancy Cunard, she was frustrated by his habit of destroying his personal papers and not talking about his past. James, relocated in Port of Spain, Trinidad, wrote a series of articles on Padmore for The Nation and began collecting material for a biography but eventually produced only a slim manuscript, 'Notes on the Life of George Padmore.'. For years he tried to publish his book Nkrumah and the Ghana Revolution; it finally emerged in 1977 (London: Allison and Busby). In it, James omitted any reference to Padmore's own book on the Gold Coast Revolution and in correspondence made clear that he thought Padmore did not understand it. Ras Makonnen, who understood so well the importance of publishing for the movement, brought out his own intimate account of the London-based community around Padmore, Pan-Africanism from Within, in 1973. James R. Hooker's biography of Padmore, Black Revolutionary, appeared in 1967, and Padmore is the central figure of Carol Polsgrove's Ending British Rule in Africa: Writers in a Common Cause, published in 2009. In 1991, John La Rose founded the George Padmore Institute (GPI), based in North London, where educational and cultural activities, including talks and readings, take place. The GPI occasionally publishes relevant materials and is an archive, educational resource and research centre housing materials relating to the black community of Caribbean, African and Asian descent in Britain and continental Europe. La Rose also founded the George Padmore Supplementary School in 1969. On 28 June 2011, the Nubian Jak Community Trust unveiled a blue plaque at Padmore's former address, 22 Cranleigh Street in the London Borough of Camden, in a ceremony addressed by the High Commissioner of Trinidad & Tobago, the High Commissioner of Ghana, the Mayor of Camden, Selma James, Nina Baden-Semper, and others. George Padmore Research Library, in the upscale neighborhood of Ridge, Accra, Ghana is named after him. eorge Padmore Road, situated in a residential area of Nairobi, Kenya, is named after him.
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Pakenham, Thomas. The Scramble For Africa: The White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent From 1876 To 1912. New York. 1991. Random House. 0394515765. 738 pages. hardcover. Jacket photograph: from IN DARKEST AFRICA by H. M. Stanley, 1891. Courtesy of the author. Jacket design: Gun Larson.
DESCRIPTION- The Scramble for Africa is one of the most extraordinary phenomena in history. In 1880 most of the continent was still ruled by its inhabitants and was barely explored. Yet by 1902, five European powers - Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, and Italy - had grabbed almost all of its ten million square miles, awarding themselves thirty new colonies and protectorates, and 110 million bewildered new subjects. The sudden race for African territory swept the political masters of Europe off their feet. The British colonial secretary protested this ‘absurd scramble.' The German chancellor Prince Bismarck, complained that he was being led into a ‘colonial whirl.' The French prime minister called it a ‘steeple chase into the unknown.' Ironically, the provocation for this massive display of greed on the part of the European powers came from the heroic death in 1873 of the missionary-explorer David Livingstone, who had exposed the horrors of the African slave trade then in progress. His call for Africa to be redeemed by the ‘three C's' - Commerce, Christianity and Civilization - was aimed at the conscience of the civilized world. However, the initial response came from rival colonial enthusiasts in Europe. There were journalists like Henry Stanley, mariners like Pierre de Brazza, soldiers like Edward Lugard, pedagogues like Karl Peters, and gold-and-diamond tycoons like Cecil Rhodes. At first the governments of Europe attempted to remain aloof from this race, for there seemed little to gain from the expense of building new empires in the desert or in malarial bush and swamp. But Europe was experiencing a period of economic stagnation, and Black Africa might be - as parts of South Africa had already proven-an El Dorado, a huge new market and tropical treasure house. Soon colonial fever swept the Continent, and the acquisition of overseas empire became identified with national prestige. As the Scramble gathered momentum, a fourth ‘C' - Conquest - became dominant. The Maxim machine -gun, rather than trade or the Cross, became the symbol of the age. In many colonies atrocities were commonplace and Africans were treated no better than animals. At the center of it all, cunningly exploiting the rivalries around him, stood one enigmatic individual controlling the heart of the Dark Continent: Leopold II, king of the Belgians and personal owner of the Congo State. Ten years in the writing, and involving trips to twenty-two African countries as well as extensive research in Britain, France, Belgium and Germany, Thomas Pakenham's tour de force of historical narrative is the first full-scale history of this extraordinary period. Veering between Europe at the height of its power and Africa in its political infancy, covering a vast terrain and including an enormous cast of characters, The Scramble for Africa is as vivid and as fast moving as any novel.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - THOMAS PAKENHAM is the author of THE MOUNTAINS OF RASSELAS, THE YEAR OF LIBERTY and THE BOER WAR. With his wife, the writer Valerie Pakenham, and his four children, he divides his time between a terraced house in North Kensington, London, and a crumbling castle in Ireland.
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Parson, Timothy H. Race, Resistance, and the Boy Scout Movement in British Colonial Africa. Athens. 2004. Ohio University Press. 0821415964. 318 pages. paperback. Cover design by Chiquita Babb.
DESCRIPTION- Conceived by General Sir Robert Baden-Powell as a way to reduce class tensions in Edwardian Britain, scouting evolved into an international youth movement. It offered a vision of romantic outdoor life as a cure for disruption caused by industrialization and urbanization. Scouting's global spread was due to its success in attaching itself to institutions of authority. As a result, scouting has become embroiled in controversies in the civil rights struggle in the American South, in nationalist resistance movements in India, and in the contemporary American debate over gay rights. In RACE, RESISTANCE, AND THE BOY SCOUT MOVEMENT IN BRITISH COLONIAL AFRICA, Timothy Parsons uses scouting as an analytical tool to explore the tensions in colonial society. Introduced by British officials to strengthen their rule, the movement targeted the students, juvenile delinquents, and urban migrants who threatened the social stability of the regime. Yet Africans themselves used scouting to claim the rights of full imperial citizenship. They invoked the Fourth Scout Law, which declared that a scout was a brother to every other scout, to challenge racial discrimination. Parsons shows that African scouting was both an instrument of colonial authority and a subversive challenge to the legitimacy of the British Empire. His study of African scouting demonstrates the implications and far-reaching consequences of colonial authority in all its guises.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Timothy Parsons holds a joint appointment as an associate professor in the history department and the African and Afro-American Studies Program at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the author of The African Rank-and-File: Social Implications of Colonial Military Service in the King's African Rifles, 1902-1964; The 1964 Army Mutinies and the Making of Modern East Africa, and The British Imperial Century, 1815-1914: A World History Perspective.
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Peabody, Rebecca / Nelson, Steven / Thomas, Dominic. Visualizing Empire: Africa, Europe, and the Politics of Representation. Los Angeles. 2021. Getty Research Institute. 9781606066683. Issues & Debates Series. Edited by Rebecca Peabody. 200 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- An exploration of how an official French visual culture normalized France's colonial project and exposed citizens and subjects to racialized ideas of life in the empire. By the end of World War I, having fortified its colonial holdings in the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, the Indian Ocean, and Asia, France had expanded its dominion to the four corners of the earth. This volume examines how an official French visual culture normalized the country's colonial project and exposed citizens and subjects alike to racialized ideas of life in the empire. Essays analyze aspects of colonialism through investigations into the art, popular literature, material culture, film, and exhibitions that represented, celebrated, or were created for France's colonies across the seas. These studies draw from the rich documents and media - photographs, albums, postcards, maps, posters, advertisements, and children's games - related to the nineteenth- and twentieth-century French empire that are held in the Getty Research Institute's Association Connaissance de l'histoire de l'Afrique contemporaine (ACHAC) collections. ACHAC is a consortium of scholars and researchers devoted to exploring and promoting discussions of race, iconography, and the colonial and postcolonial periods of Africa and Europe.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Rebecca Peabody is head of Research Projects and Programs at the Getty Research Institute. Steven Nelson is the incoming dean of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, beginning July 2020. He was previously professor of African and African American art history at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dominic Thomas is Madeleine L. Letessier Professor and chair of the Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.
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Perkins, Kathy A. (editor and introduction). African Women Playwrights. Urbana. 2008. University of Illinois Press. 9780252075735. Foreword by Amandina Lihamda. 6.125 x 9.25 InCHES. 10 PHoTogRAPHS. 384 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- “These plays are fascinating; the plots and characters are varied, interesting, and well developed. Moreover, as the only collection of plays written exclusively by African women, this collection will be immensely appealing to students and scholars of theatre, literature, cultural studies, African studies, and women’s studies, as well as general readers interested in contemporary African plays and playwrights.” —Judith Stephens-Lorenz, editor of The Plays of Georgia Douglas Johnson: From the New Negro Renaissance to the Civil Rights Movement. This anthology consists of nine plays by a diverse group of women from throughout the African continent. The plays focus on a wide range of issues, such as cultural differences, AIDS, female circumcision, women’s rights to higher education, racial and skin color identity, prostitution as a form of survival for young girls, and nonconformist women resisting old traditions. In addition to the plays themselves, this collection includes commentaries by the playwrights on their own plays, and editor Kathy A. Perkins provides additional commentary and a bibliography of published and unpublished plays by African women. The playwrights featured are Ama Ata Aidoo, Violet R. Barungi, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nathalie Etoke, Dania Gurira, Andiah Kisia, Sindiwe Magona, Malika Ndlovu (Lueen Conning), Juliana Okoh, and Nikkole Salter.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kathy A. Perkins is a professor of theatre at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her publications include Black South African Women: An Anthology of Plays, Strange Fruit: Plays on Lynching by American Women, and several other anthologies of plays.
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Pieterse, Cosmo (editor). Five African Plays. London. 1972. Heinemann. 0435901141. African Writers Series. 217 pages. paperback. AWS114.
DESCRIPTION- Contents: Euba, F. Abiku.--Oyono, F. Houseboy.--Bart-Williams, G. The drug.- -Kimmel, H. The cell.--Kay, K. Laughter and hubbub in the house.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Cosmo George Leipoldt Pieterse (born 1930 in Windhoek, Namibia) is a South African playwright, actor, poet, literary critic and anthologist.
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Pieterse, Cosmo (editor). Short African Plays. London. 1972. Heinemann. African Writers Series. paperback. AWS78.
DESCRIPTION- Including: 'Ancestral Power' by Kofi Awoonor; 'Magic Pool' by Kuldip Sondhi; 'God's Deputy' by Sanya Dosunmu; 'Resurrection' by Richard Rive; 'Life Everlasting' by Pat Amadu Maddy; 'Lament' by Kofi Awoonor; 'Ballad of the Cells' by Cosmo Pieterse; 'Overseas' by Mbella Sonne Dipoko; 'This Time Tomorrow' by Ng?g? wa Thiong'o; 'Episodes of an Easter Rising' by David Lytton.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Cosmo George Leipoldt Pieterse (born 1930 in Windhoek, Namibia) is a South African playwright, actor, poet, literary critic and anthologist.
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Pieterse, Cosmo (editor). Ten One-Act Plays. London. 1968. Heinemann. African Writers Series. 309 pages. paperback. AWS34.
DESCRIPTION- Includes 'Encounter' by Kuldip Sondhi; 'Yon Kon' by Pat Maddy; 'The Game' by Femi Euba; 'Blind Cyclos' by Ime Ikeddeh; 'With Strings' by Kuldip Sondhi; 'The Deviant' by Ganesh Bagchi; 'Fusane's Trial' by Alfred Hutchinson; 'The Opportunity' by Arthur Maimane; 'Maama' by Kwesi Kay; and 'The Occupation' by Athol Fugard.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Cosmo George Leipoldt Pieterse (born 1930 in Windhoek, Namibia) is a South African playwright, actor, poet, literary critic and anthologist.
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Procter, James. Scripting Empire: Broadcasting, the BBC, and the Black Atlantic. New York. 2023. Oxford University Press. 9780198894179. Oxford Mid-Century Studies Series. 20 Illustrations. 288 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Scripting Empire recovers the literary and cultural history of West Indian and West African writing at the BBC in order to rethink the critical mid-century decades of shrinking British sovereignty, late modernism, and mass migration to the metropole. Between the 1930s and the 1960s, a remarkable group of black Atlantic artists and intellectuals became producers, editors, and freelancers at the corporation, including Una Marson, Langston Hughes, Louise Bennett, Wole Soyinka, Derek Walcott, Amos Tutuola, V.S. Naipaul, Sam Selvon, Cyprian Ekwensi, Stuart Hall, and C.L.R. James. Operating at the interface of a range of literary and broadcast genres, this loose network of African Caribbean writers and thinkers prompt a reassessment of the aesthetic, formal, and political fallout of decolonization between the outbreak of World War II and the first airings of post-colonial independence. Scripting Empire works comparatively across dozens of different programmes spanning the General Overseas Service, Home Service, Light Programme, and Third Programme. Drawing upon a transnational archive of materials including scripts, correspondence, periodicals, visual records, and sound recordings, it seeks to re-position the cultural contribution of West Indians and West Africans within a more pervasive and porous account of radio transmission, the legacy of which extends well beyond broadcasting.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - James Procter is Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature at Newcastle University. He is the author of Dwelling Places: Postwar Black British Writing (2003), Stuart Hall (2004), co-editor of Reading Across Worlds (2015), Out of Bounds: British Black and Asian Poets (2012), and Postcolonial Audiences: Readers, Viewers and Reception (2013), as well as numerous articles and chapters in leading postcolonial journals and book collections. His current research interests are in radio literature and empire between the 1930s and late 1960s, a project for which he was awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship in 2013-14.
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Reed, John and Wake, Clive (editors and translators). French African Verse. London. 1980. Heinemann. 0435901060. African Writers Series. With English translations by John Reed & Clive Wake. 213 pages. paperback. AWS106. Originally published in the African Writer’s Series in 1972.
DESCRIPTION- Works from contemporary poets of French from Africa.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - John O. Reed (1929 London - 2012 Manchester) was an anthologist and translator of African literature. With Clive Wake he published several anthologies, as well as translations from French of the work of LEopold SEdar Senghor and Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, in Heinemann's African Writers Series. He also translated work by Ferdinand Oyono. Together, they also translated some of the poetry of Yves Bonnefoy in 1967, but these translations were never published. Posthumously, Wake published their introductory essay to these translations online in tribute. John Reed made a journal entry every day of his life in his diaries (now held at Chetham's Library, Manchester) from the age of ten until his death in 2012. For the first years of his life, they offer an insight into the life of a schoolboy during World War Two. After school, Reed recorded the daily details of his National Service. On his discharge, he studied English at Oxford under C.S. Lewis. However, it is his life as a university lecturer in Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) that is perhaps of greatest interest. In 1957 he travelled to Salisbury to take up a teaching post, soon becoming involved in the anti-colonial political struggle, and developing a close friendship with Terence Ranger. The diaries offer a unique insight into the daily lives of those involved in the Liberation movement, and reveal how he was drawn deeper and deeper into what would become a very dark and dangerous situation. He was later forced to leave Rhodesia or face arrest, and took up a professorship at the University of Zambia at Lusaka. There he worked to develop theatre which drew on indigenous traditions and promoted the growth of a new generation of African dramatists. He also taught at universities in China and Japan and upon retirement lived in Manchester, U.K. Clive Wake is a critic, editor and translator of modern African and French literature. Born in Cape Town, Clive Wake studied at Cape Town University and the Sorbonne. He taught at the University of Rhodesia, and the University of Kent at Canterbury, where he is Emeritus Professor of French and African Literature. He served as Lord Mayor of Canterbury for the Liberal Democrats party and was Vice-Chancellor of Chaucer College Canterbury.
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Reed, John and Wake, Clive (editors). A Book of African Verse. London and Ibadan. 1964. Heinemann Educational Books. African Writers Series. 119 pages. paperback. AWS8. Later edition published (1984) as New Book of African Verse.
DESCRIPTION- THIS ANTHOLOGY is a selection of poetry by thirty African poets from eleven countries and includes some translations by the editors of poems originally written in French. Thuthula is a translation into English, by the poet himself, of his original Xhosa poem. This selection is, first and foremost; an introductory anthology for students/young people and others who want to find out to what extent the life and feeling and thought of the- continent are being expressed in poetry. There is a critical introduction, biographical. notes on each poet, and twenty pages of notes on individual poems. All the poems in this book belong to the last thirty years and many of them are written by poets who are still young: Clark, DadiE, Okare, Awoonor-WilIiams, Rubadir. Okigbo, and others. These are set alongside the of poets of an earlier generation such as Senghor, RabEarivelo; and Jolobe.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - JOHN REED and CLIVE WAKE are both on the staff of University College; Salisbury' Southern Rhodesia. John Reed teaches English, and Clive Wake, French. Both have taken a great interest in the writings of African authors, They have travelled widely in Africa and lectured on African literature in universities in Africa and Britain and published articles in several journals in Africa.
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Rickford, Russell. We Are an African People: Independent Education, Black Power, and the Radical Imagination. New York. 2019. Oxford University Press. 9780190055530. 402 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- During the height of the Black Power movement of the late 1960s and 1970s, dozens of Pan African nationalist private schools, from preschools to post-secondary ventures, appeared in urban settings across the United States. The small, independent enterprises were often accused of teaching hate and were routinely harassed by authorities. Yet these institutions served as critical mechanisms for transmitting black consciousness. Founded by activist-intellectuals and other radicalized veterans of the civil rights movement, the schools strove not simply to bolster the academic skills and self-esteem of inner-city African-American youth but also to decolonize minds and foster a vigorous and regenerative sense of African identity. In We Are An African People, historian Russell Rickford traces the intellectual lives of these autonomous black institutions, established dedicated to pursuing the self-determination that the integrationist civil rights movement had failed to provide. Influenced by Third World theorists and anticolonial campaigns, organizers of the schools saw formal education as a means of creating a vanguard of young activists devoted to the struggle for black political sovereignty throughout the world. Most of the institutions were short-lived, and they offered only modest numbers of children a genuine alternative to substandard, inner-city public schools. Yet their stories reveal much about Pan Africanism as a social and intellectual movement and as a key part of an indigenous black nationalism. Rickford uses this largely forgotten movement to explore a particularly fertile period of political, cultural, and social revitalization that strove to revolutionize African American life and envision an alternate society. Reframing the post-civil rights era as a period of innovative organizing, he depicts the prelude to the modern Afrocentric movement and contributes to the ongoing conversation about urban educational reform, race, and identity.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Russell Rickford is Assistant Professor of History at Cornell University. He is the author of Betty Shabazz: Surviving Malcolm X, the co-author of Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English, and the editor of Beyond Boundaries: The Manning Marable Reader.
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Rodney, Walter. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. London/Dar es Salaam. 1973. Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications/Tanzania Publishing House. 316 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- HOW EUROPE UNDERDEVELOPED AFRICA is a major challenge to all of us. It shows a direct correlation between the development of Europe and the underdevelopment of Africa. This book, which is written with the simplicity and clarity characteristic of Rodney's writings, is compulsory reading. This wide-reaching volume shows how Africa developed before the coming of the Europeans up to the 15th century, and shows Africa's contribution to European capitalist development in the pre-colonial period. Colonialism is then shown as a system for under developing Africa. is among the most insightful analysis of the reasons behind the underdevelopment of the African continent. The book is written in a Marxist context. The author demonstrates exceptional analytical depth and critical research into how European colonialism and capitalism were a double edged sword in creating deep rooted underdevelopment of the continent which has been very difficult to uproot. Other publications of the author include A HISTORY OF THE UPPER GUINEA COAST 1545 TO 1800 (The Clarendon Press, London), THE GROUNDINGS WITH MY BROTHERS (Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications, London) and a number of papers in international journals and reviews of African history.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Walter Rodney (March 23, 1942 - June 13, 1980) was a prominent Guyanese historian and political figure. Born to a working class family, Rodney was a bright student, attending Queen's College in Guyana and then attending university on a scholarship at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, graduating in 1963. Walter Rodney earned his PhD in 1966 at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, England. His dissertation focused on the slave trade on the upper Guinea coast. The paper was published in 1970 under the name, A HISTORY OF THE UPPER GUINEA COAST, 1545-1800 and it was widely acclaimed for its originality in challenging the conventional wisdom on the area. He traveled widely and became very well known around the world as an activist and scholar. He taught for a time in Tanzania after graduating, and later in Jamaica at his alma mater - UWI Mona. Rodney was sharply critical of the middle class for its role in the post-independence Caribbean. When the Jamaican government, led by prime minister Hugh Shearer, banned him, in October 1968, from ever returning to the country, because of his advocacy for the working poor in that country, riots broke out, eventually claiming the lives of several people and causing millions of dollars in damages. These riots, which started on October 16, 1968, are now known as the Rodney Riots, and they triggered an increase in political awareness across the Caribbean, especially among the Afrocentric Rastafarian sector of Jamaica, documented in his book, THE GROUNDINGS WITH MY BROTHERS. Rodney became a prominent Pan-Africanist, and was important in the Black Power movement in the Caribbean and North America. While living in Dar es Salaam he was influential in developing a new centre of African learning and discussion. Rodney's most influential book was HOW EUROPE UNDERDEVELOPED AFRICA, published in 1972. In it he described an Africa which had been consciously exploited by European imperialists, leading directly to the modern underdevelopment of most of the continent. The book became enormously influential as well as controversial. In 1974 Rodney returned to Guyana from Tanzania. He was supposed to take a position as a professor at the University of Guyana but the government prevented his appointment. He became increasingly active in politics, forming the Working People's Alliance, against the PNC government. In 1979 he was arrested and charged with arson after two government offices were burned. In 1980, Rodney was killed by a bomb in his car while running for office in Guyanese elections. Rodney was survived by his wife, Pat, and three children. Walter's brother, Donald, who was injured in the explosion, said that a sergeant in the Guyana Defence Force named Gregory Smith had given Rodney the bomb that killed him. Smith fled to French Guiana after the killing, where he died in 2002. Rodney's death was commemorated in a poem by Martin Carter entitled ‘For Walter Rodney'. In 2004, his widow, Patricia, and children donated his papers to the Robert L. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center. Since 2004, an annual Walter Rodney Symposium has been held each 23 March (Rodney's birthday) at the Center under the sponsorship of the Library and the Political Science Department of Clark Atlanta University, and under the patronage of the Rodney family.
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Roland, Joan G. (editor). Africa: The Heritage and the Challenge - An Anthology of African History. New York. 1974. Fawcwett Books. A Fawcett Premier Original. 544 pages. paperback. X634.
DESCRIPTION- Scholarly and popular interest in Africa has blossomed forth in the past decade. This awakening is rooted in the fascination that stems from the emergence of newly independent nations as well as in the realization that a large and vital segment of America's own population traces its heritage back to the African continent. In AFRICA: THE HERITAGE AND. THE CHALLENGE, Professor Joan G. Roland has approached her subject through the writings of those early travelers, slave-traders, missionaries, European officials, and African statesmen, who molded and fashioned Africa's past and present. These selections present to the student a clear and concise portrait of Africa and the issues and problems with which it is faced: cultural identity, Pan-Africanism versus Nationalism, the lingering patterns of colonialism, urbanization, and dislocation, the nagging persistence of racism, and the dangers of dependence upon power blocs for economic assistance. Through ah judicious choice of readings, Professor Roland has created an anthology that both spans and captures the flow of African history
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Joan G. Roland is chair and professor of history at Pace University in New York City. She received her Ph.D. in Middle Eastern History from Columbia University. She began her study of the Jews of India while on a Fulbright Fellowship to India in 1977–1978 and published Jews in British India: Identity in a Colonial Era (University Press of New England: 1989), a second edition of which was updated and published by Transaction Publishers (1998), under the title of The Jewish Communities of India. She is currently working on the integration and adaptation of Indian Jews in Israel, particularly on the preservation and transformation of Bene Israel culture, and has published articles on this topic.
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Romero, Patricia W. (editor). Life Histories of African Women. London/Atlantic Highlands. 1991. Ashfield Press. 0948660058. 200 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- This volume contains seven life histories of African women from different geographical areas and from varying cultural backgrounds. Many of these women's lives were affected by the European colonial presence in Africa, yet others reflect the influence of Islam. By reading them together, one gains insight into the changing ways of traditional society as they affect women. Each life history is introduced by a contributing editor, who brings to bear his or her particular scholarly expertise, as a historian, folklorist, anthropologist or linguist, on the subject each chooses to relate. The contributors include Harold Scheub, Professor of African Languages and Literature, University of Wisconsin; Enid Schildkrout, Curator of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History; Ivor Wilks, Professor of History, Northwestern University; and others.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Patricia W. Romero is Visiting Fellow at Johns Hopkins University.
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Rutherfoord, Peggy (editor). African Voices. New York. 1958. Vanguard Press. 208 pages. hardcover. First published in 1958 under title: Darkness and light.
DESCRIPTION- This work is Africa speaking to Africa and to the world. This anthology is not just about a grumpy, grousing South Africa, but about the whole of Africa: flamboyant West Africa, where men thrust elbows into each other's ribs and laugh broadly over their jokes; East Africa, with its strong Arab influence; traditional Africa, with the funny wisdom that lurks in the antics of animals and the ways of Ju-ju men and witch-doctors. Here are the dreams about the great things that we yet will do; the long dictionary words and the colourful regalia with which we swathe our dark bodies: that is us.Here, Africans are creating out of English a language of their own: a language that thinks in actions, using words that dart back and forth on quick-moving feet, virile, earthy, garrulous. Peggy Rutherfoord has delved deep into the literary store of our black Africa to compile this anthology, which shows us in the many moods that are ours. Somewhere or another on the continent there is a new civilization beginning to appear, a new African culture - there are traces of it here.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY -
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Sanceau, Elaine. The Land of Prester John: A Chronicle of Portuguese Exploration. New York. 1944. Knopf. 243 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by C.B. Falls.
DESCRIPTION- The modern traveller, lolling time at Estoril while waiting for a passage on the Clipper, does not often give much thought to the country he is passing through. A kindly people, and a sunny sky some bathing, and some golf perhaps a smoke less city drenched in light hanging picturesquely from precipitous hills above a broad blue river may well be all that Portugal will stand for in his memory. He is far too apt to for get the world history that was prepared beside these smiling shores. This blue estuary shining in the sun was the highway that first led ships to the worlds end. The simple courteous people that he sees around descend from pioneers. They are a nation that has lived adventurously and made its mark upon the earth. Its traces may be found over four continents. Portugal has had an African adventure, as witnessed by the bat-demented towers she left beside Moroccan beaches, by the names she wrote on the map, and the vast territories of Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea, where she is mistress still. She had an American adventure too, and founded a great nation on the far shore of the Atlantic to grow amid the riches of the forests and the mountains of Brazil Introduction Her Indian adventure can still be traced today by ruined fortresses at all strategic points around the Indian Ocean, and her language is spoken still throughout the Orient where men of Portuguese descent are found among the native races from East Africa to the spice archipelagoes of the Pacific. There was an Abyssinian adventure as well, of which fewer traces remain a sideline it turned out to be and yet in many ways it was the strangest and the most heroic of all. It was not intended as a sideline when first embarked upon quite the contrary. Henry the Navigator and the kings who continued his task looked to the Christian Empire of Ethiopia as the cornerstone of their great enterprise. To understand their dream we must go back to mediaeval times and remember the Holy War waged by Christians against the Moslem hordes, for ever threatening to engulf Europe.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Elaine Sanceau was born in Craydon (England) in 1896 and died in Leça do Balio (Porto, Portugal) on December 23, 1978. She studied in Montreux, Switzerland, but then left with her family to Brazil, where she remained until 1931. Officially recognized as one of the exponents of Portuguese historiography, Elaine Sanceau saw her merits awarded with the "Camões Prize", for the work In Demand of Prester John , published in 1944, and with the decorations of the Orders of Santiago de Espada (1953) and of the Infante D. Henrique (1961). She was also elected as a member of the Institute of Coimbra, the International Academy of Portuguese Culture and the Center for Overseas Studies.
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Scanlon, Paul A. (editor). Stories from Central and Southern Africa. London. 1989. Heinemann. 0435902547. African Writers Series. 207 pages. paperback. AWS254. Cover photograph by George Hallett. Originally published in the AWS series in 1983.
DESCRIPTION- This is a teaching anthology which illustrates the art of short fiction and the short story with examples from Zimbabwe and Malawi, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland as well as from the longer established South African tradition. Professor Scanlon has adopted a broader approach as a result of the experience of teaching in Southern Africa. Includes 'Beggar my neighbour' by Dan Jacobson, 'Kwashiorkor' by Can Themba, 'About a girl who met a dimo' by Susheela Curtis, 'Hajji Musa and the Hindu fire-walker' by Ahmed Essop, 'The sisters' by Pauline Smith, 'Tselane and the giant' by B. L. Leshoai, 'Johannesburg, Johannesburg' by Nathaniel Nakasa, 'Coming of the dry season' by Charles Mungoshi, 'A soldier's embrace' by Nadine Gordimer, 'Witchcraft' by Bessie Head, 'The old woman' by Luis B. Honwana, 'Dopper and Papist' by Herman C. Bosman, 'The dishonest chief' by Ellis Singano and A. A. Roscoe, 'The Soweto bride' by Mbulelo Mzamane, 'A sunrise on the veld' by Doris Lessing, 'The soldier without an ear' by Paul Zeleza, 'Riva' by Richard Rive, 'Sunlight in Trebizond Street' by Alan Paton, 'The Christmas reunion' by Dambudzo Marechera, 'The king of the waters' by A. C. Jordan, 'Power' by Jack Cope, and 'In corner B' by Es'kia (Zeke) Mphahlele.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Paul Scanlon was Head of the Department of English at the University of Botswana and Swaziland. He has also taught in universities in Nigeria, Jamaica, Barbados, Ireland and Canada and is now Professor of English at the University College of Bahrain.
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Schafer, Daniel L. Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley: African Princess, Florida Slave, Plantation Slaveowner. Gainesville. 2018. University Press of Florida. 9780813056531. 6 x 9 | 24 b/w photos, 4 maps. 208 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- “A fascinating look at an extraordinary woman and the complexities of slavery beyond the common image of slavery in the South.” - Booklist. “Remarkable. Put[s] a voice and face to slavery in Florida during Spanish and American rule.” - American Historical Review. “An absorbing account.” - Journal of American History. “Provides insight not only into the life of this remarkable woman but also into the race, class, and gender distinctions of her time.” - Choice. “An excellent biography.” - Florida Historical Quarterly. “A rich and thought-provoking history.” - Southern Historian. In this revised and expanded edition of Anna Kingsley's remarkable life story, Daniel Schafer draws on new discoveries to prove true the longstanding rumors that Anna Madgigine Jai was originally a princess from the royal family of Jolof in Senegal. Captured from her homeland in 1806, she became first an American slave, later a slaveowner, and eventually a central figure in a free black community. Anna Kingsley's story adds a dramatic chapter to the history of the South, the state of Florida, and the African diaspora.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - DANIEL L. SCHAFER is Professor of History Emeritus and University Distinguished Professor at the University of North Florida. He is the author of several books, including Zephaniah Kingsley Jr. and the Atlantic World: Slave Trader, Plantation Owner, Emancipator and Thunder on the River: The Civil War in Northeast Florida.
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Segal, Ronald. African Profiles. Baltimore. 1962. Penguin Books. 352 pages. paperback. AP1.
DESCRIPTION- This is not only a handy reference book of information on Africa's leading personalities, but, at the same time, a readable outline of the history and political structure of all but a handful of minor territories. In short it is the intelligent person's guide to the African continent. Ronald Segal, whose POLITICAL AFRICA quickly established itself as a vital work of reference, here provides an indexed background against which we can evaluate the flood of news coming from Africa. The need for emancipation and unity, which is his basic theme, is supported by detailed analyses of many crucial issues - the crisis in the Congo, Portugal's African empire, the Central African Federation, and apartheid in South Africa. In addition the author makes assessments of Nasser's socialism, Nkrumah's experiments in African leadership, federalism in East Africa, the throne of Morocco, military rule in the Sudan, and democracy in Nigeria.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - South African-born Ronald Segal is the founding editor of the Penguin African Library and the author of fourteen books, including The Crisis of India, The Race War, The Americans, and The Black Diaspora.
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Sergeant, Howard (editor). African Voices. New York. 1973. Lawrence Hill & Company. 0882080164. 156 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- African Voices is an anthology of contemporary African poetry, chosen to illustrate the wide variety and range of the creative talent which has emerged from Africa in the last decade. As the editor, Howard Sergeant, says in his Introduction, 'some of the most interesting and exciting poetry written in English at the present time is coming from Africa. adding a freshness and perhaps even a new dimension to the English language.' His selection includes some of the best examples of the work of major African writers - Wole Soyinka, John Pepper Clark, Christopher Okigbo and Gabriel Okara but he has concentrated primarily on introducing the work of poets who are as yet comparatively little known outside Africa although they are already making a major impact within their own countries. The work of 45 poets is represented, spanning enormous geographical and cultural distances and presenting a unique inside view of the African experience - the injustices of apartheid, the conflicts of adjusting to modern society, the aftermath of the Nigerian Civil War - which is perhaps more revealing than any sociological or historical analysis. Most of the poems can be read on at least two levels, the specifically African and the universally human, for injustice and poverty, the horror and futility of war and the tensions within urban society evoke a response from all readers, whatever their nationality.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Howard Sergeant is the founder and editor of Outposts, the oldest independent poetry magazine to be published in the United Kingdom and one of the first to publish Commonwealth poetry. Reader and Adviser for the annual Gregory Awards, he is also British Commonwealth Editor on the editorial board of Borestone Mountain Poetry Awards, an American trust which makes awards to poets and sponsors an annual anthology. Howard Sergeant - is himself a well-known poet and critic, having published two volumes of his own poems and three volumes of literary criticism.
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Shapiro, Norman R. (translator and editor). Negritude: Black Poetry From Africa and the Caribbean. New York. 1970. October House. 0807901490. Introduction by Wilfred Cartey. 247 pages. hardcover. SHAW535.
DESCRIPTION- Since the thirties, when the cultural aesthetic of the black people of African descent was first given poetic definition and it became acceptable to think and feel and write in the African way, the poets of negritude have been exposing the black soul, reaffirming pride in their heritage. They speak in the French language. They speak for millions of black people from Central Africa to the Caribbean: from the Congos, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Dahomey, Mali, Malagasy, Mauritius, Guinea, Senegal, Somalia, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Haiti, French Guiana. They lament their losses. They cry for revenge. They deride the brutality and immorality of the white man and their own inertia and acceptance. They remember the innocence of their unconquered lands. They vibrate with hope for the future. The poetry mirrors a current mood, yet is widely diverse. The sardonic incisiveness of Leon Damas contrasts with the majestic rhetoric of Leopold Senghor, poet-president of Senegal. The vitriol of Rene Depestre, enfant terrible of Haitian poetry, is distinct from the optimism of Bernard Dadie. And the hermetic visions of Aime Cesaire and Gerald-Felix Tchicaya U Tam'si are far from the lucid, direct appeals to racial pride voiced by Joseph Bognini, Elolongue Epanya Yondo, and many others. The poets in this language, although they live in many different countries, form a community of awareness and, to a certain extent, of ideas and themes. Much of the poetry, presented in the original French with the translations en face, appears for the first time in English.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Norman R. Shapiro was born in Boston. has a dipleme de langue et lettres francais from the University d'Aix-Marseille, and his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from Harvard University. He is currently Associate Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures at Wesleyan University, where he teaches courses in French theatre and poetry. He has been a Fulbright Scholar to France and has worked under a Ford Foundation grant awarded through the National Translation Center at the University of Texas. His translations, articles, and poetry have appeared in various literary publications both in the United States and in France. Wilfred G. Cartey was born in 1931 in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. He has his M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University, He is C Professor of Comparative Literature at City College, Literary Editor of African Forum, and lecturer on African and Caribbean literature and culture to Peace Corps groups. He is the author of THE WEST INDIES: ISLANDS IN THE SUN and WHISPERS FROM A CONTINENT.
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Shelton, Austin J. (editor). The African Assertion: A Critical Anthology of African Literature. New York. 1968. Odyssey Press. 273 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- From the INTRODUCTION - The literature with which this anthology is concerned is sub-saharan African, including selected writings by Africans from Senegal to the Somali Republic and the regions south of this line. It is literature written mainly by Negro Africans of this area, including such variants of "Negro" as Cape Colored, Hova-Imerina, Mestico, and Shirazi. Although some representative works drawn from oral traditions are included, such as Utendi wa Liyongo Fumo, the majority of the selections were written, and almost all of these in a vehicular rather than a vernacular language - that is, in a language which acts as a "vehicle" of communication between groups of people otherwise linguistically separated. To those who might argue that "African literature" must include, if not the writings of Europeans resident in Africa, at least the works of maghrebin and Arab writers, one can only reply that there is no more similarity between Negro and Semite than between Negro and European.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Austin J. Shelton is Professor of African Studies at State University College, New Paltz. He was awarded his bachelor's degree and his doctorate by St. Louis University, where he began his teaching career. He was later a Professor and Assistant Dean at Mercy College, Detroit. As senior lecturer at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, from 1961-64, Professor Shelton was able to make a detailed ethnographical study of the northern Nsukka borderland area, a study which included the Igbo, Igala, and Okpoto peoples and languages.
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Solomon, Barbara H. and Rampone, Reginald W. (editors). An African Quilt: 24 Modern African Stories. New York. 2012. Signet/New American Library. 9780451532039. Introduction by the editors. 400 pages. Library. 3203. Signet Classic original.
DESCRIPTION- Encompassing many different visions of Africa, the stories in this comprehensive collection feature characters struggling to survive grinding poverty, tyrannical governments, cultural upheavals, and disintegrating relationships. Reflecting a continent with a tragic history, An African Quilt depicts a place where even everyday life is extraordinary, and the continent's history changes what it means to be a woman, an employee, a couple, a passerby, and, of course, a citizen. Revealed through the backdrop of postcolonial Africa, the struggles within these stories resonate beyond their context and appeal to every reader's sense of what it means to be human. With Stories by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nadine Gordimer (Winner of the Nobel Prize), Bessie Head, Doris Lessing (Winner of the Nobel Prize), Ngugi wa Thiong'o, and Others.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Barbara H. Solomon is a professor of English and Women's Studies at Iona College. Her major academic interests are twentieth century American and world literature. Among the anthologies she has edited are The Awakening and Selected Stories of Kate Chopin, Other Voices, Other Vistas, Herland and Selected Stories of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and The Haves and Have-Nots. With Eileen Panetta, she has co-edited Once Upon a Childhood, Passages: 24 Modern Indian Stories, and Vampires, Zombies, Werewolves, and Ghosts: 25 Classic Stories of the Supernatural. Prof. W. Reginald Rampone, Jr., is an associate professor of English who has taught at numerous colleges and universities. His research focuses on early modern English literature, especially Shakespeare's plays, and he has published Sexuality in the Age of Shakespeare. He is currently working on a book concerning Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing and a critical edition of Nicholas Goodman's Hollands Leaguer.
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Soyinka, Wole (editor). Poems of Black Africa. New York. 1975. Hill & Wang. 0809077477. 384 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Sigrid Spaeth.
DESCRIPTION- This major collection, spanning the history of African verse from early traditional songs and stories to the present day, not only contains substantial contributions from poets already recognized beyond Africa - such as L. S. Senghor, J. P. Clark, Dennis Brutus, Mazisi Kunene, Christopher Okigbo, Richard Ntiru, Jared Angira, and Wole Soyinka himself - but also introduces the work of poets known only in their own countries. More than seventy poets are represented. ‘This anthology's claim to difference,' writes Wole Soyinka in his frank and incisive introduction, ‘is essentially one of approach.' Poems of Black Africa is organized not by the traditional geographic divisions but into nineteen sections, including ‘Ancestors and Gods,' ‘Exile,' ‘Indictment and Summons,' ‘Mortality,' and ‘Animistic Phases' (a special category including ‘intense, quasi-mystical' poems which, according to Soyinka, represent ‘a poetic sensibility which, a little like the English Metaphysicals, creates a 'spontaneous landscape of disparities' ‘). ‘In selecting the poems by theme,' Soyinka says, ‘my motive is to wean them away from their customary settings of regions, period, style, authorship. History, the contemporary reality, and the vision are the purpose of this anthology: the experience of black Africa in the idiom of the poem.' Includes work by - '
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Akinwande Oluwole 'Wole' Soyinka (born 13 July 1934) is a Nigerian playwright and poet. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first African to be honored. Soyinka was born into a Yoruba family in Abeokuta. After study in Nigeria and the UK, he worked with the Royal Court Theatre in London. He went on to write plays that were produced in both countries, in theatres and on radio. He took an active role in Nigeria's political history and its struggle for independence from Great Britain. In 1965, he seized the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio and broadcast a demand for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional Elections. In 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War, he was arrested by the federal government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for two years. Soyinka has strongly criticised many Nigerian military dictators, especially late General Sanni Abacha, as well as other political tyrannies, including the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe. Much of his writing has been concerned with 'the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the colour of the foot that wears it'. During the regime of General Sani Abacha (1993–98), Soyinka escaped from Nigeria via the 'Nadeco Route' on a motorcycle. Living abroad, mainly in the United States, he was a professor first at Cornell University and then at Emory University in Atlanta, where in 1996 he was appointed Robert W. Woodruff Professor of the Arts. Abacha proclaimed a death sentence against him 'in absentia'. With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in 1999, Soyinka returned to his nation. He has also taught at the universities of Oxford, Harvard and Yale. From 1975 to 1999, he was a Professor of Comparative Literature at the Obafemi Awolowo University, then called the University of Ife. With civilian rule restored in 1999, he was made professor emeritus. Soyinka has been a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In the fall of 2007 he was appointed Professor in Residence at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California, US.
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Stapleton, Chris and May, Chris. African Rock: The Pop Music of a Continent. New York. 1990. Dutton. 0525485546. 373 pages. paperback. Cover design by Melissa Jacoby. Cover photographs (top to bottom): Toure Kunda by A. Barrat, King Sunny Ade by Andy Freeberg, Hugh Masekela by Michael Putland and Miriam Makeba by Paul Rider. All photographs Retna Ltd.
DESCRIPTION- The urban electric music of Africa is the most exciting popular music being played today. This is the story of that music - its roots, its influences, its styles. From highlife to chimurenga, soukous to benga, juju to township pop, each sound is identified and appraised critically. This is also the story of the men and women who make the music of a continent: of Youssou N'Dour, Kassav, Alpha Blondy, Salif Keita and Mory Kante, Sunny Ade, Toure Kunda, and such veterans as Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela. The book also contains chapters on the history of the African record industry and the musical impact of Africa on the West and of the West on Africa, as well as a critical discography and glossary.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Both Chris Stapleton and Chris May lived in Africa for several years. Stapleton (top) was the author of the monthly column Afro-beat for Black Music and Jazz Review, the magazine edited by Chris May from 1980 to 1984, and has contributed to many other magazines. May is the author of several books on music including Bob Marley and Rock and Roll. Both authors live in London.
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Van Sertima, Ivan. They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America. New York. 1976. Random House. 0394402456. 288 pages. hardcover. Jacket Design: Ira Teichberg.
DESCRIPTION- Christopher Columbus is at dinner, intriguing with Don Juan, the King of Portugal, who first tells him of a secret trade route that Africans have been traveling to the New World. The news is easily confirmed by Columbus - because on his second voyage to the Americas the natives described repeatedly to him the black men who traded with them and whose spears were tipped with gold. With this scene, Ivan Van Sertima opens his book and reveals to us a compelling, dramatic and superbly detailed documentation of the presence and legacy of Black Africans in Ancient America. With his considerable scholarship, Mr. Van Sertima examines the facts of navigation and shipbuilding, the sources of latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates, the scores of cultural analogies found nowhere else except in America and Africa, African languages and the transportation of plants, cloth and animals from Africa to the Americas. And from the diaries, letters and journals of the explorers themselves; from Carbon-14 dated sculptures found in the Americas; from Arabic documents, charts, maps; from the recorded tales of the griots to the Kings of Mali; from dated skeletons found as recently as 1975, the author builds his pyramid of evidence. In addition to a scholar's fastidiousness, Mr. Van Sertima has the skill of a novelist, and with it re-creates some of the most powerful scenes history has to offer: the launching of the great ships of Mali in 1310 (200 master boats and 200 supply boats); the sea expedition of the Mandingo king himself in 1311, and many others equally as vivid. It is the marriage of these twin crafts the artist's and the scholar's - in the book that makes it possible for us to see clearly the unmistakable face and handprint of Black Africans in Pre-Columbian America, and their overwhelming impact on the civilization they found here.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ivan Gladstone Van Sertima (26 January 1935 - 25 May 2009) was a Guyanese-born associate professor of Africana Studies at Rutgers University in the United States. He was best known for his Olmec alternative origin speculations, a brand of pre-Columbian contact theory, which he proposed in his book They Came Before Columbus (1976). While his Olmec theory has "spread widely in African American community, both lay and scholarly", it was mostly ignored in Mesoamericanist scholarship, or else dismissed as Afrocentric pseudohistory to the effect of "robbing native American cultures".
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Wells, David / Stevenson, Marjorie / King, David (editors). From Black Africa. New York. 1970. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 015347100x. 183 pages. paperback. Cover - Kuba cloth design, Southern Savannah style region (Congo-Kinshasa).
DESCRIPTION- This anthology of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry brings together selections from the most exciting and distinguished black African authors writing in English. Abioseh Nicol, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka - these are men whose prose~ poetry, and drama reflect the tension that is modern Africa - the unreconciled Old meeting the inevitable New. The words of such men as Jomo Kenyatta and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Albert Luthuli reflect the constant struggle to resolve that tension. The selections - ranging from ancient myths to contemporary short stories - are grouped into five thematic sections to encourage maximum student discussion, insight, comparison, and contrast. These special features follow each selection in From Black Africa: A biography of the author / A glossary of African words and possibly difficult vocabulary / Comprehension questions for practice in literary perception / Discussion questions for depth of meaning and guided practice in generalizing, interpreting, and working with literary methods. The Teacher's Manual, written by Ukandi G. Dimachi, a former secondary school teacher in Nigeria, includes a discussion of each selection, an extensive word list, and an introduction to modern Africa.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY -
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Wilkinson, Jane (editor). Talking With African Writers. Portsmouth. 1992. Heinemann. 0852555296. 224 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Interviews with Kofi Anyidoho, Kofi Awoonor, Mohammed ben Abdallah, Chinua Achebe, Odia Ofeimun, Ben Okri, Wole Soyinka, Micere Githae Mugo, Ngugi wa Thiong o, Mazisi Kunene, Njabulo Ndebele, Essop Patel, Mongane Wally Serote, Tsitsi Dangarembga and Musaemura Bonas Zimunya. Among the subjects discussed in these lively interviews are the role of literary institutions, language policies, the development of written and oral cultures, and the social and political problems of post-colonial Africa.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jane Wilkinson is Lecturer in German at the University of Leeds, UK. She was Chair of the International Association for Languages and Intercultural Communication (IALIC) between 2008 and 2010. Her research focuses on borders and border crossings in contemporary German-speaking culture, and she is the author of Performing the Local and the Global: The Theatre Festivals of Lake Constance (2007) and several articles on cross-border cultural events at the German-Polish border.
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Williams, Susan. Who Killed Hammarskjold?: The UN, the Cold War and White Supremacy in Africa. New York. 2017. Oxford University Press. 9780190873974. 320 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- One of the outstanding mysteries of the twentieth century, and one with huge political resonance, is the death of Dag Hammarskjöld and his UN team in a plane crash in central Africa in 1961. Just minutes after midnight, his aircraft plunged into thick forest in the British colony of Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), abruptly ending his mission to bring peace to the Congo. Across the world, many suspected sabotage, accusing the multi-nationals and the governments of Britain, Belgium, the USA and South Africa of involvement in the disaster. These suspicions have never gone away. British High Commissioner Lord Alport was waiting at the airport when the aircraft crashed nearby. He bizarrely insisted to the airport management that Hammarskjöld had flown elsewhere -- even though his aircraft was reported overhead. This postponed a search for so long that the wreckage of the plane was not found for fifteen hours. White mercenaries were at the airport that night too, including the South African pilot Jerry Puren, whose bombing of Congolese villages led, in his own words, to 'flaming huts. destruction and death'. These soldiers of fortune were backed by Sir Roy Welensky, Prime Minister of the Rhodesian Federation, who was ready to stop at nothing to maintain white rule and thought the United Nations was synonymous with the Nazis. The Rhodesian government conducted an official inquiry, which blamed pilot error. But as this book will show, it was a massive cover-up that suppressed and dismissed a mass of crucial evidence, especially that of African eye-witnesses. A subsequent UN inquiry was unable to rule out foul play - but had no access to the evidence to show how and why. Now, for the first time, this story can be told. Who Killed Hammarskjöld follows the author on her intriguing and often frightening journey of research to Zambia, South Africa, the USA, Sweden, Norway, Britain, France and Belgium, where she unearthed a mass of new and hitherto secret documentary and photographic evidence.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Susan Williams Senior Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. Her books on Africa include Spies in the Congo: The Race for the Ore That Built the Atomic Bomb (2011) and Colour Bar: The Triumph of Seretse Khama and His Nation (2006). In autumn 2016, Pathe released a film based on The Colour Bar under the title A United Kingdom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=url66-67O90, starring David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike.
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Wilson, Lindy / Selassie, Bereket Habte / Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges / Harsch, Ernest. African Leaders of the Twentieth Century: Biko, Selassie, Lumumba, Sankara. Athens. 2172015. Ohio University Press. 9780821421611. Ohio Short Histories of Africa. 624 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- This omnibus edition brings together concise and up-to-date biographies of Steve Biko, Emperor Haile Selassie, Patrice Lumumba, and Thomas Sankara. African Leaders of the Twentieth Century will complement courses in history and political science and serve as a useful collection for the general reader. CONTENTS: Steve Biko, by Lindy Wilson - Steve Biko inspired a generation of black South Africans to claim their true identity and refuse to be a part of their own oppression. This short biography shows how fundamental he was to the reawakening and transformation of South Africa in the second half of the twentieth century and just how relevant he remains; Emperor Haile Selassie, by Bereket Habte Selassie - Emperor Haile Selassie was an iconic figure of the twentieth century, a progressive monarch who ruled Ethiopia from 1916 to 1974. The fascinating story of the emperor¹s life is also the story of modern Ethiopia;Patrice Lumumba, by Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja - Patrice Lumumba was a leader of the independence struggle in what is today the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Decades after his assassination, Lumumba remains one of the heroes of the twentieth-century African independence movement; Thomas Sankara: An African Revolutionary, by Ernest Harsch - Thomas Sankara, often called the African Che Guevara, was president of Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in Africa, until his assassination during the military coup that brought down his government. This is the first English-language book to tell the story of Sankara's life and struggles.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Lindy Wilson is an independent South African documentary filmmaker and writer. Her films include Crossroads, Last Supper in Hortsley Street, and Robben Island Our University. Bereket Habte Selassie is a leading scholar on African law and government. He is William E. Leuchtenburg Professor of African and Afro-American Studies at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and he also instructs at the University of North Carolina School of Law. Dr. Selassie is an activist for reform in Eritrea and a supporter of pan-Africanism. Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja is a professor of African, African American, and diaspora studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and professor emeritus of African studies at Howard University. He is a past president of the African Studies Association and the author of The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People’s History. Ernest Harsch is a research scholar at the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University. He worked on African issues at the United Nations for more than twenty years and is the author of South Africa: White Rule, Black Revolt.
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Zimunya, Musaemura / Porter, Peter/ Anyidoho, Kofi (editors). The Fate of Vultures: New Poetry of Africa. Oxford. 1989. Heinemann. 0435905503. African Writers Series. 126 pages. paperback. Cover design by Carrie Craig.
DESCRIPTION- This selection of poems is from 4500 entries submitted for the 1988 BBC Arts and Africa Poetry Award. The collection reflects the great depth and vigour of contemporary African poetry. CONTENTS: Early Morning City Blues by Ama Asantewa Ababio; We Mothers by Ama Asantewa Ababio; Passover by Alex Agyei-agyiri; To Abuenameh At Four by Funso Aiyejina; Elegy For Oduduwa by Afam Akeh; Mid-year Blues by Afam Akeh; Nectar by Afam Akeh; There Was Thunder Without Rain by Richard Afari Baafour; Waiting For Others by Biyi Bandele-thomas; Cinnamon by Philip Bateman; My Duty by Charles Agboola Bodunde; Prologue by Charles Agboola Bodunde; Second Passage by Charles Agboola Bodunde; Manifesto On Ars Poetica by Frank Mkalawile Chipasula; Poor Old Joe by John Murray Coates; Our Black Stars by James Putsch Commey; Greendale, Harare by Jonathan Cumming; European Effigies by Achmat Dangor; Journey To Glasgow by Achmat Dangor; Places Of Stone by Achmat Dangor; Akosua Oye by Kofi Dondo; Self-portrait by Patrick Ebewo; A Writer's Pains by Godwin Ede; It Is Easy To Forget by Ezenwa-ohaeto; Persecution by Bode-law Faleyimu; Songs Of Abiku by Bode-law Faleyimu; Another Dawn by Francis Faller; The Refugee by Francis Faller; Those Treacherous Words by Francis Faller; They Said I Abused The Government by Femi Fatoba; Fragments by Harry Garuba; The Turn Coat by Arthur K. De Graft-rosenior; The Balancing Rocks by Martin Gwete; Nursery Rhyme After A War by Chenjerai Hove; To The Wielders Of Flags by Chenjerai Hove; Caskets by Esiaba Irobi; Judy by Esiaba Irobi; Soniya by Esiaba Irobi; The First Child by Frederick Bobor James; The Surfer by Beverley Jansen; The Shylock Of The West by Wumi Kaji; Yesterday They Came Again by Ken N. Kamoche; Jacaranda Tree by Lawrence Karanja; The Captain's Daughter by Kolosa Kargbo; How We Lose Them by Kolosa Kargbo; The Beggar's Challenge by Bayo Lawal; Vituperation: Prologue by Bayo Lawal; Ancestor At Eighteen by Manango Lisongwe; Land Of Blood And Fame by Don Mattera; Let The Fire Fall. by Don Mattera; Sunset Over Mparayi by Zondive Mbano; Sankatana by Bennet Leboni Buti Moleko; Flight From The Sun by Lupenga Mphande; Locusts by Lupenga Mphande; Monkey Bay by Edison Mpina; The Fighter by Fekassa Mwada; Dark Blotches On Eyelids by Gichora Mwangi; If by Gichora Mwangi; Waiting (for S) by Gichora Mwangi; African Demagoguery by Crispin Namane; My Hands by Valerie Nkomeshya; Zimbabwe Independence by Pheroze Nowrojee; The Man I Killed by Silas Obadiah; By The Long Road by Walter Odame; Dear Child by Walter Odame; The Fate Of Vultures by Tanure Ojaide; Song For My Land by Tanure Ojaide; Where Everybody Is King by Tanure Ojaide; The Spirit Of My Land by Felicity Atuki Okoth; Oh Africa by Isi Omoifo; Die Poyie-poyie by Thembile Ka Pepeteka; Letter To A College Boy by Sobhna Keshavelal Poona; Pauses And Punctuations by Sobhna Keshavelal Poona; Say No Black Women by Sobhna Keshavelal Poona; Elegy To A Lost Land by Kofi Sam; The Sun Rising, Bishopscourt by Gloria Sandak-lewin; Where Did Aids Come From? by Erasmus Elikplim Forster Senaye; When I Grow Up by Sam Ukala; The Stone by Michael Andrew Wakabi; A Pattern Of Dust by Timothy Wangusa; Law Of The Jungle by Willie T. Zingani.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Musaemura Bonas Zimunya (born 14 November 1949) is one of Zimbabwe's most important contemporary writers. Zimunya was born in Umtali, Rhodesia (now Mutare, Zimbabwe), to Mandiera Watch and Kufera Zimunya. In 1973 he was expelled from the University of Rhodesia for 'disturbing the peace'. While exiled in Great Britain he studied at the University of Kent, Canterbury. He got a Bachelor's degree in 1978 and a Master's degree in 1979. His MA dissertation was later published as Those Years of Drought and Hunger: The Birth of African Fiction in English in Zimbabwe. In 1980, he returned to newly independent Zimbabwe where he settled and married Viola Catherine, and took a University of Zimbabwe position as a professor of English that he has kept since. He has been secretary general of the Zimbabwean Writers' Union. In 1992 he received a Fulbright scholarship to the Pratt Institute in New York. He left Zimbabwe in 1999 for the USA and is currently Director of Black Studies at Virginia Tech. Zimunya's poetry deals with the beauty of Zimbabwe, but also with its poverty and history of suffering, and with urban alienation from spiritual heritage. Most of his published work is in English, but he also writes in Shona. Zimunya began publishing poems when he was still at school, in literary journals like Two-Tone and Chirimo. His early poetry often revealed an imaginative appreciation of the beauty of nature. While his collection Thought Tracks (1982) represents a generation that felt marginalized by colonialism, Kingfisher, Jikinya and other poems, published in the same year, is a celebration of love and nature. Country Dawns and City Lights (1985) takes a disillusioned look at the idealization of rural life, while also confronting the difficulties faced by the urban dweller. Perfect Poise (1993) and Selected Poems (1995) are collections that contain both the lyricism of his earlier work and the cynical perspective of the critic. Zimunya has published one collection of short stories, Nightshift (1993), and a volume of literary criticism. His work has also been published in British and Amerikan anthologies, in Kizito Muchemwas Zimbabwean Poetry in English (1978), and in the collection he co-edited with Mudereri Khadani, And Now the Poets Speak (1981). In the afterword to the Serbian/English version of his Collected Poems in 1995, Zimunya described his poetry thus: When you read these poems, it is my cherished hope that you will gain some insight… into the brutality of colonialism, the vagaries of growing up permanently dispossessed in a racially structured society, the tortuous quest for reconciliation of a shattered old culture with a hostile and spiritless new world cultivated to disadvantage the African and… the undying quest for harmony with nature… And then also you may wonder about the chaos artistic rhythms and traditions forever tussling for my creative attention. Peter Neville Frederick Porter OAM (16 February 1929 - 23 April 2010) was a British-based Australian poet. He is the author of more than 15 collections of poetry, and the editor and translator of several more, including Once Bitten, Twice Bitten (1961), The Automatic Oracle (1987), The Chair of Babel (1992), Dragons in Their Pleasant Palaces (1997), Both Ends Against the Middle (1999), Saving from the Wreck (2001), and Better Than God (2009). Porter's work displays a deep knowledge of literary and social history yet is attuned to contemporary civilization and current jargon. Alan Brownjohn, reviewing Better Than God for the Times Online, identified Porter as a “poet, traveler and social observer,” noting that his manner is “calm, deliberate, sometimes distinctly grand, emotionally reticent.” Porter edited The Best Australian Poetry (2005) and Selected Poems of Lawrence Durrell (2006) and translated After Martial (1972), a collection based on the poems of the Latin poet Martial. Porter was a writer-in-residence at universities in both Australia and England. He received the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, the Whitbread Prize for Poetry, the Duff Cooper Prize, and the 1990 Gold Medal of the Australian Literary Society. He died in 2010. Kofi Anyidoho (born 25 July 1947) is a Ghanaian poet and academic who comes from a family tradition of Ewe poets and oral artists. He is currently Professor of Literature at the University of Ghana. He has received numerous awards for his poetry, including the Valco Fund Literary Award, the Langston Hughes Prize, the BBC Arts and Africa Poetry Award, the Fania Kruger Fellowship for Poetry of Social Vision, Poet of the Year (Ghana), and the Ghana Book Award. Born in Wheta, in Ghana's Volta Region, Anyidoho was educated in Ghana and the USA, and holds a B.A. Honours degree in English & Linguistics from the University of Ghana, Legon, an M.A. in Folklore from Indiana University-Bloomington and gained his PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of Texas at Austin. Having trained as a teacher at Accra Training College and at the Advanced Teacher Training College-Winneba, he taught primary, middle and secondary school, before joining the University of Ghana-Legon. Currently Professor of Literature in the English Department, he has also been Director of the CODESRIA African Humanities Institute Program, acting Director of the School of Performing Arts and Head of the English Department. He was installed as the first occupant of the Kwame Nkrumah Chair in African Studies at the University of Ghana on 18 March 2010.
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ALGERIA
[ ALGERIA - Literature ]Benmalek, Anouar. The Lovers of Algeria. Saint Paul. 2004. Graywolf Press. 155597404x. Translated from the French by Joanna Kilmartin. Paperback Original. 279 pages. paperback. Cover design: Kyle G. Hunter / Cover art: Corbis.
DESCRIPTION- Nine-year-old Jallal is old enough to know that his life in Algeria is precarious at best-friends are as likely to kill you as save you. Having run away from home, he lives by selling peanuts and single cigarettes on the street. The proposal by the elderly Swiss woman named Anna is shocking and preposterous: travel with her through war-ravaged lands, as a translator, so she can find her lost husband and pray over the graves of their murdered children. To Anna, however, the risk is no less than when they first met in Algeria during yet another time of unspeakable terror decades ago. As Anna and her lover, battered by time and memory, circle each other, Benmalek asks what of humanity endures in dangerously lawless times. The Lovers of Algeria is an unflinching novel that resonates powerfully in today's world.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Anouar Benmalek (January 16, 1956) is a novelist, journalist, mathematician and poet. He was born in Casablanca. After the 1988 riots in Algeria in protest of government policies, he became one of the founders of the Algerian Committee Against Torture. His novel Lovers of Algeria was awarded the Prix Ragid. The novel, The Child of an Ancient People, won the Prix R.F.O. du Liv. Benmalek's work has been described as "elegiac, multilayered meditation on Algeria's violent history." He has been compared to Camus and Faulkner.
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Byrne, Jeffrey James. Mecca of Revolution: Algeria, Decolonization, and the Third World Order. New York. 2016. Oxford University Press. 9780199899142. 408 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Mecca of Revolution traces the ideological and methodological evolution of the Algerian Revolution, showing how an anticolonial nationalist struggle culminated in independent Algeria's ambitious agenda to reshape not only its own society, but international society too. In this work, Jeffrey James Byrne first examines the changing politics and international strategies of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) during its war with France, including the embrace of more encompassing visions of decolonization that necessitated socio-economic transformation on a global scale along Marxist/Leninist/Fanonist/Maoist/Guevarian lines. After independence, the Algerians played a leading role in Arab-African affairs as well as the far-reaching Third World project that challenged structural inequalities in the international system and the world economy, including initiatives such as the Non-Aligned Movement, the G77, and the Afro-Asian movement. At the same time, Algiers, nicknamed the Mecca of Revolution, became a key nexus in an intercontinental transnational network of liberation movements, revolutionaries, and radical groups of various kinds. Drawing on unprecedented access to archival materials from the FLN, the independent Algerian state, and half a dozen other countries, Byrne narrates a postcolonial, or South-South, international history. He situates dominant paradigms such as the Cold War in the larger context of decolonization and sheds new light on the relationships between the emergent elites of Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America. Mecca of Revolution shows how Third Worldism evolved from a subversive transnational phenomenon into a mode of elite cooperation that reinforced the authority of the post-colonial state. In so doing, the Third World movement played a key role in the construction of the totalizing international order of the late-twentieth century.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jeffrey James Byrne is Assistant Professor of History at the University of British Columbia.
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Dib, Mohammed. Omneros. Los Angeles. 1978. Red Hill Press. This Is Dib's First Book-Length Publication In English. Translated Carol Lettieri & Paul Vangelisti. 76 pages. paperback. Contains Formularies (1970) and Omneros (1975).
DESCRIPTION- Poems in French by Algerian Mohammed Dib.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mohammed Dib (1920–2003) was an Algerian author. He wrote over 30 novels, as well as numerous short stories, poems, and children's literature in the French language. He is probably Algeria's most prolific and well-known writer. His work covers the breadth of 20th century Algerian history, focusing on Algeria's fight for independence. Dib was born in Tlemcen in western Algeria, near the border with Morocco, into a middle-class family which had descended into poverty. After losing his father at a young age, Dib started writing poetry at 15. At the age of 18, he started working as a teacher in nearby Oujda in Morocco. In his twenties and thirties he worked in various capacities as a weaver, teacher, accountant, interpreter (for the French and British military), and journalist (for newspapers including Alger REpublicain and LibertE, an organ of the Algerian Communist Party). During this period he also studied Literature at the University of Algiers. In 1952, two years before the Algerian revolution, he married a French woman, joined the Algerian Communist Party and visited France. In the same year he published his first novel La Grande Maison (The Great House). Dib was a member of the Generation of '52 - a group of Algerian writers which included Albert Camus and Mouloud Feraoun. In 1959, he was expelled from Algeria by the French authorities for his support for Algerian independence, and also because of the success of his novels (which depicted the reality of life in colonial Algeria for most Algerians). Instead of moving to Cairo as many Algerian nationalists had, he decided to live in France, where he was allowed to stay after various writers (including Camus) lobbied the French government. From 1967 he lived mainly in La Celle-Saint-Cloud near Paris. From 1976-1977 Dib was teacher at the University of California at Los Angeles. He also was a professor at the Sorbonne in Paris. In his later years he often travelled to Finland, which was a setting for some of his later novels. He died at La Celle-Saint-Cloud on May 2, 2003. In a tribute, the then French Culture Minister Jean-Jacques Aillagon said that Dib was ‘a spiritual bridge between Algeria and France, between the north and the Mediterranean.' In his work, Dib was concerned with bringing the authentic experience of Algerian life to a wider, particularly French-speaking, world. The Algerian revolution (1954–1962) profoundly shaped his thinking, and made him eager to bring to the world's attention Algeria's struggle for independence. An advocate of political equality, he believed that ‘the things that make us different always remain secondary.' Ironically, he has received many awards from the French literary establishment. His debut novel La grande maison was the first part of the Algerian trilogy about a large Algerian family. The main protagonist, Omar, is a young boy growing up in poverty in Algeria just before World War II. The trilogy is presented in a naturalistic style similar to that of Emile Zola. The second part, L'Incendie, published in the same year the Algerian revolution started, was about Omar's life during the second World War. The final part of the trilogy, Le MEtier à tisser deals with Omar's adult life as a working man in Algeria. It was published in 1957. The trilogy was partly autobiographical. His later works did not always use the same naturalistic framework of his earlier novels, often adding surrealistic elements. He used Science Fiction in Qui se souvient de la mer (1962), and verse in his last novel L.A. Trip. From 1985 to 1994 he wrote four semi-autobiographical novels about a North African man who visits a Nordic country, has a relationship and child with a woman in this country. The last novel in this series deals with the child visiting her father's homeland. Dib also helped to translate into French various Finnish books.
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Dib, Mohammed. Who Remembers the Sea. Washington DC. 1985. Three Continents Press. 0894104446. Translated from the French by Louis Tremaine. 122 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION-
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mohammed Dib (1920–2003) was an Algerian author. He wrote over 30 novels, as well as numerous short stories, poems, and children's literature in the French language. He is probably Algeria's most prolific and well-known writer. His work covers the breadth of 20th century Algerian history, focusing on Algeria's fight for independence. Dib was born in Tlemcen in western Algeria, near the border with Morocco, into a middle-class family which had descended into poverty. After losing his father at a young age, Dib started writing poetry at 15. At the age of 18, he started working as a teacher in nearby Oujda in Morocco. In his twenties and thirties he worked in various capacities as a weaver, teacher, accountant, interpreter (for the French and British military), and journalist (for newspapers including Alger REpublicain and LibertE, an organ of the Algerian Communist Party). During this period he also studied Literature at the University of Algiers. In 1952, two years before the Algerian revolution, he married a French woman, joined the Algerian Communist Party and visited France. In the same year he published his first novel La Grande Maison (The Great House). Dib was a member of the Generation of '52 - a group of Algerian writers which included Albert Camus and Mouloud Feraoun. In 1959, he was expelled from Algeria by the French authorities for his support for Algerian independence, and also because of the success of his novels (which depicted the reality of life in colonial Algeria for most Algerians). Instead of moving to Cairo as many Algerian nationalists had, he decided to live in France, where he was allowed to stay after various writers (including Camus) lobbied the French government. From 1967 he lived mainly in La Celle-Saint-Cloud near Paris. From 1976-1977 Dib was teacher at the University of California at Los Angeles. He also was a professor at the Sorbonne in Paris. In his later years he often travelled to Finland, which was a setting for some of his later novels. He died at La Celle-Saint-Cloud on May 2, 2003. In a tribute, the then French Culture Minister Jean-Jacques Aillagon said that Dib was ‘a spiritual bridge between Algeria and France, between the north and the Mediterranean.' In his work, Dib was concerned with bringing the authentic experience of Algerian life to a wider, particularly French-speaking, world. The Algerian revolution (1954–1962) profoundly shaped his thinking, and made him eager to bring to the world's attention Algeria's struggle for independence. An advocate of political equality, he believed that ‘the things that make us different always remain secondary.' Ironically, he has received many awards from the French literary establishment. His debut novel La grande maison was the first part of the Algerian trilogy about a large Algerian family. The main protagonist, Omar, is a young boy growing up in poverty in Algeria just before World War II. The trilogy is presented in a naturalistic style similar to that of Emile Zola. The second part, L'Incendie, published in the same year the Algerian revolution started, was about Omar's life during the second World War. The final part of the trilogy, Le MEtier à tisser deals with Omar's adult life as a working man in Algeria. It was published in 1957. The trilogy was partly autobiographical. His later works did not always use the same naturalistic framework of his earlier novels, often adding surrealistic elements. He used Science Fiction in Qui se souvient de la mer (1962), and verse in his last novel L.A. Trip. From 1985 to 1994 he wrote four semi-autobiographical novels about a North African man who visits a Nordic country, has a relationship and child with a woman in this country. The last novel in this series deals with the child visiting her father's homeland. Dib also helped to translate into French various Finnish books.
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Djafer, Ismaël Aït. Wail of the Arab Beggars of the Casbah. Evanston. 2004. Northwestern University Press. 9781880684962. Translated by Jack Hirschman. 40 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Ait Djafer's Wail of the Arab Beggars of the Casbah is an underground classic on French oppression in Algeria. On October 20, 1949, in the city of Algiers, Khouni Ahmed, a tubercular beggar is walking along Rue Franklin Roosevelt. He hasn't eaten. He's holding his little daughter, Yasmina, 9, by the hand. A truck approaches. Suddenly, he pushes the child at the wheels. As she doesn't die, he pushes her a second time. Prosecuted two years later in criminal court, Ahmed is declared insane and committed to an asylum. This horrific event inspired the 22 year-old student Ait Djafer to write this impassioned elegy for the girl as an outcry against the extreme conditions of poverty that could cause such a tragedy. Dedicated to ‘those who have never been hungry,’ Wail of the Arab Beggars of the Casbah was printed in a small pamphlet edition by the Democratic Union for a Free Algeria in 1951. Its circulation was largely local; but in 1954 Jean Paul Sartre published it in his Paris magazine, Les Temps Modernes; and in 1960, the year of Algerian independence from French colonial rule, it was published in book form by Pierre Jean Oswald Editions.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ismaël Aït Djafer was born in 1929 in the Casbah of Algiers. At 17 he was already writing and drawing for newspapers and magazines. He spent various periods of his life in exile in France, Germany and Sweden. After the overthrow of Ben Bella in 1965, Djafer went into permanent exile in Paris, where he died in 1995. Jack Hirschman was born in New York City in 1933 and has lived since 1973 in San Francisco. He has published more than 25 translations of poetry from eight languages. Among his many volumes of poetry are Lyripol, The Bottom Line,Front Lines and Endless Threshold.
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Djebar, Assia. A Sister To Scheherazade. London. 1987. Quartet Books. 0704326701. Translated Dorothy S. Blair. 208 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Isma and Hajila are both wives of the same man, but they are not rivals. Isma-older, vibrant, passionate, emancipated-is in stark contrast to the passive, cloistered Hajila. In alternating chapters, Isma tells her own story in the first person, and then Hajila's in the second person. She details how she escaped from the traditional restraints imposed upon the women of her country-and how, in making her escape, she condemns Hajila to those very restraints. When Hajila catches a glimpse of an unveiled woman, she realized that she, too, wants a life beyond the veil, and it is Isma who offers her the key to her own freedom.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Assia Djebar is the pen-name of Fatima-Zohra Imalayen (born 30 June 1936), an Algerian novelist, translator and filmmaker. Most of her works deal with obstacles faced by women, and she is noted for her feminist stance. She is ‘frequently associated with women's writing movements, her novels are clearly focused on the creation of a genealogy of Algerian women, and her political stance is virulently anti-patriarchal as much as it is anti-colonial.' Djebar is considered to be one of North Africa's pre-eminent and most influential writers. She was elected to the Academie française on 16 June 2005, the first writer from the Maghreb to achieve such recognition. For the entire body of her work she was awarded the 1996 Neustadt International Prize for Literature.
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Djebar, Assia. So Vast a Prison. New York. 1999. Seven Stories Press. 1583220097. Translated from the French by Betsy Wing. 368 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- So Vast the Prison is the double-threaded story of a modern, educated Algerian woman existing in a man's society, and, not surprisingly, living a life of contradictions. Djebar, too, tackles cross-cultural issues just by writing in French of an Arab society (the actual act of writing contrasting with the strong oral traditions of the indigenous culture), as a woman who has seen revolution in a now post-colonial country, and as an Algerian living in exile. In this new novel, Djebar brilliantly plays these contradictions against the bloody history of Carthage, a great civilization the Berbers were once compared to, and makes it both a tribute to the loss of Berber culture and a meeting-point of culture and language. As the story of one woman's experience in Algeria, it is a private tale, but one embedded in a vast history. A radically singular voice in the world of literature, Assia Djebar's work ultimately reaches beyond the particulars of Algeria to embrace, in stark yet sensuous language, the universal themes of violence, intimacy, ostracism, victimization, and exile.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Assia Djebar is the pen-name of Fatima-Zohra Imalayen (born 30 June 1936), an Algerian novelist, translator and filmmaker. Most of her works deal with obstacles faced by women, and she is noted for her feminist stance. She is ‘frequently associated with women's writing movements, her novels are clearly focused on the creation of a genealogy of Algerian women, and her political stance is virulently anti-patriarchal as much as it is anti-colonial.' Djebar is considered to be one of North Africa's pre-eminent and most influential writers. She was elected to the Academie française on 16 June 2005, the first writer from the Maghreb to achieve such recognition. For the entire body of her work she was awarded the 1996 Neustadt International Prize for Literature.
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Djebar, Assia. The Mischief. New York. 1958. Simon & Schuster. Algerian Novel. Translated From French by Frances Frenaye. hardcover. Jacket design by John Alcorn. Translation of La soif (1957).
DESCRIPTION- An Algerian French/Muslim girl comes of age with a married couple inn this debut novel by Algerian the Algerian author Assia Djebar. For the entire body of her work, Djebar was awarded the 1996 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. ‘That summer I returned indifferently to the dazzling sunshine of the beach resort near Algiers. I was just twenty years old.’ So begins this novel by Assia Djebar, who was born in Algiers and brought up in a strict Mohammedan household. She wrote The Mischief in a single month, the August of her twentieth birthday. The protagonist of The Mischief is Nadia, a willful Algerian girl of wealthy family, a member of the first Moslem generation to be westernized. She drives her own sports car, wears slacks, and swims in a bikini. It is summer and Nadia is bored. Her sister Myriam is an old-style Moslem woman, happy to be subordinate to the man of the house, smug in her newly acquired maternity. Nadia has no one to talk to, to be interested in—nothing to occupy her idle hands. And so when Jedla, an ex-schoolmate, and her husband, Ali, rent the villa next door, the climate is ripe for her to involve herself in their lives. In the long hot afternoons that follow, Nadia thinks about her friend with a mixture of unhealthy affection and envy. Jedla, silent and moody as she was at school, still attracts by her diametric difference from Nadia's defiant flouting of local conventions. Nadia becomes increasingly obsessed with the desire to make an impression on the lives of these two people. She must provoke Jedla; she must discover how deeply she can attract Ali. The young lawyer who makes the fourth of their group is at first merely a bystander in this tense and only slightly disguised campaign for emotional power. But then he too becomes enmeshed. Suddenly the plot takes a twist which is both startling and horrifying. Is it truly Nadia who has been pulling the strings? Or has she been a puppet manipulated by someone even stronger than herself? The Mischief is a short, passionate novel as intense as the breathless nights and blazing sun of its African setting.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Assia Djebar is the pen-name of Fatima-Zohra Imalayen (born 30 June 1936), an Algerian novelist, translator and filmmaker. Most of her works deal with obstacles faced by women, and she is noted for her feminist stance. She is ‘frequently associated with women's writing movements, her novels are clearly focused on the creation of a genealogy of Algerian women, and her political stance is virulently anti-patriarchal as much as it is anti-colonial.' Djebar is considered to be one of North Africa's pre-eminent and most influential writers. She was elected to the Academie française on 16 June 2005, the first writer from the Maghreb to achieve such recognition. For the entire body of her work she was awarded the 1996 Neustadt International Prize for Literature.
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Donadey, Anne (editor). Approaches to Teaching the Works of Assia Djebar. New York. 2017. Modern Language Association. 9781603292962. Approaches to Teaching World Literature. 188 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- A significant and prolific francophone writer and filmmaker, Assia Djebar is celebrated for her experimental, multilingual prose and her nuanced, imaginative representations of Algeria. From her first novel, La soif (The Mischief), to her final book, Nulle part dans la maison de mon père ("No Place in My Father's House"), she offers a wealth of pedagogical and theoretical possibilities. Part 1, "Materials," presents valuable teaching resources, including biographical information, French- and English-language editions of Djebar's writing, and secondary works. In part 2, "Approaches," contributors address the issues of and controversy surrounding her oeuvre, drawing on a range of interdisciplinary approaches and classroom strategies. Topics in the volume include translation studies, Islamic feminism, colonial and postcolonial contexts, autobiographical writing, historiography, postmodern and avant-garde literary experimentation, and visual culture. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak provides an afterword. This volume makes clear the political, intellectual, and artistic importance of Djebar.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Anne Donadey is professor of French and francophone studies and of women's studies at San Diego State University. She is the author of Recasting Postcolonialism: Women Writing between Worlds, coeditor of Postcolonial Theory and Francophone Literary Studies, and coeditor of the second edition of Women in Culture: An Intersectional Anthology for Gender and Women's Studies.
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Evans, Martin. Algeria: France's Undeclared War. New York. 2013. Oxford University Press. 9780199669035. 496 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Invaded in 1830, populated by one million settlers who co-existed uneasily with nine million Arabs and Berbers , Algeria was different from other French colonies because it was administered as an integral part of France, in theory no different from Normandy or Brittany. The depth and scale of the colonization process explains why the Algerian War of 1954 to 1962 was one of the longest and most violent of the decolonization struggles. An undeclared war in the sense that there was no formal beginning of hostilities, the war produced huge tensions that brought down four governments, ended the Fourth Republic in 1958, and mired the French army in accusations of torture and mass human rights abuses. In carefully re-examining the origins and consequences of the conflict, Martin Evans argues that it was the Socialist led Republican Front, in power from January 1956 until May 1957, which was the defining moment in the war. Predicated on the belief in the universal civilizing mission of the Fourth Republic, coupled with the conviction that Algerian nationalism was feudal and religiously fanatical in character, the Republican Front dramatically intensified the war in the spring of 1956. Drawing upon previously classified archival sources as well as new oral testimonies, this book underlines the conflict of values between the Republican Front and Algerian nationalism, explaining how this clash produced patterns of thought and action, such as the institutionalization of torture and the raising of pro-French Muslim militias, which tragically polarized choices and framed all subsequent stages of the conflict.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Martin Evans is Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Portsmouth. He is the author of Memory of Resistance: French Opposition to the Algerian War, co-author (with Emmanuel Godin) of France 1815 to 2003, and co-author (with John Phillips) of Algeria: Anger of the Dispossessed. In 2008 Memory of Resistance was translated into French and serialised in the Algerian press. He has written for the Independent, the Times Higher Education Supplement, BBC History Magazine and the Guardian, and is a regular contributor to History Today. In 2007-08 he was a Leverhulme Senior Research Fellow at the British Academy.
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Ghanem, Ali. A Wife For My Son. Chicago. 1984. Banner Press. 0916650170. Translated by G. Kazolias. 211 pages. paperback. Translation of Femme pour mon fils.
DESCRIPTION- Eighteen-year-old Fatiha is a typical algerian girl who divides her time between her duties at home and at school until her parents decide she will be married to Hussein. She submits to their wishes and married a man she has never met. Hussein returns briefly to Algeria from France for the wedding and to get his new wife pregnant, then returns again to his job in France. Overwhelmed by this disregard for her feelings and her life, Fatiha begins to look for a way of life that will keep her safe from unwanted marriages.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ali Ghanem was born in 1943 in Algeria and works today in France as a filmmaker. His films have won awards at international festivals in Prades, Verona, Cannes, and Venice. His first novel, A Wife for My Son, has been translated into several languages. Ali Ghanem lives in Paris.
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Horne, Alistair. A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962. New York. 1978. Viking Press. 0670619647. 604 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Mel Williamson.
DESCRIPTION- Although war was never formally declared, the Algerian War lasted from 1954 to 1962. It caused six French governments to fall, led to the collapse of the Fourth Republic, brought De Gaulle back to power, and came close to provoking a civil war on French soil. More than a million Muslim Algerians died in the conflict and as many European settlers were driven into exile. Above all, the war was marked by an unholy marriage of revolutionary terror and state torture. The war made headlines around the world, and at the time it seemed like a French affair: Now, this brutal and intractable conflict looks less like the last colonial war than the first postmodern one-a full-dress rehearsal for the sort of amorphous struggle that convulsed the Balkans in the 1990s and that is now ravaging Iraq, and in which religion, nationalism, imperialism, and terrorism assume previously unimagined degrees of intensity. Originally published in 1977, A Savage War of Peace was immediately proclaimed by experts of varied political sympathies to be the history of the Algerian War, a book that not only does justice to its Byzantine intricacies, but that does so with intelligence, assurance, and unflagging momentum. It is these qualities that make A Savage War of Peace not only essential reading for anyone who wishes to investigate this dark stretch of history but a lasting monument of the historian's art.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Sir Alistair Allan Horne (November 9, 1925, London, United Kingdom - May 25, 2017, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom) was a British journalist, biographer and historian of Europe, especially of 19th and 20th century France.
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Khadra, Yasmina. Cousin K. Lincoln. 2013. University of Nebraska Press. 9780803234932. Translated By Donald Nicholson-Smith And Alyson Waters. Afterword by Robert Polito. French Voices Series. 85 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Such was the battle that raged between Cousin K and me: good done badly; evil done well.' And such is the twisted logic of good and bad, right and wrong, knitted into this novella by one of the most powerful voices to emerge from North Africa in our time. With his father brutally killed as a traitor during a national liberation war and his older brother an army officer far away, the young narrator lives reclusively with his mother, who scorns him. He turns to his young cousin for affection, only to be mocked and humiliated so deeply that his love becomes hopelessly entangled with hatred. Fate places a young woman in the narrator's path when he rescues her from a violent attack, and the reawakening of his confused passions proceeds toward terrible vengeance. In this nameless narrator's tormented reflections, played out against the backdrop of an indifferent world, Yasmina Khadra plumbs the mysteries of the crippled heart's desires.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Yasmina Khadra is the feminine pseudonym adopted by Mohammed Moulessehoul to avoid military censorship. Moulessehoul was born in the Algerian Sahara in 1955 and at one time was an officer in the Algerian military. His recent fiction trilogy on Middle Eastern realities-The Swallows of Kabul, The Attack, and The Sirens of Baghdad-has been widely acclaimed and translated. Moulessehoul is now retired from the military and living in France. Donald Nicholson-Smith and Alyson Waters are both seasoned translators. This is their first translation together.
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Mammeri, Mouloud. The Sleep of the Just. Boston. 1956. Beacon Press. Translated from the French by Len Ortzen. 228 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- This is the first book by an Algerian Arab to appear in translation in America. It is packed with conflict - the mores of the older Islamic generation, full of absolutes, colored with feud, suspicion, cruelty, reflecting the quarrels and murders of the past, are in conflict with the younger generation's ideas and dreams; and both, of course, conflict with the French interloper in North Africa, who cannot and does not try to understand the natives. Here is an eloquent statement of the condition of the Arab and his problems, rich in insights which will be terribly revealing to the West: insights of immediate importance in the light of current international crises. Says the Times Literary Supplement: ‘M. Mammeri is one of the group of North African writers whose growth to maturity is one of the most remarkable features of the post-war literary scene in France. He has produced a memorable and moving picture of the clash of different worlds, of different attitudes, of different ages. The real conflict is not between Frenchmen and Arabs, but between the modern and the ancient world. It is fought out in the persons of the young Arab intelligentsia who have lost their old beliefs without finding anything to take their place. A deliberately and deeply disturbing novel that shows Mammeri to be a writer of talent and integrity as well as of promise." Mouloud Mammeri writes from personal experience: he was born (1917) in Taourirt Minoun, Algeria, and grew up in the country and among the people he describes. At present he is teaching at the LycEe Ben Aknoun in Algiers. The story begins in 1940 when the phony war becomes a serious clash of arms. During an argument in the market place among the men of Ighzer over whether they should hope the French will win or lose, young Arezki has sneered at the concept of honor, and has said publicly, I don't give a damn for the devil or for God." The elders report this to the father, who goes for his gun and barely misses the son as the boy flees. In the French Army, Arezki finds himself just as much in rebellion as he has been against the old ways of his village and family. In the desperate search for meaning, for significance, he works for the Communist Party for a time. Once in a drunken fury he burns his collection of books - classics, the ideas of Western man. In the end he is committed to jail for 20 years by a French judge for a killing of which he is innocent. There is understandable bitterness here; but there is also a fine sense of drama, and the type of humor familiar to the desperate and underprivileged. The action moves swiftly, and tragedy is never far away. Out of the story, which has the ring of honesty and sharp observation, comes a deeper understanding of the whole North African way of life and also of the folly of the Western masters to attempt to govern without learning to communicate.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mouloud Mammeri was a Berber writer, poet, anthropologist and linguist. Born on December 28, 1917 in Tawrirt Mimun, Ait Yenni, in Tizi Ouzou Province, Algeria; died in February 1989 near Aïn Defla in a car accident while returning from a conference in Oujda, Morocco. Mouloud Mammeri attended a primary school in his native village. In 1928 he emigrated to Morocco to live in his uncle's house in Rabat. Four years later he returned to Algiers and pursued his studies at Bugeaud College. He then went to LycEe Louis-le-Grand in Paris intending to join the Ecole Normale SupErieure. Conscripted in 1939 and discharged in October 1940, Mouloud Mammeri registered at the FacultE des Lettres d'Alger. Re-conscripted in 1942 after the American landing, he participated in the allied campaigns in France, Italy, and Germany. After the end of the war, he received his degree as a professor of arts and returned to Algeria in September 1947. He taught in MEdEa, and then in Ben Aknoun, and published his first novel, The Forgotten Hill in 1952. He was forced to leave Algiers in 1957 because of the Algerian War. Mouloud came back to Algeria shortly after its independence, in 1962. From 1965 to 1972 he taught Berber at the university in the department of ethnology. Teaching Berber was prohibited in 1962 by the Algerian government. He voluntarily taught some Berber courses under certain permission until 1973, when certain courses such as ethnology and anthropology were judged as "colonial sciences" and disbanded. From 1969 to 1980 Mouloud Mammeri directed the Anthropological, Prehistoric and Ethnographic Research center at Algiers (CRAPE). He also headed the first national union of Algerian writers for a time, until he left due to disagreements over views of the role of writers in society. In 1969 Mouloud Mammeri collected and published texts of the Berber poet Si Mohand. In 1980, the prohibition of one of his conferences at Tizi Ouzou on kabyle poetry caused riots and what would be called the Berber Spring in Kabylie. In 1982, he founded the Center of Amazigh Studies and Research (CERAM) and a periodical called Awal (The Word) in Paris, and organized several seminars on amazigh language and literature at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). Thus he was able to compile a wealth of information on the Berber language and literature. In 1988 Mouloud Mammeri received an honorary doctorate from Sorbonne. Mouloud Mammeri died the evening of February 26, 1989 in a car accident, which took place near Ain-Defla on his return from a symposium in Oujda (Morocco). His funeral was spectacular, with more than 200,000 people in attendance. No officials attended the funeral, where the crowd organized in demonstrating against the government.
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Mimouni, Rachid. The Honor of the Tribe. New York. 1992. Morrow. 0688097464. Translated from the French by Joachim Neugroschel. 175 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Russell Gordon. Jacket illustration by Gerber Studio. (original title: L'honneur de la tribu, 1989 - Editions Robert Laffont).
DESCRIPTION- In the small village of Zitouna, which lies far from the political upheavals that shake most of Algeria, an ageless, nameless man recounts the history of his people, to uphold the honor of his tribe. Content in their isolated, agrarian life structured by the oral traditions of their past, the villagers are surprised and confused when a group of Westerners arrives to ‘liberate' them from their primitive ways. Soon they watch in horror and disbelief as one of their own catapults to power in the new destructive order imposed upon them. Retaining the last thread of tradition, the narrator weaves ancestral anecdotes with present horrors as the fabric of the Islamic community is torn.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Rachid Mimouni (November 20, 1945 - February 12, 1995) was an Algerian writer, teacher and human rights activist. Rachid Mimouni was born into a family of peasants in Boudouaou (Alma), thirty kilometers east of Algiers. Mimouni studied science at the University of Algiers before becoming a teacher at the Ecole supErieure du commerce (business school) in Algiers. He was president of the Kateb Yacine foundation and he also held the position of vice-president at Amnesty International. He fled Algeria for France in 1993 to escape the civil war and the assassinations of intellectuals. He died in Paris in 1995 of hepatitis. Mimouni wrote novels describing Algerian society in a realist style. His first two novels established him not only as Algeria's leading writer, but as an important literary figure of the Arab world at large (and, to some extent, of French-speaking people). He writes of the pain of decolonization with eloquence and courage, revealing to Westerners some of the raw feeling that is behind the ongoing upheavals in Islamic lands. Jacket design by Russell Gordon.
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Mokeddem, Malika. Of Dreams and Assassins. Charlottesville. 2000. University Press Of Virginia. 0813919339. Translated from the French & With An Introduction by K. Melissa Marcus. 124 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Of Dreams and Assassins is the urgent and rhythmic fourth novel of Malika Mokeddem, her second to appear in English. Born in Algeria to a Bedouin family that had only recently become sedentary, Mokeddem was raised on the stories of her grandmother, who encouraged her education at a time when girls did not go to school. Though raised in a tolerant version of Islam, Mokeddem nevertheless felt the weight of custom and tradition. Of Dreams and Assassins, though not strictly autobiographical, evokes through the beauty and vastness and oppressive heat of the desert Mokeddem's early yearning for freedom. Through its heroine, Kenza, and her simultaneous rebellion and immersion in the literary classics at a boarding school, the novel dramatizes the possibilities for women to express their identities. Kenza is an exile, first in her own society and later in France. Born during a visit to Montpellier in the year of Algerian independence, she returns with her mother to Oran to find her father has taken another wife. Her mother leaves alone, never to return. Kenza's subsequent search for herself through the mother she doesn't know, told in a frank first-person narrative, mirrors the struggle of Algerian women to make a place in a society that has stripped them of their rights in spite of their crucial participation in the war for independence. Kenza's suffocating childhood in the house of her boisterous, leering father is broken only by summers in the desert, where the dates ‘become golden brown and gleam like little clusters of suns that mock the children.' Eventually, Kenza, like Mokeddem herself, leaves her home to go to school in Montpellier, because she can no longer tolerate life in Algeria. Of Dreams and Assassins is a protest, against the subjugation of women in Algeria and the violence of the last ten years, perpetrated by fundamentalist Muslim guerrillas. In exile, Kenza puts her hope in mEtissage, the blending of cultures embodied by the character of Slim, her friend and confidant, who lives happily with his mixed-race origins. Kenza's story dramatizes Mokeddem's belief that the future of Algeria lies in its women and in education; only through liberation and education can the pain of Kenza's exile be redeemed.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Malika Mokeddem (Kenadsa, Algeria; October 5, 1949) is an Algerian Tuareg writer. Malika Mokeddem was born on October 5, 1949 in Kenadsa, a small mining town on the limit of the western desert of Algeria. She is the daughter of an illiterate nomad family who became sedentary. She grew up listening to the stories told by her grandmother, Zohra, and was the only girl in her family and town to finish secondary studies. She enrolled to study medicine in Oran and finished her studies in Paris. She specialized in Nephrology and later established in Montpellier in 1979. She practiced till 1985 when she decided to dedicate her time to literature.
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Ruedy, John. Modern Algeria: The Origins and Development of a Nation - Second Edition. Bloomington. 2005. Indiana University Press. 9780253217820. 6.125 x 9.25. 1 bibliog., 1 index. 344 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- The second edition of Modern Algeria brings readers up to date with the outcome of the 2004 Algerian elections. Providing thorough coverage of the 1990s and the end of the Algerian Civil War, it addresses issues such as secularist struggles against fundamentalist Islam, ethnic and regional distinctions, gender, language, the evolution of popular culture, and political and economic relationships with France and the expatriate community. Updated information on resources enhances the usefulness of this popular textbook that has become a standard in the field.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - John Ruedy is Emeritus Professor of History at Georgetown University. He has served most recently as the North Africa editor for the Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa.
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ANGOLA
[ ANGOLA - Literature ]Agualusa, Jose Eduardo. A General Theory of Oblivion. Brooklyn. 2015. Archipelago Press. 9780914671312. Translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn. 249 pages. paperback. Cover design by David Bullen. Translation of Teoria geral do esquecimento.
DESCRIPTION- On the eve of Angolan independence, an agoraphobic woman bricks herself into her Luandan apartment, where she stays for thirty years; living off vegetables and pigeons, burning her furniture and books to stay alive, and writing her story on the apartment's walls. The outside world slowly seeps into her life through snippets on the radio, voices from next door, glimpses of a man fleeing his pursuers, and a note attached to a bird's foot. The history of Angola unfolds like existential gossip through what Ludo glimpses from her window. One day she meets Sabalu, a young boy from the street who climbs up to her terrace, and friendship grows. A General Theory of Oblivion is a beautifully crafted, wild patchwork of a novel, a love letter to the art of storytelling itself.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jose Eduardo Agualusa (Alves da Cunha) (born December 13, 1960, in Huambo, Angola - then called Nova Lisboa, Overseas Province of Angola) is an Angolan journalist and writer. He studied agronomy and silviculture in Lisbon, Portugal. He currently spends most of his time in Portugal, Angola and Brazil, working as a writer and journalist. His books have been translated into twenty-five languages. He writes monthly for the Portuguese magazine LER and weekly for the Brazilian newspaper O Globo and the Angolan portal Rede Angola. He hosts the radio program A Hora das Cigarras, about African music and poetry, on the channel RDP África. In 2006, he launched, with Conceição Lopes and Fatima Otero, the Brazilian publisher Língua Geral, dedicated exclusively to Portuguese-language authors.
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Agualusa, Jose Eduardo. Society of Reluctant Dreamers. Brooklyn. 2020. Archipelago Books. 9781939810489. Translation from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn. 264 pages. paperback. Translation of Sociedade dos sonhadores involuntários.
DESCRIPTION- When Daniel Benchimol—consummate dreamer—uncovers the photographed reveries of a famous Mozambican artist, Moira, his fascination quickly develops to obsession as the sight lines between reality and dreams get harder to bring into focus. Daniel Benchimol spends his dreaming hours interviewing revolutionaries and writers. In this treacherous sleepscape, we find the Angolan anti-communist Jonas Savimbi, Muammar Gaddafi, hunched and hiding in a gutter, and Julio Cortázar as a great billowing tree, speaking to Daniel through an alphabet of clouds. He dreams wild dreams of people he’s never met, squinting at them as if submerged in the hazy waters of southern Angola. When Daniel finds a camera on the beach, he becomes obsessed with the woman in the photos. Moira is a Mozambican artist with a similar preoccupation with her subconscious life – she stages her dreams in her artwork. The two meet, and together they explore the cloudy edges of their nightly visions, tugging at the fringed hem of the real. The Society of Reluctant Dreamers is a delicately crafted glimpse into the aftermath of Angolan independence, a postcard sent to prod the illusion of peace and freedom.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jose Eduardo Agualusa (Alves da Cunha) (born December 13, 1960, in Huambo, Angola - then called Nova Lisboa, Overseas Province of Angola) is an Angolan journalist and writer. He studied agronomy and silviculture in Lisbon, Portugal. He currently spends most of his time in Portugal, Angola and Brazil, working as a writer and journalist. His books have been translated into twenty-five languages. He writes monthly for the Portuguese magazine LER and weekly for the Brazilian newspaper O Globo and the Angolan portal Rede Angola. He hosts the radio program A Hora das Cigarras, about African music and poetry, on the channel RDP África. In 2006, he launched, with Conceição Lopes and Fatima Otero, the Brazilian publisher Língua Geral, dedicated exclusively to Portuguese-language authors.
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Agualusa, Jose Eduardo. The Society of Reluctant Dreamers. 2020. Archipelago Books. 9781939810489. Translated by Daniel Hahn. 272 pages. paperback. Translation of A Sociedade dos Sonhadores Involuntários.
DESCRIPTION- When Daniel Benchimol-consummate dreamer-uncovers the photographed reveries of a famous Mozambican artist, Moira, his fascination quickly develops to obsession as the sight lines between reality and dreams get harder to bring into focus Daniel Benchimol spends his dreaming hours interviewing revolutionaries and writers. In this treacherous sleepscape, we find the Angolan anti-communist Jonas Savimbi, Muammar Gaddafi, hunched and hiding in a gutter, and Julio Cortázar as a great billowing tree, speaking to Daniel through an alphabet of clouds. He dreams wild dreams of people he's never met, squinting at them as if submerged in the hazy waters of southern Angola. When Daniel finds a camera on the beach, he becomes obsessed with the woman in the photos. Moira is a Mozambican artist with a similar preoccupation with her subconscious life - she stages her dreams in her artwork. The two meet, and together they explore the cloudy edges of their nightly visions, tugging at the fringed hem of the real. The Society of Reluctant Dreamers is a delicately crafted glimpse into the aftermath of Angolan independence, a postcard sent to prod the illusion of peace and freedom.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - José Eduardo Agualusa Alves da Cunha (born December 13, 1960) is an Angolan journalist and writer of Portuguese and Brazilian descent. He studied agronomy and silviculture in Lisbon, Portugal. Currently he resides in the Island of Mozambique, working as a writer and journalist. He also has been working to establish a public library on the island.
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Ennis, Merlin (collector and translator). Umbundu: Folktales From Angola. New York. 1962. Beacon Press. With a Comparative Analysis by Albert Lord. 316 pages. hardcover. Jacket design adapted from an Umbundu sand tracing.
DESCRIPTION- In the middle of the wild bush country of West Africa live the Ovimbundu of Angola. For generations the transmission of their culture has been by word-of-mouth through the art of tribal storytellers. Now for the first time an American who lived among them for almost 40 years has translated and written down these tales and legends from the Umbundu, without altering their tone, pace and frank detail. There is a mine of fresh material in these stories of magic and bizarre adventure, with special insight into the sensitivity, tensions, exuberance and pride of Angola and Black Africa. Here are thrilling records of fact and fancy, of ogres, taboos, witches, cannibalism, primitive courtship, tribal domestic problems, hunting, famine, adventures with animals and many more dramatic complications intrinsic in the lives and lore of these long isolated peoples. Here also are fascinating parallels with the Uncle Remus ‘ stories of the Southern Negro and even with classical and Norse mythology. The tales are arranged by theme and subject, and an introduction by Albert Lord offers a comparative analysis of the many types of stories. This is rich reading for all who wish to relish the true flavor of African folk tales and tribal life, and for all who are interested in man and his myths and how they reveal the unconscious soul of a people.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - For more than 40 years Mr. Ennis was a missionary to the Ovimbundu people in Portuguese Angola, Africa, and from 1903 to 1904, represented the First Congregational Church of Beloit.
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Jamba, Sousa. Patriots. London. 1990. Viking Press. 067083100x. 292 pages. hardcover. Cover illustration by Paul Collicutt.
DESCRIPTION- Hosi Mbueti has decided to return to Angola after ten years as a refugee in Zambia, where he fled after his parents were killed. They had been pro-UNITA, the US- backed party representing the south of the country against the Cuban and Soviet-backed MPLA of the north, and when Hosi returns, it is to fight with UNITA in the bloody civil war. Years before, his half-brother Osvaldo decided for political reasons to fight on the other side, and the two brothers have no idea whether they will ever see each other again. Patriots is a fresh, vivid portrayal of civil war and exile in a uniquely African context. Though the war itself brings hardship and tragedy, and an obsession with politics that West Europeans may find strange or even amusing, there are aspects of Angolan life and culture that are described with great affection and charm: the influence of Catholicism and the Portuguese legacy to the country; the lure of Western lifestyles; local superstition and witchcraft; and the customs of the nomadic tribes. As Hosi survives his training and combat, so too he grows out of his adolescence towards a manhood shaped both by centuries of African tradition and by years of superpower war.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Sousa Jamba (born 9 January 1966) is an Angolan author and journalist. Sousa Jamba was born in 1966 in Dondi, Huambo, in central Angola. His family were all supporters of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), which fought alongside the MPLA in the Angolan War for Independence (1961–75) and then against the MPLA in the ensuing civil war (1975–2002). In 1975, nine-year-old Jamba with his family left the country, fleeing the violence following Angola's independence, and went to Zambia, where he lived as a refugee, before going to England. Jamba has said: "There was a sense that if you were from Unita you either had to leave the country or go out into the bush, which is precisely what my family did." In 1985 Jamba returned to Angola, and worked as a reporter and translator for the UNITA News Agency. In 1986, he went to study in Britain on a journalism scholarship, and soon began writing for The Spectator. From 1988 to 1991 he studied for a BA degree in Media Studies at Westminster University, London. He also has a master's degree in Leadership and Strategic Communications from Seton Hall University in New Jersey. He returned to his home country after 27 years of exile. Jamba's books include Patriots (1992), an autobiographical novel that received much critical acclaim. Andrew McKie of The Telegraph writes of it: "Sousa Jamba's brilliant and terrifying (and often very funny) novel Patriots gives an account of a child's view of the war in Angola." Jamba's second novel, A Lonely Devil, was published in 1993. He has written widely for newspapers and journals, among them Granta, The Spectator and the New Statesman. He writes a weekly column for the Angolan newspaper Semanario Angolense. He also writes a column on leadership for the business magazine Exame. He currently lives in Jacksonville, Florida, USA.
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Kapuscinski, Ryszard. Another Day of Life. San Diego. 1986. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 0151075638. Translated from the Polish by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mrozkowska-Brand. 160 pages. hardcover. Front jacket photo: Luanda Airport, October 1975 courtesy Gamma-Liaison.
DESCRIPTION- The pain and deadly chaos of the colonial and civil war in Angola are the subjects of this powerful and moving book. September 1975: Luanda, the capital of Angola, is under siege. Gigantic wooden crates, filled with every last movable possession, pile up on the docks. The Portuguese and their belongings are sailing away, abandoning the city of Luanda to rows of neatly parked cars and roaming packs of pedigreed dogs - to an ever-growing emptiness and desolation. Ryszard Kapuscinski went to Angola to cover the last stages of the struggle that put an end to four hundred years of Portuguese rule. Traveling through the countryside he found a bizarre and deadly war within the war for national independence. Three ragtag guerrilla armies are engaged in a murderous battle to determine who will rule the liberated country a brutal game in. which the players can scarcely tell one another apart. KapuEcifiski is right in the middle of it all: Approaching each checkpoint on roads strewn with rubble and bodies, he asks himself time and again, Whose soldiers are guarding this one, and what will they do with me? A stunning account of a country divided by its newly won freedom, told with the masterful command of mood and pacing by the celebrated author of The Emperor and Shah of Shahs.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ryszard Kapuscinski, Poland's most celebrated foreign correspondent, was born in 1932 in Piñsk (in what is now Belarus) and spent four decades reporting on Asia, Latin America, and Africa. He is also the author of IMPERIUM, ANOTHER DAY OF LIFE, and THE SOCCER WAR. His books have been translated into twenty-eight languages. Kapuscinski died in 2007.
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Pepetela. Mayombe. London. 1984. Heinemann. 0435905953. African Writers Series. 215 pages. paperback. AWS269. Translation of Mayombe.
DESCRIPTION- Pepetela's novel is a fascinating study of the tensions produced by racism, tribalism, and sexual morals.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Artur Carlos Maurício Pestana dos Santos (born 1941) is a major Angolan writer of fiction. He writes under the name Pepetela. A white Angolan, Pepetela was born in Benguela, Portuguese Angola, and fought as a member of the MPLA in the long guerrilla war for Angola's independence. Much of his writing deals with Angola's political history in the 20th century. Mayombe, for example, is a novel that portrays the lives of a group of MPLA guerrillas who are involved in the anti-colonial struggle in Cabinda, Yaka follows the lives of members of a white settler family in the coastal town of Benguela, and A Geração da Utopia reveals the disillusionment of young Angolans during the post-independence period. Pepetela has also written about Angola's earlier history in A Gloriosa Família and Lueji, and has expanded into satire with his series of Jaime Bunda novels. His most recent works include Predadores, a scathing critique of Angola's ruling classes, O Quase Fim do Mundo, a post-apocalyptic allegory, and O Planalto e a Estepe, a look at Angola's history and connections with other former communist nations. Pepetela won the Camões Prize, the world's highest honour for Lusophone literature, in 1997. 'Pepetela' is a Kimbundu word that means 'eyelash,' which is a translation of his Portuguese surname, 'Pestana'. The author received this nom de guerre during his time as an MPLA combatant.
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Pepetela. The Return of the Water Spirit. Portsmouth. 2002. Heinemann. 0435912100. African Writers Series. 102 pages. paperback. Translation of O Desejo de Kianda.
DESCRIPTION- Set in Angola in the late 1980's, a time of war, and when the Marxist-orientated ruling elite became engulfed by corruption, nepotism and rampant capitalism. Three centuries earlier, a hideous crime occurred, the beheading of a slave who had had inappropriate relations with his Master's daughter. Now, in the very same Kinaxixi Square in the city of Luanda buildings are falling down one by one baffling the country's engineers. Many describe this mysterious process as 'Luanda Syndrome, God's punishment on a degenerate society. Drawing on the essence of African mythology which had all but been obliterated by history, could this be explained by the return of a Water Spirit (the 'kianda')? The novel focuses on the interplay between these two forces-the forces of old and new. Just like faith can move mountains, the spirit of the water can move cities. This book is a scathing critique of Angola's ruling elite, for abandoning their socialist principles in favour of rampant capitalism.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Pepetela is the nom de plume and nom de guerre of Artur Carlos Mauricio Pestana. Born in Benguela in 1941, he went to Portugal in 1958 to study engineering. Four years later he went to France and then to Algeria, where he studied sociology and was involved in founding the Centre of Angolan Studies. In the late 1960s he was sent to the Cabinda front and took part in the guerrilla war against the colonial army. He was a member of the first MPLA delegation to fly into Angola at the end of the war for independence. Among other responsibilities, Pepetela has been Deputy Minister of Education and a leading member of the Angolan Writers' Union. Pepetela is the author of many novels including Yaka (1984), which won Angola's National Literature Prize in 1986. The novels Yaka and Mayombe (1980) are also published in Heinemann's African Writers Series. O Desejo de Kianda (The Return of the Water Spirit) was first published in 1995. In 1997 Pepetela was awarded the Camoes Prize, which is the most prestigious literary award in the Portuguese-speaking world.
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Pepetela. Yaka. Oxford. 1996. Heinemann. 0435909622. African Writers Series. Translated from the Portuguese by Marga Holness. 307 pages. paperback. Cover illustration by Nick Higgins. Translation of Yaka.
DESCRIPTION- The white community in Benguela in 1890 was an explosive mixture of ex-convicts, political exiles, republicans, anarchists and colonial officials. Most were united only in their fear of uprisings and a desire to get rich quick. Through the saga of the Semedo family, Yaka gives a panoramic view of events that shaped Angola over the following century. From the nineteenth century penal colony, through slavery, African uprisings and land expropriation, Yaka charts the formation of a nation. The enigmatic Yaka statue owned by the Semedo family provides an unexpected commentary. Pepetela is the Angolan author of Mawmbe.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Artur Carlos Maurício Pestana dos Santos (born 1941) is a major Angolan writer of fiction. He writes under the name Pepetela. A white Angolan, Pepetela was born in Benguela, Portuguese Angola, and fought as a member of the MPLA in the long guerrilla war for Angola's independence. Much of his writing deals with Angola's political history in the 20th century. Mayombe, for example, is a novel that portrays the lives of a group of MPLA guerrillas who are involved in the anti-colonial struggle in Cabinda, Yaka follows the lives of members of a white settler family in the coastal town of Benguela, and A Geração da Utopia reveals the disillusionment of young Angolans during the post-independence period. Pepetela has also written about Angola's earlier history in A Gloriosa Família and Lueji, and has expanded into satire with his series of Jaime Bunda novels. His most recent works include Predadores, a scathing critique of Angola's ruling classes, O Quase Fim do Mundo, a post-apocalyptic allegory, and O Planalto e a Estepe, a look at Angola's history and connections with other former communist nations. Pepetela won the Camões Prize, the world's highest honour for Lusophone literature, in 1997. "Pepetela" is a Kimbundu word that means "eyelash," which is a translation of his Portuguese surname, "Pestana". The author received this nom de guerre during his time as an MPLA combatant.
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Philp, Geoffrey. A Practical Guide to Levitation. 2023. Archipelago Books. 9781953861627. Translated by Daniel Hahn. 256 pages. paperback. Translation of Manual prático de levitação.
DESCRIPTION- How does an alien with an unfortunate resemblance to Margaret Thatcher come to be in Uncle Obadiah's yard smoking all his best weed? This beautifully crafted and frequently hilarious collection of short stories is guaranteed to lift even the deepest gloom. Written in Jamaican patois and standard English, this is a brilliant read which will lead you through the yards of Jamaica to the streets of Miami. Here is a contemporary world, warts and all. Geoffrey Philp goes beyond stereotypes to portray the individuality and humanity in all his characters. And of course there is always the best lamb's breath colly to help improve the day. Robert Antoni writes: 'If Dickens were reincarnated as a Jamaican Rastaman, he would write stories as hilarious and humane as these. ""Uncle Obadiah"" and the other stories collected here announce Geoffrey Philp as a direct descendent of Bob Marley: poet, philosophizer, spokesperson for our next new world.' John Dufresne writes: 'Geoffrey Philp is a literary shaman, an enchanter, a weaver of spells that reveal unexpected and marvelous things about life, that carry the news of island culture to the mainland. From the first word of the first story in this comic and touching collection, Philp lifts me out of my world and drops me into the world of his charming, beleaguered and compelling characters. Uncle Obadiah and the Alien is one of those rare treasures, a book you can't put down and won't ever forget.' Norval Edwards writes: 'Geoffrey Philp's writing combines a poetic sensibility with finely honed narrative skills that draw on a multitude of resources: literary and oral traditions, rasta and ragamuffin flavours, science fiction and Jamaican tall tales. Philp blends them all with humour, wisdom and craft.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - José Eduardo Agualusa Alves da Cunha (born December 13, 1960) is an Angolan journalist and writer of Portuguese and Brazilian descent. He studied agronomy and silviculture in Lisbon, Portugal. Currently he resides in the Island of Mozambique, working as a writer and journalist. He also has been working to establish a public library on the island.
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Rui, Manuel. Yes, Comrade!. Minneapolis. 1993. University of Minnesota Press. 0816619662. Translated from the Portuguese by Ronald W. Sousa. Foreword by Gitahi Gititi. 176 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Jeanne Lee. Translation of Sim camarada!.
DESCRIPTION- Manuel Rui's early prose fiction focused on relations in colonial Angolan society and, in part, functioned as a contestation of Portuguese politics and culture. Rui continues to explore the complexities of Angolan life in Yes, Comrade! The stories in 'Yes, Comrade!' communicate a sense of the atmosphere in a city occupied by rival nationalistic factions and a colonial power. The political center of consciousness is clearly the revolutionary MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola), which won the struggle in the political and military arena. Using immediate events as well as cultural and linguistic codes, Rui brilliantly explores the ramifications of political independence and nation-state formation.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Manuel Rui Alves Monteiro (born 4 November 1941) is an Angolan writer of poetry, novels, theater plays, and short stories. He has been described as "the chronicler par excellence of postindependence Angola" through fiction that offers "subtle, complex, pointed, and oftentimes humorous portrayals of Angola since the early years of the MPLA euphoria, in which he played a political role." Manuel Rui was born in 1941 in Huambo (then Nova Lisboa), capital of Angola. He received his primary and secondary education in Huambo. He studied at the University of Coimbra, in Portugal, and received a law degree there in 1969. As a student, Rui participated in literary and political events and was jailed for two months in Portugal. He practiced law in Coimbra during the nationalist struggle for independence in Angola. He was on the editorial board of VErtice, the journal of the Center of Literary Studies in Coimbra, where he published his first prose fiction works in the early 1970s. In addition, he was part of the board of Editora Centelha and worked for the Centro de Estudos Literários da Associação AcadEmica de Coimbra. In the aftermath of the Portuguese military coup on April 25, 1974, Rui returned to Angola to serve as the MPLA Minister of Information in the transitional government established by the Alvor Agreement. He then served as Angola's first representative to the Organization of African Unity and the United Nations. He also directed the MPLA's Department of Revolutionary Orientation and Department of Foreign Affairs. He wrote the lyrics of Angola's first national anthem, "Angola Avante!", the Angolan version of "The Internationale". Rui's 1982 book Quem Me Dera Ser Onda has been described as "a classic of Angolan (and Lusophone African) literature". The work satirically addressed the social problems of the time and has been translated into several languages. He frequently wrote for Angolan newspapers and magazines and has published some children's books. Rui has taught at the University of Huambo and is one of the leading Angolan novelists.
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Vieira, Jose Luandino. Luuanda: Short Stories of Angola. London. 1980. Heinemann. 0435902229. African Writers Series. Translated from the Portuguese by Tamara L. Bender & Donna S. Hill. 118 pages. paperback. AWS222. Cover photograph by George Hallett. Translation of Luuanda: estórias.
DESCRIPTION- In this collection, Jose Luandino Vieira employs the mixture of Portuguese and Kimbundu which characterizes the speech of most Angolans in the capital's poorer neighborhoods. He brings to life the daily joys and sorrows, victories and defeats of the people who lived in and endured Luanda's slums during colonial times. Vieira has created unforgettable characters who are not only set in the mosaic of colonial Angolan society but whose lives represent universal themes with which readers from any society can identify. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jose Luandino Vieira (born Jose Vieira Mateus da Graça on May 4, 1935) is an Angolan writer of short fiction and novels. Vieira was born in Lagoa de Furadouro, OurEm, Portugal and was Portuguese by birth and ethnicity, but his parents immigrated to Angola in 1938 and he grew up immersed in the African quarters (musseques) of Luanda. He wrote in the language unique to the musseque, a fusion of Kimbundu and Portuguese. He left school at the age of fifteen and worked as a mechanic. He was devoted to Angolan independence, resulting in his arrest in 1961 after an interview with the BBC in which he disclosed secret lists of deserters from the Portuguese army fighting in Africa. He would remain in jail for eleven years. Vieira's works often followed the structure of the African oral narrative and dealt with the harsh realities of Portuguese rule in Angola. His best-known work was his early short story collection, Luuanda (1963), which received a Portuguese writers' literary award in 1965, though it was banned by the Portuguese government until 1974 due to its examination of the oppressiveness of the colonial administration in Angola. His novella A vida verdadeira de Domingos Xavier (The Real Life of Domingos Xavier; 1974) portrayed both the cruelty of the Portuguese administration and the courage of ordinary Angolans during the colonial period. Other works include Velhas estorias (‘Old Stories'; 1974), Nos os do Makulusu (‘Our Gang from Makulusu'; 1974), Vidas novas (‘New Lives'; 1975), and João Vêncio: os seus amores (‘João Vêncio: Regarding His Loves'; 1979). Vieira turned down the 100,000 Euros Camões Literary Prize awarded to him in May 2006, citing personal reasons. Vieira also served as secretary-general of the Union of Angolan writers, and in that capacity helped get the works of other Angolan authors and poets published.
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Vieira, Jose Luandino. The Real Life of Domingos Xavier. London. 1978. Heinemann. 0435902024. African Writers Series. 1st English Translation Of This Angolan Novel. Translated from the Portuguese by Michael Wolfers. 84 pages. paperback. AWS202. Cover photograph by George Hallett. Translation of A Vida Verdadeira de Domingos Xavier.
DESCRIPTION- JOSE LUAN DINO VIEIRA was born in 1935 and began working at the age of fifteen. He was arrested for the first time in 1959 by the colonial authorities and in 1960 published his first novel in Portuguese. Vieira was imprisoned for his political activities from 1961 to 1972. He was then conditionally released and was in Lisbon for the revolution in April 1974. On his return to Angola he became director of programmes for the People's Television of Angola and helped found the Union of Angolan Authors. He is a militant member of the MPLA. This leading Angolan writer has written several other short stories and novels. One of his collections of short stories, Luuanda, won him a major fiction prize awarded by the Portuguese Society of Authors and caused a literary storm which culminated in the Society headquarters being closed after being attacked by supporters of the reactionary regime. 'He never harmed anyone, only wanted the good of his people and of his land. our brother carried himself like a man, he did not tell the secrets of his people, he did not sell himself. We are not going to weep any more for his death because, Domingos Antonio Xavier, you begin today your real life in the hearts of the Angolan people. This epitaph in The Real Life of Domingos Xavier stands today for many who died in the struggle for Angolan independence which came only in 1975. The story is a simple narrative of a worker and his family caught up in the meshes of twentieth-century politics. The hero is a young tractor driver with politically progressive sympathies, who is arrested, tortured and murdered by the police of the Portuguese colonial repression. This is the first English translation of a complete work by Vieira. It is in fact his second book, written in 1961 in Portuguese, but not available until it was published in a French translation in 1971. It was finally legally published in Portuguese in 1974.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jose Luandino Vieira (born Jose Vieira Mateus da Graça on May 4, 1935) is an Angolan writer of short fiction and novels. Vieira was born in Lagoa de Furadouro, OurEm, Portugal and was Portuguese by birth and ethnicity, but his parents immigrated to Angola in 1938 and he grew up immersed in the African quarters (musseques) of Luanda. He wrote in the language unique to the musseque, a fusion of Kimbundu and Portuguese. He left school at the age of fifteen and worked as a mechanic. He was devoted to Angolan independence, resulting in his arrest in 1961 after an interview with the BBC in which he disclosed secret lists of deserters from the Portuguese army fighting in Africa. He would remain in jail for eleven years. Vieira's works often followed the structure of the African oral narrative and dealt with the harsh realities of Portuguese rule in Angola. His best-known work was his early short story collection, Luuanda (1963), which received a Portuguese writers' literary award in 1965, though it was banned by the Portuguese government until 1974 due to its examination of the oppressiveness of the colonial administration in Angola. His novella A vida verdadeira de Domingos Xavier (The Real Life of Domingos Xavier; 1974) portrayed both the cruelty of the Portuguese administration and the courage of ordinary Angolans during the colonial period. Other works include Velhas estorias (‘Old Stories'; 1974), Nos os do Makulusu (‘Our Gang from Makulusu'; 1974), Vidas novas (‘New Lives'; 1975), and João Vêncio: os seus amores (‘João Vêncio: Regarding His Loves'; 1979). Vieira turned down the 100,000 Euros Camões Literary Prize awarded to him in May 2006, citing personal reasons. Vieira also served as secretary-general of the Union of Angolan writers, and in that capacity helped get the works of other Angolan authors and poets published.
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Wolfers, Michael (translator and editor). Poems from Angola. London. 1979. Heinemann. 0435902156. African Writers Series. Selected, translated and introduced by Michael Wolfers. 112 pages. paperback. AWS215.
DESCRIPTION- A collection of poems from Angola, mostly from the 1950s and 1960s. This anthology introduces Angolan poetry to the English-speaking world. So far it has largely been known through the work of the statesman Agostinho Neto. The chronological arrangement shows, through the work of twenty-two poets, the growth of Angolan poetry over the last thirty years and movingly reflects the political changes experienced by the writers in the fight against forced labour and colonialism and particularly in the counter-struggle to achieve national liberation. MICHAEL WOLFERS was on the staff of The Times, London, for seven years, latterly as the Africa Correspondent. He lived in Angola, from independence in November 1975, for two and a half years, working with MP LA and in national television and radio. His publications include Black Man's Burden Revisited (Allison & Busby 1974) and Politics in the Organisation of African Unity (Methuen 1976). He has also translated Luandino Vieira's The Real Life of Domingos Xavier (AWS 202) and Amilcar Cabral's Unity and Struggle (AWS 198).
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Michael Wolfers (born 28 September 1938; died London 15 October 2014) was a writer and political activist mainly in two former Portuguese colonies, Angola and Mozambique, after they became independent in 1975. He was born into a Jewish family that originated in Westphalia. After graduating in the early 1960s from Wadham College, Oxford, where he was an outstanding scholar, he worked for provincial newspapers and was later appointed an Africa correspondent for The Times. He formed friendships with many African politicians, particularly in Angola and Mozambique. He was a close friend of Janet Mondlane, widow of the founder of Mozambique’s ruling party Frelimo, Eduardo Mondlane, who was assassinated in Dar es Salaam in 1969. In 1973 he left The Times to work as a consultant to the new Marxist government in the Angolan capital, Luanda. Fluent in Portuguese and several other European languages, he co-wrote Angola in the Frontline (1983) with the late Jane Bergerol. Both were Marxists who went on to do specialist work in London for the Foreign Office. Wolfers was well respected in British socialist/Leftist academic circles although his critics claimed that he was a propagandist for the Marxist MPLA in Angola run by Augustino Neto (whose poetry he translated). In 1966 he formed a close friendship with the Marxist academic Thomas Hodgkin, and wrote his 2007 biography Thomas Hodgkin –-Wandering Scholar. Like Hodgkin, who he idolised, Wolfers was a public schoolboy who claimed to have embraced the cause of the poor and downtrodden in Africa. He was often extremely critical about writers on Africa who had, according to him, no understanding of the continent. He had a sharp sense of humour. One of the last times I saw him, at Chatham House in London, I asked him if he’d read any of the recent fat tomes on Africa. He smiled and said, “Read them? I can’t even lift them.” On his coverage of the Nigerian civil war, Frederick Forsyth of The Day of the Jackal fame, wrote in The Making of an African Legend – The Biafra Story (1977) that The Times was the only newspaper that managed to keep up consistently high reporting standards. “One of The Times reporters,” he wrote, “showed up by contrast the inability of some of his colleagues to file dispatches out of Lagos without becoming the mouthpiece of any Nigerian or British High Commission spokesman with something crass to say. Confining his reports to factual information about what was happening under his eyes in the Nigerian capital and eschewing speculative guesses as to what might be happening 400 miles way. Mr Wolfers turned in a file of copy during his sojourns in Lagos in 1969 that was in toto an object lesson on how foreign reporting should be done.” He translated books about Africa and specialised in translating Angolan poetry. He was a busy election monitor and worked in African and East European countries for the EU, UN and the Carter Centre. He had a home in Waterloo but lived most of the year in West Africa – sometimes in Ghana, more recently in Togo. He came to London with a new translation of African poems and to attend the 75th birthday party of his friend Lord Bragg, who he had met when they were at Oxford together. He was one of 16 guests savouring the first course at the Garrick Club when he collapsed and died.
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Xitu, Uanhenga. The World of Mestre Tamoda. Columbia. 1988. Readers International. 0930523423. Translated from the Portuguese by Annella McDermott. Introduction by Antonio Jacinto. 158 pages. hardcover. Cover art by the Angolan artist, Francisco D. Van-Dunen - 'Carnaval I'. Originally published as Os Discursos Do "Mestre" Tamoda.
DESCRIPTION- An ambassador of the government of Angola in Europe, Xitu conceived these stories while imprisoned in a Portuguese jail. Set in the 1940s, the tales in this book are divided into three sections: ‘Mestre' Tamoda' introduces us to the prolix Tamoda, who refers to a toothpick as a ‘wooden dental probe.' In ‘The Village,' Tamoda displays his ‘verbal dexterosity' at a funeral and a soccer match. ‘The Town the best in the collection centers on Maraja, a black tennis coach, and Arlete Pinto, the daughter of Portuguese parents. Social climbers, the Pintos are scandalized by their daughter's affair with a ‘bush black.' Once, on a visit to Johannesburg, they made Arlete stay in the hotel alone because her skin was ‘too dark' her great-grandmother, they are loathe to admit, was black. To protest the Pintos' racism, the town stages a mock wedding with Arlete and Maraja as bride and groom. One wishes that the three stories cohered as a novel, but they nonetheless provide a trenchantand comic insight into prerevolutionary Angola. - PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Agostinho Andre Mendes de Carvalho (August 29, 1924 - February 13, 2014), known by the pseudonym Uanhenga Xitu, was an Angolan writer and nationalist. Xitu was born in Calomboloca, and in 2009 was the oldest member of the parliament for the MPLA party.
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BENIN
[ BENIN - Literature ]Bhely-Quenum, Olympe. Snares Without End. Charlottesville. 1988. University Press Of Virginia. 0813911885. Translated by Dorothy S. Blair. Introduction by Abioseh Michael Porter. CARAF series. 204 pages. hardcover. Translation of Un piège sans fin.
DESCRIPTION- A novel, also a philosophical tale, in which a man's life is ruined when he is unjustly accused of adultery, where destiny entraps the innocent protagonist and holds him fast.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Olympe Bhêly-Quenum (born 20 September 1928) is a Beninese writer, journalist and magazine editor. Born in Ouidah, Benin (formerly Dahomey), Bhêly-Quenum had his primary education in Benin from 1938 to 1944, after which he traveled throughout his native country, Nigeria, his maternal grandmother's country, and Ghana, where he learned English. In 1948 he went to France and undertook his secondary studies at the College LittrE, in Avranches, Normandy (Manche). He worked as a teacher and trained as a diplomat, before turning to journalism. He was Editor-in-Chief and then Director of an African magazine entitled La Vie Africaine until 1964. He subsequently joined UNESCO in Paris. He is the author of several works of fiction published in French. He won the Grand prix littEraire d'Afrique noire for Le Chant du lac in 1966. His first novel Un Piège Sans Fin (1960) was translated into English as Snares Without End (Longman, 1981) and has been called ‘an un-put-downable tragedy'.
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Mama, Raouf. Why Monkeys Live in Trees and Other Stories from Benin. Evanston. 2006. Northwestern University Press. 9781931896214. Illustrated by Andy Jones. 90 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- This is a book for both young and old lovers of folklore. Why Monkeys Live in Trees and Other Stories from Benin is a rich tapestry of oral tales that come from a wide range of Beninese ethnic groups. They include trickster tales and sacred tales involving the greatest and meanest of mankind, as well as nature and the world of spirits. These ageless tales remind us of the power of love, the perils of greed and pride, and the redemptive virtues of courage, humility, and kindness. The Western African Republic of Benin (formerly Dahomey) is gifted with a great folktale tradition, one of the richest in the world. As pieces of oral literature and cultural history, these tales shed light on some of the values and beliefs as well as the customs and traditions of the people of Benin
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Raouf Mama, teacher, storyteller, orator, and CT Master Teaching Artist, is a native of Benin in West Africa. He holds a BA in TESOL from the National University of Benin, as well as an MA in English and a Ph.D. in English and Education from the University of Michigan. He teaches English at Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic.
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BOTSWANA
[ BOTSWANA - Biography ]Eilersen, Gillian Stead. Bessie Head-Thunder Behind Her Ears: Her Life and Writing. Portsmouth. 1995. Heinemann. 0435089846. 312 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Besie Head was a born writer, but one born also to a deprived childhood and a life of often recurring hardship. Indeed, her life echoes many aspects of the distressing history of South Africa in the last half-century. She was born in an asylum to a white woman who was considered mad; her father was black. Yet despite the disadvantages of being both a person of mixed race and a woman she made her way in Cape Town and Johannesburg as a journalist. As the political crisis deepened in South Africa in the 1960s, Bessie went into exile in rural Botswana. Although her life as a refugee in Botswana was full of crises and upheavals, her creative energy was released by her adopted country and she produced stories and novels - such as Where Rain Clouds Gather, Maru, A Question of Power - that won her an international reputation. Bessie Head - Thunder Behind Her Ears is an engrossing biography of the turbulent life of one of Africa's great writers, whose reputation is growing by the year. It describes with insight the driving force of Bessie's writing talent, her fiery personality and her often grinding circumstances.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Gillian Stead Eilersen studied at the University of Natal and Odense University, Denmark, where she now lectures in the Department of English. Exploring South African literature from Denmark, she was drawn to the writings of Bessie Head and discovered that she and Bessie had both grown up in Pietermaritzburg at the same time - but in very different circumstances. Thereafter she worked on the research that has led to this first full-length biography. Eilersen has also published articles on Bessie Head and in 1989 edited Tales of Tenderness and Power by Bessie Head.
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Head, Bessie and Ngugi wa Thiong’o. To Stir the Heart: Four African Stories. New York. 2007. The Feminist Press. 9781558615472. 2 x 2 Series. 109 pages. paperback. Cover design by Lisa Force.
DESCRIPTION- These powerful stories by two of Africa’s most renowned twentieth-century authors explore African cultures at the intersection of tradition and modernity, colonialism, and independence. Botswana’s preeminent writer Bessie Head and Ngugi wa Thiong’o, the most significant East African writer” (the New York Times), each use the politics and history of Africa in the midst of change as background for compelling stories of characters who, like their countries, are in search of their identity. In different ways, Head and Ngugi also chart the uneasy coexistence of men and women when their individual natures and desires conflict with societal expectations and customs.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bessie Amelia Emery Head (6 July 1937 – 17 April 1986) was a South African writer who, though born in South Africa, is usually considered Botswana's most influential writer. She wrote novels, short fiction and autobiographical works that are infused with spiritual questioning and reflection. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Head, Bessie. A Gesture of Belonging: Letters From Bessie Head, 1965-1979. Portsmouth. 1991. Heinemann. 0435080598. Edited by Randolph Vigne. 229 pages. paperback. Cover:detail from a painting by Hargreaves Ntukwana.
DESCRIPTION- "I was born on the 6 July 1937 in the Pietermaritzburg Mental Hospital in South Africa. The reason for my peculiar birthplace was that my mother was white, and she had acquired me from a black man. She was judged insane, and committed to the mental hospital while pregnant." Bessie Head, one of Africa's greatest writers, corresponded with Randolph Vigne, a political and literary friend from her Cape Town days, then editor of "The New African" in London, and this book is a selection from the letters she wrote him. The publication of her letters, writes Vigne, "may give people who did not know Bessie an opportunity to learn what she was like, especially in the hard early years of her exile. I hope the letters will show them that, with her death on 17 April 1986, the light that went out was a bright and inspiring one, however dark the scenes of her life that it illuminated."
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bessie Emery Head (6 July 1937 - 17 April 1986) is usually considered Botswana's most influential writer. Bessie Emery Head was born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, the child of a wealthy white South African woman and a black servant when interracial relationships were illegal in South Africa. It was claimed that her mother was mentally ill so that she could be sent to a quiet location to then give birth to Bessie without the neighbors knowing. However, the exact circumstances are disputed, and some of Bessie Head's comments, though often quoted as straight autobiography, are in fact from fictionalized settings. In the 1950s and '60s she was a teacher, then a journalist for the South African magazine Drum. In 1964 she moved to Botswana (then still the Bechuanaland Protectorate) as a refugee, having been peripherally involved with Pan-African politics. It would take 15 years for Head to obtain Botswana citizenship. Head settled in Serowe, the largest of Botswana's ‘villages' (i.e. traditional settlements as opposed to settler towns). Serowe was famous both for its historical importance, as capital of the Bamangwato people, and for the experimental Swaneng school of Patrick van Rensburg. The deposed chief of the Bamangwato, Seretse Khama, was soon to become the first President of independent Botswana. Her early death in 1986 (aged 48) from hepatitis came just at the point where she was starting to achieve recognition as a writer and was no longer so desperately poor. Most of Bessie Head's important works are set in Serowe, in particular the three novels When Rain Clouds Gather, Maru, and A Question of Power. One of her best works is When Rain Clouds Gather, in which she writes about a troubled young man called Makhaya who runs away from his birthplace, South Africa, to become a refugee in a little village called Golema Mmidi, in the heart of Botswana. Here he is faced with many challenges, one of which is the fact that Chief Matenge does not allow his presence in the village. He meets a white man named Gilbert and starts a whole new journey into the unknown. Head also published a number of short stories, including the collection The Collector of Treasures. She published a book on the history of Serowe, the village she settled in, called Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind. Her last novel, A Bewitched Crossroad, is historical, set in nineteenth-century Botswana. She had also written a story of two prophets, one wealthy and one who lived poorly called ‘Jacob: The Faith-Healing Priest'. Head's work, which emphasised the value of ordinary life and humble people, was more in touch with an earlier trend in African writing than many recent writers, who have made overtly political comments. Her writing has endured nonetheless. Religious ideas feature prominently at times, as in the work A Question of Power. It is interesting to note that Head was initially brought up as a Christian; however, she was later influenced by Hinduism (to which she was exposed through South Africa's Indian community). Most of her writing took place while she was in exile in Botswana. An exception is the early novel The Cardinals (published posthumously), written before she left South Africa. In some ways Bessie Head remained an outsider in her adopted country, and some discern she had something of a love-hate relationship with it. At times she suffered mental health problems and on one occasion put up a public notice making bizarre and shocking allegations about then President Sir Seretse Khama, which led to a period in Lobatse Mental Hospital. A Question of Power is based partly on those experiences. In 2007 the Bessie Head Heritage Trust was established, along with the Bessie Head Literature Awards. In July 2007 the library in Pietermaritzburg was renamed the Bessie Head library in her honor. In 2003 she was awarded the South African ‘Order of Ikhamanga in Gold' for her ‘exceptional contribution to literature and the struggle for social change, freedom and peace.'
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Head, Bessie. A Question of Power. New York. 1974. Pantheon Books. 0394491556. 206 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Kurt Vargo.
DESCRIPTION- A Question of Power is rich in irony, anger, and passion, both emotional and intellectual. It emerges as one of the most exciting works to come from southern Africa since the writings of Doris Lessing. In this powerful and complex novel, Elizabeth, a young colored woman fleeing the mean degradation of South Africa, comes with her young son to a village in Botswana, an African enclave within the borders of the Republic that has independence of a kind. She rejoins her own people and sets to work on the land. The country attracts the aid of European and American whites, who come to help build and plant. In undertaking the simplest and most humble kind of labor, Elizabeth discovers the mental peace that has previously evaded her.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bessie Emery Head (6 July 1937 - 17 April 1986) is usually considered Botswana's most influential writer. Bessie Emery Head was born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, the child of a wealthy white South African woman and a black servant when interracial relationships were illegal in South Africa. It was claimed that her mother was mentally ill so that she could be sent to a quiet location to then give birth to Bessie without the neighbors knowing. However, the exact circumstances are disputed, and some of Bessie Head's comments, though often quoted as straight autobiography, are in fact from fictionalized settings. In the 1950s and '60s she was a teacher, then a journalist for the South African magazine Drum. In 1964 she moved to Botswana (then still the Bechuanaland Protectorate) as a refugee, having been peripherally involved with Pan-African politics. It would take 15 years for Head to obtain Botswana citizenship. Head settled in Serowe, the largest of Botswana's ‘villages' (i.e. traditional settlements as opposed to settler towns). Serowe was famous both for its historical importance, as capital of the Bamangwato people, and for the experimental Swaneng school of Patrick van Rensburg. The deposed chief of the Bamangwato, Seretse Khama, was soon to become the first President of independent Botswana. Her early death in 1986 (aged 48) from hepatitis came just at the point where she was starting to achieve recognition as a writer and was no longer so desperately poor. Most of Bessie Head's important works are set in Serowe, in particular the three novels When Rain Clouds Gather, Maru, and A Question of Power. One of her best works is When Rain Clouds Gather, in which she writes about a troubled young man called Makhaya who runs away from his birthplace, South Africa, to become a refugee in a little village called Golema Mmidi, in the heart of Botswana. Here he is faced with many challenges, one of which is the fact that Chief Matenge does not allow his presence in the village. He meets a white man named Gilbert and starts a whole new journey into the unknown. Head also published a number of short stories, including the collection The Collector of Treasures. She published a book on the history of Serowe, the village she settled in, called Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind. Her last novel, A Bewitched Crossroad, is historical, set in nineteenth-century Botswana. She had also written a story of two prophets, one wealthy and one who lived poorly called ‘Jacob: The Faith-Healing Priest'. Head's work, which emphasised the value of ordinary life and humble people, was more in touch with an earlier trend in African writing than many recent writers, who have made overtly political comments. Her writing has endured nonetheless. Religious ideas feature prominently at times, as in the work A Question of Power. It is interesting to note that Head was initially brought up as a Christian; however, she was later influenced by Hinduism (to which she was exposed through South Africa's Indian community). Most of her writing took place while she was in exile in Botswana. An exception is the early novel The Cardinals (published posthumously), written before she left South Africa. In some ways Bessie Head remained an outsider in her adopted country, and some discern she had something of a love-hate relationship with it. At times she suffered mental health problems and on one occasion put up a public notice making bizarre and shocking allegations about then President Sir Seretse Khama, which led to a period in Lobatse Mental Hospital. A Question of Power is based partly on those experiences. In 2007 the Bessie Head Heritage Trust was established, along with the Bessie Head Literature Awards. In July 2007 the library in Pietermaritzburg was renamed the Bessie Head library in her honor. In 2003 she was awarded the South African ‘Order of Ikhamanga in Gold' for her ‘exceptional contribution to literature and the struggle for social change, freedom and peace.'
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Head, Bessie. A Woman Alone: Autobiographical Writings. Portsmouth. 1994. Heinemann. 0435905783. Selected & Edited by Craig MacKenzie. African Writers Series. 107 pages. paperback. Cover design by Keith Pointing. Cover illustration by Sunita Singh. Author photograph by George Hallett.
DESCRIPTION- HEINEMANN AFRICAN WRITERS SERIES A PAPERBACK ORIGINAL 'I need a quiet backwater and a sense of living as though I am barely alive on the earth, treading a small, careful pathway through life.' Intense personal experiences of South Africa's brutal social system, a sense of stifled creativity and a distaste for politics made Bessie Head leave for Botswana on an exit permit at the age of 27. There, in her chosen rural 'haven' of Serowe, and despite a severe mental breakdown, she wrote the novels and stories that earned her international recognition as one of Africa's most remarkable and individual writers. A Woman Alone is a collection of autobiographical writings, sketches and essays which covers the entire span of Bessie Head's creative life, up to her death in 1986 at the age of 49. It reveals a woman of great sensitivity and vitality, inspired through her knowledge of suffering in a `reverence for ordinary people' and finding some healing for her own anguish in a quiet corner of Africa.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bessie Emery Head (6 July 1937 - 17 April 1986) is usually considered Botswana's most influential writer. Bessie Emery Head was born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, the child of a wealthy white South African woman and a black servant when interracial relationships were illegal in South Africa. It was claimed that her mother was mentally ill so that she could be sent to a quiet location to then give birth to Bessie without the neighbors knowing. However, the exact circumstances are disputed, and some of Bessie Head's comments, though often quoted as straight autobiography, are in fact from fictionalized settings. In the 1950s and '60s she was a teacher, then a journalist for the South African magazine Drum. In 1964 she moved to Botswana (then still the Bechuanaland Protectorate) as a refugee, having been peripherally involved with Pan-African politics. It would take 15 years for Head to obtain Botswana citizenship. Head settled in Serowe, the largest of Botswana's ‘villages' (i.e. traditional settlements as opposed to settler towns). Serowe was famous both for its historical importance, as capital of the Bamangwato people, and for the experimental Swaneng school of Patrick van Rensburg. The deposed chief of the Bamangwato, Seretse Khama, was soon to become the first President of independent Botswana. Her early death in 1986 (aged 48) from hepatitis came just at the point where she was starting to achieve recognition as a writer and was no longer so desperately poor. Most of Bessie Head's important works are set in Serowe, in particular the three novels When Rain Clouds Gather, Maru, and A Question of Power. One of her best works is When Rain Clouds Gather, in which she writes about a troubled young man called Makhaya who runs away from his birthplace, South Africa, to become a refugee in a little village called Golema Mmidi, in the heart of Botswana. Here he is faced with many challenges, one of which is the fact that Chief Matenge does not allow his presence in the village. He meets a white man named Gilbert and starts a whole new journey into the unknown. Head also published a number of short stories, including the collection The Collector of Treasures. She published a book on the history of Serowe, the village she settled in, called Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind. Her last novel, A Bewitched Crossroad, is historical, set in nineteenth-century Botswana. She had also written a story of two prophets, one wealthy and one who lived poorly called ‘Jacob: The Faith-Healing Priest'. Head's work, which emphasised the value of ordinary life and humble people, was more in touch with an earlier trend in African writing than many recent writers, who have made overtly political comments. Her writing has endured nonetheless. Religious ideas feature prominently at times, as in the work A Question of Power. It is interesting to note that Head was initially brought up as a Christian; however, she was later influenced by Hinduism (to which she was exposed through South Africa's Indian community). Most of her writing took place while she was in exile in Botswana. An exception is the early novel The Cardinals (published posthumously), written before she left South Africa. In some ways Bessie Head remained an outsider in her adopted country, and some discern she had something of a love-hate relationship with it. At times she suffered mental health problems and on one occasion put up a public notice making bizarre and shocking allegations about then President Sir Seretse Khama, which led to a period in Lobatse Mental Hospital. A Question of Power is based partly on those experiences. In 2007 the Bessie Head Heritage Trust was established, along with the Bessie Head Literature Awards. In July 2007 the library in Pietermaritzburg was renamed the Bessie Head library in her honor. In 2003 she was awarded the South African ‘Order of Ikhamanga in Gold' for her ‘exceptional contribution to literature and the struggle for social change, freedom and peace.'
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Head, Bessie. Maru. New York. 1971. McCall. 0841501173. 127 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Mike McIver.
DESCRIPTION- In Botswana they say: Zebras, Lions, Buffalo, and Bushmen live in the Kalahari Desert. Of all things that are said of oppressed people, the worst things are said and done to the Bushmen. So writes Bessie Head at the start of her second novel, which like her first is set in the new nation of Botswana and is overflowing with the richness of Africa. Her heroine is a Bushman girl, who has been adopted and educated by an English missionary and knows of her despised heritage only through what other people do to her. When Margaret goes to teach in a remote village, a young chief, Maru, and the son of another chief, Moleka, both fall in love with her. Love for Margaret brings an end to the men's friendship as well as a painful reassessment of their attitudes to Bushmen, whom they traditionally had used as slaves. In the resolution of their rivalry, Bessie Head reveals her deep understanding of her villagers and their values. Both simple and sophisticated, Maru is a remarkable love story, as well as a kind of African fairy tale that is a superb blend of the fanciful and the real.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bessie Emery Head (6 July 1937 - 17 April 1986) is usually considered Botswana's most influential writer. Bessie Emery Head was born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, the child of a wealthy white South African woman and a black servant when interracial relationships were illegal in South Africa. It was claimed that her mother was mentally ill so that she could be sent to a quiet location to then give birth to Bessie without the neighbors knowing. However, the exact circumstances are disputed, and some of Bessie Head's comments, though often quoted as straight autobiography, are in fact from fictionalized settings. In the 1950s and '60s she was a teacher, then a journalist for the South African magazine Drum. In 1964 she moved to Botswana (then still the Bechuanaland Protectorate) as a refugee, having been peripherally involved with Pan-African politics. It would take 15 years for Head to obtain Botswana citizenship. Head settled in Serowe, the largest of Botswana's ‘villages' (i.e. traditional settlements as opposed to settler towns). Serowe was famous both for its historical importance, as capital of the Bamangwato people, and for the experimental Swaneng school of Patrick van Rensburg. The deposed chief of the Bamangwato, Seretse Khama, was soon to become the first President of independent Botswana. Her early death in 1986 (aged 48) from hepatitis came just at the point where she was starting to achieve recognition as a writer and was no longer so desperately poor. Most of Bessie Head's important works are set in Serowe, in particular the three novels When Rain Clouds Gather, Maru, and A Question of Power. One of her best works is When Rain Clouds Gather, in which she writes about a troubled young man called Makhaya who runs away from his birthplace, South Africa, to become a refugee in a little village called Golema Mmidi, in the heart of Botswana. Here he is faced with many challenges, one of which is the fact that Chief Matenge does not allow his presence in the village. He meets a white man named Gilbert and starts a whole new journey into the unknown. Head also published a number of short stories, including the collection The Collector of Treasures. She published a book on the history of Serowe, the village she settled in, called Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind. Her last novel, A Bewitched Crossroad, is historical, set in nineteenth-century Botswana. She had also written a story of two prophets, one wealthy and one who lived poorly called ‘Jacob: The Faith-Healing Priest'. Head's work, which emphasised the value of ordinary life and humble people, was more in touch with an earlier trend in African writing than many recent writers, who have made overtly political comments. Her writing has endured nonetheless. Religious ideas feature prominently at times, as in the work A Question of Power. It is interesting to note that Head was initially brought up as a Christian; however, she was later influenced by Hinduism (to which she was exposed through South Africa's Indian community). Most of her writing took place while she was in exile in Botswana. An exception is the early novel The Cardinals (published posthumously), written before she left South Africa. In some ways Bessie Head remained an outsider in her adopted country, and some discern she had something of a love-hate relationship with it. At times she suffered mental health problems and on one occasion put up a public notice making bizarre and shocking allegations about then President Sir Seretse Khama, which led to a period in Lobatse Mental Hospital. A Question of Power is based partly on those experiences. In 2007 the Bessie Head Heritage Trust was established, along with the Bessie Head Literature Awards. In July 2007 the library in Pietermaritzburg was renamed the Bessie Head library in her honor. In 2003 she was awarded the South African ‘Order of Ikhamanga in Gold' for her ‘exceptional contribution to literature and the struggle for social change, freedom and peace.'
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Head, Bessie. Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind. London. 1981. Heinemann. 0435902202. African Writers Series. 200 pages. paperback. AWS220.
DESCRIPTION- In his foreword Ronald Blythe writes: ‘I felt as I came to the end of this unforgettable book that I had understood not only Serowe. but for the first time certain things about Africa itself which had never before found their way into literature. I knew I was seeing and hearing things which made sense at last of much of what has occurred there this past century.' BESSIE HEAD has set all three of her outstanding novels in Botswana, her country of exile from South Africa, where she was born in 1937. WHEN RAIN CLOUDS GATHER (AWS 247) and MARU (AWS 101) were followed by A QUESTION OF POWER (AWS 149), and a sequence of stories THE COLLECTOR OF TREASURES (AWS 182), which is also set in a Botswana village. Bessie Head has used all her skills as a novelist to show an African community going about its daily work both now and in the last hundred years. Serowe is, in any case, one of the best-known villages in Africa because it is the capital of the people ruled by the Khamas, of whom Tshekedi and Seretse are the most famous. But, as in Ronald Blythe's AKENFIELD, her central intention is to recall a community and its history through the words of the thatcher and the school teacher, the potter and the preacher, the market woman and the ploughman. Here are the actual words of nearly one hundred inhabitants representing all aspects of a community. In Africa where most people still have strong village connections, readers will find instant parallels and contrasts with their own communities.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bessie Emery Head (6 July 1937 - 17 April 1986) is usually considered Botswana's most influential writer. Bessie Emery Head was born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, the child of a wealthy white South African woman and a black servant when interracial relationships were illegal in South Africa. It was claimed that her mother was mentally ill so that she could be sent to a quiet location to then give birth to Bessie without the neighbors knowing. However, the exact circumstances are disputed, and some of Bessie Head's comments, though often quoted as straight autobiography, are in fact from fictionalized settings. In the 1950s and '60s she was a teacher, then a journalist for the South African magazine Drum. In 1964 she moved to Botswana (then still the Bechuanaland Protectorate) as a refugee, having been peripherally involved with Pan-African politics. It would take 15 years for Head to obtain Botswana citizenship. Head settled in Serowe, the largest of Botswana's ‘villages' (i.e. traditional settlements as opposed to settler towns). Serowe was famous both for its historical importance, as capital of the Bamangwato people, and for the experimental Swaneng school of Patrick van Rensburg. The deposed chief of the Bamangwato, Seretse Khama, was soon to become the first President of independent Botswana. Her early death in 1986 (aged 48) from hepatitis came just at the point where she was starting to achieve recognition as a writer and was no longer so desperately poor. Most of Bessie Head's important works are set in Serowe, in particular the three novels When Rain Clouds Gather, Maru, and A Question of Power. One of her best works is When Rain Clouds Gather, in which she writes about a troubled young man called Makhaya who runs away from his birthplace, South Africa, to become a refugee in a little village called Golema Mmidi, in the heart of Botswana. Here he is faced with many challenges, one of which is the fact that Chief Matenge does not allow his presence in the village. He meets a white man named Gilbert and starts a whole new journey into the unknown. Head also published a number of short stories, including the collection The Collector of Treasures. She published a book on the history of Serowe, the village she settled in, called Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind. Her last novel, A Bewitched Crossroad, is historical, set in nineteenth-century Botswana. She had also written a story of two prophets, one wealthy and one who lived poorly called ‘Jacob: The Faith-Healing Priest'. Head's work, which emphasised the value of ordinary life and humble people, was more in touch with an earlier trend in African writing than many recent writers, who have made overtly political comments. Her writing has endured nonetheless. Religious ideas feature prominently at times, as in the work A Question of Power. It is interesting to note that Head was initially brought up as a Christian; however, she was later influenced by Hinduism (to which she was exposed through South Africa's Indian community). Most of her writing took place while she was in exile in Botswana. An exception is the early novel The Cardinals (published posthumously), written before she left South Africa. In some ways Bessie Head remained an outsider in her adopted country, and some discern she had something of a love-hate relationship with it. At times she suffered mental health problems and on one occasion put up a public notice making bizarre and shocking allegations about then President Sir Seretse Khama, which led to a period in Lobatse Mental Hospital. A Question of Power is based partly on those experiences. In 2007 the Bessie Head Heritage Trust was established, along with the Bessie Head Literature Awards. In July 2007 the library in Pietermaritzburg was renamed the Bessie Head library in her honor. In 2003 she was awarded the South African ‘Order of Ikhamanga in Gold' for her ‘exceptional contribution to literature and the struggle for social change, freedom and peace.'
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Head, Bessie. Tales of Tenderness and Power. Oxford. 1990. Heinemann. 0435905791. African Writers Series. 144 pages. paperback. Cover design by Keith Pointing Cover illustration by Sunita Singh Author photograph by George Hallett.
DESCRIPTION- During her lifetime (1937-86), Bessie Head was hailed as one of Africa's greatest writers. This anthology of stories, personal observations and historic legends - some previously unpublished - is a fitting tribute to her versatility and power as a story-teller and commentator. TALES OF TENDERNESS AND POWER draws on writings which have roots in the author's own experience in Botswana. It reflects her fascination with the country's people and their history and her identification with individuals and their conflicting emotions. ‘She enjoyed observing, smiling, forgiving or raging and then recording.' These tales reveal her affinity with human goodness and tenderness and her fear and resentment of the misuse of power. Bessie Head has been described as writing with ‘an extraordinary simplicity and breadth of vision'. This collection will honour her vision and posthumously reinforce her literary status. ‘It should be widely read for it confirms the stature and rich complexity of Head's literary legend.' Andries Walter Oliphant, New Nation ‘TALES OF TENDERNESS AND POWER is a good book which reasserts Head as one of Africa's great writers, and pays a deserved tribute to a woman who gave the best part of her life to literature.' Kaizer M Nyatsumba, Tribute.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bessie Emery Head (6 July 1937 - 17 April 1986) is usually considered Botswana's most influential writer. Bessie Emery Head was born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, the child of a wealthy white South African woman and a black servant when interracial relationships were illegal in South Africa. It was claimed that her mother was mentally ill so that she could be sent to a quiet location to then give birth to Bessie without the neighbors knowing. However, the exact circumstances are disputed, and some of Bessie Head's comments, though often quoted as straight autobiography, are in fact from fictionalized settings. In the 1950s and '60s she was a teacher, then a journalist for the South African magazine Drum. In 1964 she moved to Botswana (then still the Bechuanaland Protectorate) as a refugee, having been peripherally involved with Pan-African politics. It would take 15 years for Head to obtain Botswana citizenship. Head settled in Serowe, the largest of Botswana's ‘villages' (i.e. traditional settlements as opposed to settler towns). Serowe was famous both for its historical importance, as capital of the Bamangwato people, and for the experimental Swaneng school of Patrick van Rensburg. The deposed chief of the Bamangwato, Seretse Khama, was soon to become the first President of independent Botswana. Her early death in 1986 (aged 48) from hepatitis came just at the point where she was starting to achieve recognition as a writer and was no longer so desperately poor. Most of Bessie Head's important works are set in Serowe, in particular the three novels When Rain Clouds Gather, Maru, and A Question of Power. One of her best works is When Rain Clouds Gather, in which she writes about a troubled young man called Makhaya who runs away from his birthplace, South Africa, to become a refugee in a little village called Golema Mmidi, in the heart of Botswana. Here he is faced with many challenges, one of which is the fact that Chief Matenge does not allow his presence in the village. He meets a white man named Gilbert and starts a whole new journey into the unknown. Head also published a number of short stories, including the collection The Collector of Treasures. She published a book on the history of Serowe, the village she settled in, called Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind. Her last novel, A Bewitched Crossroad, is historical, set in nineteenth-century Botswana. She had also written a story of two prophets, one wealthy and one who lived poorly called ‘Jacob: The Faith-Healing Priest'. Head's work, which emphasised the value of ordinary life and humble people, was more in touch with an earlier trend in African writing than many recent writers, who have made overtly political comments. Her writing has endured nonetheless. Religious ideas feature prominently at times, as in the work A Question of Power. It is interesting to note that Head was initially brought up as a Christian; however, she was later influenced by Hinduism (to which she was exposed through South Africa's Indian community). Most of her writing took place while she was in exile in Botswana. An exception is the early novel The Cardinals (published posthumously), written before she left South Africa. In some ways Bessie Head remained an outsider in her adopted country, and some discern she had something of a love-hate relationship with it. At times she suffered mental health problems and on one occasion put up a public notice making bizarre and shocking allegations about then President Sir Seretse Khama, which led to a period in Lobatse Mental Hospital. A Question of Power is based partly on those experiences. In 2007 the Bessie Head Heritage Trust was established, along with the Bessie Head Literature Awards. In July 2007 the library in Pietermaritzburg was renamed the Bessie Head library in her honor. In 2003 she was awarded the South African ‘Order of Ikhamanga in Gold' for her ‘exceptional contribution to literature and the struggle for social change, freedom and peace.'
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Head, Bessie. The Cardinals With Meditations and Short Stories. Portsmouth. 1995. Heinemann. 0435909673. African Writers Series. 141 pages. paperback. Cover illustration by Alan Bond.
DESCRIPTION- This is the first time THE CARDINALS is available outside South Africa. It is the 1960s in South Africa. Blacks and whites are segregated, in life and love. This is Mouse's world, but she is blind to it, living only for her books. A job as a reporter on African Beat forces her to open her eyes. Newsroom sexism combines with everyday stories of racial repression, and political muck-raking to radically alter Mouse's perceptions. But it is her relationship with the cynical newshound Johnny that is the greatest challenge to her loveless solitude. THE CARDINALS was one of Bessie Head's earliest works. Like the other short pieces in this collection it is a passionate exploration of the effects of apartheid. Bessie Head was born in South Africa in 1937 and died in exile in 1986. Her works include - WHEN RAIN CLOUDS GATHER, MARU, and A QUESTION OF POWER.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bessie Emery Head (6 July 1937 - 17 April 1986) is usually considered Botswana's most influential writer. Bessie Emery Head was born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, the child of a wealthy white South African woman and a black servant when interracial relationships were illegal in South Africa. It was claimed that her mother was mentally ill so that she could be sent to a quiet location to then give birth to Bessie without the neighbors knowing. However, the exact circumstances are disputed, and some of Bessie Head's comments, though often quoted as straight autobiography, are in fact from fictionalized settings. In the 1950s and '60s she was a teacher, then a journalist for the South African magazine Drum. In 1964 she moved to Botswana (then still the Bechuanaland Protectorate) as a refugee, having been peripherally involved with Pan-African politics. It would take 15 years for Head to obtain Botswana citizenship. Head settled in Serowe, the largest of Botswana's ‘villages' (i.e. traditional settlements as opposed to settler towns). Serowe was famous both for its historical importance, as capital of the Bamangwato people, and for the experimental Swaneng school of Patrick van Rensburg. The deposed chief of the Bamangwato, Seretse Khama, was soon to become the first President of independent Botswana. Her early death in 1986 (aged 48) from hepatitis came just at the point where she was starting to achieve recognition as a writer and was no longer so desperately poor. Most of Bessie Head's important works are set in Serowe, in particular the three novels When Rain Clouds Gather, Maru, and A Question of Power. One of her best works is When Rain Clouds Gather, in which she writes about a troubled young man called Makhaya who runs away from his birthplace, South Africa, to become a refugee in a little village called Golema Mmidi, in the heart of Botswana. Here he is faced with many challenges, one of which is the fact that Chief Matenge does not allow his presence in the village. He meets a white man named Gilbert and starts a whole new journey into the unknown. Head also published a number of short stories, including the collection The Collector of Treasures. She published a book on the history of Serowe, the village she settled in, called Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind. Her last novel, A Bewitched Crossroad, is historical, set in nineteenth-century Botswana. She had also written a story of two prophets, one wealthy and one who lived poorly called ‘Jacob: The Faith-Healing Priest'. Head's work, which emphasised the value of ordinary life and humble people, was more in touch with an earlier trend in African writing than many recent writers, who have made overtly political comments. Her writing has endured nonetheless. Religious ideas feature prominently at times, as in the work A Question of Power. It is interesting to note that Head was initially brought up as a Christian; however, she was later influenced by Hinduism (to which she was exposed through South Africa's Indian community). Most of her writing took place while she was in exile in Botswana. An exception is the early novel The Cardinals (published posthumously), written before she left South Africa. In some ways Bessie Head remained an outsider in her adopted country, and some discern she had something of a love-hate relationship with it. At times she suffered mental health problems and on one occasion put up a public notice making bizarre and shocking allegations about then President Sir Seretse Khama, which led to a period in Lobatse Mental Hospital. A Question of Power is based partly on those experiences. In 2007 the Bessie Head Heritage Trust was established, along with the Bessie Head Literature Awards. In July 2007 the library in Pietermaritzburg was renamed the Bessie Head library in her honor. In 2003 she was awarded the South African ‘Order of Ikhamanga in Gold' for her ‘exceptional contribution to literature and the struggle for social change, freedom and peace.'
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Head, Bessie. The Collector of Treasures and Other Botswana Village Tales. London. 1977. Heinemann. 0435901826. African Writers Series. 109 pages. paperback. AWS182. Cover photograph by George Hallett.
DESCRIPTION- The title story of THE COLLECTOR OF TREASURES tells of a woman who has murdered the husband who deserted her years before, In its study of a woman's unhappiness it brings together several of the major strands in this collection of tales of people in a Botswana village. The whole collection has been given a carefully developed sequence. Bessie Head says: ‘There are some of the old African myths to head the sequence. with themes such as the ancient pattern of tribal migration, and heathendom versus Christianity and witchcraft. ‘And the last four stories, ‘Snapshots of a Wedding', ‘The Special One', ‘The Collector of Treasures' and ‘Hunting' can be grouped together as they all deal, in their different ways, with a complete breakdown of family life, especially in Bamangwato country where I live, All the background was given to me by women who rear illegitimate children on their own. Heinemann have accepted this book for their famous African Writers Series, and will publish their paperback edition in Southern Africa fifteen months after this boards edition. BESSIE HEAD has set all three of her outstanding novels in Botswana, her country of exile from South Africa, where she was born in 1937. WHEN RAIN CLOUDS GATHER and MARU, were followed by A QUESTION OF POWER of which Ronald Blythe said in The Sunday Times: ‘Her novels, this is the third, have a way of soaring up from rock bottom to the stars, and are very shaking.'
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bessie Emery Head (6 July 1937 - 17 April 1986) is usually considered Botswana's most influential writer. Bessie Emery Head was born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, the child of a wealthy white South African woman and a black servant when interracial relationships were illegal in South Africa. It was claimed that her mother was mentally ill so that she could be sent to a quiet location to then give birth to Bessie without the neighbors knowing. However, the exact circumstances are disputed, and some of Bessie Head's comments, though often quoted as straight autobiography, are in fact from fictionalized settings. In the 1950s and '60s she was a teacher, then a journalist for the South African magazine Drum. In 1964 she moved to Botswana (then still the Bechuanaland Protectorate) as a refugee, having been peripherally involved with Pan-African politics. It would take 15 years for Head to obtain Botswana citizenship. Head settled in Serowe, the largest of Botswana's ‘villages' (i.e. traditional settlements as opposed to settler towns). Serowe was famous both for its historical importance, as capital of the Bamangwato people, and for the experimental Swaneng school of Patrick van Rensburg. The deposed chief of the Bamangwato, Seretse Khama, was soon to become the first President of independent Botswana. Her early death in 1986 (aged 48) from hepatitis came just at the point where she was starting to achieve recognition as a writer and was no longer so desperately poor. Most of Bessie Head's important works are set in Serowe, in particular the three novels When Rain Clouds Gather, Maru, and A Question of Power. One of her best works is When Rain Clouds Gather, in which she writes about a troubled young man called Makhaya who runs away from his birthplace, South Africa, to become a refugee in a little village called Golema Mmidi, in the heart of Botswana. Here he is faced with many challenges, one of which is the fact that Chief Matenge does not allow his presence in the village. He meets a white man named Gilbert and starts a whole new journey into the unknown. Head also published a number of short stories, including the collection The Collector of Treasures. She published a book on the history of Serowe, the village she settled in, called Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind. Her last novel, A Bewitched Crossroad, is historical, set in nineteenth-century Botswana. She had also written a story of two prophets, one wealthy and one who lived poorly called ‘Jacob: The Faith-Healing Priest'. Head's work, which emphasised the value of ordinary life and humble people, was more in touch with an earlier trend in African writing than many recent writers, who have made overtly political comments. Her writing has endured nonetheless. Religious ideas feature prominently at times, as in the work A Question of Power. It is interesting to note that Head was initially brought up as a Christian; however, she was later influenced by Hinduism (to which she was exposed through South Africa's Indian community). Most of her writing took place while she was in exile in Botswana. An exception is the early novel The Cardinals (published posthumously), written before she left South Africa. In some ways Bessie Head remained an outsider in her adopted country, and some discern she had something of a love-hate relationship with it. At times she suffered mental health problems and on one occasion put up a public notice making bizarre and shocking allegations about then President Sir Seretse Khama, which led to a period in Lobatse Mental Hospital. A Question of Power is based partly on those experiences. In 2007 the Bessie Head Heritage Trust was established, along with the Bessie Head Literature Awards. In July 2007 the library in Pietermaritzburg was renamed the Bessie Head library in her honor. In 2003 she was awarded the South African ‘Order of Ikhamanga in Gold' for her ‘exceptional contribution to literature and the struggle for social change, freedom and peace.'
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Head, Bessie. The Lovers: A Collection of Short Stories. Harlow. 2011. Heinemann. 9780435045715. African Writers Series. Edited and with an introduction by Stephen Gray. 169 pages. paperback. Cover design by Sara Rafferty.
DESCRIPTION- 'My writing is not on anybody's bandwaggon. It is on the sidelines where I can more or less think things out with a clear head.’ - Bessie Head (1975). The Lovers collects together her short fiction of the 1960s and 70s, written mainly in Serowe, Botswana, and depicting the lives and loves of African village people pre- and post-independence. An earlier selection called Tales of Tenderness and Power was published in the Heinemann African Writers Series in 1990, while this replacement volume adds many previously unavailable stories collected here for the first time. Anthology favourites like her breakthrough 'The Woman from America' and 'The Prisoner who Wore Glasses' are included, leading up to the complete text of her much translated title story. 'Bessie Head had an uncanny ability to write stories which, instead of dictating the way you read, provoke the reader into an active imaginative participation in the creation of the fictional experience. In a remarkable way her hostility to authoritarian power-games seeps into the very construction of her narratives.’ - Jean-Philippe Wade in Alternation (1995).
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bessie Emery Head (6 July 1937 - 17 April 1986) is usually considered Botswana's most influential writer. Bessie Emery Head was born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, the child of a wealthy white South African woman and a black servant when interracial relationships were illegal in South Africa. It was claimed that her mother was mentally ill so that she could be sent to a quiet location to then give birth to Bessie without the neighbors knowing. However, the exact circumstances are disputed, and some of Bessie Head's comments, though often quoted as straight autobiography, are in fact from fictionalized settings. In the 1950s and '60s she was a teacher, then a journalist for the South African magazine Drum. In 1964 she moved to Botswana (then still the Bechuanaland Protectorate) as a refugee, having been peripherally involved with Pan-African politics. It would take 15 years for Head to obtain Botswana citizenship. Head settled in Serowe, the largest of Botswana's ‘villages' (i.e. traditional settlements as opposed to settler towns). Serowe was famous both for its historical importance, as capital of the Bamangwato people, and for the experimental Swaneng school of Patrick van Rensburg. The deposed chief of the Bamangwato, Seretse Khama, was soon to become the first President of independent Botswana. Her early death in 1986 (aged 48) from hepatitis came just at the point where she was starting to achieve recognition as a writer and was no longer so desperately poor. Most of Bessie Head's important works are set in Serowe, in particular the three novels When Rain Clouds Gather, Maru, and A Question of Power. One of her best works is When Rain Clouds Gather, in which she writes about a troubled young man called Makhaya who runs away from his birthplace, South Africa, to become a refugee in a little village called Golema Mmidi, in the heart of Botswana. Here he is faced with many challenges, one of which is the fact that Chief Matenge does not allow his presence in the village. He meets a white man named Gilbert and starts a whole new journey into the unknown. Head also published a number of short stories, including the collection The Collector of Treasures. She published a book on the history of Serowe, the village she settled in, called Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind. Her last novel, A Bewitched Crossroad, is historical, set in nineteenth-century Botswana. She had also written a story of two prophets, one wealthy and one who lived poorly called ‘Jacob: The Faith-Healing Priest'. Head's work, which emphasised the value of ordinary life and humble people, was more in touch with an earlier trend in African writing than many recent writers, who have made overtly political comments. Her writing has endured nonetheless. Religious ideas feature prominently at times, as in the work A Question of Power. It is interesting to note that Head was initially brought up as a Christian; however, she was later influenced by Hinduism (to which she was exposed through South Africa's Indian community). Most of her writing took place while she was in exile in Botswana. An exception is the early novel The Cardinals (published posthumously), written before she left South Africa. In some ways Bessie Head remained an outsider in her adopted country, and some discern she had something of a love-hate relationship with it. At times she suffered mental health problems and on one occasion put up a public notice making bizarre and shocking allegations about then President Sir Seretse Khama, which led to a period in Lobatse Mental Hospital. A Question of Power is based partly on those experiences. In 2007 the Bessie Head Heritage Trust was established, along with the Bessie Head Literature Awards. In July 2007 the library in Pietermaritzburg was renamed the Bessie Head library in her honor. In 2003 she was awarded the South African ‘Order of Ikhamanga in Gold' for her ‘exceptional contribution to literature and the struggle for social change, freedom and peace.'
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Head, Bessie. When Rain Clouds Gather. New York. 1968. Simon & Schuster. 188 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Nancy Haase.
DESCRIPTION- In this timely first novel, a gifted young African dramatizes the turbulence erupting the world over as black people struggle to find their own way of life after centuries of white domination. The setting of When Rain Clouds Gather is Botswana, a small new nation in southern Africa, where the author now lives. At last in control of their own destiny, the villagers of Golema Mmidi find that political independence has not changed the harsh facts of their bleak existence. Their land is not fruitful and they themselves have neither the education nor the skills to lift the yoke of hardship that their traditions have for so long imposed on them. Nor are the villagers united in their communal aims. The old chieftains are scornful of the new breed of politicians who lure prospective voters with demagogic promises. Meanwhile, the villagers cling to their ancient and burdensome way of life. When a British agriculturist proposes an ingenious plan to ease their collective plight, the villagers are apathetic. It takes a young black idealist, lately arrived from the oppression of South Africa, to sense the urgency of the situation and to spur his new neighbors to face reality. As he clashes head-on with potent forces whose authority he and his new ways deeply threaten, young Makhaya finds peril - and love. With quiet passion, Bessie Head evokes today's embattled Africa and its very human problems. Her story is ennobling and universally appealing.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bessie Emery Head (6 July 1937 - 17 April 1986) is usually considered Botswana's most influential writer. Bessie Emery Head was born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, the child of a wealthy white South African woman and a black servant when interracial relationships were illegal in South Africa. It was claimed that her mother was mentally ill so that she could be sent to a quiet location to then give birth to Bessie without the neighbors knowing. However, the exact circumstances are disputed, and some of Bessie Head's comments, though often quoted as straight autobiography, are in fact from fictionalized settings. In the 1950s and '60s she was a teacher, then a journalist for the South African magazine Drum. In 1964 she moved to Botswana (then still the Bechuanaland Protectorate) as a refugee, having been peripherally involved with Pan-African politics. It would take 15 years for Head to obtain Botswana citizenship. Head settled in Serowe, the largest of Botswana's ‘villages' (i.e. traditional settlements as opposed to settler towns). Serowe was famous both for its historical importance, as capital of the Bamangwato people, and for the experimental Swaneng school of Patrick van Rensburg. The deposed chief of the Bamangwato, Seretse Khama, was soon to become the first President of independent Botswana. Her early death in 1986 (aged 48) from hepatitis came just at the point where she was starting to achieve recognition as a writer and was no longer so desperately poor. Most of Bessie Head's important works are set in Serowe, in particular the three novels When Rain Clouds Gather, Maru, and A Question of Power. One of her best works is When Rain Clouds Gather, in which she writes about a troubled young man called Makhaya who runs away from his birthplace, South Africa, to become a refugee in a little village called Golema Mmidi, in the heart of Botswana. Here he is faced with many challenges, one of which is the fact that Chief Matenge does not allow his presence in the village. He meets a white man named Gilbert and starts a whole new journey into the unknown. Head also published a number of short stories, including the collection The Collector of Treasures. She published a book on the history of Serowe, the village she settled in, called Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind. Her last novel, A Bewitched Crossroad, is historical, set in nineteenth-century Botswana. She had also written a story of two prophets, one wealthy and one who lived poorly called ‘Jacob: The Faith-Healing Priest'. Head's work, which emphasised the value of ordinary life and humble people, was more in touch with an earlier trend in African writing than many recent writers, who have made overtly political comments. Her writing has endured nonetheless. Religious ideas feature prominently at times, as in the work A Question of Power. It is interesting to note that Head was initially brought up as a Christian; however, she was later influenced by Hinduism (to which she was exposed through South Africa's Indian community). Most of her writing took place while she was in exile in Botswana. An exception is the early novel The Cardinals (published posthumously), written before she left South Africa. In some ways Bessie Head remained an outsider in her adopted country, and some discern she had something of a love-hate relationship with it. At times she suffered mental health problems and on one occasion put up a public notice making bizarre and shocking allegations about then President Sir Seretse Khama, which led to a period in Lobatse Mental Hospital. A Question of Power is based partly on those experiences. In 2007 the Bessie Head Heritage Trust was established, along with the Bessie Head Literature Awards. In July 2007 the library in Pietermaritzburg was renamed the Bessie Head library in her honor. In 2003 she was awarded the South African ‘Order of Ikhamanga in Gold' for her ‘exceptional contribution to literature and the struggle for social change, freedom and peace.'
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Sobott-Mogwe, Gaele. Colour Me Blue: Short Stories. Portsmouth. 1995. Heinemann. 0435909711. African Writers Series. 121 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Gaele Sobott-Mogwe's stories tell of everyday life in Southern Africa. She captures the casual or determined oppression of men and women, the delightful tenderness of human affection, the powerful rhythm of African myth. The politics of personal relationships are explored against a background of social injustice and material hardship. Yet we never lose sight of the individual human experience, the moment of insight, the sensation of pain or pleasure.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Gaele Sobott (born 1956) is an Australian author of short stories, non-fiction and children's books. Gaele was born in Yallourn, Victoria, and lived in Botswana as a citizen for a large part of her life. She taught in the English Department at the University of Botswana. She also lived in France, and England where she completed a Ph.D. on South African women writers. She now lives in Sydney, Australia. Colour Me Blue is a haunting collection of stories, published by Heinemann African Writers Series. It blends fantasy and reality, melding African history and tradition with the grittiness of everyday life. The stories capture the casual or determined oppression of men and women, the tenderness of human affection and the powerful rhythm of African myth. The politics of personal relationships are explored against a background of social injustice and material hardship. Gaele's writing is characterised by a 'mixture of traditional story telling and modern day-to-day struggles'. Her children's fiction includes: The Magic Pool - some children decide to go and find out if stories about the python at the waterhole are true, Tickles about Moabi and Sonti who are helping on a game reserve when an orphaned baby elephant is brought in by the rangers, Weird Wambo lives alone in a baobab tree and children of the village laugh at her until one day they need her help, and Thara Meets the Cassipoohka Man, which addresses global warming and received the Zimbabwe Award for Children's Literature. She has written on gender relations in Botswana during the Second World War. How the British government sought to increase the food production of the then Bechuanaland Protectorate for export purposes. With so many Batswana men away in the army and the South African mines, this required the intensified use of women's labour. In another essay entitled 'Humans Being', she points to the importance of viewing the being in human being as a verb. Being means we may close down and/or open up human relating, human communicating, human solidarity. writing and sharing stories is an integral part of this being'. Gaele's more recent work includes the biography, My Longest Round: the life story of Wally Carr. Wally ‘Wait-a-While' Carr is an Australian Aboriginal ex-champion boxer who held twelve titles in six divisions. From featherweight to heavyweight, one of the last of the fifteen-rounders, he fought an astonishing 101 professional bouts in his 15-year boxing career. My Longest Round provides an Aboriginal man's perspective on inner-city Sydney; the two-up games, the gangsters, and the way working-class neighbourhoods looked out for each other. From hunting goannas, Jimmy Sharman's boxing tents, rugby league, professional boxing and the first Aboriginal Tent Embassy, to present-day struggles and lifestyles, this story offers a vital snapshot of Aboriginal and Australian history. Gaele worked very closely with Wally to render a vivid account of his tumultuous life. She is also editor of Young Days: Bankstown Aboriginal Elders Oral History Project, published in 2013. Gaele Sobott's work appears in anthologies and collections, and has been translated into various languages.
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BURKINA FASO
[ BURKINA FASO - Biography ]Harsch, Ernest. Thomas Sankara: An African Revolutionary. Athens. 2014. Ohio University Press. 9780821421260. Ohio Short Histories of Africa. 4¼ × 7. 160 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- The first English-language biography of Thomas Sankara, social revolutionary and modern African hero Thomas Sankara, often called the African Che Guevara, was president of Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in Africa, until his assassination during the military coup that brought down his government. Although his tenure in office was relatively short, Sankara left an indelible mark on his country’s history and development. An avowed Marxist, he outspokenly asserted his country’s independence from France and other Western powers while at the same time seeking to build a genuine pan-African unity. Ernest Harsch traces Sankara’s life from his student days to his recruitment into the military, early political awakening, and increasing dismay with his country’s extreme poverty and political corruption. As he rose to higher leadership positions, he used those offices to mobilize people for change and to counter the influence of the old, corrupt elites. Sankara and his colleagues initiated economic and social policies that shifted away from dependence on foreign aid and toward a greater use of the country’s own resources to build schools, health clinics, and public works. Although Sankara’s sweeping vision and practical reforms won him admirers both in Burkina Faso and across Africa, a combination of domestic opposition groups and factions within his own government and the army finally led to his assassination in 1987. This is the first English-language book to tell the story of Sankara’s life and struggles, drawing on the author’s extensive firsthand research and reporting on Burkina Faso, including interviews with the late leader. Decades after his death, Sankara remains an inspiration to young people throughout Africa for his integrity, idealism, and dedication to independence and self-determination.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ernest Harsch is a research scholar at the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University. He worked on African issues at the United Nations for more than twenty years and is the author of South Africa: White Rule, Black Revolt.
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Peterson, Brian J. Thomas Sankara: A Revolutionary in Cold War Africa. Bloomington. 2021. Indiana University Press. 9780253053763. 8 b&w illus., 1 map. 350 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Thomas Sankara: A Revolutionary in Cold War Africa offers a unique, critical appraisal of Sankara and explores why he generated such enthusiasm and hope in Burkina Faso and beyond, why he was such a polarizing figure, how his rivals seized power from him, and why T-shirts sporting his image still appear on the streets today. Thomas Sankara: A Revolutionary in Cold War Africa offers the first complete biography in English of the dynamic revolutionary leader from Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara. Coming to power in 1983, Sankara set his sights on combating social injustice, poverty, and corruption in his country, fighting for women's rights, direct forms of democracy, economic sovereignty, and environmental justice. Drawing on government archival sources and over a hundred interviews with Sankara's family members, friends, and closest revolutionary colleagues, Brian J. Peterson details Sankara's political career and rise to power, as well as his assassination at age 37 in 1987, in a plot led by his close friend Blaise Compaoré. Thomas Sankara: A Revolutionary in Cold War Africa offers a unique, critical appraisal of Sankara and explores why he generated such enthusiasm and hope in Burkina Faso and beyond, why he was such a polarizing figure, how his rivals seized power from him, and why T-shirts sporting his image still appear on the streets today.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Brian J. Peterson is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Africana Studies Program at Union College. He is author of Islamization from Below: The Making of Muslim Communities in Rural French Sudan, 1880–1960. Unpublished Endorsements This is a well-written, thoroughly researched, clearly presented biography of Thomas Sankara that pays attention to the strengths and weaknesses of its subject and placing his attainments and failures within the broad context of Burkina Faso history, politics, and culture, as well as the larger context of African and global affairs in the closing decades of the last century. Biographies of African leaders and thinkers are few and when they are available, they barely rise above the level of hagiography or excoriation. Brian J. Peterson avoids both pitfalls. -Olúfmi Táíwò, Cornell University, author of Africa Must Be Modern.
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CAMEROON
[ CAMEROON - NIGERIA - Literature ]Amadu, Malum. Amadu's Bundle: Fulani Tales of Love and Djinns. London. 1972. Heinemann. 0435901184. African Writers Series. Collected by Malum Amadu; edited by Gulla Kell and translated into English by Ronald Moody. 88 pages. paperback. AWS118. Cover design by Uzo Egonu.
DESCRIPTION- These tales of love and djinns come from the Fulani people of Northern Cameroun and Nigeria. They give a rare insight into the vivid, everyday lives of a people. Some of the stories are classics which Amadu wrote down in the Fulani language using Arabic script. He also dictated tales, riddles and songs which had only existed in the oral tradition.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - MALUM AMADU belonged to an old town-Fulani ruling family in Yola. He came from a long line of malums, or scribes. He first of all went to a Koranic school. For the next few years he went as a day-boy to a malum and then as a boarder to a teacher where he studied the sciences, of which theology was the most important, Naturally he too became a scribe. GULLA KELL, who obtained a doctorate from the University of Berlin, worked for some time among the Fulani. where she met Malum Amadu. RONALD MOODY is a sculptor who lives in London. He was born in Jamaica and studied art in London and Paris.
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Bebey, Francis. African Music: A People's Art. Werstport. 1987. Lawrence Hill & Company. 0882080504. Selective discography, revised and updated by Richard Hill. 184 pages. paperback. Translation of Musique de l'Afrique.
DESCRIPTION- From the Introduction - The intention of this book is to introduce the reader to the world of traditional African music. It is a world which until now has attracted scant public attention. partly because of its apparently highly-specialized nature, but also because it has previously been described in terms that have tended to imprison it inside the covers of scholarly treatises instead of making it accessible to all men. And yet- African sculpture and painting are at last beginning to move beyond conference halls frequented by Africanists to attract an ever-growing and increasingly enthusiastic public. Why then should music - an unrivaled black African art - be content with a mere handful of followers drawn from the ranks of those in search of exotic adventures or unusual rhythms and timbres? African music is fundamentally a collective art. It is a communal property whose spiritual qualities are shared and experienced by all; in short, it is an ar form that can and must communicate with people of all races and cultures that should enjoy the ultimate fate of all the great currents of human thought - to make its mark on the present and the future, while bringing a new breath of life to all mankind. In order to do so, it must first be made accessible to all men everywhere; it must be explained to them and allowed to take root, germinate and flower in their cultural understanding. We are expounding on a process, not of popularization, but of dissemination, an investment programme with high hopes and expectations. Our motive in undertaking this initiation into traditional African music is not merely that of a connoisseur bent on sharing the rare fruit of a genuine passion; rather, we are convinced of the need for other people to explore this unknown and exciting world. This is a world where we can learn more about mankind, a world pulsating with spiritual forces that unashamedly lays bare its inner truth and reveals the threshold of human happiness. The tropical forest is not populated by miserable savages, for, as African music can show us, such creatures do not exist. Our aim in writing this book is to convince the reader of this fact.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Francis Bebey (15 July 1929 in Douala, Cameroon - 28 May 2001 in Paris, France) was a Cameroonian artist, musician, and writer. Bebey attended the Sorbonne, and was further educated in the United States. In 1957, Bebey moved to Ghana at the invitation of Kwame Nkrumah, and took a job as a broadcaster. In the early 1960s, Bebey moved to France and started work in the arts, establishing himself as a musician, sculptor, and writer. His most popular novel was Agatha Moudio's Son. He also worked as a consultant for UNESCO. Bebey released his first album in 1969. His music was primarily guitar-based, although he integrated traditional African instruments as well. His style was groundbreaking, merging Cameroonian makossa with classical guitar, jazz, and pop in a mix that could be intellectual, humorous, or serious. He sang in Duala, English, and French. Bebey helped launch the career of Manu Dibango. Bebey released more than 20 albums over his career. John Williams' piece 'Hello Francis' is written as a tribute to Bebey.
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Bebey, Francis. Agatha Moudio's Son. New York. 1973. Lawrence Hill & Company. 0882080377. Translated by Joyce A. Hutchinson. 154 pages. hardcover. Cover art by George Ford. Translation of Le fils d'Agatha Moudio.
DESCRIPTION- Beneath the surface of this amusing deftly written novel is a serious theme: the impact of new customs and ideas on the traditional tribal life of an equatorial African village. It tells the story of Mbenda, a young fisherman, in love with a worldly, perhaps even slightly promiscuous, young girl from a neighboring community, who must marry, according to tradition, the girl his father chose for him on his death bed. He marries both girls (polygamy is still practiced in his village), and the complications of this mEnage a trois lead up to a hilarious ending which will surprise the reader almost as much as it did the villagers. Bebey writes with warmth and understanding of life in this African village, but throughout he is making gentle fun of the old-fashioned superstitions and ancient tribal customs which hold back progress and freedom. Agatha Moudio, the "emancipated" woman who seems so brazen to the villagers, will endear herself to women's liberationists and male readers alike. AGATHA MOUDIO's SON has won wide recognition. It was awarded the Grand Prix Litteraire de l'Afrique Noir. and has been translated into German, Dutch, and Italian.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Francis Bebey (15 July 1929 in Douala, Cameroon - 28 May 2001 in Paris, France) was a Cameroonian artist, musician, and writer. Bebey attended the Sorbonne, and was further educated in the United States. In 1957, Bebey moved to Ghana at the invitation of Kwame Nkrumah, and took a job as a broadcaster. In the early 1960s, Bebey moved to France and started work in the arts, establishing himself as a musician, sculptor, and writer. His most popular novel was Agatha Moudio's Son. He also worked as a consultant for UNESCO. Bebey released his first album in 1969. His music was primarily guitar-based, although he integrated traditional African instruments as well. His style was groundbreaking, merging Cameroonian makossa with classical guitar, jazz, and pop in a mix that could be intellectual, humorous, or serious. He sang in Duala, English, and French. Bebey helped launch the career of Manu Dibango. Bebey released more than 20 albums over his career. John Williams' piece 'Hello Francis' is written as a tribute to Bebey.
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Bebey, Francis. King Albert. New York. 1981. Lawrence Hill & Company. 0882081381. Translated by Joyce A. Hutchinson. 180 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Muriel Nussbaum. Translation of: Le roi Albert d'Effidi.
DESCRIPTION- "Behold Effidi, pleasantly situated on a verdant plateau. " So begins Francis Bebey's new novel, King Albert, dealing with the people of his native Cameroon. Here is a gallery of vivid and attractive portraits of the citizens of the forest villages of Effidi, proud possessors of a road, a stony red road that links them with the changing patterns of the world outside, and Nkool, with its chapel, through which passes the road that leads to heaven. In this story of the love of the aging King Albert and the youthful Bikounou for Nonni, and their political rivalry when elections are scheduled for the first time, Bebey evokes the richness of the past and shows how tradition must in the end be integrated into the new world of independence and self-government. The
DESCRIPTIONof the animated and joyous life of the villages that serve as the setting of the novel, the difficult coming of age of a younger generation torn between respect for tradition, on the one hand, and a desire for change and independence on the other, the distant echo of ideological conflicts that become direct confrontations, all this is presented with rare insight and wry humor. King Albert, a worthy successor to Bebey's earlier prize-winning novels, Agatha Moudio's Son and The Ashanti Doll, will delight and please readers of all ages.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Francis Bebey (15 July 1929 in Douala, Cameroon - 28 May 2001 in Paris, France) was a Cameroonian artist, musician, and writer. Bebey attended the Sorbonne, and was further educated in the United States. In 1957, Bebey moved to Ghana at the invitation of Kwame Nkrumah, and took a job as a broadcaster. In the early 1960s, Bebey moved to France and started work in the arts, establishing himself as a musician, sculptor, and writer. His most popular novel was Agatha Moudio's Son. He also worked as a consultant for UNESCO. Bebey released his first album in 1969. His music was primarily guitar-based, although he integrated traditional African instruments as well. His style was groundbreaking, merging Cameroonian makossa with classical guitar, jazz, and pop in a mix that could be intellectual, humorous, or serious. He sang in Duala, English, and French. Bebey helped launch the career of Manu Dibango. Bebey released more than 20 albums over his career. John Williams' piece 'Hello Francis' is written as a tribute to Bebey.
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Bebey, Francis. The Ashanti Doll. Westport. 1977. Lawrence Hill & Company. 088208075x. Translated by Joyce A. Hutchinson. 192 pages. hardcover. Cover art by George Ford. Translation of La poupee Ashanti.
DESCRIPTION- It is in Accra's sprawling marketplace that the action of Francis Bebey's novel unfolds. It vividly portrays the clash between the new educated elite and the traditional life of the marketplace, typified by Edna (the beautiful Ashanti Doll) and her iron-willed grandmother (a leader of the fearsome marketwomen of Accra). The stormy love affair between Edna and Spio, a handsome government worker, develops in amusing scenes and flashbacks to Edna's girlhood. For those who think African fiction tends to be angry or concerned largely with village life and the social problems of emerging nations, Bebey's novel will be a revelation. Edna's first experience with sex, a dance-hall scuffle, the marketwomen's demonstration, even Grandmother's attempts to discourage Spio, add a touch of Gallic wit and sophistication to this authentic portrait of contemporary Ghanaian life.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Francis Bebey (15 July 1929 in Douala, Cameroon - 28 May 2001 in Paris, France) was a Cameroonian artist, musician, and writer. Bebey attended the Sorbonne, and was further educated in the United States. In 1957, Bebey moved to Ghana at the invitation of Kwame Nkrumah, and took a job as a broadcaster. In the early 1960s, Bebey moved to France and started work in the arts, establishing himself as a musician, sculptor, and writer. His most popular novel was Agatha Moudio's Son. He also worked as a consultant for UNESCO. Bebey released his first album in 1969. His music was primarily guitar-based, although he integrated traditional African instruments as well. His style was groundbreaking, merging Cameroonian makossa with classical guitar, jazz, and pop in a mix that could be intellectual, humorous, or serious. He sang in Duala, English, and French. Bebey helped launch the career of Manu Dibango. Bebey released more than 20 albums over his career. John Williams' piece 'Hello Francis' is written as a tribute to Bebey.
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Bebey, Kidi. My Kingdom for a Guitar: A Novel. Bloomington. 2021. Indiana University Press. 9780253057853. Global African Voices. Translated by Karen Lindo. 230 pages. paperback. Translation of Mon royaume pour une guitare.
DESCRIPTION- Narrated by Bebey's daughter, Kidi, My Kingdom for a Guitar is a novel based on the remarkable life of Cameroonian-born writer and musician Francis Bebey. Born in Douala, Cameroon, Bebey studied in Paris and New York. He found fame when his first novel, Le Fils d'Agatha Moudio (Agatha Moudio's Son), was published in 1967, and that fame continued to grow with the release of his first album in 1969. He would go on to become one of the best-known singer-songwriters of Africa, whose groundbreaking style merged Cameroonian makossa with classical guitar, jazz, and pop. Narrated by Bebey's daughter, Kidi, My Kingdom for a Guitar is a tribute to her late father and his family. Through a combination of recollections and fiction, it offers the reader a chance to witness the admiration of a daughter for her father and the love of a man for his music.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kidi Bebey is a French journalist and writer. She is the author of several children's books. My Kingdom for a Guitar is her first novel and was published originally in French in 2016. Karen Lindo is a scholar of French and Francophone Studies, currently teaching and translating in Paris. She is translator of three other books in the Global African Voices series: The Heart of the Leopard Children, The Silence of the Spirits, and Concrete Flowers, all by Wilfried N'Sondé.
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Beti, Mongo. Cruel City: A Novel. Bloomington. 2013. Indiana University Press. 9780253008237. Global African Voices. Translated by Pim Higginson. 169 pages. paperback. Translation of Ville Cruelle.
DESCRIPTION- Under the pseudonym Eza Boto, Mongo Beti wrote Ville cruelle (Cruel City) in 1954 before he came to the world's attention with the publication of Le pauvre Christ de Bomba (The Poor Christ of Bomba). Cruel City tells the story of a young man's attempt to cope with capitalism and the rapid urbanization of his country. Banda, the protagonist, sets off to sell the year's cocoa harvest to earn the bride price for the woman he has chosen to wed. Due to a series of misfortunes, Banda loses both his crop and his bride to be. Making his way to the city, Banda is witness to a changing Africa, and as his journey progresses, the novel mirrors these changes in its style and language. Published here with the author's essay "Romancing Africa," the novel signifies a pivotal moment in African literature, a deliberate challenge to colonialism, and a new kind of African writing. ‘In [this] anti-colonial novel, the principle character is an ordinary young man who tries to achieve success on his own terms in a society in which the old represent a disintegrated traditional Africa and the young acquire useless knowledge in French school for travels that lead nowhere.' --The Companion to African Literatures Indiana University Press.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mongo Beti (1932-2001), born in Cameroon, is considered one of the foremost African writers of the independence generation. His novels available in English include King Lazarus, Mission to Kala, and The Poor Christ of Bomba (named one of Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century). Pim Higginson is Associate Professor of French at Bryn Mawr College.
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Beti, Mongo. King Lazarus. London. 1960. Frederick Muller. Translated from the French by Peter Green. 191 pages. hardcover. Translated from the French Le roi miraculé.
DESCRIPTION- Like its predecessor, Mission to Kala, Mongo Beti's new novel King Lazarus is centred round the changing customs and mores of a Bantu tribe under French administration. The year is 1948: and the hereditary Chief of the Essazam clan is, to all appearances, dying. As his life has been one long round of eating, drinking, and nocturnal exercises among his twenty-three wives, this is not, perhaps, altogether surprising. But his illness worries the Administration; he is a staunch prop of the European Establishment. An even more dangerous situation is produced when the Chief, against all expectation, very suddenly recovers - and the local Roman Catholic missionary, Le Guen, persuades him to renounce his tribal ways and adopt Christianity. The repercussions are complicated. To begin with a rumour spreads about - if not with Le Guen's connivance, at least with his tacit consent - that the Chief has had a miraculous return from the dead. Le Guen underlines this idea by proposing that he should take the Christian name of Lazurus to celebrate his conversion. Hardly less important is the Chief's Christian obligation to repudiate twenty-two out of his twenty-three wives. He chooses the youngest, which at once makes the Senior Wife his deadly enemy. The relations of the other wives - not to mention the village elders - also take offence; and things culminate in a ludicrous but dangerous riot, which brings down the Provincial Prefect from his distant Olympus. Mongo Beti has an almost unique gift for getting humour out of vitally serious subjects. Here, with gay but lethal pungency, he satirises in turn the Catholic Church, obsolete tribal customs, and French Colonialism, whether authoritarian or 'enlightened' according to the latest sociological textbooks. This breadth of outlook produces some superb comedy, mounting to the richly ironic climax when Le Guen is quietly removed in a flurry of pseudo-benevolence by the powers that be: but Africa, one feels, remains very much the same underneath. It is refreshing to find an African author at last beginning to explore the true literary potential of his country. Pliny said that something new always came out of Africa: he might have had Mongo Beti in mind.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Alexandre Biyidi Awala (30 June 1932 - 8 October 2001), known as Mongo Beti, was a Cameroonian writer. Though he lived in exile for many decades, Beti's life reveals an unflagging commitment to improvement of his home country. As one critic wrote after his death, ‘The militant path of this essayist, chronicler and novelist has been governed by one obsession: the quest for the dignity of African people.'The son of Oscar Awala and REgine Alomo, Alexandre was born in 1932 at AkomEtan, a small village 10 km from Mbalmayo, itself 45 km away from YaoundE, capital of Cameroon. (The village's name comes from Akom ‘rock' and Etam ‘source': in old maps of the region, the name is written in two parts). From an early age, Beti was influenced by the currents of rebellion sweeping Africa in the wake of World War II. His father drowned when Beti was seven, and he was raised by his mother and extended family. Beti recalls arguing with his mother about religion and colonialism; he also recalls early exposure to the opinions and analysis of independence leader Ruben Um Nyobe, both in the villages and at Nyobe's private residence. He carried these views into the classroom, and was eventually expelled from the missionary school in Mbalmayo for his outspokenness. In 1945 he entered the lycEe Leclerc in YaoundE. Graduating in 1951, he came to France to continue his higher education in literature, first at Aix-en-Provence, then at the Sorbonne in Paris. By the early 1950s, Beti had turned to writing as a vehicle of protest. He wrote regularly for the journal PrEsence Africaine; among his pieces was a review of Camara Laye's Black Child that criticized Laye for what Beti saw as pandering to European tastes. He began his career in fiction with the short story Sans haine et sans amour (‘Without hatred or love'), published in the periodical PrEsence Africaine, edited by Alioune Diop, in 1953. Beti's first novel Ville cruelle (‘Cruel City'), under the pseudonym Eza Boto, followed in 1954, published in several editions of PrEsence Africaine. It was, however, in 1956 that he gained a widespread reputation; the publication of the novel Le pauvre Christ de Bomba (‘The poor Christ of Bomba') created a scandal because of its satirical and biting
DESCRIPTIONof the missionary and colonial world. Under pressure from the religious hierarchy, the colonial administrator in Cameroon banned the novel in the colony. This was followed by Mission terminEe, 1957 (winner of the Prix Sainte Beuve 1958), and Le Roi miraculE, 1958. He also worked during this time for the review Preuves, for which he reported from Africa. He worked also as a substitute teacher at the lycEe of Rambouillet. In 1959, he was named certified professor at the lycEe Henri Avril in Lamballe. He took the AgrEgation de Lettres classiques in 1966 and taught at the LycEe Pierre Corneille in Rouen. from this date until 1994. Following Nyobe's assassination by French forces in 1958, however, Beti fell silent as a writer for more than a decade, remaining in exile from his homeland. After his death,Odile Tobner noted that exile was not easy on Beti; he remained tortured by his concern for his embattled country.In 1972 he re-entered the world of literature with a bang. His book Main basse sur le Cameroun, autopsie d'une dEcolonisation ('Cruel hand on Cameroon, autopsy of a decolonization') was censored upon its publication by the French Ministry of the Interior Raymond Marcellin on the request, brought forward by Jacques Foccart, of the Cameroon government, represented in Paris by the ambassador Ferdinand Oyono. The essay, a critical history of recent Cameroon, asserted that Cameroon and other colonies remained under French control in all but name, and that the post-independence political elites had actively fostered this continued dependence. Beti was inspired to write in part by the execution of Ernest Ouandie by the government of Cameroon. In 1974 he published PerpEtue and Remember Ruben; the latter was the first in a trilogy exploring the life and impact of Nyobe. After a long judicial action, Mongo Beti and his editor Francois MaspEro finally obtained, in 1976, the cancellation of the ban on the publication of Main basse. Beti returned to critical and political writing at the same time that he returned to fiction. In 1978 he and his wife Odile Tobner launched the bimonthly review Peuples Noirs. Peuples africains ('Black People. African People'), which was published until 1991. This review chronicled and denounced tirelessly the evils brought to Africa by neo-colonial regimes. During this period were published the novels La ruine presque cocasse d'un polichinelle (1979), Les deux mères de Guillaume Ismaël Dzewatama futur camionneur (1983), La revanche de Guillaume Ismaël Dzewatama (1984), also Lettre ouverte aux Camerounais ou la deuxième mort de Ruben Um NyobE (1984) and Dictionnaire de la negritude (1989, with Odile Tobner). Frustrated by what he saw as the failure of post-independence governments to bring genuine freedom to Africa, Beti adopted a more radical perspective in these works. In exile, Beti remained vitally connected to the struggle in Cameroon. Throughout the seventies and eighties, acquaintance with Beti or his work could spell trouble for a citizen of Cameroon; on numerous occasions, Beti used his connections in France to rescue one of his young readers, many of whom knew him from his periodical and his polemical essays. Ambroise Kom, arrested merely for subscribing to Peuples noirs, was saved from incarceration by Beti's actions in France on his behalf. In 1991 Mongo Beti returned to Cameroon, after 32 years of self-imposed exile. In 1993 he published La France contre l'Afrique, retour au Cameroun; this book chronicles his visits to his homeland. After retiring from teaching in 1994, he returned to Cameroon permanently. Various business endeavors in Betiland failed; eventually, he opened in YaoundE the Librairie des Peuples noirs (Bookstore of the Black Peoples) and organized agricultural activities in his village of Akometam. The goal of the bookshop was to encourage engaged literacy in the capital, and also to provide an outlet for critical texts and authors. During this period, Beti also supported John Fru Ndi, an anglophone opposition leader. He created associations for the defence of citizens and gave to the press numerous articles of protest. The government attempted to hinder his activities. On his first return to Cameroon, police prevented him from speaking at a scheduled conference; Beti instead addressed a crowd outside the locked conference room. He was subjected in January 1996, in the streets of YaoundE, to police aggression. He was challenged at a demonstration in October 1997. In response he published several novels: L'histoire du fou in 1994 then the two initial volumes Trop de soleil tue l'amour (1999) et Branle-bas en noir et blanc (2000), of a trilogy which would remain unfinished. He was hospitalized in YaoundE on October 1, 2001 for acute hepatic and kidney failure which remained untreated for lack of dialysis. Transported to the hospital at Douala on October 6, he died there on October 8, 2001. Some critics noted the similarity of his death to that of his heroine Perpetua, who also died while awaiting treatment in one of the country's overburdened hospitals. From beginning to end, Beti's work was informed by two principles. In terms of style, he was a realist. In a critical statement published in 1955, he asserted that ‘Given the modern conceptions of the beautiful in literature, given at the very least these essential conceptions, if a work is realistic it has many chances of being good; if not, supposing even that it has formal qualities, it risks lacking resonance, profundity, that of which all literature has the greatest need -- the human; from which it follows that it has much less chance of being good -- if only it had some -- than a realistic work.' Beti's fiction remains true to this credo. Thematically, Beti's work is unified by an unwavering commitment to combatting colonialism, both overt and covert. Beti's aim always, even in his harsh criticism of Cameroon's independence government, was to strengthen African autonomy and prosperity. ‘Sans haine et sans amour', 1953, is a short story and Beti's first significant work.
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Beti, Mongo. Lament for an African Pol. Washington D.C. 1985. Three Continents Press. 0894103059. Translated by Richard Bjornson. 370 pages. paperback. Cover art by Tom Gladden. Translation of: La ruine presque cocasse d'un polichinelle.
DESCRIPTION- Mongo Beti's Lament for an African POI continues the story of Mor-Zamba, the revolutionary partisan first introduced in Remember Ruben (Three Continents, 1980). Accompanied by the irrepressibly roguish Jo the Juggler and the idealistic schoolboy Evariste, Mor-Zamba returns to his native village of Ekoumdoum twenty years after the corrupt and illegitimate chief had encouraged the colonial authorities to imprison him in a forced labor camp near the capital. After having participated in the struggle for independence, this gentle giant received from his inseparable childhood companion Abena, now commonly known as the revolutionary hero Hurricane-Viet, the order to liberate Ekoumdoum from the reactionary chief who remains in power despite the fact that the country itself has nominally achieved its independence. In fact, the situation in Ekoumdoum is a portrayal in miniature of the corruption and venality that has continued to reiY1 on a much larger scale in many African countries. The action in the novel takes place during the first year of independence and reveals the author's conviction that the mere granting of freedom under neo-colonialist conditions is insufficient. What is needed, he believes, is a genuine revolution in the consciousness of the common people and a dismantling of all the corrupt institutions that still hold them in bondage. The story of Mor-Zamba's return and the drama of his attempt to achieve this goal in Ekoumdoum is told with consumate artistry by Beti, who combines elements of irony, classical rhetoric, and oral story-telling techniques to hold the reader spellbound with strategems of guerilla warfare and bizarre tums of fortune. Beti is the most prolific and widely read author to have emerged from the literarily active West African country of Cameroon. During the 1950s his satirical, socially critical novels The Poor Christ of Bomba, Mission to Kala, King Lazarus, and Cruel City had already published him as one of the two or three leading novelists of his generation in francophone Africa. However, when his country became independent in 1960, he ceased to write and devoted himself to his job as a teacher in France. Because he had opposed the Ahidjo regime, which had been put in place by the French, he did not feel free to return to his native country, and yet he also did not believe it would be appropriate for him to publicly condemn an independent African government in the same way he had earlier castigated the colonial authorities. Nevertheless, when the Ahidjo government conducted a series of show trials and executions in the early 1970s, Beti could no longer remain silent. In rapid succession he published Main baisse sur le Cameroun (a well-documented, journalistic indictment of the government) and two novels, Remember Ruben (published by Three Continents) and Perpetue both of which excoriated the corrupt conditions in a fictional country that bears a strong resemblance to Cameroon. Lament for an African Pol is the third novel in this post-independence sequence, and in it Beti the ironic undertones, serio-comic characterizations, and well-formed plots that made his earlier works into popular classics of modem African literature. Richard Bjomson is a and scholar of European and African fiction and has spent several yean in Cameroon. He is currently Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the Ohio State University. Bjornson has published his translation of fourteen stories by Rene Philombe in Tales from Cameroon (Three Continents, 1984); he has served as President of the American Literary Translators Association; and he has been a fellow at the National Humanities Center at the University of North Carolina.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Alexandre Biyidi Awala (30 June 1932 - 8 October 2001), known as Mongo Beti, was a Cameroonian writer. Though he lived in exile for many decades, Beti's life reveals an unflagging commitment to improvement of his home country. As one critic wrote after his death, ‘The militant path of this essayist, chronicler and novelist has been governed by one obsession: the quest for the dignity of African people.'The son of Oscar Awala and REgine Alomo, Alexandre was born in 1932 at AkomEtan, a small village 10 km from Mbalmayo, itself 45 km away from YaoundE, capital of Cameroon. (The village's name comes from Akom ‘rock' and Etam ‘source': in old maps of the region, the name is written in two parts). From an early age, Beti was influenced by the currents of rebellion sweeping Africa in the wake of World War II. His father drowned when Beti was seven, and he was raised by his mother and extended family. Beti recalls arguing with his mother about religion and colonialism; he also recalls early exposure to the opinions and analysis of independence leader Ruben Um Nyobe, both in the villages and at Nyobe's private residence. He carried these views into the classroom, and was eventually expelled from the missionary school in Mbalmayo for his outspokenness. In 1945 he entered the lycEe Leclerc in YaoundE. Graduating in 1951, he came to France to continue his higher education in literature, first at Aix-en-Provence, then at the Sorbonne in Paris. By the early 1950s, Beti had turned to writing as a vehicle of protest. He wrote regularly for the journal PrEsence Africaine; among his pieces was a review of Camara Laye's Black Child that criticized Laye for what Beti saw as pandering to European tastes. He began his career in fiction with the short story Sans haine et sans amour (‘Without hatred or love'), published in the periodical PrEsence Africaine, edited by Alioune Diop, in 1953. Beti's first novel Ville cruelle (‘Cruel City'), under the pseudonym Eza Boto, followed in 1954, published in several editions of PrEsence Africaine. It was, however, in 1956 that he gained a widespread reputation; the publication of the novel Le pauvre Christ de Bomba (‘The poor Christ of Bomba') created a scandal because of its satirical and biting
DESCRIPTIONof the missionary and colonial world. Under pressure from the religious hierarchy, the colonial administrator in Cameroon banned the novel in the colony. This was followed by Mission terminEe, 1957 (winner of the Prix Sainte Beuve 1958), and Le Roi miraculE, 1958. He also worked during this time for the review Preuves, for which he reported from Africa. He worked also as a substitute teacher at the lycEe of Rambouillet. In 1959, he was named certified professor at the lycEe Henri Avril in Lamballe. He took the AgrEgation de Lettres classiques in 1966 and taught at the LycEe Pierre Corneille in Rouen. from this date until 1994. Following Nyobe's assassination by French forces in 1958, however, Beti fell silent as a writer for more than a decade, remaining in exile from his homeland. After his death,Odile Tobner noted that exile was not easy on Beti; he remained tortured by his concern for his embattled country.In 1972 he re-entered the world of literature with a bang. His book Main basse sur le Cameroun, autopsie d'une dEcolonisation ('Cruel hand on Cameroon, autopsy of a decolonization') was censored upon its publication by the French Ministry of the Interior Raymond Marcellin on the request, brought forward by Jacques Foccart, of the Cameroon government, represented in Paris by the ambassador Ferdinand Oyono. The essay, a critical history of recent Cameroon, asserted that Cameroon and other colonies remained under French control in all but name, and that the post-independence political elites had actively fostered this continued dependence. Beti was inspired to write in part by the execution of Ernest Ouandie by the government of Cameroon. In 1974 he published PerpEtue and Remember Ruben; the latter was the first in a trilogy exploring the life and impact of Nyobe. After a long judicial action, Mongo Beti and his editor Francois MaspEro finally obtained, in 1976, the cancellation of the ban on the publication of Main basse. Beti returned to critical and political writing at the same time that he returned to fiction. In 1978 he and his wife Odile Tobner launched the bimonthly review Peuples Noirs. Peuples africains ('Black People. African People'), which was published until 1991. This review chronicled and denounced tirelessly the evils brought to Africa by neo-colonial regimes. During this period were published the novels La ruine presque cocasse d'un polichinelle (1979), Les deux mères de Guillaume Ismaël Dzewatama futur camionneur (1983), La revanche de Guillaume Ismaël Dzewatama (1984), also Lettre ouverte aux Camerounais ou la deuxième mort de Ruben Um NyobE (1984) and Dictionnaire de la negritude (1989, with Odile Tobner). Frustrated by what he saw as the failure of post-independence governments to bring genuine freedom to Africa, Beti adopted a more radical perspective in these works. In exile, Beti remained vitally connected to the struggle in Cameroon. Throughout the seventies and eighties, acquaintance with Beti or his work could spell trouble for a citizen of Cameroon; on numerous occasions, Beti used his connections in France to rescue one of his young readers, many of whom knew him from his periodical and his polemical essays. Ambroise Kom, arrested merely for subscribing to Peuples noirs, was saved from incarceration by Beti's actions in France on his behalf. In 1991 Mongo Beti returned to Cameroon, after 32 years of self-imposed exile. In 1993 he published La France contre l'Afrique, retour au Cameroun; this book chronicles his visits to his homeland. After retiring from teaching in 1994, he returned to Cameroon permanently. Various business endeavors in Betiland failed; eventually, he opened in YaoundE the Librairie des Peuples noirs (Bookstore of the Black Peoples) and organized agricultural activities in his village of Akometam. The goal of the bookshop was to encourage engaged literacy in the capital, and also to provide an outlet for critical texts and authors. During this period, Beti also supported John Fru Ndi, an anglophone opposition leader. He created associations for the defence of citizens and gave to the press numerous articles of protest. The government attempted to hinder his activities. On his first return to Cameroon, police prevented him from speaking at a scheduled conference; Beti instead addressed a crowd outside the locked conference room. He was subjected in January 1996, in the streets of YaoundE, to police aggression. He was challenged at a demonstration in October 1997. In response he published several novels: L'histoire du fou in 1994 then the two initial volumes Trop de soleil tue l'amour (1999) et Branle-bas en noir et blanc (2000), of a trilogy which would remain unfinished. He was hospitalized in YaoundE on October 1, 2001 for acute hepatic and kidney failure which remained untreated for lack of dialysis. Transported to the hospital at Douala on October 6, he died there on October 8, 2001. Some critics noted the similarity of his death to that of his heroine Perpetua, who also died while awaiting treatment in one of the country's overburdened hospitals. From beginning to end, Beti's work was informed by two principles. In terms of style, he was a realist. In a critical statement published in 1955, he asserted that ‘Given the modern conceptions of the beautiful in literature, given at the very least these essential conceptions, if a work is realistic it has many chances of being good; if not, supposing even that it has formal qualities, it risks lacking resonance, profundity, that of which all literature has the greatest need -- the human; from which it follows that it has much less chance of being good -- if only it had some -- than a realistic work.' Beti's fiction remains true to this credo. Thematically, Beti's work is unified by an unwavering commitment to combatting colonialism, both overt and covert. Beti's aim always, even in his harsh criticism of Cameroon's independence government, was to strengthen African autonomy and prosperity. ‘Sans haine et sans amour', 1953, is a short story and Beti's first significant work.
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Beti, Mongo. Mission to Kala. London. 1958. Frederick Muller. Translated from the French by Peter Green. 207 pages. hardcover. Translation of Mission terminée (1957).
DESCRIPTION- Here, at last, is an African novel untinged by political pleading, richly exuberant, vivid, humorous and disarming. The hero, Medza, is a young Negro from the French Cameroons who has just failed his exams at college, and returns to his native village in some fear of his father's reaction. He finds the whole place humming with scandal; a man's wife has gone off with a member of an up-country tribe. Someone must go and get her back. In these parts a scholar (even a failed one) has extraordinary prestige, and Medza finds himself saddled with this delicate mission. When he reaches the woman's village he has to wait for her return from another adventure, so he stays with some colourful and eccentric relations who pass him off as a prodigy of learning. Medza is entertained, given every luxury, and consulted like an oracle. Even though his canny uncle filches half the presents he receives, Medza does very well. Naturally, the girls flock round him, but he can't summon up enough courage to admit that the more sophisticated and enterprising among them frighten him out of his wits. How Medza finds himself married, how he comes to the end of his mission and what - surprisingly - happens then, is told in this delightful book. Characters, background and customs are described with infectious gaiety and the sharply original style rounds off an achievement which proves that here is a new African novelist of indisputable talent.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Alexandre Biyidi Awala (30 June 1932 - 8 October 2001), known as Mongo Beti, was a Cameroonian writer. Though he lived in exile for many decades, Beti's life reveals an unflagging commitment to improvement of his home country. As one critic wrote after his death, ‘The militant path of this essayist, chronicler and novelist has been governed by one obsession: the quest for the dignity of African people.'The son of Oscar Awala and REgine Alomo, Alexandre was born in 1932 at AkomEtan, a small village 10 km from Mbalmayo, itself 45 km away from YaoundE, capital of Cameroon. (The village's name comes from Akom ‘rock' and Etam ‘source': in old maps of the region, the name is written in two parts). From an early age, Beti was influenced by the currents of rebellion sweeping Africa in the wake of World War II. His father drowned when Beti was seven, and he was raised by his mother and extended family. Beti recalls arguing with his mother about religion and colonialism; he also recalls early exposure to the opinions and analysis of independence leader Ruben Um Nyobe, both in the villages and at Nyobe's private residence. He carried these views into the classroom, and was eventually expelled from the missionary school in Mbalmayo for his outspokenness. In 1945 he entered the lycEe Leclerc in YaoundE. Graduating in 1951, he came to France to continue his higher education in literature, first at Aix-en-Provence, then at the Sorbonne in Paris. By the early 1950s, Beti had turned to writing as a vehicle of protest. He wrote regularly for the journal PrEsence Africaine; among his pieces was a review of Camara Laye's Black Child that criticized Laye for what Beti saw as pandering to European tastes. He began his career in fiction with the short story Sans haine et sans amour (‘Without hatred or love'), published in the periodical PrEsence Africaine, edited by Alioune Diop, in 1953. Beti's first novel Ville cruelle (‘Cruel City'), under the pseudonym Eza Boto, followed in 1954, published in several editions of PrEsence Africaine. It was, however, in 1956 that he gained a widespread reputation; the publication of the novel Le pauvre Christ de Bomba (‘The poor Christ of Bomba') created a scandal because of its satirical and biting
DESCRIPTIONof the missionary and colonial world. Under pressure from the religious hierarchy, the colonial administrator in Cameroon banned the novel in the colony. This was followed by Mission terminEe, 1957 (winner of the Prix Sainte Beuve 1958), and Le Roi miraculE, 1958. He also worked during this time for the review Preuves, for which he reported from Africa. He worked also as a substitute teacher at the lycEe of Rambouillet. In 1959, he was named certified professor at the lycEe Henri Avril in Lamballe. He took the AgrEgation de Lettres classiques in 1966 and taught at the LycEe Pierre Corneille in Rouen. from this date until 1994. Following Nyobe's assassination by French forces in 1958, however, Beti fell silent as a writer for more than a decade, remaining in exile from his homeland. After his death,Odile Tobner noted that exile was not easy on Beti; he remained tortured by his concern for his embattled country.In 1972 he re-entered the world of literature with a bang. His book Main basse sur le Cameroun, autopsie d'une dEcolonisation ('Cruel hand on Cameroon, autopsy of a decolonization') was censored upon its publication by the French Ministry of the Interior Raymond Marcellin on the request, brought forward by Jacques Foccart, of the Cameroon government, represented in Paris by the ambassador Ferdinand Oyono. The essay, a critical history of recent Cameroon, asserted that Cameroon and other colonies remained under French control in all but name, and that the post-independence political elites had actively fostered this continued dependence. Beti was inspired to write in part by the execution of Ernest Ouandie by the government of Cameroon. In 1974 he published PerpEtue and Remember Ruben; the latter was the first in a trilogy exploring the life and impact of Nyobe. After a long judicial action, Mongo Beti and his editor Francois MaspEro finally obtained, in 1976, the cancellation of the ban on the publication of Main basse. Beti returned to critical and political writing at the same time that he returned to fiction. In 1978 he and his wife Odile Tobner launched the bimonthly review Peuples Noirs. Peuples africains ('Black People. African People'), which was published until 1991. This review chronicled and denounced tirelessly the evils brought to Africa by neo-colonial regimes. During this period were published the novels La ruine presque cocasse d'un polichinelle (1979), Les deux mères de Guillaume Ismaël Dzewatama futur camionneur (1983), La revanche de Guillaume Ismaël Dzewatama (1984), also Lettre ouverte aux Camerounais ou la deuxième mort de Ruben Um NyobE (1984) and Dictionnaire de la negritude (1989, with Odile Tobner). Frustrated by what he saw as the failure of post-independence governments to bring genuine freedom to Africa, Beti adopted a more radical perspective in these works. In exile, Beti remained vitally connected to the struggle in Cameroon. Throughout the seventies and eighties, acquaintance with Beti or his work could spell trouble for a citizen of Cameroon; on numerous occasions, Beti used his connections in France to rescue one of his young readers, many of whom knew him from his periodical and his polemical essays. Ambroise Kom, arrested merely for subscribing to Peuples noirs, was saved from incarceration by Beti's actions in France on his behalf. In 1991 Mongo Beti returned to Cameroon, after 32 years of self-imposed exile. In 1993 he published La France contre l'Afrique, retour au Cameroun; this book chronicles his visits to his homeland. After retiring from teaching in 1994, he returned to Cameroon permanently. Various business endeavors in Betiland failed; eventually, he opened in YaoundE the Librairie des Peuples noirs (Bookstore of the Black Peoples) and organized agricultural activities in his village of Akometam. The goal of the bookshop was to encourage engaged literacy in the capital, and also to provide an outlet for critical texts and authors. During this period, Beti also supported John Fru Ndi, an anglophone opposition leader. He created associations for the defence of citizens and gave to the press numerous articles of protest. The government attempted to hinder his activities. On his first return to Cameroon, police prevented him from speaking at a scheduled conference; Beti instead addressed a crowd outside the locked conference room. He was subjected in January 1996, in the streets of YaoundE, to police aggression. He was challenged at a demonstration in October 1997. In response he published several novels: L'histoire du fou in 1994 then the two initial volumes Trop de soleil tue l'amour (1999) et Branle-bas en noir et blanc (2000), of a trilogy which would remain unfinished. He was hospitalized in YaoundE on October 1, 2001 for acute hepatic and kidney failure which remained untreated for lack of dialysis. Transported to the hospital at Douala on October 6, he died there on October 8, 2001. Some critics noted the similarity of his death to that of his heroine Perpetua, who also died while awaiting treatment in one of the country's overburdened hospitals. From beginning to end, Beti's work was informed by two principles. In terms of style, he was a realist. In a critical statement published in 1955, he asserted that ‘Given the modern conceptions of the beautiful in literature, given at the very least these essential conceptions, if a work is realistic it has many chances of being good; if not, supposing even that it has formal qualities, it risks lacking resonance, profundity, that of which all literature has the greatest need -- the human; from which it follows that it has much less chance of being good -- if only it had some -- than a realistic work.' Beti's fiction remains true to this credo. Thematically, Beti's work is unified by an unwavering commitment to combatting colonialism, both overt and covert. Beti's aim always, even in his harsh criticism of Cameroon's independence government, was to strengthen African autonomy and prosperity. ‘Sans haine et sans amour', 1953, is a short story and Beti's first significant work.
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Beti, Mongo. Perpetua and the Habit of Unhappiness. London. 1978. Heinemann. 0435901818. African Writers Series. Translated from the French by Clive Wake and John Reed. 219 pages. paperback. AWS181. Cover photograph by George Hallett. Translation of Perpétue et l'habitude du malheur, originally published Paris: Editions Buchet-Chastel, 1974.
DESCRIPTION- How did Perpetua come to die in childbirth? Her brother Essola comes out from ten years' detention determined to find out why his sister had died. He comes to suspect that his family do not want to face the consequences of having sold Perpetua as a wife to a supposedly well-off and influential town police official. As it turned out he lived in a slum and was a tyrant. He had forced her to become the lover of a senior police official to secure his advancement. She did find a true love and died partly from giving birth to his child but really from the sheer habit of unhappiness.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Alexandre Biyidi Awala (30 June 1932 - 8 October 2001), known as Mongo Beti, was a Cameroonian writer. Though he lived in exile for many decades, Beti's life reveals an unflagging commitment to improvement of his home country. As one critic wrote after his death, ‘The militant path of this essayist, chronicler and novelist has been governed by one obsession: the quest for the dignity of African people.'The son of Oscar Awala and REgine Alomo, Alexandre was born in 1932 at AkomEtan, a small village 10 km from Mbalmayo, itself 45 km away from YaoundE, capital of Cameroon. (The village's name comes from Akom ‘rock' and Etam ‘source': in old maps of the region, the name is written in two parts). From an early age, Beti was influenced by the currents of rebellion sweeping Africa in the wake of World War II. His father drowned when Beti was seven, and he was raised by his mother and extended family. Beti recalls arguing with his mother about religion and colonialism; he also recalls early exposure to the opinions and analysis of independence leader Ruben Um Nyobe, both in the villages and at Nyobe's private residence. He carried these views into the classroom, and was eventually expelled from the missionary school in Mbalmayo for his outspokenness. In 1945 he entered the lycEe Leclerc in YaoundE. Graduating in 1951, he came to France to continue his higher education in literature, first at Aix-en-Provence, then at the Sorbonne in Paris. By the early 1950s, Beti had turned to writing as a vehicle of protest. He wrote regularly for the journal PrEsence Africaine; among his pieces was a review of Camara Laye's Black Child that criticized Laye for what Beti saw as pandering to European tastes. He began his career in fiction with the short story Sans haine et sans amour (‘Without hatred or love'), published in the periodical PrEsence Africaine, edited by Alioune Diop, in 1953. Beti's first novel Ville cruelle (‘Cruel City'), under the pseudonym Eza Boto, followed in 1954, published in several editions of PrEsence Africaine. It was, however, in 1956 that he gained a widespread reputation; the publication of the novel Le pauvre Christ de Bomba (‘The poor Christ of Bomba') created a scandal because of its satirical and biting
DESCRIPTIONof the missionary and colonial world. Under pressure from the religious hierarchy, the colonial administrator in Cameroon banned the novel in the colony. This was followed by Mission terminEe, 1957 (winner of the Prix Sainte Beuve 1958), and Le Roi miraculE, 1958. He also worked during this time for the review Preuves, for which he reported from Africa. He worked also as a substitute teacher at the lycEe of Rambouillet. In 1959, he was named certified professor at the lycEe Henri Avril in Lamballe. He took the AgrEgation de Lettres classiques in 1966 and taught at the LycEe Pierre Corneille in Rouen. from this date until 1994. Following Nyobe's assassination by French forces in 1958, however, Beti fell silent as a writer for more than a decade, remaining in exile from his homeland. After his death,Odile Tobner noted that exile was not easy on Beti; he remained tortured by his concern for his embattled country.In 1972 he re-entered the world of literature with a bang. His book Main basse sur le Cameroun, autopsie d'une dEcolonisation ('Cruel hand on Cameroon, autopsy of a decolonization') was censored upon its publication by the French Ministry of the Interior Raymond Marcellin on the request, brought forward by Jacques Foccart, of the Cameroon government, represented in Paris by the ambassador Ferdinand Oyono. The essay, a critical history of recent Cameroon, asserted that Cameroon and other colonies remained under French control in all but name, and that the post-independence political elites had actively fostered this continued dependence. Beti was inspired to write in part by the execution of Ernest Ouandie by the government of Cameroon. In 1974 he published PerpEtue and Remember Ruben; the latter was the first in a trilogy exploring the life and impact of Nyobe. After a long judicial action, Mongo Beti and his editor Francois MaspEro finally obtained, in 1976, the cancellation of the ban on the publication of Main basse. Beti returned to critical and political writing at the same time that he returned to fiction. In 1978 he and his wife Odile Tobner launched the bimonthly review Peuples Noirs. Peuples africains ('Black People. African People'), which was published until 1991. This review chronicled and denounced tirelessly the evils brought to Africa by neo-colonial regimes. During this period were published the novels La ruine presque cocasse d'un polichinelle (1979), Les deux mères de Guillaume Ismaël Dzewatama futur camionneur (1983), La revanche de Guillaume Ismaël Dzewatama (1984), also Lettre ouverte aux Camerounais ou la deuxième mort de Ruben Um NyobE (1984) and Dictionnaire de la negritude (1989, with Odile Tobner). Frustrated by what he saw as the failure of post-independence governments to bring genuine freedom to Africa, Beti adopted a more radical perspective in these works. In exile, Beti remained vitally connected to the struggle in Cameroon. Throughout the seventies and eighties, acquaintance with Beti or his work could spell trouble for a citizen of Cameroon; on numerous occasions, Beti used his connections in France to rescue one of his young readers, many of whom knew him from his periodical and his polemical essays. Ambroise Kom, arrested merely for subscribing to Peuples noirs, was saved from incarceration by Beti's actions in France on his behalf. In 1991 Mongo Beti returned to Cameroon, after 32 years of self-imposed exile. In 1993 he published La France contre l'Afrique, retour au Cameroun; this book chronicles his visits to his homeland. After retiring from teaching in 1994, he returned to Cameroon permanently. Various business endeavors in Betiland failed; eventually, he opened in YaoundE the Librairie des Peuples noirs (Bookstore of the Black Peoples) and organized agricultural activities in his village of Akometam. The goal of the bookshop was to encourage engaged literacy in the capital, and also to provide an outlet for critical texts and authors. During this period, Beti also supported John Fru Ndi, an anglophone opposition leader. He created associations for the defence of citizens and gave to the press numerous articles of protest. The government attempted to hinder his activities. On his first return to Cameroon, police prevented him from speaking at a scheduled conference; Beti instead addressed a crowd outside the locked conference room. He was subjected in January 1996, in the streets of YaoundE, to police aggression. He was challenged at a demonstration in October 1997. In response he published several novels: L'histoire du fou in 1994 then the two initial volumes Trop de soleil tue l'amour (1999) et Branle-bas en noir et blanc (2000), of a trilogy which would remain unfinished. He was hospitalized in YaoundE on October 1, 2001 for acute hepatic and kidney failure which remained untreated for lack of dialysis. Transported to the hospital at Douala on October 6, he died there on October 8, 2001. Some critics noted the similarity of his death to that of his heroine Perpetua, who also died while awaiting treatment in one of the country's overburdened hospitals. From beginning to end, Beti's work was informed by two principles. In terms of style, he was a realist. In a critical statement published in 1955, he asserted that ‘Given the modern conceptions of the beautiful in literature, given at the very least these essential conceptions, if a work is realistic it has many chances of being good; if not, supposing even that it has formal qualities, it risks lacking resonance, profundity, that of which all literature has the greatest need -- the human; from which it follows that it has much less chance of being good -- if only it had some -- than a realistic work.' Beti's fiction remains true to this credo. Thematically, Beti's work is unified by an unwavering commitment to combatting colonialism, both overt and covert. Beti's aim always, even in his harsh criticism of Cameroon's independence government, was to strengthen African autonomy and prosperity. ‘Sans haine et sans amour', 1953, is a short story and Beti's first significant work.
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Beti, Mongo. Remember Ruben. London. 1980. Heinemann. 0435902149. Paperback Original. African Writers Series. Translated from the French by Gerald Moore. 252 pages. paperback. AWS214. Cover photograph by George Hallett. Translation of: Remember Ruben, originally published Ibadan: New Horn, 1980.
DESCRIPTION- Mor-Zamba is taken off to forced labour for the war effort of France in one of its colonies. His friend Abena tries to find him but he too vanishes. After the war Mor-Zamba becomes involved in political activity, is arrested, tortured and goes into hiding. This personal story is set against a documentary portrayal of the political evolution of the colony. The shadowy figure of the trade union leader, Ruben, hovers in the background. His party is banned and he changes to guerrilla war. On his death a new leader, Ouragan-Viet, takes over and his followers always greet one another in pidgin with the words 'Remember Ruben'.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Alexandre Biyidi Awala (30 June 1932 - 8 October 2001), known as Mongo Beti, was a Cameroonian writer. Though he lived in exile for many decades, Beti's life reveals an unflagging commitment to improvement of his home country. As one critic wrote after his death, ‘The militant path of this essayist, chronicler and novelist has been governed by one obsession: the quest for the dignity of African people.'The son of Oscar Awala and REgine Alomo, Alexandre was born in 1932 at AkomEtan, a small village 10 km from Mbalmayo, itself 45 km away from YaoundE, capital of Cameroon. (The village's name comes from Akom ‘rock' and Etam ‘source': in old maps of the region, the name is written in two parts). From an early age, Beti was influenced by the currents of rebellion sweeping Africa in the wake of World War II. His father drowned when Beti was seven, and he was raised by his mother and extended family. Beti recalls arguing with his mother about religion and colonialism; he also recalls early exposure to the opinions and analysis of independence leader Ruben Um Nyobe, both in the villages and at Nyobe's private residence. He carried these views into the classroom, and was eventually expelled from the missionary school in Mbalmayo for his outspokenness. In 1945 he entered the lycEe Leclerc in YaoundE. Graduating in 1951, he came to France to continue his higher education in literature, first at Aix-en-Provence, then at the Sorbonne in Paris. By the early 1950s, Beti had turned to writing as a vehicle of protest. He wrote regularly for the journal PrEsence Africaine; among his pieces was a review of Camara Laye's Black Child that criticized Laye for what Beti saw as pandering to European tastes. He began his career in fiction with the short story Sans haine et sans amour (‘Without hatred or love'), published in the periodical PrEsence Africaine, edited by Alioune Diop, in 1953. Beti's first novel Ville cruelle (‘Cruel City'), under the pseudonym Eza Boto, followed in 1954, published in several editions of PrEsence Africaine. It was, however, in 1956 that he gained a widespread reputation; the publication of the novel Le pauvre Christ de Bomba (‘The poor Christ of Bomba') created a scandal because of its satirical and biting
DESCRIPTIONof the missionary and colonial world. Under pressure from the religious hierarchy, the colonial administrator in Cameroon banned the novel in the colony. This was followed by Mission terminEe, 1957 (winner of the Prix Sainte Beuve 1958), and Le Roi miraculE, 1958. He also worked during this time for the review Preuves, for which he reported from Africa. He worked also as a substitute teacher at the lycEe of Rambouillet. In 1959, he was named certified professor at the lycEe Henri Avril in Lamballe. He took the AgrEgation de Lettres classiques in 1966 and taught at the LycEe Pierre Corneille in Rouen. from this date until 1994. Following Nyobe's assassination by French forces in 1958, however, Beti fell silent as a writer for more than a decade, remaining in exile from his homeland. After his death,Odile Tobner noted that exile was not easy on Beti; he remained tortured by his concern for his embattled country.In 1972 he re-entered the world of literature with a bang. His book Main basse sur le Cameroun, autopsie d'une dEcolonisation ('Cruel hand on Cameroon, autopsy of a decolonization') was censored upon its publication by the French Ministry of the Interior Raymond Marcellin on the request, brought forward by Jacques Foccart, of the Cameroon government, represented in Paris by the ambassador Ferdinand Oyono. The essay, a critical history of recent Cameroon, asserted that Cameroon and other colonies remained under French control in all but name, and that the post-independence political elites had actively fostered this continued dependence. Beti was inspired to write in part by the execution of Ernest Ouandie by the government of Cameroon. In 1974 he published PerpEtue and Remember Ruben; the latter was the first in a trilogy exploring the life and impact of Nyobe. After a long judicial action, Mongo Beti and his editor Francois MaspEro finally obtained, in 1976, the cancellation of the ban on the publication of Main basse. Beti returned to critical and political writing at the same time that he returned to fiction. In 1978 he and his wife Odile Tobner launched the bimonthly review Peuples Noirs. Peuples africains ('Black People. African People'), which was published until 1991. This review chronicled and denounced tirelessly the evils brought to Africa by neo-colonial regimes. During this period were published the novels La ruine presque cocasse d'un polichinelle (1979), Les deux mères de Guillaume Ismaël Dzewatama futur camionneur (1983), La revanche de Guillaume Ismaël Dzewatama (1984), also Lettre ouverte aux Camerounais ou la deuxième mort de Ruben Um NyobE (1984) and Dictionnaire de la negritude (1989, with Odile Tobner). Frustrated by what he saw as the failure of post-independence governments to bring genuine freedom to Africa, Beti adopted a more radical perspective in these works. In exile, Beti remained vitally connected to the struggle in Cameroon. Throughout the seventies and eighties, acquaintance with Beti or his work could spell trouble for a citizen of Cameroon; on numerous occasions, Beti used his connections in France to rescue one of his young readers, many of whom knew him from his periodical and his polemical essays. Ambroise Kom, arrested merely for subscribing to Peuples noirs, was saved from incarceration by Beti's actions in France on his behalf. In 1991 Mongo Beti returned to Cameroon, after 32 years of self-imposed exile. In 1993 he published La France contre l'Afrique, retour au Cameroun; this book chronicles his visits to his homeland. After retiring from teaching in 1994, he returned to Cameroon permanently. Various business endeavors in Betiland failed; eventually, he opened in YaoundE the Librairie des Peuples noirs (Bookstore of the Black Peoples) and organized agricultural activities in his village of Akometam. The goal of the bookshop was to encourage engaged literacy in the capital, and also to provide an outlet for critical texts and authors. During this period, Beti also supported John Fru Ndi, an anglophone opposition leader. He created associations for the defence of citizens and gave to the press numerous articles of protest. The government attempted to hinder his activities. On his first return to Cameroon, police prevented him from speaking at a scheduled conference; Beti instead addressed a crowd outside the locked conference room. He was subjected in January 1996, in the streets of YaoundE, to police aggression. He was challenged at a demonstration in October 1997. In response he published several novels: L'histoire du fou in 1994 then the two initial volumes Trop de soleil tue l'amour (1999) et Branle-bas en noir et blanc (2000), of a trilogy which would remain unfinished. He was hospitalized in YaoundE on October 1, 2001 for acute hepatic and kidney failure which remained untreated for lack of dialysis. Transported to the hospital at Douala on October 6, he died there on October 8, 2001. Some critics noted the similarity of his death to that of his heroine Perpetua, who also died while awaiting treatment in one of the country's overburdened hospitals. From beginning to end, Beti's work was informed by two principles. In terms of style, he was a realist. In a critical statement published in 1955, he asserted that ‘Given the modern conceptions of the beautiful in literature, given at the very least these essential conceptions, if a work is realistic it has many chances of being good; if not, supposing even that it has formal qualities, it risks lacking resonance, profundity, that of which all literature has the greatest need -- the human; from which it follows that it has much less chance of being good -- if only it had some -- than a realistic work.' Beti's fiction remains true to this credo. Thematically, Beti's work is unified by an unwavering commitment to combatting colonialism, both overt and covert. Beti's aim always, even in his harsh criticism of Cameroon's independence government, was to strengthen African autonomy and prosperity. ‘Sans haine et sans amour', 1953, is a short story and Beti's first significant work.
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Beti, Mongo. The Poor Christ of Bomba. London. 1971. Heinemann. 0435900889. African Writers Series. Translated from the French by Gerald Moore. 219 pages. paperback. AWS88. Cover design by Bill Heyes. Originally published as Le pauvre Christ de Bombay. Original French edition published 1956.
DESCRIPTION- In Bomba the girls who are being prepared for Christian marriage live together in the women's camp. It is not clear whether the girls have to stay in the women's camp for such long periods for the good of their souls or for the good of the mission-building program. Only gradually does it become apparent that the local churchmen have also been using the local girls for their own purpose. Mongo Beti, a pseudonym for Alexandre Biyidi-Awala, was born in Cameroon in 1932 and was exiled for years in France, where he taught in Rouen. In addition to writing novels and essays, he is also the founder and editor of the journal Peuples noirs, peuples africains. He was one of the key Francophone African writers of the post-war and independence era. Educated in Catholic mission and public schools in YaoundE and later in France, where he studied literature and lived for most of his life, Beti's early writing reflected the tensions in colonialism and the social dislocation and disorientation in the lives of the colonised, western educated and independent African. This tension is set right from his first novel Ville Cruelle (1957), the only one written under the pseudonym of Eza Boto and in the second novel Le Pauvre Christ de Bomba (1956, trans., THE POOR CHRIST OF BOMBA, 1971), which narrates the diary of a novice in his journey with his European priest, a journey that deftly reveals the destructive nature of supposedly well-intentioned missionaries. Mongo Beti died in October 2001.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Alexandre Biyidi Awala (30 June 1932 - 8 October 2001), known as Mongo Beti, was a Cameroonian writer. Though he lived in exile for many decades, Beti's life reveals an unflagging commitment to improvement of his home country. As one critic wrote after his death, ‘The militant path of this essayist, chronicler and novelist has been governed by one obsession: the quest for the dignity of African people.'The son of Oscar Awala and REgine Alomo, Alexandre was born in 1932 at AkomEtan, a small village 10 km from Mbalmayo, itself 45 km away from YaoundE, capital of Cameroon. (The village's name comes from Akom ‘rock' and Etam ‘source': in old maps of the region, the name is written in two parts). From an early age, Beti was influenced by the currents of rebellion sweeping Africa in the wake of World War II. His father drowned when Beti was seven, and he was raised by his mother and extended family. Beti recalls arguing with his mother about religion and colonialism; he also recalls early exposure to the opinions and analysis of independence leader Ruben Um Nyobe, both in the villages and at Nyobe's private residence. He carried these views into the classroom, and was eventually expelled from the missionary school in Mbalmayo for his outspokenness. In 1945 he entered the lycEe Leclerc in YaoundE. Graduating in 1951, he came to France to continue his higher education in literature, first at Aix-en-Provence, then at the Sorbonne in Paris. By the early 1950s, Beti had turned to writing as a vehicle of protest. He wrote regularly for the journal PrEsence Africaine; among his pieces was a review of Camara Laye's Black Child that criticized Laye for what Beti saw as pandering to European tastes. He began his career in fiction with the short story Sans haine et sans amour (‘Without hatred or love'), published in the periodical PrEsence Africaine, edited by Alioune Diop, in 1953. Beti's first novel Ville cruelle (‘Cruel City'), under the pseudonym Eza Boto, followed in 1954, published in several editions of PrEsence Africaine. It was, however, in 1956 that he gained a widespread reputation; the publication of the novel Le pauvre Christ de Bomba (‘The poor Christ of Bomba') created a scandal because of its satirical and biting
DESCRIPTIONof the missionary and colonial world. Under pressure from the religious hierarchy, the colonial administrator in Cameroon banned the novel in the colony. This was followed by Mission terminEe, 1957 (winner of the Prix Sainte Beuve 1958), and Le Roi miraculE, 1958. He also worked during this time for the review Preuves, for which he reported from Africa. He worked also as a substitute teacher at the lycEe of Rambouillet. In 1959, he was named certified professor at the lycEe Henri Avril in Lamballe. He took the AgrEgation de Lettres classiques in 1966 and taught at the LycEe Pierre Corneille in Rouen. from this date until 1994. Following Nyobe's assassination by French forces in 1958, however, Beti fell silent as a writer for more than a decade, remaining in exile from his homeland. After his death,Odile Tobner noted that exile was not easy on Beti; he remained tortured by his concern for his embattled country.In 1972 he re-entered the world of literature with a bang. His book Main basse sur le Cameroun, autopsie d'une dEcolonisation ('Cruel hand on Cameroon, autopsy of a decolonization') was censored upon its publication by the French Ministry of the Interior Raymond Marcellin on the request, brought forward by Jacques Foccart, of the Cameroon government, represented in Paris by the ambassador Ferdinand Oyono. The essay, a critical history of recent Cameroon, asserted that Cameroon and other colonies remained under French control in all but name, and that the post-independence political elites had actively fostered this continued dependence. Beti was inspired to write in part by the execution of Ernest Ouandie by the government of Cameroon. In 1974 he published PerpEtue and Remember Ruben; the latter was the first in a trilogy exploring the life and impact of Nyobe. After a long judicial action, Mongo Beti and his editor Francois MaspEro finally obtained, in 1976, the cancellation of the ban on the publication of Main basse. Beti returned to critical and political writing at the same time that he returned to fiction. In 1978 he and his wife Odile Tobner launched the bimonthly review Peuples Noirs. Peuples africains ('Black People. African People'), which was published until 1991. This review chronicled and denounced tirelessly the evils brought to Africa by neo-colonial regimes. During this period were published the novels La ruine presque cocasse d'un polichinelle (1979), Les deux mères de Guillaume Ismaël Dzewatama futur camionneur (1983), La revanche de Guillaume Ismaël Dzewatama (1984), also Lettre ouverte aux Camerounais ou la deuxième mort de Ruben Um NyobE (1984) and Dictionnaire de la negritude (1989, with Odile Tobner). Frustrated by what he saw as the failure of post-independence governments to bring genuine freedom to Africa, Beti adopted a more radical perspective in these works. In exile, Beti remained vitally connected to the struggle in Cameroon. Throughout the seventies and eighties, acquaintance with Beti or his work could spell trouble for a citizen of Cameroon; on numerous occasions, Beti used his connections in France to rescue one of his young readers, many of whom knew him from his periodical and his polemical essays. Ambroise Kom, arrested merely for subscribing to Peuples noirs, was saved from incarceration by Beti's actions in France on his behalf. In 1991 Mongo Beti returned to Cameroon, after 32 years of self-imposed exile. In 1993 he published La France contre l'Afrique, retour au Cameroun; this book chronicles his visits to his homeland. After retiring from teaching in 1994, he returned to Cameroon permanently. Various business endeavors in Betiland failed; eventually, he opened in YaoundE the Librairie des Peuples noirs (Bookstore of the Black Peoples) and organized agricultural activities in his village of Akometam. The goal of the bookshop was to encourage engaged literacy in the capital, and also to provide an outlet for critical texts and authors. During this period, Beti also supported John Fru Ndi, an anglophone opposition leader. He created associations for the defence of citizens and gave to the press numerous articles of protest. The government attempted to hinder his activities. On his first return to Cameroon, police prevented him from speaking at a scheduled conference; Beti instead addressed a crowd outside the locked conference room. He was subjected in January 1996, in the streets of YaoundE, to police aggression. He was challenged at a demonstration in October 1997. In response he published several novels: L'histoire du fou in 1994 then the two initial volumes Trop de soleil tue l'amour (1999) et Branle-bas en noir et blanc (2000), of a trilogy which would remain unfinished. He was hospitalized in YaoundE on October 1, 2001 for acute hepatic and kidney failure which remained untreated for lack of dialysis. Transported to the hospital at Douala on October 6, he died there on October 8, 2001. Some critics noted the similarity of his death to that of his heroine Perpetua, who also died while awaiting treatment in one of the country's overburdened hospitals. From beginning to end, Beti's work was informed by two principles. In terms of style, he was a realist. In a critical statement published in 1955, he asserted that ‘Given the modern conceptions of the beautiful in literature, given at the very least these essential conceptions, if a work is realistic it has many chances of being good; if not, supposing even that it has formal qualities, it risks lacking resonance, profundity, that of which all literature has the greatest need -- the human; from which it follows that it has much less chance of being good -- if only it had some -- than a realistic work.' Beti's fiction remains true to this credo. Thematically, Beti's work is unified by an unwavering commitment to combatting colonialism, both overt and covert. Beti's aim always, even in his harsh criticism of Cameroon's independence government, was to strengthen African autonomy and prosperity. ‘Sans haine et sans amour', 1953, is a short story and Beti's first significant work.
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Beti, Mongo. The Story of the Madman. Charlottesville. 2001. University Press Of Virginia. 0813920485. Translated from the French by Elizabeth Darnel. Afterword by Patricia-Pia Celerier. 190 pages. hardcover. Translation of L'histoire du fou.
DESCRIPTION- Widely acclaimed when first published in French in 1994, Mongo Beti's tenth novel, L'histoire du fou, continues the author's humorous yet fierce criticism of the colonial system in Africa and its legacy of governmental corruption. Translated here as The Story of the Madman, the novel gives the English-speaking world Beti's comic satire of the fictional Chief Zoaeteleu and his favorite sons Zoaetoa and Narcisse. In a modern fable that Beti uses to illustrate the problems of a people's disintegrating values in a postcolonial state, Chief Zoaeteleu, a puppet under two dictatorial regimes, is swept into the frontline of politics, where his fortunes unravel. Along with his caustic portrayal of failed government--clearly a reflection of his native Cameroon--Beti's realism provides an intriguing view of the struggle for balance between traditional life and imminent change in African culture.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Alexandre Biyidi Awala (30 June 1932 - 8 October 2001), known as Mongo Beti, was a Cameroonian writer. Though he lived in exile for many decades, Beti's life reveals an unflagging commitment to improvement of his home country. As one critic wrote after his death, ‘The militant path of this essayist, chronicler and novelist has been governed by one obsession: the quest for the dignity of African people.'The son of Oscar Awala and REgine Alomo, Alexandre was born in 1932 at AkomEtan, a small village 10 km from Mbalmayo, itself 45 km away from YaoundE, capital of Cameroon. (The village's name comes from Akom ‘rock' and Etam ‘source': in old maps of the region, the name is written in two parts). From an early age, Beti was influenced by the currents of rebellion sweeping Africa in the wake of World War II. His father drowned when Beti was seven, and he was raised by his mother and extended family. Beti recalls arguing with his mother about religion and colonialism; he also recalls early exposure to the opinions and analysis of independence leader Ruben Um Nyobe, both in the villages and at Nyobe's private residence. He carried these views into the classroom, and was eventually expelled from the missionary school in Mbalmayo for his outspokenness. In 1945 he entered the lycEe Leclerc in YaoundE. Graduating in 1951, he came to France to continue his higher education in literature, first at Aix-en-Provence, then at the Sorbonne in Paris. By the early 1950s, Beti had turned to writing as a vehicle of protest. He wrote regularly for the journal PrEsence Africaine; among his pieces was a review of Camara Laye's Black Child that criticized Laye for what Beti saw as pandering to European tastes. He began his career in fiction with the short story Sans haine et sans amour (‘Without hatred or love'), published in the periodical PrEsence Africaine, edited by Alioune Diop, in 1953. Beti's first novel Ville cruelle (‘Cruel City'), under the pseudonym Eza Boto, followed in 1954, published in several editions of PrEsence Africaine. It was, however, in 1956 that he gained a widespread reputation; the publication of the novel Le pauvre Christ de Bomba (‘The poor Christ of Bomba') created a scandal because of its satirical and biting
DESCRIPTIONof the missionary and colonial world. Under pressure from the religious hierarchy, the colonial administrator in Cameroon banned the novel in the colony. This was followed by Mission terminEe, 1957 (winner of the Prix Sainte Beuve 1958), and Le Roi miraculE, 1958. He also worked during this time for the review Preuves, for which he reported from Africa. He worked also as a substitute teacher at the lycEe of Rambouillet. In 1959, he was named certified professor at the lycEe Henri Avril in Lamballe. He took the AgrEgation de Lettres classiques in 1966 and taught at the LycEe Pierre Corneille in Rouen. from this date until 1994. Following Nyobe's assassination by French forces in 1958, however, Beti fell silent as a writer for more than a decade, remaining in exile from his homeland. After his death,Odile Tobner noted that exile was not easy on Beti; he remained tortured by his concern for his embattled country.In 1972 he re-entered the world of literature with a bang. His book Main basse sur le Cameroun, autopsie d'une dEcolonisation ('Cruel hand on Cameroon, autopsy of a decolonization') was censored upon its publication by the French Ministry of the Interior Raymond Marcellin on the request, brought forward by Jacques Foccart, of the Cameroon government, represented in Paris by the ambassador Ferdinand Oyono. The essay, a critical history of recent Cameroon, asserted that Cameroon and other colonies remained under French control in all but name, and that the post-independence political elites had actively fostered this continued dependence. Beti was inspired to write in part by the execution of Ernest Ouandie by the government of Cameroon. In 1974 he published PerpEtue and Remember Ruben; the latter was the first in a trilogy exploring the life and impact of Nyobe. After a long judicial action, Mongo Beti and his editor Francois MaspEro finally obtained, in 1976, the cancellation of the ban on the publication of Main basse. Beti returned to critical and political writing at the same time that he returned to fiction. In 1978 he and his wife Odile Tobner launched the bimonthly review Peuples Noirs. Peuples africains ('Black People. African People'), which was published until 1991. This review chronicled and denounced tirelessly the evils brought to Africa by neo-colonial regimes. During this period were published the novels La ruine presque cocasse d'un polichinelle (1979), Les deux mères de Guillaume Ismaël Dzewatama futur camionneur (1983), La revanche de Guillaume Ismaël Dzewatama (1984), also Lettre ouverte aux Camerounais ou la deuxième mort de Ruben Um NyobE (1984) and Dictionnaire de la negritude (1989, with Odile Tobner). Frustrated by what he saw as the failure of post-independence governments to bring genuine freedom to Africa, Beti adopted a more radical perspective in these works. In exile, Beti remained vitally connected to the struggle in Cameroon. Throughout the seventies and eighties, acquaintance with Beti or his work could spell trouble for a citizen of Cameroon; on numerous occasions, Beti used his connections in France to rescue one of his young readers, many of whom knew him from his periodical and his polemical essays. Ambroise Kom, arrested merely for subscribing to Peuples noirs, was saved from incarceration by Beti's actions in France on his behalf. In 1991 Mongo Beti returned to Cameroon, after 32 years of self-imposed exile. In 1993 he published La France contre l'Afrique, retour au Cameroun; this book chronicles his visits to his homeland. After retiring from teaching in 1994, he returned to Cameroon permanently. Various business endeavors in Betiland failed; eventually, he opened in YaoundE the Librairie des Peuples noirs (Bookstore of the Black Peoples) and organized agricultural activities in his village of Akometam. The goal of the bookshop was to encourage engaged literacy in the capital, and also to provide an outlet for critical texts and authors. During this period, Beti also supported John Fru Ndi, an anglophone opposition leader. He created associations for the defence of citizens and gave to the press numerous articles of protest. The government attempted to hinder his activities. On his first return to Cameroon, police prevented him from speaking at a scheduled conference; Beti instead addressed a crowd outside the locked conference room. He was subjected in January 1996, in the streets of YaoundE, to police aggression. He was challenged at a demonstration in October 1997. In response he published several novels: L'histoire du fou in 1994 then the two initial volumes Trop de soleil tue l'amour (1999) et Branle-bas en noir et blanc (2000), of a trilogy which would remain unfinished. He was hospitalized in YaoundE on October 1, 2001 for acute hepatic and kidney failure which remained untreated for lack of dialysis. Transported to the hospital at Douala on October 6, he died there on October 8, 2001. Some critics noted the similarity of his death to that of his heroine Perpetua, who also died while awaiting treatment in one of the country's overburdened hospitals. From beginning to end, Beti's work was informed by two principles. In terms of style, he was a realist. In a critical statement published in 1955, he asserted that ‘Given the modern conceptions of the beautiful in literature, given at the very least these essential conceptions, if a work is realistic it has many chances of being good; if not, supposing even that it has formal qualities, it risks lacking resonance, profundity, that of which all literature has the greatest need -- the human; from which it follows that it has much less chance of being good -- if only it had some -- than a realistic work.' Beti's fiction remains true to this credo. Thematically, Beti's work is unified by an unwavering commitment to combatting colonialism, both overt and covert. Beti's aim always, even in his harsh criticism of Cameroon's independence government, was to strengthen African autonomy and prosperity. ‘Sans haine et sans amour', 1953, is a short story and Beti's first significant work.
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Beyala, Calixthe. Loukoum: The 'Little Prince' of Belleville. Portsmouth. 1995. Heinemann. 0435909681. Translated from the French by Marjolijn de Jager. African Writers Series. 177 pages. paperback. Jacket illustration by Jane Human. Translation of Le Petit prince de Belleville.
DESCRIPTION- Seven-year-old Loukoum, the ‘Little Prince' of Belleville, innocently chronicles the daily life of the African immigrant population he belongs to in Paris. As he becomes more aware of what is happening around him, so the conflicts of cultures, the spectre of racism, and the deception of adult behaviour emerge. Calixthe Beyala sensitively examines immigrant society through comedy in this highly readable and entertaining novel. Calixthe Beyala, born in Cameroon, is the author of several novels published in French.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Calixthe Beyala was born in Cameroon in 1961. She spent her childhood in Douala with one of her sisters, four years older than herself. Calixthe Beyala left Cameroon aged seventeen and arrived in France where she studied, married, had two children and published numerous novels. In 1996 she was awarded the Grand Prix du Roman de l'Academie Française. She now (2011) lives in France.
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Beyala, Calixthe. The Sun Hath Looked Upon Me. Portsmouth. 1996. Heinemann. 0435909517. Translated from the French by Marjolijn de Jager. African Writers Series. 120 pages. paperback. Cover illustration by Jane Human. Translation of C'est le soleil qui m'a brûlée.
DESCRIPTION- Nineteen-year-old Ateba lives in a slum neighbourhood in the African city of Awu. Abandoned by her prostitute mother, Ateba lodges with her aunt. Caught between the expectations of her aunt, who seeks a high bride-price for her, and the violent threats of her suitor, Ateba begins to lose her fragile hold on sanity. This shocking novel deconstructs the illusions about African women which negritude literature has produced. Beyala gives a voice to those who have learnt the emotional and psychological effects of life in the African ghetto. Calixthe Beyala, born in Cameroon, is the author of LOUKOUM and YOUR NAME SHALL BE TANGA.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Calixthe Beyala was born in Cameroon in 1961. She spent her childhood in Douala with one of her sisters, four years older than herself. Calixthe Beyala left Cameroon aged seventeen and arrived in France where she studied, married, had two children and published numerous novels. In 1996 she was awarded the Grand Prix du Roman de l'Academie Française. She now (2011) lives in France.
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Beyala, Calixthe. Your Name Shall Be Tanga. Portsmouth. 1996. Heinemann. 0435909509. Translated from the French by Marjolijn de Jager. African Writers Series. 137 pages. paperback. Cover illustration by Jane Human. Translation of Tu t'appelleras Tanga.
DESCRIPTION- In a West-African prison cell a young woman, Tanga, is dying. Her only companion is Anna-Claude, a foreigner on the brink of madness. Reluctantly, Tanga begins to confide her life story to this stranger. A grim talc of incest, prostitution, bereavement and crime unfolds. Tanga's anguished mind searches for the words to express such suffering. Yet as she does so, the bond between her and the white stranger begins to grow. In passing on her story, she is fusing her identity with the woman who will live after her death. `Your name shall be Tanga', she insists. In this disturbing novel about sexual abuse and violence, Calixthe Beyala voices the solidarity that unites women across racial, religious and class barriers.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Calixthe Beyala was born in Cameroon in 1961. She spent her childhood in Douala with one of her sisters, four years older than herself. Calixthe Beyala left Cameroon aged seventeen and arrived in France where she studied, married, had two children and published numerous novels. In 1996 she was awarded the Grand Prix du Roman de l'Academie Française. She now (2011) lives in France.
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Dipoko, Mbella Sonne. A Few Nights and Days. London. 1980. Heinemann. 043590082x. African Writers Series. 184 pages. paperback. AWS82. Cover design by Peter Edwards. Originally published in hardcover, Harlow: Longmans, 1966. AWS edition 1970.
DESCRIPTION- The few nights and days of the title cover a crisis in the lives of four friends, students living and working in Paris. Two of them wish to marry - Therèse, a nineteen-year-old French girl of conventional bourgeois background, and Doumbe, an African student from the Cameroon. Not least of the problems that face the two of them is the opposition of Therèse's father to her marring an African and the measures he takes to prevent it.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mbella Sonne Dipoko (1936 in Douala - December 5, 2009 in Tiko) was a novelist, poet and painter from Cameroon. He is widely considered to be one of the foremost writers of Anglophone Cameroonian literature.Although born in Cameroon, Mbella Sonne Dipoko grew up in Western Cameroon and Nigeria. He joined the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1958 and became a News Reporter. He lived mainly in France after 1960. For a time he was on the editorial staff of Presence Africaine and he read law at the University of Paris. He is tlso the author of the novel, BECAUSE OF WOMEN (AWS 57), set in the rivers of Cameroon. A collection of his poetry BLACK AND WHITE IN LOVE (AWS 107) also appears in the African Writers Series.
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Dipoko, Mbella Sonne. Because of Women. London. 1969. Heinemann. 0435900579. African Writers Series. 178 pages. paperback. AWS57. Cover Illustration by Ely Kyeyune.
DESCRIPTION- The author says ‘BECAUSE OF WOMEN is a study in pleasure and change. The story of a womaniser who dreams of founding a large family. The novel tries to show the deep joy there is in women.' Ngoso is faced with choosing between Ewudu, who is probably barren, and Njale, who is expecting his child. When Njale accuses him of sleeping with a third woman, Inon, who is his friend's wife, he attacks her savagely and she goes. This leaves Ngoso free to follow his passion for Ewudu. News comes to him by river that Njale has died from a miscarriage brought on by his assault. However Ngoso's problems are far from solved. It turns out that Njale and the child are alive and Ewudu leaves him only to return when it is too late.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mbella Sonne Dipoko (1936 in Douala - December 5, 2009 in Tiko) was a novelist, poet and painter from Cameroon. He is widely considered to be one of the foremost writers of Anglophone Cameroonian literature. Dipoko was born in 1936 in Douala, Cameroon, but grew up in Western Cameroon and Nigeria. He joined the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1958 and became a News Reporter. He lived in France from 1960 to 1968. For a time he was on the editorial staff of PrEsEnce Africaine. He then read law at the University of Paris. He had already shown a rare talent in his novel A FEW NIGHTS AND DAYS (Longmans 1966) which was set in Paris.
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Dipoko, Mbella Sonne. Black and White in Love: poems. London. 1972. Heinemann. 0435901079. African Writers Series. 72 pages. paperback. AWS107.
DESCRIPTION- Black and White in Love is love poetry to a girl, but also to the world. Dipoko expresses his joy for the world in spite of the horror he sometimes sees in it. The book includes such poems as 'Pain,' 'Persecution,' and 'The Tenderness Manifesto.'
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mbella Sonne Dipoko (1936 in Douala - December 5, 2009 in Tiko) was a novelist, poet and painter from Cameroon. He is widely considered to be one of the foremost writers of Anglophone Cameroonian literature. Dipoko was born in 1936 in Douala, Cameroon, but grew up in Western Cameroon and Nigeria. He joined the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1958 and became a News Reporter. He lived in France from 1960 to 1968. For a time he was on the editorial staff of PrEsEnce Africaine. He then read law at the University of Paris. He had already shown a rare talent in his novel A FEW NIGHTS AND DAYS (Longmans 1966) which was set in Paris.
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Jumbam, Kenjo. The White Man of God. London. 1980. Heinemann. 0435902318. African Writers Series. 151 pages. paperback. AWS231. Cover photograph by George Hallett. AWS original.
DESCRIPTION- The central character in this novel of singular wisdom and charm is a young boy called Tansa who lives in a village near Bamenda in Cameroun. Tansa behaves no better and no worse than he should and he is surrounded by a family and friends in whom he finds a mixture of malice, virtue, sagacity and stupidity. The only thing that they have in common is the conflict that has arisen over what they think of 'the white man of God'. The arrival of missionaries is a traumatic experience. Some people can accept the change. Some people resent it. The climax comes when the parish priest attacks the chief juju and finds that the man behind the mask is Matthew, his head catechist. Kenjo Jumbam is able to present an honest picture of people on both sides of this chasm and to do so with understanding and delicacy.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kenjo Jumbam (October 23, 1932 - December 12, 2005) was a celebrated Cameroonian writer and the first Anglophone Cameroon writer to publish with Heinemann's African Writers Series.
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Kuoh-Moukoury, Thérèse. Essential Encounters. New York. 2002. Modern Language Association. 9780873527941. MLA Texts and Translations. Translated by Cheryl Toman. 94 pages. paperback. Translation of Rencontres essentielles.
DESCRIPTION- Published in 1969, Essential Encounters is the first novel by a woman of sub-Saharan francophone Africa. Thérèse Kuoh-Moukoury, of Cameroon, wrote it "to inspire other women to write." Its story of love, infertility, a failed marriage, and adultery looks at both interpersonal connections and national politics from a feminist perspective. In the introduction the volume editor, Cheryl Toman, provides valuable background with a discussion of African matriarchy, past and present; ethnic groups in Cameroon; interracial relationships; and polygamy as it affects women's roles in the family and their interaction with one another.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Born February 7, 1938, in Yaoundé, Cameroon; daughter of Jacques Kuoh-Moukouri (an administrator and author). Education: Attended Institut des Hautes Études d'Outre-Mer (Overseas Territories' Institute for Higher Studies), France; earned law degree.
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Lobe, Max. 39 Berne Street. Bloomington. 2023. Indiana University Press. 9780253064929. Global African Voices. Translated by Johanna McCalmont. 156 pages. paperback. Translation of 39, rue de Berne.
DESCRIPTION- In Cameroon in 1931, Sara is taken from her family and brought to Mount Pleasant as a gift for Sultan Njoya, the Bamum leader cast into exile by French colonialists. Just nine years old and on the verge of becoming one of the sultan's hundreds of wives, Sara's story takes an unexpected turn when she is recognized by Bertha, the slave in charge of training Njoya's brides, as Nebu, the son she lost tragically years before. In Sara's new life as a boy she bears witness to the world of Sultan Njoya--a magical yet declining place of artistic and intellectual minds--and hears the story of the sultan's last days in the Palace of All Dreams and of the sad fate of Nebu, the greatest artist their culture had seen. Seven decades later, a student returns home to Cameroon to research the place it once was, and she finds Sara, silent for decades, ready to tell her story. In her serpentine tale, a lost kingdom lives again in the compromised intersection between flawed memory, tangled fiction, and faintly discernible truth. In this telling, history is invented anew and transformed--a man awakens from a coma to find the animal kingdom dancing a waltz; a spirit haunts a cocoa plantation; and a sculptor re-creates his lost love in a work of art that challenges the boundary between truth and the ideal. The award-winning novelist Patrice Nganang's lyrical and majestic Mount Pleasant is a resurrection of the world of early-twentieth-century Cameroon and an elegy for the men and women swept up in the forces of colonization.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Born in Douala, Cameroon, in 1986, Max Lobe is a Swiss-Cameroonian novelist, short story writer, and poet. In 2017, he received the Ahmadou Kourouma Prize for his novel Confidences about the Cameroon war of independence. He currently lives in Geneva where he founded GenevAfrica, an association that builds bridges between Swiss and African authors. Johanna McCalmont is a Northern Irish translator and interpreter based in Brussels where she works from French, German, Dutch, and Italian.
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Miano, Leonora. Dark Heart of the Night. Lincoln. 2010. University of Nebraska Press. 9780803228238. Translated by Tamsin Black. Foreword by Terese Svoboda. French Voices Series. 143 pages. paperback. Cover: Wall texture (Stockphoto.com), 'Woman' by Zave Smith. Cover design by A. Shahan. Translation of L'intérieur de la nuit.
DESCRIPTION- What is Africa's own heart of darkness? It is what confronts AyanE when, after three years abroad, she returns to the Central African village of her birth. Now an outsider with foreign ways distrusted by her fellow villagers, she must face alone the customs and superstitions that bind this clan of men and women. When invading militia organize a horrific ceremony that they claim will help reunite Africa, AyanE is forced to confront the monstrosity of the act that follows, as well as the responsibility that all the villagers must bear for silently accepting evil done in their name. Through AyanE's unwilling witness, LEonora Miano probes the themes of submission and responsibility and questions the role of Africans in the suffering of their fellows. Also exploring African identity, Dark Heart of the Night is a profoundly disturbing novel in its evocation of the darkest side of people driven by their instinct to survive.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Leonora Miano (born 1973, in Douala) is a Cameroonian author. She has lived in France since 1991. She criticized the foreword added to the English translation of her 2005 first novel, Dark Heart of the Night, calling it "full of lies"; in 2012 Zukiswa Wanner, however, based on reading Dark Heart of the Night rated Miano as one of her top five African writers (alongside H. J. Golakai, Ondjaki, Chika Unigwe and Thando Mgqolozana), describing her work as "brilliant".
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Nganang, Patrice. Mount Pleasant. New York. 2016. Farrar Straus Giroux. 9780374213855. Translated from the French by Amy Baram Reid. 365 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Donna Chang. Translation of Mont Plaisant.
DESCRIPTION- In Cameroon in 1931, Sara is taken from her family and brought to Mount Pleasant as a gift for Sultan Njoya, the Bamum leader cast into exile by French colonialists. Just nine years old and on the verge of becoming one of the sultan's hundreds of wives, Sara's story takes an unexpected turn when she is recognized by Bertha, the slave in charge of training Njoya's brides, as Nebu, the son she lost tragically years before. In Sara's new life as a boy she bears witness to the world of Sultan Njoya--a magical yet declining place of artistic and intellectual minds--and hears the story of the sultan's last days in the Palace of All Dreams and of the sad fate of Nebu, the greatest artist their culture had seen. Seven decades later, a student returns home to Cameroon to research the place it once was, and she finds Sara, silent for decades, ready to tell her story. In her serpentine tale, a lost kingdom lives again in the compromised intersection between flawed memory, tangled fiction, and faintly discernible truth. In this telling, history is invented anew and transformed--a man awakens from a coma to find the animal kingdom dancing a waltz; a spirit haunts a cocoa plantation; and a sculptor re-creates his lost love in a work of art that challenges the boundary between truth and the ideal. The award-winning novelist Patrice Nganang's lyrical and majestic Mount Pleasant is a resurrection of the world of early-twentieth-century Cameroon and an elegy for the men and women swept up in the forces of colonization.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Patrice Nganang was born in Cameroon and is a novelist, a poet, and an essayist. His novel Temps de chien received the Prix LittEraire Marguerite Yourcenar and the Grand prix littEraire d'Afrique noire. He is also the author of La Joie de vivre and L'Invention d'un beau regard. He teaches comparative literature at Stony Brook University.
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Oyono, Ferdinand. Houseboy. London. 1966. Heinemann. Translated from the French by John Reed. 140 pages. hardcover. Jacket designed by Jack Larkin. Translation of Une vie de boy.
DESCRIPTION- Houseboy is a novel in the form of a diary written by Ferdinand Oyono, first published in 1956 by in French as Une vie de boy (Paris: Rene Julliard) and translated into English in 1966 by John Reed for Heinemann's African Writers Series. The novel starts in Spanish Guinea with a Frenchman on vacation, who finds a man named Toundi, who has been injured and soon dies. The Frenchman finds his diary, which is called an "exercise book" by Toundi. The rest of the story consists of the diary (exercise book) that the Frenchman is supposedly reading. There is no further discussion of the Frenchman after this point. The first "exercise book" starts with Toundi living with his family. His father beats him constantly, and one day Toundi runs away from home to the rescue of Father Gilbert, a priest who lives nearby. His father comes back for him, telling Toundi that everything will be all right if he comes back. He rejects his father's offer and after this point no longer acknowledges his birth parents. Toundi treats Father Gilbert as his new father. Father Gilbert teaches Toundi to read and write, and about Catholicism. Toundi believes in Catholicism, but as the story progresses he drifts from his beliefs until the end, when he does not believe in God. Father Gilbert dies in a motorcycle accident a few months after meeting Toundi. Toundi is eventually taken to live with the Commandant, the man in charge of the surrounding colony. Toundi serves as houseboy for the Commandant. It becomes very clear that the events that go on in the house are more important to Toundi than his own life. About six months after Toundi comes to live with the Commandant, Madame, the Commandant's wife, arrives from France. She initially is a warm and caring woman, who is very beautiful. She catches the eye of almost every man in town, much to the Commandant's dismay. Soon after Madame arrives the Commandant leaves to go on tour again. Toundi is left with Madame to take care of the house. As time goes on, Madame becomes more and more hostile and disrespectful towards Toundi. When the Commandant returns, she is portrayed as a ruthless woman. While the Commandant was still on tour, it becomes obvious that she is bored with her life. She begins an affair with M. Moreau, the man in charge of the prison. M. Moreau is perceived to be ruthless against the Africans. One of Toundi's first experiences with M. Moreau was him whipping two other Africans nearly to death. The Commandant returns from touring, and it is later discovered that he knew about his wife's affair and returns because of it. The Commandant has a terrible argument with her, but after a few days they are getting along again. Madame becomes very disrespectful towards Toundi, partly because she does not like being there any more, but mostly because she knows that he knew about her affair. Sophie, the lover of the water engineer, is accused of stealing his workers' salaries with the help of Toundi. He is taken to prison, where he is tortured into confessing to a crime he has not committed. Toundi is held in a hut near the police headquarters. Fortunately he has a friend who works there named Mendim, who is described as a very muscular man. He is feared by most other people but he soon comes to be known as Toundi's ally. M. Moreau orders Mendim to beat up Toundi, but Mendim throws ox's blood on him to make it look like he is injured. They spend the rest of the day playing cards. Toundi becomes sick and Mendim takes him to the hospital. They have to wait a very long time to see a doctor because the black doctor is the only doctor there, the other white doctor having been promoted to captain. The doctor finds out that Toundi's ribs are broken and have punctured his bronchi. While Toundi is still at the hospital, in a dazed state, M. Moreau returns with the white doctor and talks about punishing Toundi some more. After M. Moreau has left, Toundi escapes the hospital and heads to Spanish Guinea, where he was first introduced in the beginning of the novel.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ferdinand LEopold Oyono (14 September 1929 - 10 June 2010) was an author from Cameroon whose work is recognised for a sense of irony that reveals how easily people can be fooled. Writing in French in the 1950s, Oyono had only a brief literary career, but his anti-colonialist novels are considered classics of 20th century African literature; his first novel, Une vie de boy - published in 1956 and later translated as Houseboy - is considered particularly important. Beginning in the 1960s, Oyono had a long career of service as a diplomat and as a minister in the government of Cameroon. As one of President Paul Biya's top associates, he ultimately served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1992 to 1997 and then as Minister of State for Culture from 1997 to 2007. Oyono was born near Ebolowa in the South Province of Cameroon. After obtaining his secondary education in YaoundE, Oyono studied in Paris. Following Cameroon's independence, Oyono was a member of the Cameroonian delegation to the United Nations in 1960, when the country was admitted to the UN. Oyono subsequently served as Cameroon's ambassador to various countries from 1965 to 1974. He was briefly the Ambassador to Liberia in 1965, then served as ambassador to the Benelux countries and the European Communities from 1965 to 1968 and as ambassador to France, with additional accreditation for Spain, Italy, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, from 1969 to 1974. From 1974 to 1982 he was Cameroon's Permanent Representative to the United Nations; he acted as President of the United Nations Security Council in place of the United Kingdom's Ivor Richard at the 1,866th meeting of the Security Council on 16 December 1975. From 1982 to 1985 he again served as ambassador to various countries: first as ambassador to Algeria and Libya, then as ambassador to the United Kingdom and the Scandinavian countries. In 1985, President Paul Biya recalled Oyono from London and appointed him as Secretary-General of the Presidency of Cameroon. Oyono remained in the post for about a year before Biya instead appointed him as Minister of Town Planning and Housing in 1986. The post of Secretary-General of the Presidency was historically very powerful, but Oyono's stint in the office was associated with a weakening of it under President Biya; significantly, Oyono was moved from the Secretariat-General to an ordinary ministry - effectively a demotion. Although Oyono was dismissed from the government in 1990, he was subsequently appointed as Minister of Foreign Relations on 27 November 1992, serving in that position until he was instead named Minister of State for Culture on 8 December 1997. Oyono was a member of the National Commission for the co-ordination of President Biya's re-election campaign in the October 2004 presidential election and was the president of the campaign's support and follow-up committee in the South Province. After nearly ten years as Minister of State for Culture, Oyono was dismissed from the government on 7 September 2007. Oyono was thought to be a close friend of Paul Biya, and observers attributed his departure from the government to his advanced age and poor health. He had been criticised for reportedly not working at his ministry for months at a time. After leaving the government, Oyono was thought to retain a great deal of influence as ‘an unofficial adviser' to Biya. Biya appointed him as a roving ambassador on 30 June 2009. As the representative of President Biya, Oyono attended a play commemorating Cameroon's independence struggle and the country's subsequent reunification on 14 May 2010; the play was part of festivities marking Cameroon's 50th year of independence from France. During a visit to Cameroon by Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the 80-year-old Oyono died suddenly in YaoundE on 10 June 2010. Reportedly Oyono fell ill at the presidential palace after a reception for the Secretary-General; he received immediate medical attention and an ambulance was called, but he quickly died. Later in the day, President Biya released a statement expressing sadness regarding Oyono's death, although the statement gave no details. Secretary-General Ban, meanwhile, expressed sadness during a speech to the National Assembly of Cameroon. An official funeral was held for Oyono with a series of events beginning on 24 June 2010 and concluding with his burial at Ngoazip, near Ebolowa, on 26 June.
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Oyono, Ferdinand. The Old Man and the Medal. New York. 1971. Collier/Macmillan. Translated from the French by John Reed. Introduction by John Pepper Clark. Collier African /American Library. 191 pages. paperback. 05319. Translation of Le vieux nègre et la médaillon.
DESCRIPTION- A model Christian (black) prepares to meet his Maker (white) The news has spread and old Meka is an instant celebrity. After years of devoted adherence to the white colonial government and its authorized religion, he is about to receive a medal from its Most Distinguished Official, in a ceremony that promises to be the biggest social event of the season. The village is bursting with excitement. At last, the great day is here! But as he proudly waits in line for his medal, a lifetime of sacrifice passes before his eyes - the loss of his lands, his sons and. his heritage. For what? For whom? For this beefy red-faced bureaucrat who is about to pin a tin badge on Meka's second-class chest? What happens to Meka and his medal after the ceremony is an appallingly funny look at the subtleties of polite society and its initiation rites: not only do all blacks look alike to colonial eyes, but, with or without medals, some look even more alike than others. Ferdinand Oyono's brilliant satire is first-class entertainment.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - FERDINAND OYONO was born in the Cameroons and educated in France. An actor, diplomat and writer, he is the author of Boy! published by Collier Books.Ferdinand LEopold Oyono (14 September 1929 - 10 June 2010) was an author from Cameroon whose work is recognised for a sense of irony that reveals how easily people can be fooled. Writing in French in the 1950s, Oyono had only a brief literary career, but his anti-colonialist novels are considered classics of 20th century African literature; his first novel, Une vie de boy - published in 1956 and later translated as Houseboy - is considered particularly important. Beginning in the 1960s, Oyono had a long career of service as a diplomat and as a minister in the government of Cameroon. As one of President Paul Biya's top associates, he ultimately served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1992 to 1997 and then as Minister of State for Culture from 1997 to 2007. Oyono was born near Ebolowa in the South Province of Cameroon. After obtaining his secondary education in YaoundE, Oyono studied in Paris. Following Cameroon's independence, Oyono was a member of the Cameroonian delegation to the United Nations in 1960, when the country was admitted to the UN. Oyono subsequently served as Cameroon's ambassador to various countries from 1965 to 1974. He was briefly the Ambassador to Liberia in 1965, then served as ambassador to the Benelux countries and the European Communities from 1965 to 1968 and as ambassador to France, with additional accreditation for Spain, Italy, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, from 1969 to 1974. From 1974 to 1982 he was Cameroon's Permanent Representative to the United Nations; he acted as President of the United Nations Security Council in place of the United Kingdom's Ivor Richard at the 1,866th meeting of the Security Council on 16 December 1975. From 1982 to 1985 he again served as ambassador to various countries: first as ambassador to Algeria and Libya, then as ambassador to the United Kingdom and the Scandinavian countries. In 1985, President Paul Biya recalled Oyono from London and appointed him as Secretary-General of the Presidency of Cameroon. Oyono remained in the post for about a year before Biya instead appointed him as Minister of Town Planning and Housing in 1986. The post of Secretary-General of the Presidency was historically very powerful, but Oyono's stint in the office was associated with a weakening of it under President Biya; significantly, Oyono was moved from the Secretariat-General to an ordinary ministry - effectively a demotion. Although Oyono was dismissed from the government in 1990, he was subsequently appointed as Minister of Foreign Relations on 27 November 1992, serving in that position until he was instead named Minister of State for Culture on 8 December 1997. Oyono was a member of the National Commission for the co-ordination of President Biya's re-election campaign in the October 2004 presidential election and was the president of the campaign's support and follow-up committee in the South Province. After nearly ten years as Minister of State for Culture, Oyono was dismissed from the government on 7 September 2007. Oyono was thought to be a close friend of Paul Biya, and observers attributed his departure from the government to his advanced age and poor health. He had been criticised for reportedly not working at his ministry for months at a time. After leaving the government, Oyono was thought to retain a great deal of influence as ‘an unofficial adviser' to Biya. Biya appointed him as a roving ambassador on 30 June 2009. As the representative of President Biya, Oyono attended a play commemorating Cameroon's independence struggle and the country's subsequent reunification on 14 May 2010; the play was part of festivities marking Cameroon's 50th year of independence from France. During a visit to Cameroon by Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the 80-year-old Oyono died suddenly in YaoundE on 10 June 2010. Reportedly Oyono fell ill at the presidential palace after a reception for the Secretary-General; he received immediate medical attention and an ambulance was called, but he quickly died. Later in the day, President Biya released a statement expressing sadness regarding Oyono's death, although the statement gave no details. Secretary-General Ban, meanwhile, expressed sadness during a speech to the National Assembly of Cameroon. An official funeral was held for Oyono with a series of events beginning on 24 June 2010 and concluding with his burial at Ngoazip, near Ebolowa, on 26 June.
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CAPE VERDE
[ CAPE VERDE - Literature ]Almeida, Germano. The Last Will and Testament of Senhor da Silva Araujo. New York. 2004. New Directions. 0811215652. Translated from the Portuguese by Shelia Faria Glaser. Paperback Original. 152 pages. paperback. Cover photograph by Pierre Rene- Worms. design by Semadar Megged. Traslation of O testamento do Sr. Napumoceno da Silva Araújo.
DESCRIPTION- Everyone in Cape Verde knew Senhor da Silva Araujo. Successful entrepeneur, owner of the island's first automobile, a most serious, upright, and self-made businessman, Senhor da Silva Araujo was the local success story. Born an orphan, he never married, he never splurged-one good suit was good enough for him-and he never wandered from the straight and narrow. Or so everyone thought. But when his 387-page Last Will and Testament is read aloud-a marathon task on a hot afternoon which exhausts reader after reader-there is shocking news, and not just for the smug nephew so certain of inheriting all of Senhor da Silva Araujo's property. In his will, Senhor da Silva Araujo has left a memoir that is a touching web of elaborate self-deceptions. He desired so ardently to prosper, to be taken seriously, and to join (perhaps, if they would have him) the exclusive Gremio country club. But most of all, he wanted to be a good man. And yet, shady deals, twists of fate, an illegitimate child: such is the lot of poor, self-critical Senhor da Silva Araujo. A bit like Calvino's Mr. Palomar in his attention to protocol and in his terror of life's passions; a bit like Svevo's Zeno (a little pompous, a little old-fashioned, and often hapless), Senhor da Silva Araujo moves along a deliciously blurry line between farce and tragedy: a self-important buffoon becomes a fully human, even tragic, figure in the arc of this wonderful novel-translated into Spanish, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian, and Swedish, and now, at last, English.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Germano Almeida (born 1945 in Boa Vista) is a Cape Verdean author and lawyer. Born on the Cape island Boa Vista, Almeida studied law at the University of Lisbon and currently practices in Mindelo. His novels have been translated into several languages. He married Sam Stewart in 1970. Almeida founded the magazine Porto & Vírgula (1983-87) and Aguaviva. In 1989 he founded the IlhEu Editora publishing house and has since published 16 books (nine novels). His first work was O dia das calças roladas which was about an account of a strike on the island of Santo Antão, it was first written in 1982 and was published in 1983. He wrote the novel The Last Will and Testament of Senhor da Silva Araújo which was about businessman turned philanthropist who leaves his fortune to his illegitimate daughter. As independence comes he is shown up to be a relic of colonialism. A motion picture would be made about the novel in 1997 and was directed by the Portuguese director Francisco Manso, it won the award at the Brazil's largest film festival, the Festival de Cinema de Gramado. He later published Dona Pura e os Camaradas de Abril in 1999, a story about the 1974 Carnation revolution in Portugal. Cabo Verde - Viagem pela historia das ilhas, published in 2003 was his historical presentation of all the nine inhabited islands that constitute Cape Verde. His recently published novels and works were Eva in 2006 and De Monte Cara vê-se o mundo in 2014. He has been awarded the Order of the Dragon Plant - First Class and the Portuguese Order of Merit. SHEILA FARIA GLASER is an editor at the New York Times Magazine and has translated Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation and Michel Serres's The Troubador of Knowledge. .
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Nunes, Maria Luisa. A Portuguese Colonial in America: Belmira Nunes Lopes - the Autobiography of a Cape-Verdean-American. Pittsburgh. 1982. Latin American Literary Review Press. 0935480072. Simultaneous Hardcover Edition. The Autobiography Of A Cape Verdean-American. 224 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- "We rarely read about Cape Verdeans in the United States. This true story reveals their position in American society. It illustrates the difficulties faced be even the best among the im- migrants from the Cape Verde Islands and how one of them, a woman to boot, succeeded, not without a struggle" - Gerald Moser, Pennsylvania State University. "Belmira was an anomaly in U.S. society, not really Negro, not really white, not really Cape Verdean, not really American. Because she was a square peg facing round holes, her story does more than just touch on many issues. As the perpetual outsider, she illuminates them from a truly unique perspective, one that I know of in no other autobiographies. "Her story, however, is not one of tragedy, bitterness, and de- feat. Because she was mentally tough, resourceful, and adapt- able, she coped and persevered. She kept trying to find a suitable mate and, in her later years, found men with whom she could at least be comfortable. She had no children of her own, but she adopted two and raised them, apparently with love and satisfaction.' - Laurence Glasco University of Pittsburgh. ‘This is the story of a woman who was not famous beyond the boundaries of her own community; or even very widely within it. Belmira Nunes Lopes's life spans this century; her career is intertwined with the struggle for Black equity in this country, for the recognition of her people, the Cape Verdeans, and for equal opportunity for women. .This is also not a work of analytical scholarship; it is a source. It may be especially valuable for those interested in the history of Cape Verdeans in the United States, for those interested in comparative ethnicity, and for those interested in one rather remarkable woman's view of her life.' - Luso Brazilian Review.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - MARIA LUISA NUNES was Professor of Portuguese at the State University of New York at Stonybrook. Of Cape Verdean origin, she graduated with a BA from Barnard in 1961, and went on to earn an M.A. from Columbia and a Ph.D. from CUNY. Professor Nunes taught at Yale and Pittsburgh before coming to Stony Brook, from which she retired in 1997 after 13 years of service. She was the author of five books about the literature and culture of the Portuguese speaking world. In her most important work, Becoming True to Ourselves, she examined the Portuguese, Brazilian, and African colonial experiences as viewed through the eyes of native contemporary writers. During her Emerita years she took an interest in environmental issues and studied music theory and piano. To her friends (and in her published autobiography, In the Light of Memory, 1999), she often expressed her gratitude for her good fortune.
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CONGO
[ CONGO - Literature ]Biebuyck, Daniel and Mateene, Kahombo C. (editors and translators). The Mwindo Epic: From the Banyanga (Congo Republic). Berkeley. 1969. University of California Press. 213 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- The feats and deeds of the hero Mwindo are here glorified in the complete text of an epic which was sung and narrated in a Bantu language and acted out by a member of the Nyanga tribe from the remote forest regions of the Eastern Congo. This admirably structured, coherent, and richly poetic epic is in prose form, interspersed with songs and proverbs in verse. Mwindo is an astute, highly self-conscious, miraculously born Pygmy-like human being, whose strength and greatness reside in attributes such as a magic sceptre with which he is born and in the power of the word, rather than in his physical strength. Boisterous and ruthless to his enemies, he is gentle to his aunt, loving to his mother, and generous to his allies. A central portion of the epic consists of the travels, encounters, and adventures of Mwindo in search of his father. The product of four years of field work by Dr. Biebuyck, the book provides the complete transcription, with tonal indications, of the epic in the Nyanga language, together with a close English translation which aims at preserving the essence of the poetry, imagery, and patterns of thought of the Nyanga, while also being readable to an English-speaking audience. An introduction offers general information on Nyanga culture, the nature of Nyanga oral literature, the narrator, Mr. Candi Rureke, together with a detailed synopsis of the structure and content of the epic. Many aspects of Nyanga language and culture are revealed in the context of the epic and are analyzed in textual notes. Few if any African texts of this scope and amplitude have ever been published. This epic, rich in its content, form, and meaning and powerful in its symbolism, epithets, poetic expression, and imagery, is a revelation of the creative vision and genius of an African people.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - DANIEL BIEBUYCK is H. Rodney Sharp, Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Delaware. KAHOMBO C. MATEENE, a Nyanga by birth and Linguist by training, assisted in the editing and translating of the epic.
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Bofane, In Koli Jean. Casablanca Story. Bloomington. 2022. Indiana University Press. 9780253058799. Global African Voices. Translated by Bill Johnston. 166 pages. paperback. Translationn of La Belle de Casa.
DESCRIPTION- Casablanca Story deals with themes of hardship, expliotation and male sexual desire. *Bofane's last book, Congo, Inc. proved to be a popular addition to the Global African Voices Series *Author's French editions have won several awards, including the Grand prix littéraire d'Afrique noire (Black African Literary Grand Prize) One morning the beautiful Ichrak is found murdered in a street in Casablanca. All the men feared her as much as they desired her. In a city buffeted by the Chergui, a violent wind emanating from the Sahara, the investigation becomes a prism through which a group portrait of a working-class district emerges. In Casablanca Story, In Koli Jean Bofane trains his razor-sharp observations of a bitter reality and his mordant humor on corruption among the powerful, shady property deals, and the vulnerable situation of migrants and male sexual desire, and he succeeds in transforming a desperate contemporary reality into engrossing and entertaining fiction. Following on from Congo Inc., In Koli Jean Bofane shifts his geographical focus to outline a vision that encompasses both north and sub-Saharan Africans: Africa is moving forward and is the equal of the other continents or, to put it another way, Africa is no better than they are.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - In Koli Jean Bofane was born in 1954 in the northern region of what is today the Democratic Republic of Congo and currently resides in Belgium. His novels have received numerous awards, including the Grand Prix littéraire de l'Afrique noire, the Grand Prix du Roman Métis, and the Prix des Cinq continents de la Francophonie. He is the author of Congo, Inc.
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De Witte, Ludo. The Assassination of Lumumba. New York. 2001. Verso. 1859846181. Translated from the Dutch by Ann Wright & Renee Fenby. 224 pages. hardcover. Cover design: the Senate.
DESCRIPTION- Patrice Lumumba, first prime minister of the Republic to Congo and a pioneer of African unity, was murdered on 17 January 1961." "Democratically elected to lead the Mouvement National Congolais, the party he founded in 1958, Lumumba was at the centre of the country's growing popular defiance of the colonial rule of oppression imposed by Belgium. When, in June 1960, independence was finally won, his unscheduled speech at the official ceremonies in Kinshasa received a standing ovation and made him a hero to millions. Always a threat to those who sought to maintain a covert imperialist hand over the country, however, he became within months the victim of an insidious plot, and was arrested and subsequently tortured and executed." "This book unravels the appalling mass of lies, hypocrisy and betrayals that have surrounded accounts of the assassination since its perpetration. Making use of a huge array of official sources as well as personal testimony from many of those in the Congo at the time, Ludo De Witte reveals a network of complicity ranging from the Belgian government to the CIA. Chilling official memos which detail "liquidation" and "threats to national interests" are analysed alongside macabre tales of the destruction of evidence, putting Patrice Lumumba's personal strength and his dignified quest for African unity in stark contrast with one of the murkiest episodes of twentieth-century politics.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ludo De Witte (born 1956) is a Belgian writer known for a book on the murder of Patrice Lumumba.
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Dongala, Emmanuel. Jazz and Palm Wine. Bloomington. 2017. Indiana University Press. 9780253026699. Global African Voices. Translated and with a foreword by Dominic Thomas. 138 pages. paperback. Translation of Jazz e vino di palma.
DESCRIPTION- Jazz, aliens, and witchcraft collide in this collection of short stories by renowned author Emmanuel Dongala. The influence of Kongo culture is tangible throughout, as customary beliefs clash with party conceptions of scientific and rational thought. In the first half of Jazz and Palm Wine , the characters emerge victorious from decades of colonial exploitation in the Congo only to confront the burdensome bureaucracy, oppressive legal systems, and corrupt governments of the post-colonial era. The ruling political party attempts to impose order and scientific thinking while the people struggles to deal with drought, infertility, and impossible regulations and policies; both sides mix witchcraft, diplomacy, and violence in their efforts to survive. The second half of the book is set in the United States during the turbulent civil rights struggles of the 1960s. In the title story, African and American leaders come together to save the world from extraterrestrials by serving vast quantities of palm wine and playing American jazz. The stories in Jazz and Palm Wine prompt conversations about identity, race, and co-existence, providing contextualization and a historical dimension that is often sorely lacking. Through these collisions and clashes, Dongala suggests a pathway to racial harmony, peaceful co-existence, and individual liberty through artistic creation.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Emmanuel Dongala is Richard B. Fisher Chair in Natural Sciences at Bard College at Simon's Rock. His novels have been awarded the Grand Prix Ladislas Dormandi, the Grand Prix Littéraire d'Afrique Noire, the Charles Oulmont Prize, and the Cezam Literary Prize. Dominic Thomas is Madeleine L. Letessier Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. His books include Nation-Building, Propaganda, and Literature in Francophone Africa; Black France: Colonialism, Immigration, and Transnationalism; and Africa and France: Postcolonial Cultures, Migration, and Racism.
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Dongala, Emmanuel. Johnny Mad Dog. New York. 2005. Farrar Straus Giroux. 0374179956. Translated from the French by Maria Louise Ascher. 321 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Kwasi Osei. Translation of Johnny chien méchant.
DESCRIPTION- Set amid the chaos of West Africa's civil wars, Emmanuel Dongala's striking new novel tells the story of two teenagers growing up while rival ethnic groups fight for control of their country. At age sixteen, Johnny is a member of the Death Dealers, a rebel faction bent on seizing power. Even as he is drawn into the rebels' program of terror, Johnny Mad Dog, as he calls himself, retains his youthful exuberance-searching for girls, good times, and adventure. Sixteen-year-old Laokole, for her part, dreams of finishing high school and becoming an engineer, but as rogue militias prepare to sack the city, she is forced to leave home with her mother and brother-and then finds herself alone and running from the likes of Johnny. Acclaimed in France, Johnny Mad Dog is a coming-of-age story like no other; Dongala's masterful use of dual narrators makes the novel an unusually vivid and affecting tale of the struggle to survive-and to retain one's humanity-in terrifying times.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Emmanuel Boundzeki Dongala (born 1941) is a Congolese chemist and novelist. He was Richard B. Fisher Chair in Natural Sciences at Bard College at Simon's Rock until 2014. In 1997, he was dean of Marien Ngouabi University in Brazzaville when war broke out in the Republic of Congo. Bard College president Leon Botstein, who has aided a number of refugee professors, offered him a job teaching chemistry at the American college. As a chemist, his specialty is stereochemistry and asymmetric synthesis, as well as environmental toxicology. He is the author of a number of award-winning novels including Johnny Mad Dog (French: Johnny Chien Mechant) and Little Boys Come from the Stars. His work is featured in the Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry, and he has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. There is a film based on his book Johnny Mad Dog, a 2008 French-Liberian film directed by Jean-Stephane Sauvaire and starring Christopher Minie, Daisy Victoria Vandy, Dagbeh Tweh, Barry Chernoh, Mohammed Sesay and Joseph Duo. He was winner of the 2004 Cezam Prix LittEraire Inter CE for Johnny chien mEchant.
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Dongala, Emmanuel. Little Boys Come From the Stars. New York. 2001. Farrar Straus Giroux. 0374184968. Translated from the French by Joel Rejouis and Val Vinokurov. 252 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Kwasi Osei. Jacket photograph by Chris Johns. Translation of Les petits garçons naissent aussi des étoiles.
DESCRIPTION- His nickname is Matapari, which means ‘trouble.' He is an African child of our time - brilliant, mischievous, postmodern - caught in the cross fire of successive postcolonial regimes in a central African country. Matapari grows up in a world of talking drums, the Internet, and satellite TV, a world of dictators who remake themselves as democrats overnight. His uncle is an opportunist looking to make a place for himself at the top level of government; his father is a scholarly recluse obsessed with proving that black people have played key roles in Western history. Matapari is a young man in the middle - but the shrewdness and wit with which he tells his often riotously funny story set him apart from his relatives. Emmanuel Dongala uses the ingenious viewpoint of a child to show up the telltale world of adults - and to show how one preserves one's independence in a corrupt and violent society.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Emmanuel Boundzeki Dongala (born 1941) is a Congolese chemist and novelist. He was Richard B. Fisher Chair in Natural Sciences at Bard College at Simon's Rock until 2014. In 1997, he was dean of Marien Ngouabi University in Brazzaville when war broke out in the Republic of Congo. Bard College president Leon Botstein, who has aided a number of refugee professors, offered him a job teaching chemistry at the American college. As a chemist, his specialty is stereochemistry and asymmetric synthesis, as well as environmental toxicology. He is the author of a number of award-winning novels including Johnny Mad Dog (French: Johnny Chien MEchant) and Little Boys Come from the Stars. His work is featured in the Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry, and he has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. There is a film based on his book Johnny Mad Dog, a 2008 French-Liberian film directed by Jean-Stephane Sauvaire and starring Christopher Minie, Daisy Victoria Vandy, Dagbeh Tweh, Barry Chernoh, Mohammed Sesay and Joseph Duo. He was winner of the 2004 Cezam Prix LittEraire Inter CE for Johnny chien mEchant.
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Dongala, Emmanuel. The Fire of Origins. Chicago. 2001. Lawrence Hill & Company. 155652420x. Translation Edited by Yuval Taylor. Translated from the French by Lillian Corti. 256 pages. hardcover. Jacket image: Staatliches Museum for Volkerkunde, Munich, Germany. Translation of Le Feu des origines.
DESCRIPTION- The whole of African history unfolds in this brilliant novel from one of the continent's major writers. The story is unified by the actions of one man, Mankunku, a ‘destroyer,' who is born in mysterious circumstances in a banana plantation, and whose identity ' is as mercurial as that of his land. We follow his development along with that of his unnamed country, from the pre-colonial era, through the horrors of European subjugation, to independence and the complexities of the postcolonial nation. Along the way, we meet charlatans and saints, workers and bureaucrats, warriors and peacemakers, in a moving mElange of laughter and terror. First published in France in 1987, The Fire of Origins received the 1988 Prix de la Fondation de France and the Grand Prix Litteraire d'Afrique Noire. Mythical, lyrical, powerful, and surreal, it is one of the most ambitious works of fiction to come out of sub-Saharan Africa.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Emmanuel Dongala was a lifelong resident of Brazzaville, capital of the Congo Republic (formerly French Congo), until leaving the country during its civil war in 1997. He teaches at Simon's Rock of Bard College and lives in western Massachusetts.
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Forbath, Peter. The River Congo. New York. 1977. Harper & Row. 0061224901. 404 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Congo: the very word calls up images of steaming jungles, dense primeval flora, and talking drums along the slow dark river. This river, 2716 miles long, was silent witness to the selling of hundreds of thousands of Congolese into slavery, the bloody reign of King Leopold II, the race to harvest latex, and the Simba massacres of 1964. Few places in the world have suffered as much terror and bloodshed as the Congo has in the past six hundred years, since its "discovery" by civilization, and The River Congo is the classic account of this dark history.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Peter Forbath lived the swashbuckling life of a foreign correspondent, produced an award-winning television documentary and wrote five books. His last book, "Lord of the Kongo," was a novel about the Portuguese exploration of Africa in the 15th century. Mr. Forbath was a correspondent for Business Week magazine before joining Time magazine in the early 1960's. Richard M. Clurman, retired chief of correspondents for Time and Life magazines, yesterday called Mr. Forbath "the quintessential foreign correspondent.” "He looked like one; he wrote like one," Mr. Clurman said. Wherever he worked, Mr. Forbath cultivated "cultural, political and social" sources who enabled him to write authoritatively and vividly, Mr. Clurman said. In 1965, Mr. Forbath was expelled by Uganda after investigating reports that the Congolese rebels were receiving arms through that country. In 1967, he, Mr. Clurman and the journalist Theodore H. White were with Israeli troops when they captured the Golan Heights during the Six-Day War. Mr. Forbath's first book, the novel Seven Seasons (1971), was inspired by what he saw in Prague during the 1968 Soviet invasion. He was Time's bureau chief in Madrid and Vienna and later worked in New York City before resigning to freelance. In the Watergate era, he produced an Emmy- winning documentary on the adversarial role of the press for the public television series "Behind the Lines." Working with the executive producer, Carey Winfrey, he also produced a program about Henry Kissinger and a documentary on the Colorado River. Mr. Forbath's other books were "The River Congo," a 1977 account of the discovery and exploration of the Congo, and The Last Hero, a 1988 novel based on the explorer Henry Morton Stanley. He also helped William E. Colby, the former Director of Central Intelligence, write the 1978 book Honorable Men: My Life in the C.I.A. Peter Forbath died on February 29, 1996.
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Guevara, Ernesto ‘Che’. The African Dream: The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in the Congo. New York. 2001. Grove Press. 0802138349. Translated from the Spanish by Patrick Camiller. Introduction by Richard Gott. Foreword by Aleida Guevara March. 244 pages. paperback. Cover photograph by Rene Burri/Magnum Photos, Inc. Cover design by Gretchen Mergenthaler. Translation of El año que estuvimos en ninguna parte: el Che Guevara en el Congo.
DESCRIPTION- Ernesto ‘Che' Guevara was one of the greatest exemplars of the revolutionary 1960s, an essential player in the Cuban Revolution whose legend fired the imaginations of a whole generation. In 1963, amid wouldwide conjecture, Guevara left Cuba, where he was a minister in Fidel Costros post-revolutionary government and traveled incognito to the heart of Africa. People's hero Patrice Lumumba had been assassinated, and Guevara was sent to put his theories of guerrilla warfare into use, helping the oppressed people of the Congo throw off the yoke of Western imperialism. The first task was to assist the young Laurent Kabila in his struggle against Mobutu and Tshombe, the two key figures in the newly independent nation. For the first time, THE AFRICAN DREAM collects Guevara's unabridged journals of the expedition. They are the record of the bitter failure of a political and ideological dream and provide telling background to Kabila's late-1990s rise and his death in 2001. Most of all, the diaries afford the reader a very personal insight into the thoughts and emotions of Che Guevara, the twentieth century's great revolutionary martyr.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ernesto 'Che' Guevara (June 14, 1928 - October 9, 1967), commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia in popular culture. As a young medical student, Guevara traveled throughout South America and was radicalized by the poverty, hunger, and disease he witnessed. His burgeoning desire to help overturn what he saw as the capitalist exploitation of Latin America by the United States prompted his involvement in Guatemala's social reforms under President Jacobo Árbenz, whose eventual CIA-assisted overthrow at the behest of the United Fruit Company solidified Guevara's political ideology. Later, in Mexico City, he met Raúl and Fidel Castro, joined their 26th of July Movement, and sailed to Cuba aboard the yacht, Granma, with the intention of overthrowing U.S.-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.[10] Guevara soon rose to prominence among the insurgents, was promoted to second-in-command, and played a pivotal role in the victorious two-year guerrilla campaign that deposed the Batista regime. Following the Cuban Revolution, Guevara performed a number of key roles in the new government. These included reviewing the appeals and firing squads for those convicted as war criminals during the revolutionary tribunals, instituting agrarian land reform as minister of industries, helping spearhead a successful nationwide literacy campaign, serving as both national bank president and instructional director for Cuba's armed forces, and traversing the globe as a diplomat on behalf of Cuban socialism. Such positions also allowed him to play a central role in training the militia forces who repelled the Bay of Pigs Invasion[13] and bringing the Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles to Cuba which precipitated the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Additionally, he was a prolific writer and diarist, composing a seminal manual on guerrilla warfare, along with a best-selling memoir about his youthful continental motorcycle journey. His experiences and studying of Marxism–Leninism led him to posit that the Third World's underdevelopment and dependence was an intrinsic result of imperialism, neocolonialism, and monopoly capitalism, with the only remedy being proletarian internationalism and world revolution. Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment revolution abroad, first unsuccessfully in Congo-Kinshasa and later in Bolivia, where he was captured by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces and summarily executed. Guevara remains both a revered and reviled historical figure, polarized in the collective imagination in a multitude of biographies, memoirs, essays, documentaries, songs, and films. As a result of his perceived martyrdom, poetic invocations for class struggle, and desire to create the consciousness of a 'new man' driven by moral rather than material incentives, he has evolved into a quintessential icon of various leftist-inspired movements. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century,[18] while an Alberto Korda photograph of him, titled Guerrillero Heroico (shown), was cited by the Maryland Institute College of Art as 'the most famous photograph in the world'.
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Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Boston. 1998. Houghton Mifflin. 0395759242. 367 pages. hardcover. Front jacket photograph - Leopold II, King of Belgium. Jacket design by Michaela Sullivan.
DESCRIPTION- In the 1880s, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium seized for himself the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River. Carrying out a genocidal plundering of the Congo, he looted its rubber, brutalized its people, and ultimately slashed its population by ten million - all the while shrewdly cultivating his reputation as a great humanitarian. Heroic efforts to expose these crimes eventually led to the first great human rights movement of the twentieth century, in which everyone from Mark Twain to the Archbishop of Canterbury participated. KING LEOPOLD'S GHOST is the haunting account of a megalomaniac of monstrous proportions, a man as cunning, charming, and cruel as any of the great Shakespearean villains. It is also the deeply moving portrait of those who fought Leopold: a brave handful of missionaries, travelers, and young idealists who went to Africa for work or adventure and unexpectedly found themselves witnesses to a holocaust. Adam Hochschild brings this largely untold story alive with the wit and skill of a Barbara Tuchman. Like her, he knows that history often provides a far richer cast of characters than any novelist could invent. Chief among them is Edmund Morel, a young British shipping agent who went on to lead the international crusade against Leopold. Another hero of this tale, the Irish patriot Roger Casement, ended his life on a London gallows. Two courageous black Americans, George Washington Williams and William Sheppard, risked much to bring evidence of the Congo atrocities to the outside world. Sailing into the middle of the story was a young Congo River steamboat officer named Joseph Conrad. And looming above them all, the duplicitous billionaire King Leopold II. With great power and compassion, KING LEOPOLD'S GHOST will brand the tragedy of the Congo too long forgotten - onto the conscience of the West. ADAM HOCHSCHILD is the author of HALF THE WAY HOME: A MEMOIR OF FATHER AND SON and THE UNQUIET GHOST RUSSIANS REMEMBER STALIN, both of which were named Notable Books of the Year by the New York Times Book Review and Library Journal. FINDING THE TRAPDOOR: ESSAYS, PORTRAITS, TRAVELS, won the 1998 PEN/Spielvogel-Diamonstein Award for the Art of the Essay. He teaches writing at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley and in 1997-98 was a Fulbright Lecturer in India. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, Arlie, the sociologist and author. They have two sons. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Adam Hochschild was born in New York City in 1942. His first book, HALF THE WAY HOME: A MEMOIR OF FATHER AND SON, was published in 1986. Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times called it ‘an extraordinarily moving portrait of the complexities and confusions of familial love. firmly grounded in the specifics of a particular time and place, conjuring them up with Proustian detail and affection.' It was followed by THE MIRROR AT MIDNIGHT: A SOUTH AFRICAN JOURNEY, and THE UNQUIET GHOST: RUSSIANS REMEMBER STALIN. His 1997 collection, FINDING THE TRAPDOOR: ESSAYS, PORTRAITS, TRAVELS, won the PEN/Spielvogel-Diamonstein Award for the Art of the Essay. KING LEOPOLD'S GHOST: A STORY OF GREED, TERROR AND HEROISM IN COLONIAL AFRICA was a finalist for the 1998 National Book Critics Circle Award. It also won a J. Anthony Lukas award in the United States, and the Duff Cooper Prize in England. His books have been translated into twelve languages and four of them have been named Notable Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review. His BURY THE CHAINS: PROPHETS AND REBELS IN THE FIGHT TO FREE AN EMPIRE'S SLAVES, was a finalist for the 2005 National Book Award in Nonfiction and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History. His last two books have also each won Canada's Lionel Gelber Prize for the best book on international affairs and the Gold Medal of the California Book Awards. In 2005, he received a Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction. Hochschild has written for The New Yorker, Harper's, The New York Review of Books, Granta, The New York Times Magazine, and many other newspapers and magazines. His articles have won prizes from the Overseas Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists and elsewhere. He was a co-founder of Mother Jones magazine and has been a commentator on National Public Radio's ‘All Things Considered.' Hochschild teaches narrative writing at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, and spent half a year as a Fulbright Lecturer in India. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, sociologist and author Arlie Russell Hochschild. They have two sons and two granddaughters.
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Holladay, Virginia. Bantu Tales. New York. 1970. Viking Press. 0670147982. Woodcuts by Rocca Negri. Edited by Louise Crane. 95 pages. hardcover. Cover illustration by Rocca Negri.
DESCRIPTION- These nineteen short Bantu tales, written down in the early 1930s by a pioneer teacher in the Kasai district of what is today the Democratic Republic of the Congo, are set in a world where life can be as hard as it is joyful, the price of loyalty to self or friend is sometimes high, and courage is often as much bluff as bravery. In short, they are tales of life. Here Kabundi the weasel is at his trickiest, Nkashama the leopard is at his most treacherous, and Tshikashi Tshikulu, the old woman of the forest, can be wicked as well as kind. But here too the gentle little striped weasel, Katengele, risks his life for the love of Tshiama the python; an enchanted giant repays a hunter for his mercy by saving his life; and the moon wins the friendship of the bat for all time. These ancient tales, handed down from one generation of storytellers to another, and told always to the young, reflect the wisdom and wry humor, the values and way of life of the Baluba and Lulua tribes of the Congo as they were four decades ago. They have been edited by a Congo-born and -raised pupil of the author, and are presented here for the first time in print in the hope that young readers of a different land and age will claim them as a part of their own heritage. Rocco Negri's handsome woodcuts reflect brilliantly the beauty, the humor, and the powerful fiber of the Congo world.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY -
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Juma, Liliane Leila. Maison Rouge: Memories of a Childhood in War. Vancouver/London. 2020. Tradewind Books. 9781926890357. 128 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- A personal memoir of the Congo Wars 1993-1997. Liliane Leila Juma was sixteen years old when her family home in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was destroyed by rebel soldiers. She gives an account of her life before and after her family was torn apart. Maison Rouge is a story of war and unspeakable loss. It is also the story of survival. Eventually, through the United Nations refugee program, Leila and her family were finally able to relocate to Canada.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Liliane Leila Juma grew up in Uvira, a city in the western Congo on the shore of Lake Tanganyika near the border with Burundi. Her life as a young girl was brutally disrupted by the wars in Burundi (1993), Rwanda (1994) and the Congo (1994-1997), finally forcing her family to flee to Tanzania. After some time in a refugee protection camp, Leila, her maman and her sisters and brothers immigrated to Canada. Leila now lives in Vancouver, where she works as a women's support worker. She is fluent in three languages-Swahili, French and English.
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Kalb, Madeleine G. The Congo Cables: The Cold War in Africa From Eisenhower To Kennedy. New York. 1982. Macmillan. 0025606204. 466 pages. hardcover. Jacket Design: Dick Adelson. Photograph by: Morton Broffman.
DESCRIPTION- On September 19, 1960, the Central Intelligence Agency's station chief in Leopoldville, capital of the newly independent Republic of the Congo, received an unusual message from his superiors in Washington via a special top secret channel. Someone from headquarters, calling himself ‘Joe from Paris,' would be arriving in about a week with instructions for an urgent mission. No further details were provided. The station chief was cautioned not to discuss the message with anyone. ‘Joe' arrived a week later. He proved to be the CIA's top scientist, and he came equipped with a kit containing an exotic poison designed to produce a fatal disease indigenous to the area. He informed the station chief that this lethal substance was meant for Patrice Lumumba, the recently ousted pro-Soviet Prime Minister of the Congo, who was trying to return to power. The poison, the scientist said, was somehow to be slipped into Lumumba's food - or even into his toothpaste. Poison was not the only acceptable method of disposing of Lumumba; any form of assassination would do, as long as it could not be traced back to the U.S. government. The astonished station chief pointed out that assassination was not exactly a common CIA tactic, and asked who had authorized the assignment. The scientist indicated that the order had come from ‘the highest authority' ' - from President Dwight D. Eisenhower himself. Thus begins THE CONGO CABLES, Madeleine G. Kalb's fascinating inside report on the debates within the U.S. government as it tried to deal with an unprecedented Soviet political and military challenge in Africa. A unique blend of vivid journalism and diplomatic history, with an array of colorful characters, THE CONGO CABLES is based on more than two thousand five hundred classified, hitherto secret documents from the White House, the State Department, and other government agencies, as well as dozens of interviews with American, Soviet, African, and Western European diplomats and scholars conducted over a period of many years in various world capitals. It is a study in contrasts: the conservative, hard-line Eisenhower Administration, willing to turn to assassination plots when traditional diplomacy proved ineffective; and the Kennedy Administration, younger, more adventurous, willing to gamble on leftists in Africa and elsewhere in order to extend American influence in the radically different world of the 1960s. THE CONGO CABLES, with its interplay of policy and politics, not only sheds new light on this dramatic period; it also helps explain the diplomatic dilemmas facing the Reagan Administration in another period of fundamental foreign policy readjustment.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Madeliene G. Kalb is a specialist in Soviet-American relations.
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Lopes, Henri. The Laughing Cry: An African Cock and Bull Story. Columbia. 1987. Readers International. 0930523326. Translated by Gerald Moore. 259 pages. hardcover. Translation of Le pleurer-rire.
DESCRIPTION- The story of an African dictator as told by his valet. The narrator of this tale, known only as ‘Maitre,' lives in the capital city of a fictional African country. After a coup d'etat, Daddy, the thug who becomes president, chooses Maitre to become the maitre d'hotel of the presidential palace. However, Maitre is a political innocent who would rather be left alone to carry on his adulterous dalliances, most notably with the fiery Soukali. Still, he is at the center of political action in the country, and he chronicles the monomaniacal leader's ‘reforms' and the subsequent degeneration of the country. In the end, Maitre's affairs of the heart prove to be both his undoing and his salvation: because Soukali phones him from her job at the Bulgarian embassy, he is denounced as a communist plotter; but he is given safe passage into exile by Daddy's wife, who takes fierce pleasure in cuckolding her husband with the very willing narrator. A devastating, comic portrait of African power politics today.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Henri Lopes was raised in Congo-Brazzaville and is a former Congolese Prime Minister, Minister of Education, and Minister for Finance. He is also a winner of the French Grand Prix Litteraire de l'Afrique Noire.
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Lopes, Henri. Tribaliks: Contemporary Congolese Stories. Portsmouth. 1987. Heinemann. 0435907638. Translated from the French by Andrea Leskes. African Writers Series. 86 pages. paperback. Cover illustration by Paul Wearing. Cover design by Keith Pointing.
DESCRIPTION- PAPERBACK ORIGINAL. Winner of the Grand Prix Litteraire de L'Afrique Noire. This outstanding collection of eight short stories pieces together a startlingly perceptive view of a post-colonial African nation. With compassion and understanding, Henry Lopes focuses on the multifarious problems and contradictions which confront educated black minorities, throughout Africa, in their attempts to develop modern, egalitarian states. The writer relates with compelling realism the experiences of both the victim and the oppressor to highlight the main themes that dominate the stories: tribalism, the abuse of political power, education, and the predicament of women. These issues affect all levels of society - from Ndoue, the sycophantic government official and Ngouakou-Ngouakou, who rallies for women's liberation whilst refusing his wife to servitude, to Raphael, a student whose love is thwarted by tribal prejudice, and Carmen, the maid, who lives in fear of losing her son at the hands of the local fetishist.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Henri Lopes held many senior positions in the Congo-Brazzaville government, including that of Prime Minster. He now works in Paris, where he is Assistant Director General o UNESCO. His most recent novel, THE LAUGHING CRY, has also been translated into English.
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Mabanckou, Alain. Black Moses. New York. 2017. New Press. 9781620972939. Translated from the French by Helen Stevenson. 201 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Jon Gray. Translation of Petit Piment.
DESCRIPTION- It's not easy being Tokumisa Nzambe po Mose yamoyindo abotami namboka ya Bakoko. There's that long name of his for a start, which means "Let us thank God, the black Moses is born on the lands of the ancestors." Most people just call him Moses. Then there's the orphanage where he lives, run by a malicious political stooge, DieudonnE Ngoulmoumako, and where he's terrorized by two fellow orphans - the twins Songi-Songi and Tala-Tala. But after Moses exacts revenge on the twins by lacing their food with hot pepper, the twins take Moses under their wing, escape the orphanage, and move to the bustling port town of Pointe-Noire, where they form a gang that survives on petty theft. What follows is a funny, moving, larger-than-life tale that chronicles Moses's ultimately tragic journey through the Pointe-Noire underworld and the politically repressive reality of Congo-Brazzaville in the 1970s and '80s. Mabanckou's vivid portrayal of Moses's mental collapse echoes the work of Hugo, Dickens, and Brian De Palma's Scarface, confirming Mabanckou as one of our great storytellers. Black Moses is a vital new extension of his cycle of Pointe-Noire novels that stands out as one of the grandest, funniest, fictional projects of our time.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Alain Mabanckou was born in Congo on February 24, 1966. An award-winning novelist, poet, and essayist, Mabanckou currently lives in Los Angeles, where he teaches literature at UCLA. He is the author of African Psycho, Broken Glass, Black Bazaar, and Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty, as well as The Lights of Pointe-Noire (The New Press). In 2015, Mabanckou was a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize. Helen Stevenson is a piano teacher, writer, and translator who lives in Somerset, England. Her translation of Mabanckou's The Lights of Pointe-Noire won the Grand Prix, 2015, French Voices Award. She is the author of two acclaimed memoirs, Instructions for Visitors and Love Like Salt.
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Mabanckou, Alain. The Lights of Pointe-Noire: A Memoir. New York. 2016. New Press. 9781620971901. Translated from the French by Helen Stevenson. 203 pages. hardcover. Jacket photograph by Caroline Blache. Jacket design by Ann Weinstock.
DESCRIPTION- Grand Prize Winner at the 2015 French Voices Awards. A dazzling meditation on home-coming and belonging from one of ‘Africa's greatest writers' and the Man Booker International Prize finalist (The Guardian). Alain Mabanckou left Congo in 1989, at the age of twenty-two, not to return until a quarter of a century later. When he finally came back to Pointe-Noire, a bustling port town on the Congo's southwestern coast, he found a country that in some ways had changed beyond recognition: The cinema where, as a child, Mabanckou gorged on glamorous American culture had become a Pentecostal church, and his secondary school has been renamed in honor of a previously despised colonial ruler. But many things remain unchanged, not least the swirling mythology of Congolese culture that still informs everyday life in Pointe-Noire. Now a decorated writer and an esteemed professor at UCLA, Mabanckou finds he can only look on as an outsider in the place where he grew up. As he delves into his childhood, into the life of his departed mother, and into the strange mix of belonging and absence that informs his return to the Republic of the Congo, his work recalls the writing of V. S. Naipaul and Andre Aciman, offering a startlingly fresh perspective on the pain of exile, the ghosts of memory, and the paths we take back home. ‘This is a beautiful book, the past hauntingly reentered, the present truthfully faced, and the translation rises gorgeously to the challenge.' - Salman Rushdie. ‘A tender, poetic chronicle of an exile's return.' - Kirkus Reviews.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Alain Mabanckou (born 24 February 1966) is a novelist, journalist, poet, and academic, a French citizen born in the Republic of the Congo, he is currently a Professor of Literature at UCLA. He is best known for his novels and non-fiction writing depicting the experience of contemporary Africa and the African diaspora in France. He is among the best known and most successful writers in the French language and one of the best known African writers in France. In some circles in Paris he is known as the Samuel Beckett of Africa. He is also controversial, and criticized by some African and diaspora writers for stating Africans bear responsibility for their own misfortune. He has argued against the idea that African and Caribbean writers should focus on their local realities in order to serve and express their communities. 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.
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Mabanckou, Alain. The Negro Grandsons of Vercingetorix. Bloomington. 2019. Indiana University Press. 9780253043887. Global African Voices. Translated by Bill Johnston. 222 pages. paperback. Translation of Les Petits-Fils nègres de Vercingétorix.
DESCRIPTION- Set in the imaginary African Republic of Vietongo, The Negro Grandsons of Vercingetorix, begins when conflict breaks out between rival leaders and the regional ethnic groups they represent. Events recorded in a series of notebooks under the watchful eye of Hortense Lloki, show how civil war culminates in a series of outlandish actions perpetrated by the warring parties' private militias--the Anacondas and the Romans from the North who have seized power against Vercingetorix (named after none less than the legendary Gallic warrrior who fought against Ceasar's army) and his Little Negro Grandsons in the South who are eager to regain control. Award-winning author Alain Mabanckou is at his satiric best in this novel that catalogues the pain and suffering caused by the ravages of civil war. Translated into English for the first time, this novel provides a gritty slice of life in an active war zone.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Alain Mabanckou is a Franco-Congolese author and Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. His novels include Blue White Red, African Psycho, Broken Glass, Memoirs of a Porcupine, Black Bazaar, Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty, and The Lights of Pointe-Noire. He is the recipient of numerous literary prizes such as the Grand Prix Littéraire de l'Afrique noire, Prix Renaudot, Prix Georges Brassens, and the Grand Prix de Littérature Henri Gal from the Académie Française for his life's work. Bill Johnston's most recent translations include Adam Mickiewicz's epic poem Pan Tadeusz and Julia Fiedorczuk's Oxygen from the Polish, as well as Jeanne Benameur's The Child Who from the French. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the PEN Translation Prize, the Best Translated Book Award, and the Found in Translation Prize. He teaches literary translation at Indiana University.
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Mabanckou, Alain. The Tears of the Black Man. Bloomington. 2018. Indiana University Press. 9780253035837. Global African Voices. Translated by Dominic Thomas. 86 pages. paperback. Translation of Le Sanglot de l'Homme Noir.
DESCRIPTION- In TheTears of the Black Man, award-winning author Alain Mabanckou explores what it means to be black in the world today. Mabanckou confronts the long and entangled history of Africa, France, and the United States as it has been shaped by slavery, colonialism, and their legacy today. Without ignoring the injustices and prejudice still facing blacks, he distances himself from resentment and victimhood, arguing that focusing too intenselyon the crimes of the past is limiting. Instead, it is time to ask: Now what? Embracing the challenges faced by ethnic minority communities today, The Tears of the Black Man looks to the future, choosing to believe that the history of Africa has yet to be written and seeking a path toward affirmation and reconciliation.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Alain Mabanckou is a Franco-Congolese author and Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. His novels include Blue White Red, African Psycho, Broken Glass, Memoirs of a Porcupine, Black Bazaar, Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty, The Lights of Pointe-Noire, and Black Moses. He is the recipient of numerous literary prizes, such as the Grand Prix Littéraire de l'Afrique noire, Prix Renaudot, Prix Georges Brassens, and the Grand Prix de Littérature Henri Gal from the Académie Française for his life's work. Dominic Thomas is Madeleine L. Letessier Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. His books include Nation-Building, Propaganda, and Literature in Francophone Africa; Black France: Colonialism, Immigration, and Transnationalism; and Africa and France: Postcolonial Cultures, Migration, and Racism.
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Mujila, Fiston Mwanza. Tram 83. Dallas. 2015. Deep Vellum Publishing. 9781941920046. Translated from the French by Roland Glasser. Foreword by Alain Mabanckou. 211 pages. paperback. Cover design and typesetting by Anna Zylicz. Translation of Tram 83.
DESCRIPTION- In an unnamed African city in secession, profit-seekers of all languages and nationalities mix. They have only one desire: to make a fortune by exploiting the mineral wealth of the land. Two friends: Lucien, a writer with literary ambitions home from abroad, and his childhood friend Requiem, who dreams of taking over the seedy underworld of their hometown, gather in the most notorious nightclub in town: the Tram 83. Around them gravitate gangsters and young girls, soldiers and stowaways, profit-seeking tourists and federal agents of a nonexistent State. Tram 83 plunges the reader into a modern African gold rush as cynical as it is comic and colorfully exotic. A daring feat of narrative imagination and linguistic creativity, Tram 83 uses the rhythms of jazz to weave a tale of human relationships in a world that has become a global village.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Fiston Nasser Mwanza Mujila is a Congolese writer. He now lives in Graz, Austria and is pursuing a PhD in Romance Languages. His writing has been awarded numerous prizes, including the Gold Medal at the 6th Jeux de la Francophonie in Beirut as well as the Best Text for Theater (State Theater, Mainz) in 2010. His poems, prose works, and plays are reactions to the political turbulence that has come in the wake of the independence of the Congo and its effect on day-to-day life. His debut novel Tram 83 was a French Voices 2014 grant recipient and won the Grand Prix du Premier Roman des SGDL, and was shortlisted for numerous other awards, including the Prix du Monde. Tram 83 has drawn comparisons to Fitzgerald, Céline, García Márquez, Hunter S. Thompson and even a painting by Hyeronimous Bosch or a piece by Coltrane.
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Ngal, Georges. Giambatista Viko; or, the Rape of African Discourse. New York. 2022. Modern Language Association. 9781603295840. Edited adn translated by David Damrosch. MLA Texts and Translations. 180 pages. paperback. Translation of Giambatista Viko ou Le viol du discours africain.
DESCRIPTION- Georges Ngal's pathbreaking satire Giambatista Viko explores the vexed relations between metropolitan centers and peripheral former colonies through its titular antihero, an African professor at an African studies institute divided between European-focused cosmopolitans and Afrocentrists. Struggling to write the great African novel and subject to abuse, Viko realizes he can no longer separate the African and the European parts of his multilayered, African francophone culture. Viko's fate is a warning about the perils of artistic creation in a world where power is not shared. Part of the wave of African novels of the 1960s and 70s that grappled with the disenchantments of decolonization, Giambatista Viko can be read at once as a Congolese novel, a francophone novel, and a work of world literature.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Georges Ngal was born Mbwil a Mpang Ngal in 1933 in Mayanda. He studied at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. He then taught at the University of Zaïre and has subsequently taught in the United States, Canada, France and Germany. As well as novels, he has written criticism, and works on politics.
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N'Sondé, Wilfried. Concrete Flowers: A Novel. Bloomington. 2018. Indiana University Press. 9780253035592. Global African Voices. Translated by Karen Lindo. 148 pages. paperback. Translation of Fleur de béton.
DESCRIPTION- Behind the bars on her window, Rosa Maria dreams of sunshine, love, calm, and leaving the city where she lives with her family. She suffers her father's beatings, hides her femininity behind shapeless clothing, and pines for the beautiful Jason as she awaits her opportunity to flee. Meanwhile, her older brother is found dead in a nearby parking lot, and the neighborhood explodes in a riot against the police. Rosa Maria resolves to act before she is devoured by family intrigues and despair. Wilfried N'Sondé's powerful voice creates a palpable sense of the absence of hope and the social and racial isolation that pervade the Paris projects, even as he never abandons the expansive capacity of individuals to dream of better lives beyond a seemingly hopeless reality.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Wilfried N’Sondé was born in 1969 in the Congo (Brazzaville) and grew up in France. He is widely considered one of the shining lights of the new generation of African and Afropean writers. His work has received considerable critical attention and been recognized with prestigious literary awards, including the Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie and the Prix Senghor de la création littéraire. Karen Lindo is a scholar of French and Francophone literatures and currently teaches and translates in Paris.
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N'Sondé, Wilfried. The Heart of the Leopard Children. Bloomington. 2016. Indiana University Press. 9780253021908. Global African Voices. Translated by Karen Lindo and Dominic Thomas. 100 pages. paperback. Translatio of Le Cœur des enfants léopards.
DESCRIPTION- In the struggle for African independence, few could match Patrice Lumumba Patrice Lumumba was a leader of the independence struggle in what is today the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as the country’s first democratically elected prime minister. After a meteoric rise in the colonial civil service and the African political elite, he became a major figure in the decolonization movement of the 1950s. Lumumba’s short tenure as prime minister (1960–61) was marked by an uncompromising defense of Congolese national interests against pressure from international mining companies and the Western governments that orchestrated his eventual demise. Cold war geopolitical maneuvering and well-coordinated efforts by Lumumba’s domestic adversaries culminated in his assassination at the age of thirty-five, with the support or at least the tacit complicity of the U. S. and Belgian governments, the CIA, and the UN Secretariat. Even decades after Lumumba’s death, his personal integrity and unyielding dedication to the ideals of self-determination, self-reliance, and pan-African solidarity assure him a prominent place among the heroes of the twentieth-century African independence movement and the worldwide African diaspora. Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja’s short and concise book provides a contemporary analysis of Lumumba’s life and work, examining both his strengths and his weaknesses as a political leader. It also surveys the national, continental, and international contexts of Lumumba’s political ascent and his swift elimination by the interests threatened by his ideas and practical reforms. ‘Lumumba … was a pivotal player in the history of African nationalism, in the same league as Mandela in terms of his influence. Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja provides an excellent short introduction to Lumumba’s life and historical significance. ’ David N. Gibbs, professor of history, University of Arizona. ‘Thomas Sankara: An African Revolutionary will serve as an excellent introduction to Sankara and the revolution in Burkina Faso and explain why Sankara continues to be so widely admired throughout Africa and beyond. ’ Christopher Wise, author of Derrida, Africa, and the Middle East. ‘Emperor Haile Selassie is a readable, well-organized book that accurately portrays the life of the Ethiopian King of Kings and, through him, the history of the nation. The author is at his best in relating his personal experience and ties to the Emperor — original material that I found fascinating. ’ Theodore M. Vestal, author of The Lion of Judah in the New World: Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia and the Shaping of Americans’ Attitudes toward Africa.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Wilfried N’Sondé was born in 1969 in the Congo (Brazzaville) and grew up in France. He is widely considered one of the shining lights of the new generation of African and Afropean writers. His work has received considerable critical attention and been recognized with prestigious literary awards, including the Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie and the Prix Senghor de la création littéraire. Karen Lindo is a scholar of French and Francophone literatures and currently teaches and translates in Paris. Dominic Thomas is Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.
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N'Sondé, Wilfried. The Silence of the Spirits. Bloomington. 2017. Indiana University Press. 9780253028945. Global African Voices. Translated by Karen Lindo and Dominic Thomas. 140 pages. paperback. Translation of Le Silence des esprits.
DESCRIPTION- What are the limits of empathy and forgiveness? How can someone with a shameful past find a new path that allows for both healing and reckoning? When Clovis and Christelle find themselves face-to-face on a train heading to the outskirts of Paris, their unexpected encounter propels them on a cathartic journey toward understanding the other, mediated by their respective histories of violence. Clovis, a young undocumented African, struggles with the pain and shame of his brutal childhood, abusive exploits as a child soldier, and road to exile. Christelle, a young French nurse, has her own dark experiences but translates her suffering into an unusual capacity for empathy, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Christelle opens her home and heart to Clovis and presses him to tell his story. But how will she react to that story? Will the telling start Clovis on a path to redemption or alienate him further from French society? Wilfried N'Sondé's brave novel confronts French attitudes toward immigrants, pushes moral imagination to its limits, and constructs a world where the past must be confronted in order to map the future.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Wilfried N’Sondé was born in 1969 in the Congo (Brazzaville) and grew up in France. He is widely considered one of the shining lights of the new generation of African and Afropean writers. His work has received considerable critical attention and been recognized with prestigious literary awards, including the Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie and the Prix Senghor de la création littéraire. Karen Lindo is a scholar of French and francophone literatures and currently teaches and translates in Paris. Dominic Thomas is Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.
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Roberts, Allen F. Patrice Lumumba. Athens. 2014. Ohio University Press. 9780821421253. Ohio Short Histories of Africa. 4¼ × 7 in. 176 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Patrice Lumumba, first prime minister of the Republic to Congo and a pioneer of African unity, was murdered on 17 January 1961." "Democratically elected to lead the Mouvement National Congolais, the party he founded in 1958, Lumumba was at the centre of the country's growing popular defiance of the colonial rule of oppression imposed by Belgium. When, in June 1960, independence was finally won, his unscheduled speech at the official ceremonies in Kinshasa received a standing ovation and made him a hero to millions. Always a threat to those who sought to maintain a covert imperialist hand over the country, however, he became within months the victim of an insidious plot, and was arrested and subsequently tortured and executed." "This book unravels the appalling mass of lies, hypocrisy and betrayals that have surrounded accounts of the assassination since its perpetration. Making use of a huge array of official sources as well as personal testimony from many of those in the Congo at the time, Ludo De Witte reveals a network of complicity ranging from the Belgian government to the CIA. Chilling official memos which detail "liquidation" and "threats to national interests" are analysed alongside macabre tales of the destruction of evidence, putting Patrice Lumumba's personal strength and his dignified quest for African unity in stark contrast with one of the murkiest episodes of twentieth-century politics.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja is a professor of African, African American, and diaspora studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and professor emeritus of African studies at Howard University. He is a past president of the African Studies Association and the author of The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People’s History.
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Stewart, Gary. Rumba On the River: A History of the Popular Music of the Two Congos. New York. 2000. Verso. 1859847447. 400 pages. hardcover. Front jacket photograph of Dominique ‘Willy’ Kuntima, circa 1960, courtesy of Charles Henault. Illustration on back of jacket courtesy of Robert Pernet. Design by POLLEN/Stewart Cauley.on back cover.
DESCRIPTION- There was always music along the banks of the Congo River-lutes and drums, the myriad instruments handed down from ancestors. But when Joseph Kabsele and his African Jazz went chop for chop with O.K. Jazz and Bantous de la Capitale, music in Africa would never be the same. A sultry rumba washed in relentless waves across new nations springing up below the Sahara. The Western press would dub the sound Soukous or rumba rock; most of Africa called it Congo music. Born in Kinshasa and Brazzaville at the end of World War II, Congo music matured as Africans fought to consolidate their hard-won independence. In addition to great musicians - Franco, Essous, Abeti, Tabu Ley, and youth bands like Zaiko Langa Langa - the cast of characters includes the conniving King Leopold, the martyred Partrice Lumumba, corrupt dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, military strongman Denis Sassou Nguesso, heavyweight boxing champs George Foreman and Muhammad Ali, along with a Belgian baron and a clutch of enterprising Greek expatriates who pioneered the Congolese recording industry. Rumba on the River portrays an era when the currents of tradition and modernization collided along the banks of the Congo Rivers. It is the story of twin capitals engulfed in political struggle and the vibrant new music that flowered amidst the ferment.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Gary Stewart is a writer who has lived and worked in Africa. His articles on African and Caribbean music have appeared in numerous publications including The Beat, Option, and West Africa. He is the author of Breakout: Profiles in African Rhythm and Rumba on the River: A History of the Popular Music of the Two Congos.
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Tansi, Sony Labou. The Antipeople: A Novel. London. 1988. Marion Boyars. 0714528455. Translated by J. A. Underwood. 17 pages. hardcover. Design by Susi Mawani. Translation of L'anté-peuple.
DESCRIPTION- As Principal of the North Lemba Teacher-Training College for Girls in Zaire, Dadou is a pillar of the community. Then an infatuated young student claims maliciously in a suicide note to be pregnant by him, and he becomes an outcast. He begins to neglect his work and takes to drink, his wife commits suicide, and his children are murdered by a righteous mob. Caught in an inescapable cycle of misfortune he flees Zaire, only to become embroiled in the internecine power-struggle that plagues his refuge in Angola. Having lost control of his destiny - and almost of his mind - Dadou, once known as a paragon of virtue, becomes a terrorist whose life is a shattering saga of persecution and murder. With what shreds of sanity remain to him, Dadou, already on the run from the authorities, decides to run from his past. He foreswears Yealdara, the woman who has followed him through these vicissitudes, and takes up the life of a vagrant. The Antipeople is a vivid and affecting socio-political satire of a contemporary Africa torn by national rivalries and internal repression. Sony Labou Tansi was born in Kimwanza in the Congo in 1947. He runs a theatre company, has written four plays and has had five novels published in French. This is his first novel to be published in English. It won the prestigious 'Grand Prix de l'Afrique Noire' on first publication in France. His novels and satires have been compared by critics with those of Camus, Jarry, Boris Vian and Malcolm Lowry. Tansi lives in Brazzaville.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Sony Lab'ou Tansi (5 July 1947 - 14 June 1995), born Marcel Ntsoni, was a Congolese novelist, short-story writer, playwright, and poet. Though he was only 47 when he died, Tansi remains one of the most prolific African writers and the most internationally renowned practitioner of the "New African Writing." His novel The Antipeople won the Grand Prix LittEraire d'Afrique Noire. In his later years, he ran a theatrical company in Brazzaville in the Republic of the Congo. The oldest of seven children, Tansi was born in the former Belgian Congo, in the village of Kimwaanza, just south of the city now known as Kinshasa in the modern day Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was initially educated in the local language, Kikongo, and only began speaking French at the age of twelve, when his family moved to Congo-Brazzaville, today known as the Republic of the Congo. He attended the Ecole Normale SupErieure d'Afrique Centrale in Brazzaville where he studied literature, and upon completing his education in 1971, he became a French and English teacher in Kindauba. When the young teacher began writing for the theatre later that year, he adopted the pen name "Sony La'bou Tansi" as a tribute to Tchicaya U Tam'si, a fellow Congolese writer who wrote politically charged poetry about oppressive nature of the state. In the early part of his career, Tansi continued to support himself through teaching and he worked as an English instructor at the Collège Tchicaya-Pierre in Pointe Noire while working on his first two novels and several plays. In 1979 he founded the Rocado Zulu Theatre, which would go on performed his plays in Africa, Europe, and the United States in addition to appearing regularly at the Festival International des Francophonies in Limoges. After teaching for many years, Tansi moved on to government work, serving as an administrator in several ministries in Brazzaville. In the late 1980s he allied with opposition leader Bernard KolElas to found the Congolese Movement for Democracy and Integral Development (MCDDI), a political party acting against the communist regime of President Denis Sassou Nguesso and his Congolese Labour Party. Left-wing forces succeeded in pushing President Sassou toward democracy, and former Prime Minister Pascal Lissouba returned from an extended exile and was elected President in the August 1992 elections. In that same year, Tansi was elected to parliament as a deputy for the MakElEkElE arrondissement of Brazzaville, but his participation in opposition politics angered President Lissouba, and his passport was withdrawn in 1994. Tansi soon discovered that he had contracted the AIDS virus, but Lissouba's travel restrictions prevented him from going abroad to seek treatment for himself and his wife. Tansi's partner, Pierrette, died from the disease on 31 May 1995 and Tansi followed 14 days later.
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Tansi, Sony Labou. The Shameful State: A Novel. Bloomington. 2016. Indiana University Press. 9780253019257. Global African Voices. Translated by Dominic Thomas. Foreword by Alain Mabanckou. 132 pages. paperback. Translation of L'état honteux.
DESCRIPTION- et in a fictitious African nation, this novel by the distinguished writer Sony Labou Tansi takes aim at the corruption, degeneracy, violence, and repression of political life in Africa. At the heart of The Shameful State is the story of Colonel Martillimi Lopez, the nation’s president, whose eccentricity and whims epitomize the "shameful situation in which humanity has elected to live." Lopez stages a series of grotesque and barbaric events while his nation falls apart. Unable to resist the dictator’s will, his desperate citizens are left with nothing but humiliation. The evocation of this deranged world is a showcase for the linguistic and stylistic inventiveness that are the hallmark of Sony Labou Tansi’s work. This first English translation by Dominic Thomas includes a foreword by Congolese writer Alain Mabanckou that contextualizes the novel’s importance in literary history and the significance of Sony Labou Tansi for future generations of writers.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Sony Labou Tansi (1947–1995) was a Congolese novelist, playwright, and poet whose groundbreaking work transformed postcolonial francophone African literature. He is author of Life and a Half (IUP, 2011). Dominic Thomas is Madeleine L. Letessier Chair in French and Francophone Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Alain Mabanckou is Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles and the author of several prizewinning novels. He is author of Blue White Red (IUP, 2013).
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Tchicaya U Tam'si. Selected Poems. Nairobi. 1970. Heinemann. 0435900729. African Writers Series. Translated from the French by Gerald Moore. 143 pages. paperback. AWS72. Cover photograph by Anthony Crickmay.
DESCRIPTION- Asked in one of his own poems the nature of his destiny after death, the poet replies: ‘To be a pagan at the pagan renewal of the world. .' The regenerative passion of that line has shaped all the poems in this collection. It is this momentum towards a new life which makes death both expected and accepted. Tragedy resides only in living basely or in dying without self-knowledge. Hence the urgency of the poet's unceasing quest for the roots of his being, for his lost ancestry. Hence also his self-examination while, in the distant Congo, ‘the disasters unfold in silence.' Felix Tchicaya U Tam'si was born in 1931 at Mpili in the then French colony of Moyen Congo, now the Congolese Republic. At the age of fifteen he began the long series of residences in France which have continued to the present day. His father was one of the first African deputies to be elected to the newly reformed French National Assembly of 1946, and the young Tchicaya accompanied him to France in order to complete his education at French lycees in Orleans and Paris. Despite many return visits to the Congo and many travels in other parts of Africa, Paris has remained the center of his activities ever since. This tension between childhood memories of Africa and everyday mundane experience in an alien capital, between his passionate presence in the suffering Congo and his physical absence from it, is one of the dominating themes of his poetry, most notably in the called ‘Epitome.'
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Tchicaya U Tam'si (25 August 1931 - 22 April 1988 ) was a Congolese author born GErald-FElix Tchicaya; his pen name means "small paper that speaks for a country" in Kikongo. Born in Mpili, near Brazzaville, French Equatorial Africa (now Congo) in 1931, U Tam'si spent his childhood in France, where he worked as a journalist until he returned to his homeland in 1960. Back in Congo, he continued to work as a journalist; during this time he maintained contact to the politician Patrice Lumumba. In 1961, he started to work for UNESCO. He died in 1988 in Bazancourt, Oise, near Paris. Since 1989, the Tchicaya U Tam'si Prize for African Poetry is awarded every two years in the Moroccan city of Asilah. U Tam'si's poetry incorporates elements of surrealism; it often has vivid historic images, and comments African life and society, as well as humanity in general.
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Wrong, Michela. In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living On the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo. New York. 2001. Harper Collins. 0060188804. 338 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- In a country rich with diamonds, gold, copper, uranium, oil, and timber, the average worker was reduced to a living income of $120 a year under the rule of Mobutu. From 1965 to 1997, his regime bled the country of some $4 billion. This is both a brilliant journalistic account and a grimly humorous story set amid the heart of the apocalypse - a nation plunged back to the Iron Age, whose citizens miraculously continue to survive.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Michela Wrong (born 1961) is a British journalist and author who spent six years as a foreign correspondent covering events across the African continent for Reuters, the BBC, and the Financial Times. Her debut book, In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz (2001), covers the time she has spent in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) as it transitioned from the leadership of Mobutu Sese Seko to that of Laurent-DEsirE Kabila. Her second book, I Didn't Do It For You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation (2004), is the story of Eritrea and its existence through Italian, British, American and Ethiopian occupation. It's Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower (2009) tells the story of John Githongo, a Kenyan journalist and civil society activist who, in 2002, took on a senior anti-corruption role within the newly elected government of President Mwai Kibaki. In this role, Githongo uncovered widespread evidence of corruption (notably the Anglo-Leasing scandal) located high up within the Kibaki government. The book also discusses the role of ethnicity in Kenyan politics and is strongly critical of the response of the international aid community to the Githongo case. The World Bank and the British government's aid department (the Department for International Development) come in for particularly strong criticism, though notable exceptions are also highlighted, such as Edward Clay, the then British High Commissioner to Kenya. Wrong writes regularly for the New Statesman magazine. She currently lives in London. Wrong is also the granddaughter of Oxford historian Edward Murray Wrong and daughter of the eminent nephrologist Oliver Wrong.
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COTE D'IVOIRE
[ COTE D'IVOIRE - Poetry ]Boni, Tanella. Future Has an Appointment with the Dawn. Lincoln. 2018. University of Nebraska Press. 9781496211859. 6 x 9. Translated by Todd Fredson. Introduction by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers. 90 pages. paperback. Translation of L'avenir a rendez-vous avec l'aube (Poésie pyromane).
DESCRIPTION- Tanella Boni is a major African poet, and this book, The Future Has an Appointment with the Dawn, is her first full collection to be translated into English. These poems wrestle with the ethnic violence and civil war that dominated life in West Africa's Ivory Coast in the first decade of the new millennium. Boni maps these events onto a mythic topography where people live among their ancestors and are subject to the whims of the powerful, who are at once magical and all too petty. The elements - the sun, the wind, the water - are animated as independent forces, beyond simile or metaphor. Words, too, are elemental, and the poet is present in the landscape - “during these times / I searched for the letters / for the perfect word.” Boni affirms her desire for hope in the face of ethno-cultural and state violence although she acknowledges that desiring to hope and hoping are not the same. “‘The dawn counted it nomadic steps / to the border.' Tanella Boni's translucent, extraordinary poems transform usually ineffable explorations of war, violence, and the ever-tangled exit out of these realities, into meticulous experiences that - while rendered elegantly - nevertheless leave the reader face to face with the horror of our own humanity. Boni not only expands poetry's possibilities (‘ordinary life / between routine and rupture'), but in searing, unique, meticulous language, her work challenges the limit of writing itself.” - Robin Coste Lewis, author of Voyage of the Sable Venus, winner of the National Book Award Excerpt from “Land of Hope, XIV” tomorrow the future has an appointment with the dawn and I do not know what enfant terrible startled by the aurora's clarity will take the chance to throw that first stone across the moat that circumscribes power.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Tanella Boni is an Ivorian poet, novelist, and professor of philosophy at the University of Abidjan (Cocody). She has published numerous critical and literary works in French and won many literary awards, including the 2009 Antonio Viccaro International Poetry Prize from UNESCO for her body of work. Todd Fredson is the author of the poetry collections The Crucifix-Blocks and Century Worm and has translated two poetry collections by JosuE GuEbo, including Think of Lampedusa (Nebraska, 2017). HonorEe Fanonne Jeffers is a professor of English at the University of Oklahoma and the author of The Gospel of Barbecue.
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Dadié, Bernard Binlin. An African in Paris. Urbana. 1994. University of Illinois Press. 0252064070. 6 x 9. Translated by Karen C. Hatch. 184 pages. paperback. Translation of Un nègre à Paris.
DESCRIPTION- Writing in an informal, episodic style, Bernard Dadie recounts a young African man's first journey to France, from the exhilarating moment when he obtains his ticket through a humorous and fascinating tour across the City of Light. In 1959, when Un Negre a Paris first appeared, the French still held West Africa under colonial rule. Dadie's subtle parodies depend on a detailed knowledge obtained over decades spent observing the colonizers abroad and now, suddenly, on their own home terrain. His remarks on Parisian living conditions, wordplay, and manners and morals are entertaining and poignant, charming yet profound.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bernard Binlin Dadie (or sometimes Bernard Dadie) (born 1916 near Abidjan) is a prolific Ivorian novelist, playwright, poet, and ex-administrator. Among many other senior positions, starting in 1957, he held the post of Minister of Culture in the government of Côte d'Ivoire from 1977 to 1986. Dadie was born in Assinie, Côte d'Ivoire, and attended the local Catholic school in Grand Bassam and then the Ecole William Ponty. He worked for the French government in Dakar, Senegal, but on returning to his homeland in 1947 became part of its movement for independence. Before Côte d'Ivoire's independence in 1960, he was detained for sixteen months for taking part in demonstrations that opposed the French colonial government. In his writing, influenced by his experiences of colonialism as a child, Dadie attempts to connect the messages of traditional African folktales with the contemporary world. With Germain Coffi Gadeau and F. J. Amon d'Aby, he founded the Cercle Culturel et Folklorique de la Côte d'Ivoire (CCFCI) in 1953. His humanism and desire for the equality and independence of Africans and their culture is also prevalent.
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Dadie, Bernard Binlin. One Way: Bernard Dadie Observes America. Urbana. 1994. University of Illinois Press. 0252064089. Translated from the French by Jo Patterson. 167 pages. paperback. Translation of Un patron de New York.
DESCRIPTION- Bernard DadiE follows in the tradition of Tocqueville and CEline, offering his impressions of America for a French-speaking audience---but in the style of an African griot. In One Way (originally titled Patron de New York), DadiE displays breezy humor while touching upon weighty issues, including racism, efficiency and the profit motive, and international politics. His reports are particularly interesting because they represent an African gaze on and discourse about the West, thus shifting the usual representation of the Other, in which the West offers the eye and the voice. Originally published in 1964, DadiE's book portrays a series of American vanities that remain enduringly provocative. "Presents a vision of the United States through the eyes of a naive traveler, whose irony, humor, and quality of observation remind me very much of Montesquieu's Lettres Persanes." -- Elisabeth Mudimbe-Boyi, Duke University.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bernard Binlin Dadie (or sometimes Bernard Dadie) (born 1916 near Abidjan) is a prolific Ivorian novelist, playwright, poet, and ex-administrator. Among many other senior positions, starting in 1957, he held the post of Minister of Culture in the government of Côte d'Ivoire from 1977 to 1986. DadiE was born in Assinie, Côte d'Ivoire, and attended the local Catholic school in Grand Bassam and then the Ecole William Ponty. He worked for the French government in Dakar, Senegal, but on returning to his homeland in 1947 became part of its movement for independence. Before Côte d'Ivoire's independence in 1960, he was detained for sixteen months for taking part in demonstrations that opposed the French colonial government. In his writing, influenced by his experiences of colonialism as a child, DadiE attempts to connect the messages of traditional African folktales with the contemporary world. With Germain Coffi Gadeau and F. J. Amon d'Aby, he founded the Cercle Culturel et Folklorique de la Côte d'Ivoire (CCFCI) in 1953. His humanism and desire for the equality and independence of Africans and their culture is also prevalent.
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Dadie, Bernard Binlin. The Black Cloth: A Collection of African Folktales. Amherst. 1987. University of Massachusetts Press. 0870235567. Translated from the French by Karen C. Hatch. Foreword by Es'kia Mphahlele. 140 pages. hardcover. Traslation of Le pagne noir: Contes africains.
DESCRIPTION- ‘These 16 stories, an exquisite fusion of entertainment and ethics, demonstrate the sophisticated taste for song, epic, pun, riddle, and satire of African peoples south of the Sahara.' - New York Times Book Review. ‘Now in his 70s, Dadie has been honored as a poet, novelist, critic, and statesman in his native Ivory Coast. In this book - originally published in France in 1955 - he renders an oral tradition in lively, mellifluous and vigorous prose. The exotic elements - iguanas, crocodiles, panthers - add spice to forms familiar in European folktales: how the pig got its snout; the persecuted stepchild or orphan; the fish on the hook that promises riches if it is spared; the wily, boastful trickster who ensnares himself as often as others. The tales seem to speak directly to the reader.' - Publishers Weekly. The tales in this satisfying collection are full of humor and inventiveness, patience and wisdom. They are told in flowing, resonant, rhythmical language that lovingly mirrors the world it depicts. The book, with its grainy beige covers, black endpapers, and prints of African textile designs, is a pleasure to hold and a delight to read.' - Parabola.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bernard Binlin Dadie (or sometimes Bernard Dadie) (born 1916 near Abidjan) is a prolific Ivorian novelist, playwright, poet, and ex-administrator. Among many other senior positions, starting in 1957, he held the post of Minister of Culture in the government of Côte d'Ivoire from 1977 to 1986. DadiE was born in Assinie, Côte d'Ivoire, and attended the local Catholic school in Grand Bassam and then the Ecole William Ponty. He worked for the French government in Dakar, Senegal, but on returning to his homeland in 1947 became part of its movement for independence. Before Côte d'Ivoire's independence in 1960, he was detained for sixteen months for taking part in demonstrations that opposed the French colonial government. In his writing, influenced by his experiences of colonialism as a child, DadiE attempts to connect the messages of traditional African folktales with the contemporary world. With Germain Coffi Gadeau and F. J. Amon d'Aby, he founded the Cercle Culturel et Folklorique de la Côte d'Ivoire (CCFCI) in 1953. His humanism and desire for the equality and independence of Africans and their culture is also prevalent.
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Dadie, Bernard. Climbie. New York. 1971. Africana Publishing Company. 0841900809. Translated from the French by Karen Chapman. 157 pages. hardcover. Translation of Climbie.
DESCRIPTION- Although Bernard Dadie is one of the most significant of the francophone African writers of this century, none of his major works has hitherto been available to the English-speaking public. Through the combined efforts of editors and scholars in the U.S. and abroad, Dadie's first major novel, Climbie, now appears in Karen Chapman's expert English translation. In his foreword to this edition, Ezekiel Mphalele says: ‘a translation like Mrs. Chapman's of Climbie is a most significant milestone. I must stress its importance to American scholarship and the imagination of Africa. I know that Bernard DadiE's moving rEcit will add another dimension. to [ Americans'] understanding of Africa, and -perhaps of themselves.' Climbie is a moving, intricately wrought series of vignettes which trace the history of an African man - from his childhood in an Ebrie village, through life in French schools and a voyage into the modern urban world, to his eventual return home. Sketches of village life in the first half of the book - the community of an ‘extended' family, closeness to the earth and seasons - help to dramatize the shock of an uprooted sensibility in experience to come; the movement toward independence that followed World War Il provides a background for the events of the book's second half. Social and personal history are skillfully interwoven in a painstaking and deeply-felt account of one man's life. This story of a sensibility adrift in a world where something is always missing is one of the classics of contemporary African literature. The portraits of Europeans in this novel are not flattering, but neither are they one-dimensional. The man who has drawn sustenance from village life confronts bureaucratic methods and the curiosity of ‘friends.' He longs to escape the ' 'hard-shelled' houses of the Europeans and begins to question much of what he sees of Western civilization - its depersonalization, its terrifying mass wars in the name of seemingly empty ideals. When he writes anticolonial articles, he is thrown into prison. But Climbie is a mature work and what gives the novel its unity is not hatred and ridicule of white society, but a passionate concern with justice. DadiE's humanism is not facile - one of the recurring words in his book is ‘struggle' - but it is all the more strongly felt for being hard won. Climbie describes a painful movement away from Africa and a painful return, with honesty and hope. The experience the novel chronicles goes beyond the platitudes of either blinding bitterness or easy optimism.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bernard Binlin Dadie (or sometimes Bernard Dadie) (born 1916 near Abidjan) is a prolific Ivorian novelist, playwright, poet, and ex-administrator. Among many other senior positions, starting in 1957, he held the post of Minister of Culture in the government of Côte d'Ivoire from 1977 to 1986. Dadie was born in Assinie, Côte d'Ivoire, and attended the local Catholic school in Grand Bassam and then the Ecole William Ponty. He worked for the French government in Dakar, Senegal, but on returning to his homeland in 1947 became part of its movement for independence. Before Côte d'Ivoire's independence in 1960, he was detained for sixteen months for taking part in demonstrations that opposed the French colonial government. In his writing, influenced by his experiences of colonialism as a child, Dadie attempts to connect the messages of traditional African folktales with the contemporary world. With Germain Coffi Gadeau and F. J. Amon d'Aby, he founded the Cercle Culturel et Folklorique de la Côte d'Ivoire (CCFCI) in 1953. His humanism and desire for the equality and independence of Africans and their culture is also prevalent.
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Dadie, Bernard. The City Where No One Dies. Washington DC. 1986. Three Continents Press. 0894104985. Translated from the French by Janis A. Mayes. 139 pages. hardcover. Translation of La ville où nul ne meurt.
DESCRIPTION- THE CITY WHERE NO ONE DIES by Bernard Dadie recounts the journey of an African traveller who leaves Paris for Rome in order to cure his ‘fidgetitus' and to continue his search for the fundamental differences and similarities in mankind. Part conqueror, part pilgrim, part worshipper, part critic, the protagonist observes the Roman ‘natives' and compares Roman and African customs, history, traditions, and, above all, the personalities of the different peoples. His account of the rewards and pitfalls of exploring other cultures is spiced with an enthusiasm for life and people, a familiarity with Roman history, and a sense of humor. The City Where No One Dies is the last in a series of three ‘chroniques' by Dadie, who introduced this genre to world literature. Instead of being a mere retelling of events, an observation or occurrence is used as a jumping board for reflections and cultural comparisons. Dadie's chroniques have a strong ironic effect: instead of a white European author visiting Africa and concluding that the inhabitants are primitives with an inferior culture, Dadie has a fundamental respect for all human beings and finds that all cultures have elements both noble and oppressive. Bernard Dadie was born in 1914 in the Ivory Coast. After his schooling, first in the African tradition, then in the French system, he worked for the newspaper Le Reveil during the period of resistance to French rule and was imprisoned for his work with an indigenous political party. Since independence he has occupied official positions in the Ivory Coast and international organizations. He also served as Minister of Culture in the Ivory Coast. Originally published in 1968 as La Ville ou nul me meurt, this first English language edition was translated by Janis Mayes, assistant professor of Afro-American Studies and French at Syracuse University.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bernard Binlin Dadie (or sometimes Bernard Dadie) (born 1916 near Abidjan) is a prolific Ivorian novelist, playwright, poet, and ex-administrator. Among many other senior positions, starting in 1957, he held the post of Minister of Culture in the government of Côte d'Ivoire from 1977 to 1986. Dadie was born in Assinie, Côte d'Ivoire, and attended the local Catholic school in Grand Bassam and then the Ecole William Ponty. He worked for the French government in Dakar, Senegal, but on returning to his homeland in 1947 became part of its movement for independence. Before Côte d'Ivoire's independence in 1960, he was detained for sixteen months for taking part in demonstrations that opposed the French colonial government. In his writing, influenced by his experiences of colonialism as a child, Dadie attempts to connect the messages of traditional African folktales with the contemporary world. With Germain Coffi Gadeau and F. J. Amon d'Aby, he founded the Cercle Culturel et Folklorique de la Côte d'Ivoire (CCFCI) in 1953. His humanism and desire for the equality and independence of Africans and their culture is also prevalent.
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Dem, Tidiane. Masseni. Baton Rogue. 1982. Louisiana State University Press. 0807110116. Translated Franes Frenaye. 174 pages. hardcover. Cover illustration by Zilla Doonan.
DESCRIPTION- Winner of the Pegasus Prize for Literature. Set in the Ivory Coast in the early years of this century. Masseni tells of a beautiful young girl whose life takes her away from the village of her birth, and in whose simple experiences can be seen the entire panorama of predevelopment West Africa - its chiefs and harems, priests and magicians, merchants, herdsmen, and colonial administrators. A novel of customs, steeped in the rich day-to-day life of a lost epoch, this book by Tidiane Dem is also, more universally, a story where wickedness, avarice, and spite are held in balance by the powers of compassionate forgiveness and understanding, and where the inflexible authority of living rulers and long-dead ancestors is tempered by gentler traditions of courtesy, generosity, and friendship. Born with the aid of a sorcerer who tells her parents that she is destined for greatness, Masseni - whose name means ‘more precious than my mother' - grows into an exceptionally beautiful young girl known for her intelligence, modesty, and good nature. When she is about sixteen, events bring her into the presence of a powerful regional chief, who is enchanted by her grace and beauty and offers her marriage. Masseni's subsequent life in the chiefs large household, with its elaborate protocols, fawning advisors, and rival cowives and their retinues of servants and sorcerers, then many years later as a remarried widow in a primitive, drought-stricken village represents the survival of a truly noble and courageous woman in a precarious world. The traditional West African life of which Dem writes so sensitively has vanished in the wake of independence and modernization, but his novel recalls it in all its color, drama, and humanity. Masseni, here presented for the first time in English in this graceful translation by Frances Frenaye, is a memorable addition to the vigorous and fascinating literary world of Africa. ‘Masseni is an extraordinary work that not only tells a gripping story but also reveals in the process the traditions and beliefs of an entire society. Behind the author's sophisticated modern presentation of folk material is the voice of the ancient African storyteller who makes the attachments, jealousies, and conflicts of his characters dramatically alive.' - William Jay Smith. TIDLANE DEM has held various posts in the government of the Ivory Coast and is the author of two historical works. Masseni is his first novel. FRANCIS FRENAYE is translator of Napoleon and the American Dream (LSU Press) as well as works by Balzac, Zola, Maurois, Croce, and Silone.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Tidiane Dem (June 8, 1908 in Niakaramandougou, Ivory Coast - June 3, 1991) was an Ivorian intellectual, businessman, politician and writer.
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Guébo, Josué. Think of Lampedusa. Lincoln. 2017. University of Nebraska Press. 9781496200426. African Poetry Book. Translated by Todd Fredson. 78 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- A collection of serial poems, Think of Lampedusa addresses the 2013 shipwreck that killed 366 Africans attempting to migrate secretly to Lampedusa, an Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea. The crossing from North Africa to this island and other Mediterranean way stations has become the most dangerous migrant route in the world. Interested in what is producing such epic displacement, JosuE GuEbo's poems combine elements of history and mythology. GuEbo considers the Mediterranean not only as a literal space but also as a space of expectation, anxiety, hope, and anguish for migrants. He meditates on the long history of narratives and bodies trafficked across the Mediterranean Sea. What did it--and what does it--connect and separate? Whose sea is it? Ultimately he is searching for what motivates a person to become part of what he calls a "seasonal suicide epidemic." This translation of GuEbo's Songe à Lampedusa, winner of the Tchicaya U Tam'si Prize for African Poetry, is a searing work from a major African poet.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Josue Guebo is an Ivorian poet and the author of seven poetry collections. He is a professor at the University of Felix Houphouët–Boigny of Cocody in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. He served as president of the Ivorian Writers' Association from 2011 to 2016.
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Kourouma, Ahmadou. Allah Is Not Obliged. New York. 2007. Anchor/Doubleday. 9780307279576. Translated from the French by Frank Wynne. Paperback original. 215 pages. paperback. Cover design by Mark Abrams. Translation of Allah n'est pas obligé.
DESCRIPTION- ALLAH IS NOT OBLIGED TO BE FAIR ABOUT ALL THE THINGS HE DOES HERE ON EARTH - These are the words of the boy soldier Birahima in the final masterpiece by one of Africa's most celebrated writers, Ahmadou Kourouma. When ten-year-old Birahima's mother dies, he leaves his native village in the Ivory Coast, accompanied by the sorcerer and cook Yacouba, to search for his aunt Mahan. Crossing the border into Liberia, they are seized by rebels and forced into military service. Birahima is given a Kalashnikov, minimal rations of food, a small supply of dope and a tiny wage. Fighting in a chaotic civil war alongside many other boys, Birahima sees death, torture, dismemberment and madness but somehow manages to retain his own sanity. Raw and unforgettable, despairing yet filled with laughter, Allah Is Not Obliged reveals the ways in which children's innocence and youth are compromised by war. Ahmadou Kourouma was born in the Ivory Coast in 1927. He was the author of the novels The Suns of Independence, Monnew, and Waiting
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ahmadou Kourouma (24 November 1927 Boundiali - 11 December 2003 Lyon) was an Ivorian novelist. The eldest son of a distinguished MalinkE family, Ahmadou Kourouma was born in 1927 in Côte d'Ivoire. Raised by his uncle, he initially pursued studies in Bamako, Mali. From 1950 to 1954, when his country was still under French colonial control, he participated in French military campaigns in Indochina, after which he journeyed to France to study mathematics in Lyon. Kourouma returned to his native Côte d'Ivoire after it won its independence in 1960, yet he quickly found himself questioning the government of FElix Houphouët-Boigny. After brief imprisonment, Kourouma spent several years in exile, first in Algeria (1964–69), then in Cameroon (1974–84) and Togo (1984–94), before finally returning to live in Côte d'Ivoire. Determined to speak out against the betrayal of legitimate African aspirations at the dawn of independence, Kourouma was drawn into an experiment in fiction. His first novel, Les soleils des indEpendances (The Suns of Independence, 1970) contains a critical treatment of post-colonial governments in Africa. Twenty years later, his second book Monnè, outrages et dEfis, a history of a century of colonialism, was published. In 1998, he published En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages (translated as Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote), a satire of postcolonial Africa in the style of Voltaire in which a griot recounts the story of a tribal hunter's transformation into a dictator, inspired by president GnassingbE EyadEma of Togo. In 2000, he published Allah n'est pas obligE (translated as Allah is Not Obliged), a tale of an orphan who becomes a child soldier when traveling to visit his aunt in Liberia. At the outbreak of civil war in Côte d'Ivoire in 2002, Kourouma stood against the war as well as against the concept of Ivorian nationalism, calling it "an absurdity which has led us to chaos." President Laurent Gbagbo accused him of supporting rebel groups from the north of the country. In France, each of Ahmadou Kourouma's novels has been greeted with great acclaim, sold exceptionally well, and been showered with prizes including the Prix Renaudot in the year 2000 and the Prix Goncourt des LycEens for Allah n'est pas obligE. In the English-speaking world, Kourouma has yet to make much of an impression: despite some positive reviews, his work remains largely unknown outside university classes in African fiction. At the time of his death, he was working on a sequel to Allah n'est pas obligE, entitled Quand on refuse on dit non (translated roughly as "When One Disagrees, One Says No"), in which the protagonist of the first novel, a child soldier, is demobilized and returns to his home in Côte d'Ivoire, where a new regional conflict has arisen.
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Kourouma, Ahmadou. Monnew. San Francisco. 1993. Mercury House. 1562790277. Translated by Nidra Poller. 254 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Sharon Smith. Jacket illustration based on a mask from the Senufo tribe, a chief of which was the inspiration for the character of Djigui Keita. Tranns;ation of Monné, outrages et défis.
DESCRIPTION- Ahmadou Kourouma's long-awaited novel - hailed by critics as 'a major event in the history of French-language African literature' and 'a masterpiece of literary creation' - tells the story of Djigui Keita, king of fictional Soba. Relying on ancestral magic, faith in Allah, and baked-mud fortifications, Djigui finds himself powerless in the face of oncoming French colonial troops and falls into the fateful politics of conciliation, compromise, and betrayal that still pervades postcolonial Africa. Tyrannical chief and authentic victim of historical forces, opportunist and pious humanitarian, Djigui Keita, the 'AgeOldMan' of his people, is brutally awakened from the tranquillity of traditional certitudes and dragged into a colonial tragedy 'made in Europe.' Enduring the monnew - the insults, outrages, trials, contempts, and humiliations - of colonialism, Djigui acquires the dimensions of a tragic hero. Ultimately, deep meditation, inspired by the infinite sufferings of his subjects during the more than 125 years of his reign, reveals to Djigui the true nature of people and their acts. A novel as rich in natural resources as the African continent, Monnew shines with the gold of poetic comedy and plunges into the quagmire of the African tragedy. Kourouma writes with the accent of his native Malinke language and culture, conveying and analyzing the intricate mechanisms and linguistic complications of postcolonial Africa. In a tender, virile, rigorously intelligent voice, Kourouma uses his prodigious powers of poetry, humor, and stylistic invention to hasten the end of 'the seasons of bitterness,' the centuries of African sacrifice. Kourouma's long-awaited novel - hailed by critics as 'a major event in the history of French-language African literature' and 'a masterpiece of literary creation' - tells the story of Djigui Keita, king of fictional Soba. Relying on ancestral magic, faith in Allah, and baked-mud fortifications, Djigui finds himself a tragic hero in the face of oncoming French troops.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ahmadou Kourouma (24 November 1927 Boundiali - 11 December 2003 Lyon) was an Ivorian novelist. The eldest son of a distinguished MalinkE family, Ahmadou Kourouma was born in 1927 in Côte d'Ivoire. Raised by his uncle, he initially pursued studies in Bamako, Mali. From 1950 to 1954, when his country was still under French colonial control, he participated in French military campaigns in Indochina, after which he journeyed to France to study mathematics in Lyon. Kourouma returned to his native Côte d'Ivoire after it won its independence in 1960, yet he quickly found himself questioning the government of FElix Houphouët-Boigny. After brief imprisonment, Kourouma spent several years in exile, first in Algeria (1964–69), then in Cameroon (1974–84) and Togo (1984–94), before finally returning to live in Côte d'Ivoire. Determined to speak out against the betrayal of legitimate African aspirations at the dawn of independence, Kourouma was drawn into an experiment in fiction. His first novel, Les soleils des indEpendances (The Suns of Independence, 1970) contains a critical treatment of post-colonial governments in Africa. Twenty years later, his second book Monnè, outrages et dEfis, a history of a century of colonialism, was published. In 1998, he published En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages (translated as Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote), a satire of postcolonial Africa in the style of Voltaire in which a griot recounts the story of a tribal hunter's transformation into a dictator, inspired by president GnassingbE EyadEma of Togo. In 2000, he published Allah n'est pas obligE (translated as Allah is Not Obliged), a tale of an orphan who becomes a child soldier when traveling to visit his aunt in Liberia. At the outbreak of civil war in Côte d'Ivoire in 2002, Kourouma stood against the war as well as against the concept of Ivorian nationalism, calling it "an absurdity which has led us to chaos." President Laurent Gbagbo accused him of supporting rebel groups from the north of the country. In France, each of Ahmadou Kourouma's novels has been greeted with great acclaim, sold exceptionally well, and been showered with prizes including the Prix Renaudot in the year 2000 and the Prix Goncourt des LycEens for Allah n'est pas obligE. In the English-speaking world, Kourouma has yet to make much of an impression: despite some positive reviews, his work remains largely unknown outside university classes in African fiction. At the time of his death, he was working on a sequel to Allah n'est pas obligE, entitled Quand on refuse on dit non (translated roughly as "When One Disagrees, One Says No"), in which the protagonist of the first novel, a child soldier, is demobilized and returns to his home in Côte d'Ivoire, where a new regional conflict has arisen.
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Kourouma, Ahmadou. The Suns of Independence. London. 1981. Heinemann. 0435902393. African Writers Series. Translated from the French Les soleils des independances by Adrian Adams. paperback. AWS239. Cover photograph by Ingrid Crewdson. AWS original. Translation of Les Soleils des indépendances.
DESCRIPTION- The "Suns of Independence" considered a masterpiece of modern African literature, enables the reader to gain unique insight into African culture and conflicts. Through Fama and Salimata, the husband and wife at the heart of the story, Kourouma conveys the confusion that torments many Africans when a traditional and a later, more materialistic culture collide. The last of the Dumbuya princes who had reigned over the Malinke tribe before the European conquest, Fama seeks a place for himself within the new hierarchy of bureaucrats and border guards. Salimata, haunted by memories of a ritualistic excision and a brutal rape, searches for the means to have a child who will pass on the Dumbuya legacy to future generations. Interwoven with tales and proverbs from the ancient Malinke traditions, this modern novel brilliantly captures the struggles, desires, and dreams of a people in a West African country living through the tumultuous days of Independence.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ahmadou Kourouma (24 November 1927 Boundiali - 11 December 2003 Lyon) was an Ivorian novelist. The eldest son of a distinguished MalinkE family, Ahmadou Kourouma was born in 1927 in Côte d'Ivoire. Raised by his uncle, he initially pursued studies in Bamako, Mali. From 1950 to 1954, when his country was still under French colonial control, he participated in French military campaigns in Indochina, after which he journeyed to France to study mathematics in Lyon. Kourouma returned to his native Côte d'Ivoire after it won its independence in 1960, yet he quickly found himself questioning the government of FElix Houphouët-Boigny. After brief imprisonment, Kourouma spent several years in exile, first in Algeria (1964–69), then in Cameroon (1974–84) and Togo (1984–94), before finally returning to live in Côte d'Ivoire. Determined to speak out against the betrayal of legitimate African aspirations at the dawn of independence, Kourouma was drawn into an experiment in fiction. His first novel, Les soleils des indEpendances (The Suns of Independence, 1970) contains a critical treatment of post-colonial governments in Africa. Twenty years later, his second book Monnè, outrages et dEfis, a history of a century of colonialism, was published. In 1998, he published En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages (translated as Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote), a satire of postcolonial Africa in the style of Voltaire in which a griot recounts the story of a tribal hunter's transformation into a dictator, inspired by president GnassingbE EyadEma of Togo. In 2000, he published Allah n'est pas obligE (translated as Allah is Not Obliged), a tale of an orphan who becomes a child soldier when traveling to visit his aunt in Liberia. At the outbreak of civil war in Côte d'Ivoire in 2002, Kourouma stood against the war as well as against the concept of Ivorian nationalism, calling it 'an absurdity which has led us to chaos.' President Laurent Gbagbo accused him of supporting rebel groups from the north of the country. In France, each of Ahmadou Kourouma's novels has been greeted with great acclaim, sold exceptionally well, and been showered with prizes including the Prix Renaudot in the year 2000 and the Prix Goncourt des LycEens for Allah n'est pas obligE. In the English-speaking world, Kourouma has yet to make much of an impression: despite some positive reviews, his work remains largely unknown outside university classes in African fiction. At the time of his death, he was working on a sequel to Allah n'est pas obligE, entitled Quand on refuse on dit non (translated roughly as 'When One Disagrees, One Says No'), in which the protagonist of the first novel, a child soldier, is demobilized and returns to his home in Côte d'Ivoire, where a new regional conflict has arisen.
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Kourouma, Ahmadou. Waiting For the Vote of the Wild Animals. Charlottesville. 2001. University Press Of Virginia. 0813920221. Translated from the French by Carrol F. Coates. 277 pages. hardcover. Jacket Design: Chiquita Babb. Jacket Art: Painting Of Hunters' Gathering, Charles Dadie (Photo By Stephen J.Appel). Translation of En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages.
DESCRIPTION- Characterized as ‘the African Voltaire,' Ahmadou Kourounia garnered enormous critical and popular praise upon the 1998 release of his third novel, En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages. Kourouma received the Prix des Tropiques, among other prestigious prizes, for that book, and the French edition went on to sell 100,000 copies. Carrol F Coates's translation, WAITING FOR THE VOTE OF THE WILD ANIMALS, introduces English-language audiences to Kourouma's irreverent view of the machinations of the African dictators who played the West against the East during the thirty years of the cold war. Profiting from Western financial support, the dictators built palaces, shrines, and hunting preserves for their personal gratification as they paraded about with numerous mistresses, marabouts, and advisers. In the style of a sèrè who sings the praises of the thirty-year career of the master hunter and president Koyaga (a fictionalized Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo), Kourouma treats his readers to a brief overview of the French colonization of the ‘Naked people,' hunters in West African mountain country, followed by an account of Koyaga's assumption of power through treachery, assassination, and sorcery. In an interview Kourouma noted the Togolese assumption that if the people did not turn out to vote for Eyadema in the democratic elections following the cold war, the wild animals would come out of the forest to vote for him. The novel ends with an apocalyptic stampede, although the animals are probably fleeing a bush conflagration rather than running to the polls.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ahmadou Kourouma (24 November 1927 Boundiali - 11 December 2003 Lyon) was an Ivorian novelist. The eldest son of a distinguished MalinkE family, Ahmadou Kourouma was born in 1927 in Côte d'Ivoire. Raised by his uncle, he initially pursued studies in Bamako, Mali. From 1950 to 1954, when his country was still under French colonial control, he participated in French military campaigns in Indochina, after which he journeyed to France to study mathematics in Lyon. Kourouma returned to his native Côte d'Ivoire after it won its independence in 1960, yet he quickly found himself questioning the government of FElix Houphouët-Boigny. After brief imprisonment, Kourouma spent several years in exile, first in Algeria (1964–69), then in Cameroon (1974–84) and Togo (1984–94), before finally returning to live in Côte d'Ivoire. Determined to speak out against the betrayal of legitimate African aspirations at the dawn of independence, Kourouma was drawn into an experiment in fiction. His first novel, Les soleils des indEpendances (The Suns of Independence, 1970) contains a critical treatment of post-colonial governments in Africa. Twenty years later, his second book Monnè, outrages et dEfis, a history of a century of colonialism, was published. In 1998, he published En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages (translated as Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote), a satire of postcolonial Africa in the style of Voltaire in which a griot recounts the story of a tribal hunter's transformation into a dictator, inspired by president GnassingbE EyadEma of Togo. In 2000, he published Allah n'est pas obligE (translated as Allah is Not Obliged), a tale of an orphan who becomes a child soldier when traveling to visit his aunt in Liberia. At the outbreak of civil war in Côte d'Ivoire in 2002, Kourouma stood against the war as well as against the concept of Ivorian nationalism, calling it "an absurdity which has led us to chaos." President Laurent Gbagbo accused him of supporting rebel groups from the north of the country. In France, each of Ahmadou Kourouma's novels has been greeted with great acclaim, sold exceptionally well, and been showered with prizes including the Prix Renaudot in the year 2000 and the Prix Goncourt des LycEens for Allah n'est pas obligE. In the English-speaking world, Kourouma has yet to make much of an impression: despite some positive reviews, his work remains largely unknown outside university classes in African fiction. At the time of his death, he was working on a sequel to Allah n'est pas obligE, entitled Quand on refuse on dit non (translated roughly as "When One Disagrees, One Says No"), in which the protagonist of the first novel, a child soldier, is demobilized and returns to his home in Côte d'Ivoire, where a new regional conflict has arisen.
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Kourouma, Ahmadou. Waiting For the Wild Beasts to Vote. London. 2003. Heinemann. 0434008141. Translated from the French by Frank Wynne. 445 pages. hardcover. Cover photograph by Charles Lenars, Mali Malinke Hunters. Translation of En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages.
DESCRIPTION- Characterized as ‘the African Voltaire,' Ahmadou Kourounia garnered enormous critical and popular praise upon the 1998 release of his third novel, En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages. Kourouma received the Prix des Tropiques, among other prestigious prizes, for that book, and the French edition went on to sell 100,000 copies. Carrol F Coates's translation, WAITING FOR THE VOTE OF THE WILD ANIMALS, introduces English-language audiences to Kourouma's irreverent view of the machinations of the African dictators who played the West against the East during the thirty years of the cold war. Profiting from Western financial support, the dictators built palaces, shrines, and hunting preserves for their personal gratification as they paraded about with numerous mistresses, marabouts, and advisers. In the style of a sèrè who sings the praises of the thirty-year career of the master hunter and president Koyaga (a fictionalized Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo), Kourouma treats his readers to a brief overview of the French colonization of the ‘Naked people,' hunters in West African mountain country, followed by an account of Koyaga's assumption of power through treachery, assassination, and sorcery. In an interview Kourouma noted the Togolese assumption that if the people did not turn out to vote for Eyadema in the democratic elections following the cold war, the wild animals would come out of the forest to vote for him. The novel ends with an apocalyptic stampede, although the animals are probably fleeing a bush conflagration rather than running to the polls.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ahmadou Kourouma (24 November 1927 Boundiali - 11 December 2003 Lyon) was an Ivorian novelist. The eldest son of a distinguished Malinke family, Ahmadou Kourouma was born in 1927 in Côte d'Ivoire. Raised by his uncle, he initially pursued studies in Bamako, Mali. From 1950 to 1954, when his country was still under French colonial control, he participated in French military campaigns in Indochina, after which he journeyed to France to study mathematics in Lyon. Kourouma returned to his native Côte d'Ivoire after it won its independence in 1960, yet he quickly found himself questioning the government of Felix Houphouët-Boigny. After brief imprisonment, Kourouma spent several years in exile, first in Algeria (1964–69), then in Cameroon (1974–84) and Togo (1984–94), before finally returning to live in Côte d'Ivoire. Determined to speak out against the betrayal of legitimate African aspirations at the dawn of independence, Kourouma was drawn into an experiment in fiction. His first novel, Les soleils des independances (The Suns of Independence, 1970) contains a critical treatment of post-colonial governments in Africa. Twenty years later, his second book Monnè, outrages et defis, a history of a century of colonialism, was published. In 1998, he published En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages (translated as Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote), a satire of postcolonial Africa in the style of Voltaire in which a griot recounts the story of a tribal hunter's transformation into a dictator, inspired by president Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo. In 2000, he published Allah n'est pas oblige (translated as Allah is Not Obliged), a tale of an orphan who becomes a child soldier when traveling to visit his aunt in Liberia. At the outbreak of civil war in Côte d'Ivoire in 2002, Kourouma stood against the war as well as against the concept of Ivorian nationalism, calling it "an absurdity which has led us to chaos." President Laurent Gbagbo accused him of supporting rebel groups from the north of the country. In France, each of Ahmadou Kourouma's novels has been greeted with great acclaim, sold exceptionally well, and been showered with prizes including the Prix Renaudot in the year 2000 and the Prix Goncourt des Lyceens for Allah n'est pas oblige. In the English-speaking world, Kourouma has yet to make much of an impression: despite some positive reviews, his work remains largely unknown outside university classes in African fiction. At the time of his death, he was working on a sequel to Allah n'est pas oblige, entitled Quand on refuse on dit non (translated roughly as "When One Disagrees, One Says No"), in which the protagonist of the first novel, a child soldier, is demobilized and returns to his home in Côte d'Ivoire, where a new regional conflict has arisen.
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Tadjo, Veronique. As the Crow Flies. Portsmouth. 2001. Heinemann. 0435912038. African Writers Series. Translated from the French by Wangui wa Goro. 106 pages. paperback. Cover illustration by Veronique Tadjo. Translation of A vol d'oiseau.
DESCRIPTION- An illicit love affair that turns sour is the starting point in this lyrical and moving exploration of the human heart. Veronique Tadjo weaves together a rich tapestry of voices to tell stories of parting and return, suffering, healing and desire. Like a bird in flight, the reader travels across a borderless landscape composed of tales of everyday existence, news reports, allegories and ancestral myths, becoming aware in the course of the journey of the interconnection of individual lives. A new consciousness of the links between self and other, today's society and that of future generations is revealed as the key to creating a more just world and more understanding and fulfilling relationships, for 'love is a story that we never stop telling'.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - VEronique Tadjo (born July 21, 1955) is a writer, poet, novelist, and artist from Côte d'Ivoire. Having lived and worked in many countries within the African continent and diaspora, she feels herself to be pan-African, in a way that is reflected in the subject matter, imagery and allusions of her work. Born in Paris, VEronique Tadjo is the daughter of an Ivorian civil servant and a French painter and sculptor. Brought up in Abidjan, she travelled widely with her family. Tadjo completed her BA degree at the University of Abidjan and her doctorate at the Sorbonne in African-American Literature and Civilization. In 1983, she went to Howard University in Washington, D.C., on a Fulbright research scholarship. In 1979, Tadjo chose to teach English at the LycEe Moderne de Korhogo (secondary school) in the North of Côte d'Ivoire. She subsequently became a lecturer in the English department at the University of Abidjan until 1993. In 1998, she participated in the project "Rwanda: Ecrire par devoir de mEmoire" (Rwanda: Writing for the sake of memory) with a group of African writers who traveled to Rwanda to testify to the Rwandan genocide and its aftermath. Her book L'Ombre d'Imana emerged from her time in Rwanda. In the past few years, she has facilitated workshops in writing and illustrating children's books in Mali, Benin, Chad, Haiti, Mauritius, French Guyana, Burundi, Rwanda, the United States, and South Africa. In 2006 she participated in the fall residency of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. She has lived in Paris, Lagos, Mexico City, Nairobi and London. Tadjo is currently based in Johannesburg, where since 2007 she has been head of French Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. Tadjo received the Literary Prize of L'Agence de Cooperation Culturelle et Technique in 1983 and the UNICEF Prize in 1993 for Mamy Wata and the Monster, which was also chosen as one of Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century, one of only four children's books selected. In 2005, Tadjo won the Grand prix littEraire d'Afrique noire.
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Tadjo, Veronique. In the Company of Men. New York. 2021. Other Press. 9781635420951. African Writers Series. Translated from the French in collaboration with John Cullen. 147 pages. paperback. Cover image: Antiqua Print Gallery /.Alamy. Cover design: John Gall Design. Translation of En compagnie des hommes.
DESCRIPTION- NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY HARPER'S BAZAAR. BOSTON GLOBE SUMMER READING PICK NAMED A MOST-ANTICIPATED READ OF THE YEAR BY MS. MAGAZINE. Drawing on real accounts of the Ebola outbreak that devastated West Africa, this poignant, timely fable reflects on both the strength and the fragility of life and humanity's place in the world. Two boys venture from their village to hunt in a nearby forest, where they shoot down bats with glee, and cook their prey over an open fire. Within a month, they are dead, bodies ravaged by an insidious disease that neither the local healer's potions nor the medical team's treatments could cure. Compounding the family's grief, experts warn against touching the sick. But this caution comes too late: the virus spreads rapidly, and the boys' father is barely able to send his eldest daughter away for a chance at survival. In a series of moving snapshots, VEronique Tadjo illustrates the terrible extent of the Ebola epidemic, through the eyes of those affected in myriad ways: the doctor who tirelessly treats patients day after day in a sweltering tent, protected from the virus only by a plastic suit; the student who volunteers to work as a gravedigger while universities are closed, helping the teams overwhelmed by the sheer number of bodies; the grandmother who agrees to take in an orphaned boy cast out of his village for fear of infection. And watching over them all is the ancient and wise Baobab tree, mourning the dire state of the earth yet providing a sense of hope for the future. Acutely relevant to our times in light of the coronavirus pandemic, In the Company of Men explores critical questions about how we cope with a global crisis and how we can combat fear and prejudice.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - VEronique Tadjo (born July 21, 1955) is a writer, poet, novelist, and artist from Côte d'Ivoire. Having lived and worked in many countries within the African continent and diaspora, she feels herself to be pan-African, in a way that is reflected in the subject matter, imagery and allusions of her work. Born in Paris, VEronique Tadjo is the daughter of an Ivorian civil servant and a French painter and sculptor. Brought up in Abidjan, she travelled widely with her family. Tadjo completed her BA degree at the University of Abidjan and her doctorate at the Sorbonne in African-American Literature and Civilization. In 1983, she went to Howard University in Washington, D.C., on a Fulbright research scholarship. In 1979, Tadjo chose to teach English at the LycEe Moderne de Korhogo (secondary school) in the North of Côte d'Ivoire. She subsequently became a lecturer in the English department at the University of Abidjan until 1993. In 1998, she participated in the project "Rwanda: Ecrire par devoir de mEmoire" (Rwanda: Writing for the sake of memory) with a group of African writers who traveled to Rwanda to testify to the Rwandan genocide and its aftermath. Her book L'Ombre d'Imana emerged from her time in Rwanda. In the past few years, she has facilitated workshops in writing and illustrating children's books in Mali, Benin, Chad, Haiti, Mauritius, French Guyana, Burundi, Rwanda, the United States, and South Africa. In 2006 she participated in the fall residency of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. She has lived in Paris, Lagos, Mexico City, Nairobi and London. Tadjo is currently based in Johannesburg, where since 2007 she has been head of French Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. Tadjo received the Literary Prize of L'Agence de Cooperation Culturelle et Technique in 1983 and the UNICEF Prize in 1993 for Mamy Wata and the Monster, which was also chosen as one of Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century, one of only four children's books selected. In 2005, Tadjo won the Grand prix littEraire d'Afrique noire.
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Tadjo, Véronique. The Shadow of Imana. Portsmouth. 2002. Heinemann. 0435910159. African Writers Series. Translated by Veronique Wakerley. paperback. Trannslatio of L'Ombre d'Imana.
DESCRIPTION- Along with nine other African Writers, Veronique Tadjo was invited to visit Rwanda to bear witness to the genocide that took place in 1994 - wiping out one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus during a hundred days of barbaric violence. A poet and a storyteller, the author consistently achieves the right tone that challenges our preconceptions. From the unexpurgated story of a young woman reliving the horrors of the massacre to dialogues between strangers meeting across the past, and finally to her own reflections. Her prose alternates between raw and poetic, but always remains discreet, respectful and dignified. The one thing that comes through her narrative voice is a ray of hope. The translator Veronique Wakerley lectures in French at the University of Zimbabwe and is particularly interested in the literature of the first part of the twentieth century.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Veronique Tadjo (born July 21, 1955) is a writer, poet, novelist, and artist from Côte d'Ivoire. Having lived and worked in many countries within the African continent and diaspora, she feels herself to be pan-African, in a way that is reflected in the subject matter, imagery and allusions of her work. Born in Paris, VEronique Tadjo is the daughter of an Ivorian civil servant and a French painter and sculptor. Brought up in Abidjan, she travelled widely with her family. Tadjo completed her BA degree at the University of Abidjan and her doctorate at the Sorbonne in African-American Literature and Civilization. In 1983, she went to Howard University in Washington, D.C., on a Fulbright research scholarship. In 1979, Tadjo chose to teach English at the LycEe Moderne de Korhogo (secondary school) in the North of Côte d'Ivoire. She subsequently became a lecturer in the English department at the University of Abidjan until 1993. In 1998, she participated in the project 'Rwanda: Ecrire par devoir de mEmoire' (Rwanda: Writing for the sake of memory) with a group of African writers who traveled to Rwanda to testify to the Rwandan genocide and its aftermath. Her book L'Ombre d'Imana emerged from her time in Rwanda. In the past few years, she has facilitated workshops in writing and illustrating children's books in Mali, Benin, Chad, Haiti, Mauritius, French Guyana, Burundi, Rwanda, the United States, and South Africa. In 2006 she participated in the fall residency of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. She has lived in Paris, Lagos, Mexico City, Nairobi and London. Tadjo is currently based in Johannesburg, where since 2007 she has been head of French Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. Tadjo received the Literary Prize of L'Agence de Cooperation Culturelle et Technique in 1983 and the UNICEF Prize in 1993 for Mamy Wata and the Monster, which was also chosen as one of Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century, one of only four children's books selected. In 2005, Tadjo won the Grand prix littEraire d'Afrique noire.
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DARFUR - SUDAN
[ DARFUR - SUDAN - History ]Prunier, Gerard. Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide. Ithaca. 2005. Cornell University Press. 0801444500. 212 pages. hardcover. Jacket photograph - Northwest Darfur, Sudan, August 2004 by Sven Torfinn.
DESCRIPTION- In mid-2004 the Darfur crisis in Western Sudan forced itself onto the center stage of world affairs. Arab Janjaweed militias, who support the Khartoum government, have engaged in a campaign of violence against the residents of Western Sudan. A formerly obscure ‘tribal conflict' in the heart of Africa has escalated into the first genocide of the twenty-first century. In sharp contrast to official reaction to the Rwandan massacres, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell called the situation in Darfur a ‘genocide' in September 2004. Its characteristics-Arabism, Islamism, famine as a weapon of war, mass rape, international obfuscation, and a refusal to look evil squarely in the face-reflect many of the problems of the global South in general and of Africa in particular. Journalistic explanations of the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe have been given to hurried generalizations and inaccuracies: the genocide has been portrayed as an ethnic clash marked by Arab-on-African violence, with the Janjaweed militias under strict government control, but neither of these impressions is strictly true. DARFUR: THE AMBIGUOUS GENOCIDE explains what lies behind the conflict, how it came about, why it should not be oversimplified, and why it is so relevant to the future of the continent. GErard Prunier sets out the ethnopolitical makeup of the Sudan and explains why the Darfur rebellion is regarded as a key threat to Arab power in the country-much more so than secessionism in the Christian South. This, he argues, accounts for the government's deployment of ‘exemplary violence' by the Janjaweed militias in order to intimidate other African Muslims into subservience. As the world watches; governments decide if, when, and how to intervene; and international organizations struggle to distribute aid, the knowledge in Prunier's book will provide crucial assistance.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - A renowned analyst of East Africa, the Horn, Sudan, and the Great Lakes of Africa, GErard Prunier is a Research Professor at the University of Paris and author of THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE and FROM GENOCIDE TO CONTINENTAL WAR: THE CONGOLESE CONFLICT AND THE CRISIS OF CONTEMPORARY AFRICA.
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DJIBOUTI
[ DJIBOUTI - Literature ]Contreras, Ayana. Harvest of Skulls. Bloomington. 2017. Indiana University Press. 9780253024329. Global African Voices. Translated by Dominic Thomas. 78 pages. paperback. Translation of Moisson de crânes.
DESCRIPTION- In 1994, the akazu, Rwanda's political elite, planned the genocidal mass slaughter of 500,000 to 1,000,000 Tutsi and Hutu who lived in the country. Given the failure of the international community to acknowledge the genocide, in 1998, ten African authors visited Rwanda in a writing initiative that was an attempt to make partial amends. In this multidimensional novel, Abdourahman A. Waberi claims, Language remains inadequate in accounting for the world and all its turpitudes, words can never be more than unstable crutches, staggering along. And yet, if we want to hold on to a glimmer of hope in the world, the only miraculous weapons we have at our disposal are these same clumsy supports. Shaped by the author's own experiences in Rwanda and by the stories shared by survivors, Harvest of Skulls stands twenty years after the genocide as an indisputable resource for discussions on testimony and witnessing, the complex relationship between victims and perpetrators, the power of the moral imagination, and how survivors can rebuild a society haunted by the ghost of its history.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Abdourahman A. Waberi is a novelist, essayist, poet, and short-story writer. Born in Djibouti, he is Professor of French and Francophone literature at George Washington University. The author of Transit, In the United States of Africa, Passage of Tears, and La Divine Chanson, he has been awarded the Stefan-Georg-Preis, the Grand Prix Littéraire d'Afrique noire, and the Prix biennal "Mandat pour la liberté." He was named one of the "50 Writers of the Future" by the French literary magazine Lire. Dominic Thomas is Madeleine L. Letessier Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.
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Waberi, Abdourahman A. In the United States of Africa. Lincoln. 2009. University of Nebraska Press. 9780803213913. Foreword by Percival Everett. Translated by David and Nicole Ball. French Voices Series. 123 pages. hardcover. Translation of Aux Etats Unis d'Afrique.
DESCRIPTION- In a literary reversal as deadly serious as it is wickedly satiric, this novel by the acclaimed French-speaking African writer Abdourahman A. Waberi turns the fortunes of the world upside down. On this reimagined globe a stream of sorry humanity flows from the West, from the slums of America and the squalor of Europe, to escape poverty and desperation in the prosperous United States of Africa. It is in this world that an African doctor on a humanitarian mission to France adopts a child. Now a young artist, this girl, Malaika, travels to the troubled land of her birth in hope of finding her mother - and perhaps something of her lost self. Her search, at times funny and strange, is also deeply poignant, reminding us at every moment of the turns of fate we call truth.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - The French-Djiboutian novelist, poet, and essayist Abdourahman A. Waberi (born July 20, 1965) is one of the leading francophone writers of his generation. His other books include THE LAND WITHOUT SHADOW, HARVEST OF SKULLS, and RIFTS, ROADS AND RAILS.
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Waberi, Abdourahman A. In the United States of Africa. Lincoln. 2009. University of Nebraska Press. 9780803222625. Foreword by Percival Everett. Translated by David and Nicole Ball. French Voices Series. 123 pages. paperback. Translation of Aux Etats Unis d'Afrique.
DESCRIPTION- In a literary reversal as deadly serious as it is wickedly satiric, this novel by the acclaimed French-speaking African writer Abdourahman A. Waberi turns the fortunes of the world upside down. On this reimagined globe a stream of sorry humanity flows from the West, from the slums of America and the squalor of Europe, to escape poverty and desperation in the prosperous United States of Africa. It is in this world that an African doctor on a humanitarian mission to France adopts a child. Now a young artist, this girl, Malaika, travels to the troubled land of her birth in hope of finding her mother--and perhaps something of her lost self. Her search, at times funny and strange, is also deeply poignant, reminding us at every moment of the turns of fate we call truth.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - The French-Djiboutian novelist, poet, and essayist Abdourahman A. Waberi (born July 20, 1965) is one of the leading francophone writers of his generation. His other books include THE LAND WITHOUT SHADOW, HARVEST OF SKULLS, and RIFTS, ROADS AND RAILS.
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Waberi, Abdourahman A. Passage of Tears. London/New York/Calcutta. 2011. Seagull Books. 9780857420213. Translated from the French by David and Nicole Ball. 216 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Sunandini Banerjee. Translation of Passage des larmes.
DESCRIPTION- Djibouti, a hot, impoverished little country on the Horn of Africa, is a place of great strategic importance, for off its coast lies a crucial passage for the world's oil. In this novel by Abdourahman A. Waberi, Djibril, a young Djiboutian voluntarily exiled in Montreal, returns to his native land to prepare a report for an American economic intelligence firm. Meanwhile, a shadowy, threatening figure imprisoned in an island cell seems to know Djibril's every move. He takes dictation from his preaching cellmate known as his ‘Venerable Master,' but as the words are put on the page, a completely different text appears - the life of Walter Benjamin, Djibril's favorite author. PASSAGE OF TEARS cleverly mixes many genres and forms of writing - spy novel, political thriller, diary (replete with childhood memories), travel notebook, legends, parables, incantations, and prayers. Djibril's reminiscences provide a sense of Djibouti's past and its people, while a satire of Muslim fundamentalism is unwittingly delivered through the other Djiboutian voice. Waberi's inventive parody is a lesson in tolerance, while his poetic observations reveal his love and concern for his homeland.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - The French-Djiboutian novelist, poet, and essayist Abdourahman A. Waberi (born July 20, 1965) is one of the leading francophone writers of his generation. His other books include THE LAND WITHOUT SHADOW, HARVEST OF SKULLS, and RIFTS, ROADS AND RAILS. Together or separately, David and Nicole Ball have published nine book-length translations, most recently Waberi's IN THE UNITED STATES OF AFRICA.
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EAST AFRICA
[ EAST AFRICA - History ]Chretien, Jean-Pierre. The Great Lakes of Africa: Two Thousand Years of History. New York. 2003. Zone Books. 189095134x. Translated from the French by Scott Straus. 504 pages. hardcover. Cover frontpiece by Samuel White Baker, 'Der Albert Nyanza'.
DESCRIPTION- Though the genocide of 1994 catapulted Rwanda onto the international stage, English-language historical accounts of the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa-which encompasses Burundi, eastern Congo, Rwanda, western Tanzania, and Uganda-are scarce. Drawing on colonial archives, oral tradition, archeological discoveries, anthropologic and linguistic studies, and his thirty years of scholarship, Jean-Pierre ChrEtien offers a major synthesis of the history of the region, one still plagued by extremely violent wars. This translation brings the work of a leading French historian to an English-speaking audience for the first time. ChrEtien retraces the human settlement and the formation of kingdoms around the sources of the Nile, which were ‘discovered' by European explorers around 1860. He describes these kingdoms' complex social and political organization and analyzes how German, British, and Belgian colonizers not only transformed and exploited the existing power structures, but also projected their own racial categories onto them. Finally, he shows how the independent states of the postcolonial era, in particular Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda, have been trapped by their colonial and precolonial legacies, especially by the racial rewriting of the latter by the former. Today, argues ChrEtien, the Great Lakes of Africa is a crucial region for historical research-not only because its history is fascinating but also because the tragedies of its present are very much a function of the political manipulations of its past.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jean-Pierre ChrEtien (born September 18, 1937, Lille, France) is Directeur de Recherches at the Centre Nationale de Recherches Scientifique and affiliated with the Centre de Recherches Africaines at the University of Paris.
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Cook, David (editor). Origin East Africa: A Makerere Anthology. London. 1965. Heinemann. African Writers Series. Devised and edited by David Cook. Prose and verse. 188 pages. paperback. AWS15. Cover drawing by Eli Kyeyune.
DESCRIPTION- Names such as John Nagenda, James Ngugi and David Rubadiri make some of their earliest appearances in this anthology of stories, plays and poems by people who have studied at Makerere. This is a volume worth reading in its own right, but will also attract those who find African writing especially interesting and significant. INCLUDES WORK BY - John Nagenda, James Ngugi, David Rubadiri, Violet Kokunda, M.M. Haji, Tom Chacha, Peter Nazareth, Solomon Kagwe, John Bing and others.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - David Cook (January 22, 1929, Sydney, Australia - March 30, 2003) was a British academic, literary critic and anthologist. As a Professor of Literature at the Universities of Makerere and Ilorin, he played an important role in encouraging literature in East Africa.
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Cook, David and Lee, Miles (editors). Short East African Plays in English: Ten plays in English. London. 1970. Heinemann. 0435900285. African Writers Series. 148 pages. paperback. AWS28. Originally published in AWS series in 1968.
DESCRIPTION- This collection of ten plays consists of five short plays, one adaptation and four sketches (three of which are translations from East African languages). Most of these have been successfully performed far and wide in Kenya and Uganda, by the Makerere Traveling Theatre and have proved highly popular both with school and teacher training college audiences, and also with community centre audiences. It is hoped that their publication will enable schools and drama groups to perform the plays themselves as well as read them. The editors have provided a most useful introduction as well as supplying notes for producers. Included are plays by Sam Tulya-Muhika, Kuldip Sondhi, Tom Omara, Ganesh Bagchi, Augustine Bukenya, Peter kinyanjui, Sadhu Kassam. and Joseph Mukasa-Balikuddembe.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - David Cook (January 22, 1929, Sydney, Australia - March 30, 2003) was a British academic, literary critic and anthologist. As a Professor of Literature at the Universities of Makerere and Ilorin, he played an important role in encouraging literature in East Africa. Miles Allday Lee, later Miles Ahmed Lee, FRSA (died June 1986) was a British puppeteer and radio producer. While working for Radio Uganda, he played an important role in the encouragement of East African literature. Before World War II Lee was Stage Director at the Birmingham Repertory Company. After serving in the RAF during the war, he became an Advisor to the Scottish Community Drama Association. In 1951 he founded the Belgrave Mews Puppet Theatre in Edinburgh. He was a freelance producer for the BBC and commercial television, before moving to Uganda to work for Radio Uganda. In autumn 1964 Lee persuaded David Cook, a literature lecturer at Makarere University, to chair a monthly radio programme about East African writing. Lee and Cook collaborated on an anthology of East African plays in 1968, and some of the broadcasts they made together were later collected and published.
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Cook, David and Rubadiri, David (editors). Poems from East Africa. London. 1971. Heinemann. 043590096x. African Writers Series. 206 pages. paperback. AWS96.
DESCRIPTION- The spirit of the poetic flowering of the 1960s is encapsulated in this comprehensive anthology. The collection gives voice to some fifty poets from Kenya, Uganda and Zambia, writing in English. The diversity of the interests and styles of the individual poets is illustrated: a blend of the gentle lyricism that is a feature of East African writing. All the major poets are included, and many not so well known. Amongst the best known are Jared Angira, Jonathan Kariara, Joseph Kariuki, Taban Lo Liyong, Okot p'Bitek, and David Rubadiri - one of the editors.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - David Cook (January 22, 1929, Sydney, Australia - March 30, 2003) was a British academic, literary critic and anthologist. As a Professor of Literature at the Universities of Makerere and Ilorin, he played an important role in encouraging literature in East Africa. James David Rubadiri (19 July 1930 - 15 September 2018) was a Malawian diplomat, academic and poet, playwright and novelist. Rubadiri is ranked as one of Africa's most widely anthologized and celebrated poets to emerge after independence.[
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Davidson, Basil. A History of East and Central Africa To the Late Nineteenth Century. Garden City. 1969. Anchor/Doubleday. 338 pages. paperback. A677. Cover design by Michael Horen.
DESCRIPTION- East and Central Africa belong to the same great processes of historical development. They need to be considered together, although in detailed ways they developed separately. In a companion volume to A History of West Africa, Basil Davidson, one of the foremost scholars on the African past, offers a synthesis of the growth of Bantu, Swahili, and other African cultures in these two wide regions from the outset of their Iron Age, more than 2000 years ago, to the eve of European colonization in the late nineteenth century. In a book which Professor T. O. Ranger of the University of California describes as ‘very much better than any other in the field,' Davidson uses the newest findings of research as well as a copious background knowledge to trace the old patterns of African migration, settlement, and crystallization of these regions' many ethnic groups and societies and states. He discusses the evolution of political and social change, the emergence of centralizing institutions, and the nature of kingships. He reviews the development of the Indian Ocean trade, the growth of Swahili civilization along the coast, and the making of commercial links with the interior. Bringing the Portuguese ravages after 1500, as well as the impact of intruders from Arabia after 1650 into historical perspective, the author then goes on to set the scene for the advent-of European imperialism and the modern emergence of nation-states. Like its companion volume, A HlsT0RY OF EAST AND CENTRAL AFRICA is concerned to give students and general readers a reliable survey of a large but little-known area of human history. A guide to further reading and forty useful maps are included. A Doubleday Anchor Original.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Basil Risbridger Davidson MC (9 November 1914 - 9 July 2010) was a British historian, writer and Africanist, particularly knowledgeable on the subject of Portuguese Africa prior to the 1974 Carnation Revolution. He wrote several books on the current plight of Africa. Colonialism and the rise of African emancipation movements were central themes of his work. He was an Honorary Fellow of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.
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Nyakatura, J. W. Anatomy of An Africa Kingdom. Garden City. 1973. Anchor Books. 0385069669. Translated by Teopista Muganwa. Edited by Godfrey N. Uzoigwe. 282 pages. paperback. Cover design by George Giusti.
DESCRIPTION- First published in 1947 in the Runyoro language, this book has become a classic in the history of the lacustrine region of East Africa. It traces the history of the empire of Bunyoro-Kitara from the earliest times to the twentieth century. At its height, especially under the warrior King Kabalega, the Kingdom of Bunyoro-Kitara encompassed the whole of present-day East Africa (Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania) and extended as far as the present-day Congo-Kinshasa and Rwanda. It has some of the most detailed and reliable traditions in Africa - twenty-six generations of hereditary rulers can be traced in the history of Bunyoro-Kitara. This study is an anatomy of an epitome of an African Kingdom. It is divided into six parts plus an epilogue. The first part discusses the Kingdom of Kitara, its people, language, extent, and the rule of the Abatembuzi dynasty. The second part discusses the exciting rule of the Abachwezi; the third and fourth parts are devoted to Ababiito rule. Part five discusses the Kitara monarchy, institutions of government, regalia, geography, clothing, economy, the King's palace, drums, royal chairs, royal greeting, the coronation, and the duties of a King, and the King's court. Part six is a summary of the histories of the Kingdoms of Buganda, Tooro, Nkore, and Kooki. The epilogue carries the story to the abolition of the monarchies in Uganda in 1967. The book includes a long introduction, notes, annotations, diagrams, pictures, photographs, and a comprehensive bibliography on the history of the lacustrine region.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - The editor, Godfrey N. Uzoigwe,is an Associate Professor of African History at the University of Michigan.
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Usiskin, Clara. America's Covert War in East Africa: Surveillance, Rendition, Assassination. New York. 2019. Oxford University Press. 9781849044547. 224 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Clara Usiskin has spent eight years investigating the 'War on Terror' and its effects in the East and Horn of Africa, documenting hundreds of cases of rendition, secret detention and targeted killings. Her book sets out the historical background to today's covert war, including the early Somali jihads and British repression in colonial Kenya, through to the 1998 US Embassy Bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, and President Clinton's early rendition programme. America's Covert War in East Africa then looks at the US Military's new Africa Command, with its emphasis on counterterrorism, alongside increasing use of targeted killings by security forces in the region, and continued renditions and secret detention. Finally, Usiskin investigates the shorter and longer term consequences of such intensive militarisation, and the proliferation of surveillance and other technologies of control in East Africa and its surrounding waters, focussing in particular on their impact on vulnerable ethnic and religious groups in a highly volatile region.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Clara Usiskin is a human rights investigator who documents national security-related abuses around the world, with a particular focus on the East and Horn of Africa. She was formerly a National Security Fellow at the Open Society Justice Initiative and Deputy Director of the Secret Prisons team at Reprieve.
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EGYPT
[ EGYPT - Literature ]Abdel-Hafez, Yasser. The Book of Safety. Cairo/New York. 2017. American University in Cairo Press/Hoopoe. 9789774168215. Translated by Robin Moger. 282 pages. paperback. Translation of كتاب الأما.
DESCRIPTION- Khaled transcribes testimonies at the Palace of Confessions, a shadowy state-run agency situated in a respectable Cairo suburb. There he encounters Mustafa Ismail: a university professor turned master thief, who breaks into the homes of the great and the good and then blackmails them into silence. Mustafa has dedicated his existence to the perfection of his trade and authored The Book of Safety, the ultimate guide to successful thievery. With cool and incisive prose, Yasser Abdel Hafez follows Khaled into obsession with this mysterious book and its author.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Yasser Abdel Hafez is a journalist and novelist, and currently works as an editor at the literary magazine Akhbar al-Adab. His first novel On the Occasion of Life was longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. He lives in Cairo. Robin Moger is the translator of Otared by Mohammad Rabie and Women of Karantina by Nael Eltoukhy, among other books. His translation for Writing Revolution won the 2013 English PEN Award for outstanding writing in translation. He lives in Cape Town, South Africa.
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Abu Golayyel, Hamdi. Thieves in Retirement. Syracuse. 2006. Syracuse University Press. 0815608527. Translated from the Arabic by Marilyn Booth. 126 pages. hardcover. Front cover - ‘Without a Breath-Masakin Ein Shams’ by Mohammed El Sharqawy. Winner of the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize Nominee for Arabic Literary Translation (2007).
DESCRIPTION- In this acclaimed Egyptian novel, a young Bedouin man trying to find his way discovers a raucous yet endearing community in a multifamily tenement deep in a crowded Cairo neighborhood. Hamdi Abu Golayyel offers a striking portrait of a marginalized Egyptian community, bringing to life the absurd and tragic characters who occupy the margins of society while paying tribute to a historical Cairene neighborhood. By turns comic, reverential, beautiful, and tawdry, the novel reveals a social climate where ruthlessness and goodness seem almost indistinguishable and humanity is on display in all its rich variety. The novelist's distinctive vision of Egypt's various postmonarchy political regimes and ideologies shapes this dark comedy of human relations and underground pursuits in late twentieth-century Egypt. Through intricate levels of allegory, puns, and double meanings, Abu Golayyel effectively plays on the rhetoric associated with the nationalist government of Gamal Abdel Nasser, including the post-Nasser turn toward international capitalism with its a consumer-oriented economy-and movement away from the workers' rights orientation of the 1960s. This novel represents a new voice and a new stage in contemporary Arabic literature, as it criticizes official ideologies, whether socialist, capitalist, or Islamist. Abu Golayyel's cast of memorable characters embodies the arbitrariness of life and the search for purpose and dignity in a social milieu that offers little of either. Marilyn Booth's translation fluently renders the novel's delicate levels of diction and rhythm, making this brilliant Egyptian novel available to a much-deserved wider audience.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Hamdi Abu Golayyel (born in 1967) is editorial director for the Folk and Popular Culture Studies Series in the Mass/Public Culture Administration, Government of Egypt. He writes for Jaridat al-Ittihad al-Imaratiyya (Newspaper of the Emirates' Union). Hailed by critics as an important new voice, he has won three literary prizes in the region. He lives in Cairo with his wife and two daughters, Hala and Dunya.
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Ades, Albert and Josipovici, Albert. Goha the Fool. London. 1924. Grant Richards. Translated from the French by Morris Colman. With a preface by Octave Mirbeau. 327 pages. hardcover. originally published as ‘Le Livre de Goha le Simple’.
DESCRIPTION- A novel co-written by two Egyptians and made into a major film in 1958. Goha is a funny little man with the faithful donkey, whose tales, beloved for their wit and wisdom, have been passed down through the streets of the smallest villages of the Middle East for centuries. The film Goha, which starred Omar Sharif and was the cinematic debut of Claudia Cardinale. At the 1958 Cannes Film Festival it was awards with the Jury Prize and was nominated for the Golden Palms.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Albert Adès, born in Cairo on 11 February 1893 and died in Paris on 18 April 1921, was a French-speaking Egyptian writer. Ades was working on a comparative study of Mirbeau, Maeterlinck and Bergson, The Pyramid - Three Men and a Truth, when he died. His daughter, Edmone, published in 1949 his handwritten notes, under the title Ades in Bergson. Albert Josipovici ( Constantinople , 1892 - Paris, 1932 ) was a French writer. Albert Josipovici was born in Constantinople to a Romanian doctor father who had settled in Egypt. He attended school in France at Melun, then completed his law studies in Paris. He became the secretary of the industrialist Lazare Weiller. In Egypt, in 1913, he met Albert Ades, whose father was the family doctor. Together, they wrote two novels relating to the everyday life of Egyptians. They are considered to be Egyptian French-speaking writers. Their second novel, Le Livre de Goha Le Simple, presented for the Prix Goncourt in 1919, won the second place behind The Shadow of the Young Girls in Flowers by Marcel Proust. The book was brought to the screen under the title Goha by Jacques Baratier, with Omar Sharif and Claudia Cardinale. Albert Josipovici died in Paris in 1932 at the age of 40.
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Al Aswany, Alaa. The Automobile Club of Egypt: A Novel. New York. 2015. Knopf. 9780307957214. Translated from the Arabic by Russell Harris. 479 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Christopher Silas Neal. Winner of the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize Nominee for Russell Harris (2016). Translation of نادي السيار.
DESCRIPTION- From the most popular Egyptian novelist of his generation (“a suitable heir to the mantle worn by Naguib Mahfouz” —The Guardian), a rollicking, exuberant and powerfully moving story of a family swept up by social unrest in post–World War II Cairo. Once a respected landowner, Abd el-Aziz Gaafar fell into penury and moved his family to Cairo, where he was forced into menial work at the Automobile Club—a refuge of colonial luxury for its European members. There, Alku, the lifelong Nubian retainer of Egypt’s corrupt and dissolute king, lords it over the staff, a squabbling but tight-knit group, who live in perpetual fear, as they are thrashed for their mistakes, their wages dependent on Alku’s whims. When, one day, Abd el-Aziz stands up for himself, he is beaten. Soon afterward, he dies, as much from shame as from his injuries, leaving his widow and four children further impoverished. The family’s loss propels them down different paths: the responsible son, Kamel, takes over his late father’s post in the Club’s storeroom, even as his law school friends seduce him into revolutionary politics; Mahmud joins his brother working at the Club but spends his free time sleeping with older women—for a fee, which he splits with his partner in crime, his devil-may-care workout buddy and neighbor, Fawzy; their greedy brother Said breaks away to follow ambitions of his own; and their only sister, Saleha, is torn between her dream of studying mathematics and the security of settling down as a wife and saving her family. It is at the Club, too, that Kamel’s dangerous politics will find the favor and patronage of the king’s seditious cousin, an unlikely revolutionary plotter–cum–bon vivant. Soon, both servants and masters will be subsumed by the brewing social upheaval. And the Egyptians of the Automobile Club will face a stark choice: to live safely, but without dignity, or to fight for their rights and risk everything. Full of absorbing incident, and marvelously drawn characters, Alaa Al Aswany’s novel gives us Egypt on the brink of changes that resonate to this day. It is an irresistible confirmation of Al Aswany’s reputation as one of the Middle East’s most beguiling storytellers and insightful interpreters of the human spirit.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - ALAA AL ASWANY is the author of The Yacoubian Building, which was long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2006 and was the best-selling novel in the Arab world for more than five years; Chicago, named by Newsday as the best translated novel of 2006; and the story collection Friendly Fire. He has received numerous awards internationally, including the Bashrahil Prize for the Arabic novel, the Kavafis Award from Greece and the Premio Grinzane Cavour from Italy. He was recently named by the London Times as one of the best fifty authors to have been translated into English over the last fifty years. Translated from the Arabic by Russell Harris.
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al-Berry, Khaled. Life is More Beautiful Than Paradise: A Jihadist's Own Story. Cairo/New York. 2016. American University in Cairo Press/Hoopoe. 9789774168062. Translated by Humphrey Davies. 189 pages. paperback. Translation of الدنيا أجمل من ال.
DESCRIPTION- In 1986, when this autobiography opens, the author is a typical fourteen-year-old boy in Asyut in Upper Egypt. Attracted at first by the image of a radical Islamist group as “strong Muslims,” his involvement develops until he finds himself deeply committed to its beliefs and implicated in its activities. This ends when, as he leaves the university following a demonstration, he is arrested. Prison, a return to life on the outside, and attending Cairo University all lead to Khaled al-Berry’s eventual alienation from radical Islam. This book opens a window onto the mind of an extremist who turns out to be disarmingly like many other clever adolescents, and bears witness to a history with whose reverberations we continue to live. It also serves as an intelligent and critical guide for the reader to the movement’s unfamiliar debates and preoccupations, motives and intentions. Fluently written, intellectually gripping, exciting, and often funny, Life Is More Beautiful than Paradise provides a vital key to the understanding of a world that is both a source of fear and a magnet of curiosity for the west.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Khaled al-Berry was born in Sohag, Egypt in 1972. He has a degree in medicine from Cairo University, and currently works as a journalist and writer in London, where he has been living since 1999. Humphrey Davies is the translator of a number of Arabic novels, including The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany (AUC Press, 2004). He has twice been awarded the Saif Ghobash–Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation.
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Al-Ghitani, Gamal. Zayni Barakat. London. 1988. Viking Press. 0670812455. Introduction by Edward Said. Translated from the Arabic Farouk Abdel Wahab. 241 pages. hardcover. Front of jacket: Procession du Mahmal au Caire (1909) by Ludwig Deutsch. Photograph courtesy of Jean Soustiel, Paris. Jacket design by Norman C. Baptista. Translation of الزيني بر.
DESCRIPTION- First published in Egypt in 1971, ZAYNI BARAKAT is a remarkable historical novel set in sixteenth-century Cairo. The Egypt of the Mamluk dynasty witnessed a period of artistic ostentation and social and political turmoil, at the heart of which lay the unsolved question of the ruler's legitimacy. ZAYNI BARAKAT traces the career of Zayni Barakat ibn Musa, Cairo's puritanically moral and severe governor, whose irresistible rise to power and control of a decrepit and corrupt city is guaranteed by a corps of spies and informers and a fantastically elaborate system of divide and rule. Using a panoply of narrative devices - diary extracts, police reports, legal decrees, first-person narratives and religious discourses - Gamal al-Ghitani achieves a complex texture whose oblique reference to the Cairo of Nasser gives the novel the dimensions of a political and historical fable. In reproducing the deceptively spontaneous casualness of his sources, al-Ghitani moves between history and fiction while endorsing neither. His use of authenticating devices serves to fashion a dislocated and richly ambiguous chronicle of another era in Egypt's history. This edition includes an introduction by Edward Said and a note on the historical background by the translator, Farouk Abdel Wahab.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Gamal el-Ghitani, (born 9 May 1945) is an Egyptian author of historical and political novels and cultural and political commentaries and was the editor-in-chief of the literary periodical Akhbar Al-Adab ('Cultural News') till 2011. Gamal El-Ghitani was born to a poor family in the town of Guhayna, Sohag Governorate in Upper Egypt and moved with his family to Cairo as a child. He began writing at a young age and had his first short story published when he was only 14. He was originally trained to be a carpet designer and received his diploma in 1962. He continued to write on the side and was imprisoned from October 1966 through March 1967 for his critical commentary on the regime of Gamal Abd el-Nasser. In 1969 he switched careers and became a journalist for the Egyptian newspaper Akhbar El Yom ('The Day's News'). Since becoming a journalist, el-Ghitani has continued to write historical fiction, and many of his stories are set in Cairo. He has also maintained an active pen about many cultural and political topics, notably the level of censorship in modern-day Egypt. In an effort to help promote the Arab literary culture, he helped found the literary magazine 'Gallery 68'. In 1980, he was awarded with the Egyptian National Prize for Literature, and in 1987, the French Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 1985, he became editor-in-chief of Al Akhbar ('The News') and continued to be a contributing editor to Akhbar El-Yom's literary section. From 1993 to 2011, he was the editor-in-chief of Akhbar Al-Adab, one of Egypt's primary literary magazines. In 2005, he won a French Award for translated literature 'Laure Bataillon', one of the highest French awards to be bestowed upon non-French writers. He was entitled for this award due to his giant work 'Kitâb al-Tagalliyyât' or 'Book of Illuminations'. In 2009, he was awarded the Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Ren, the award is worth about $200,000 and is one of the world's richest literary awards. Gamal El-Ghitani is married to the Egyptian journalist Magda El-Guindy, editor-in-chief of Al-Ahram's children's magazine 'Alaaeddin'. He has a son, Mohammad, and a daughter, Magda. Farouk Abdel Wahab is based at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago. Edward Said is Parr Professor of English at Columbia University and is the author of many books, including ORIENTALISM. .
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al-Hakim, Tawfiq . The Revolt of the Young: Essays by Tawfiq al-Hakim . Syracuse. 2014. Syracuse University Press. 9780815633686. Foreword by Roger Allen. Translated by Mona Radwan. Modern Intellectual and Political History of the Middle East. 152 pages. hardcover. Translation of ثورة الشباب.
DESCRIPTION- Tawfiq al-Hakim (1898-1987) is recognized as one of the most important figures in the history of modern Arabic literature. Considered a pioneer in many literary forms, including drama, novels, and short stories, al-Hakim influenced generations of Egyptian writers. The Revolt of the Young is a collection of essays originally published in 1984 that shows al-Hakim as a public intellectual addressing the ongoing conflict between generations. Al-Hakim muses on the cultural, artistic, and intellectual links and breakages between the old and the young generations. He focuses on the young and their role in the continuing development of Egyptian society, which over the course of the last century or so has undergone foreign occupation, an experiment in parliamentary democracy within a monarchical system, a socialist revolution characterized by both successes and failures, the emergence of a dictatorial presidency, and now the development of a complex political scenario currently dominated by groups with varyingly strong ties to the tenets of Islam. Al-Hakim did not live long enough to witness the most recent phases of this elongated and often disruptive process of experimentation and change, but in his writing, he focuses on the institution that he regards as crucial to any forward progress: the family. The essays present readers with a voice from the past, with uncanny foretelling of issues raised by the events that occurred in Egypt more than twenty years after al-Hakim's death. Radwan's translation, along with Roger Allen's foreword, brings to light al-Hakim's lucid and erudite commentary, much of it as relevant to the problems facing Egyptian youth today as it was when first published.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Tawfiq al-Hakim or Tawfik el-Hakim (October 9, 1898 – July 26, 1987) was a prominent Egyptian writer. He is one of the pioneers of the Arabic novel and drama.
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al-Hakim, Tawfiq. Fate of a Cockroach and Other Plays. London. 1973. Heinemann. 0435901176. Translated from the Arabic by Denys Johnson-Davies. 188 pages. paperback. Translation of مصير صرصا.
DESCRIPTION- “The Fate of a Cockroach” is an original three-act play by Tawfiq al-Hakim. The play is about the author’s complete dissatisfaction with the people of the Egyptian population and the social revolution that occurred during the time. The play is a reflection of the author’s reality of life for humans. The play is controversial as on one hand al-Hakim shows cockroaches being like humans and, contrary to that, he contrasts humans with Cockroaches. It is still difficult to determine if the writer is trying to mock all the vices of the population and the Egyptian people specifically or is a shining illustration of the use of absurdity in the story. The principal objective of the author is to critique his Egyptian administration and army for accurately describing the current state of the nation and the results of the culture and political life in Egypt and making the people confront the real issues. Includes The Song of Death, The Sultan's Dilemma, and Not a Thing Out of Place, as well as the title play, an absurdist comedy.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Tawfiq al-Hakim or Tawfik el-Hakim (October 9, 1898 - July 26, 1987) was a prominent Egyptian writer. He is one of the pioneers of the Arabic novel and drama. He was born in Alexandria, Egypt, the son of an Egyptian wealthy judge and a Turkish mother. The triumphs and failures that are represented by the reception of his enormous output of plays are emblematic of the issues that have confronted the Egyptian drama genre as it has endeavored to adapt its complex modes of communication to Egyptian society.
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al-Hakim, Tawfiq. Return of the Spirit. New York. 2019. Penguin Books. 9780143133971. Translated by William Maynard Hutchins and Russell Harris. Introduction by William Maynard Hutchins. Foreword by Alaa Al Aswany. 384 pages. paperback. Translation of عودة الروح.
DESCRIPTION- The celebrated, revolutionary novel from a pioneering Egyptian writer Tawfiq al-Hakim, now for the first time in Penguin Classics with a foreword by Egyptian writer Alaa Al-Aswany. First published in Arabic in 1933, Egyptian playwright and novelist Tawfiq Al-Hakim's Return of the Spirit follows a patriotic young Egyptian and his extended family as they grapple with the events leading up to the 1919 Egyptian revolution. Though often cited as an apprenticeship novel in the vein of Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man with a touch of failed romance a la Goethe's Sorrow of Young Werther, Al-Hakim's classic is most recognized for being a trailblazing political novel that illustrates the way one man's spiritual awakening ties to a political awakening of a nation. While enthusiasm for the book was stifled in the mid-20th century due to a shift in Egyptian government rule, the 2011 Tahrir revolution in Egypt caused it to be examined anew as a strong expression of nationalist solidarity and an exposé of the heritage-stripping power of Western colonialism that resonates with 21st-century Egyptians. Return of the Spirit is considered Al-Hakim's most important novel despite writing more plays than novels, and his adept understanding of class and culture within Egyptian society has cemented his place as one of the country's most celebrated writers and cultural critics.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Tawfiq al-Hakim or Tawfik el-Hakim (October 9, 1898 – July 26, 1987) was a prominent Egyptian writer. He is one of the pioneers of the Arabic novel and drama. Alaa Al Aswany is the author of The Yacoubian Building, which was long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2006 and was the best-selling novel in the Arab world for more than five years; Chicago, named by Newsday as the best translated novel of 2006; The Automobile Club of Egypt; and the story collection Friendly Fire. He has received numerous awards internationally, including the Bashrahil Prize for the Arabic novel, the Kavafis Award from Greece, and the Premio Grinzane Cavour from Italy. He was recently named by the London Times as one of the best fifty authors to have been translated into English over the past fifty years. William Maynard Hutchins is renowned for his translations of Tawfiq al-Hakim's work, as well as of Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy and the novels of Fadhil al-Azzawi, Ibrahim al-Koni, Hassan Nasr, and others. He is also author of Tawfiq al-Hakim: A Reader's Guide. He is professor of Islamic and religious studies at Appalachian State University.
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al-Nuwayri, Shihab al-Din. The Ultimate Ambition in the Arts of Erudition: A Compendium of Knowledge from the Classical Islamic World. New York. 2016. Penguin Books. 9780143107484. Translated and with an introduction by Elias Muhanna. 352 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- For the first time in English, a catalog of the world through fourteenth-century Arab eyes-a kind of Schott's Miscellany for the Islamic Golden Age An astonishing record of the knowledge of a civilization, The Ultimate Ambition in the Arts of Erudition catalogs everything known to exist from the perspective of a fourteenth-century Egyptian scholar and litterateur. More than 9,000 pages and thirty volumes-here abridged to one volume, and translated into English for the first time-it contains entries on everything from medieval moon-worshipping cults, sexual aphrodisiacs, and the substance of clouds, to how to get the smell of alcohol off one's breath, the deliciousness of cheese made from buffalo milk, and the nesting habits of flamingos. Similar works by Western authors, including Pliny's Natural History and Diderot's Encyclopédie, have been available in English for centuries. This groundbreaking translation of a remarkable Arabic text-expertly abridged and annotated-offers a look at the world through the highly literary and impressively knowledgeable societies of the classical Islamic world. Meticulously arranged and delightfully eclectic, it is a compendium to be treasured-a true monument of erudition.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Shihab al-Din al-Nuwayri (1279–1333) was an Egyptian scholar and civil servant in the Mamluk Empire. His nine-thousand-page, thirty-three-volume encyclopedia, The Ultimate Ambition in the Arts of Erudition, is one of the most important medieval collections of Arabic literature and Islamic thought. Elias Muhanna (editor/translator) is the Manning Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at Brown University and the author of The World in a Book: Al-Nuwayri and the Islamic Encyclopedic Tradition. A scholar of classical Arabic literature and Islamic intellectual history, he has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Nation, and Foreign Policy, and he runs the blog Qifa Nabki, about the contemporary Middle East. Born in Lebanon, he now lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
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Alrawi, Karim. A Colder Climate. London. 1986. Methuen/Royal Court Writers Series. 0413147509. 44 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- The Royal Court Writers Series was launched in 1981 to celebrate 25 years of the English Stage Company and 21 years since the publication of the first Methuen Modern Play. Published to coincide with each production, the series fulfills the dual role of programme and playscript. A COLDER CLIMATE Beneath the broad strokes of this unsentimental portrait of London’s East End Karim Alrawi tells a story of tenderness and humour, of characters grappling with a sense o! personal failure and simmering disappointment. Relationships are corrupted by the immediate need for money and resentments flare up as ambitions outstrip reality.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Karim Alrawi was born in Egypt and brought to London when he was fourteen. He has worked as an engineer, a barman and a mechanic. His first full-length play Migrations (Theatre Royal, Stratford East) won the Arts Council's John Whiting Award, and was followed by Fire in the Lake (Joint Stock) which was awarded a Fringe First at the Edinburgh Festival. A Colder Climate is his third full-length play. During 1983-4 he was writer- in-residence at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East.
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Al-Sharqawi, Abdel Rahman. Egyptian Earth. Austin. 1990. University of Texas Press. 0292720718. Translated from the Arabic by Desmond Stewart. 251 pages. hardcover. Cover illustration by Cathy Morley. Cover design by Sarah Dobinson/Artworkers London. Translation of الأرض.
DESCRIPTION- A 12-year-old boy returns from his school in Cairo to find his village torn by feud and fear. A corrupt official has ordered the peasants to irrigate their fields in five days, instead of the customary ten a demand which threatens to disrupt the whole life of the village. - A schoolmaster, Sheikh Hassouna, urges the villagers to rebel. But it takes many attempts, some disastrous, others comical and touching, before they join forces and stand against their oppressors. Set in the 1930s, Sharqawi's novel was first published as al-Ard [The Earth] in 1954 two years after the Egyptian revolution and appeared in Desmond Stewart's excellent translation in 1962. It has also been translated into French, Russian and other languages, and was turned into a popular film by the well-known Egyptian director Youssef Chahine. Egyptian Earth is an epic drama of great power, and an unchallenged masterpiece of modern Arabic literature.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Abdel Rahman al-Sharqawi was born in the province of Menoufia in 1920. After university he spent a year in Paris. He started writing poetry but then turned to the novel. His first novel, Egyptian Earth, is one of the most successful Egyptian novels and was made into film. His later novels are too much influenced by socialist realism. He later turned to drama, particularly verse drama, before returning to the novel. He died in 1987.
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Al-Wardani, Mahmoud. Heads Ripe for Plucking. Cairo. 2008. American University in Cairo Press. 9789774161889. Translated from the Arabic by Hala Halim. 168 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- An Arab tyrant once infamously declared, "I see heads that are ripe for plucking." In Mahmoud Al-Wardani's novel of tyranny and oppression, an impaled head seeks solace in narrating similar woes it sustained in previous incarnations. Beheadings, both literal and metaphorical - torture, murder, decapitation, brainwashing, losing one's head - are the subject of the six stories that unfold. The narrative takes us from the most archetypal beheading in Arabo-Islamic history, that of al-Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, via a crime passionel, the torture of Communists in Nasser's prisons, the meanderings of a Cairene teenager unwittingly caught in the bread riots of 1977, a body dismembered in the 1991 Gulf War, and a bloodless beheading on the eve of the new millennium, into a dystopic future where heads are periodically severed to undergo maintenance and downloading of programs.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mahmoud Al-Wardani, born in Cairo in 1950, is a writer and cultural journalist. He is the author of six novels and three collections of short stories. Hala Halim teaches at New York University. Her translation of Mohamed El-Bisatie's Clamor of the Lake (AUC Press, 2004) won an Egyptian State Incentive Award.
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al-Zayyat, Latifa. The Open Door. Cairo and New York. 2000. American University in Cairo Press. 9774246039. Translated from the Arabic by Marilyn Booth. Winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature. 364 pages. Jacket: ‘Jumping on the World’ by Gazbia Sirry. Oil on canvas, 1959. Jacket design by The AUC Design Center/Andrea El-Akshar. Translation of الباب المف.
DESCRIPTION- THE OPEN DOOR is a landmark of women's writing In Arabic; published in 1960, it was very bold for its time in exploring a middle-class Egyptian girl's coming of sexual and political age, in the context of the Egyptian nationalist movement preceding the 1952 revolution. The novel traces the pressures on young women and young men of that time and class as they seek to free themselves of family control and social expectations. Young Layla and her brother become involved in the student activism of the 1940s and early l950s and in the popular resistance to continued imperialist rule; the story culminates in the 1956 Suez Crisis, when Gamal Abd al-Nasser's nationalization of the Canal led to a British, French, and Israeli invasion. Not only daring in her themes, Latifa al-Zayyat was also bold in her use of colloquial Arabic, and the novel contains some of the liveliest dialogue in modern Arabic literature. ‘Not only a great novel but a literary landmark that shaped our consciousness.' - Abdel Moneim Tallima. ‘A great anticolonialist work in a feminist key.' - Ferial Ghazoul.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - LATIFA AL-ZAYYAT (1923-96) struggled all her life to uphold just causes national integrity, the welfare of the poor, human rights, freedom of expression, and the rejection of all forms of imperialist hegemony. As a professor of English literature at Ain Shams University, her critical output was no less prolific than her creative writing but the creative, academic, and political strands of her personality were interwoven. The Open Door is generally recognized as her magnum opus. MARILYN BOOTH received her D.Phil. in Arabic literature and modern Middle East history from St. Antony's College, Oxford. She has published several volumes of translation and is the author of Bayram al-Tunisi's Egypt: Social Criticism and Narrative Strategies.
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Armour, Robert A. Gods and Myths of Ancient Egypt. New York. 2016. Oxford University Press. 9789774167485. 50 b/w illus. 224 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Robert Armour's classic text, long cherished by a generation of readers, is now complemented with more than 50 new photographs and line drawings that show the gods and goddesses in their characteristic forms. Armour maintains a strong narrative thread with illuminating commentary in his lively, vigorous retelling of stories from Egyptian mythology, including those of the sun god Ra, the tragic death and rebirth of Osiris with the help of Isis, the near-burlesque of Horus' battle with the evil Seth, and the ''gods of the intellect'' Thoth and Maat. Now with an updated bibliography and glossary as well as new charts showing the gods at a glance and ancient Egyptian chronology in brief, this book is sure to inform and enchant a new generation of readers.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Robert Armour is professor emeritus of English at Virginia Commonwealth University. During 1981-82 he was Fulbright Professor at the universities of al-Azhar and 'Ain Shams in Cairo. He has written or edited six books.
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Bassiouney, Reem. Mortal Designs: A Novel. Cairo. 2016. American University in Cairo Press. 9789774167140. Translated by Melanie Magidow. 241 pages. paperback. Cover design: www.emmagraves.co.uk. Cover photograph by Ann Parker from 'Twilight Visions in Egypt's Nile Delta.'. Winner of the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize Nominee for Melanie Magidow (2016). Translation of أشياء رائ.
DESCRIPTION- Captain Murad is busy planning for the Afterlife. He dreams of a grand, sunlit mausoleum on the banks of the Nile. To realize his pharaonic folly, the retired captain kindles an unlikely romance between Hazem, a feckless architect longing for immortality, and Asma, an impoverished single mother who strives for a better life for her children. As Murad's tomb rises on the riverbank, so Hazem and Asma fall in love. A contemporary Egyptian romance of rare grace and wit, played out by characters trapped in their attitudes toward class and gender.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Award-winning Egyptian novelist Reem Bassiouney is an associate professor at the American University in Cairo, having taught at Cambridge, Oxford, and Utah. She writes widely on gender and linguistics. She lives in Cairo, Egypt. An adjunct professor at the University of Rhode Island, translator Melanie Magidow's research draws on literature and folklore. She lives in New York.
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Bassiouney, Reem. Sons of the People: The Mamluk Trilogy. Syracuse. 2021. Syracuse University Press. 9780815611417. Translated by Roger Allen. 608 pages. paperback. Translation of أولاد الناس: ثلاثية المماليك.
DESCRIPTION- Set in medieval Cairo, the novel centers on three generations of Egyptians, foreign-born Mamluks, and their descendants as their trials and victories mirror those of their turbulent country. The first volume, "Sons of the People", introduces us to Zaynab, the daughter of a middle-class merchant in Cairo who catches the eye of the powerful Mamluk amir Muhammad. After they marry, Zaynab is transported to the foreign world of Mamluk politics and wealth where she must navigate the complicated machinations of various rulers and raise their four children. Their oldest son becomes an architect and embarks upon the monumental task of building a grand mosque with Sultan Hasan as a symbol of the Mamluks rise to power. In the second volume "The Judge of Qus", Bassiouney tells the story of Amr ibn Ahmad ibn Abd al-Karim, a wise and compassionate judge of Islamic law whose refusal to bend to the demands of the Mamluk rulers ultimately leads to Amr’s downfall. The final volume, "Events of Nights," weaves together testimonies from three characters, each with narrow and differing perspectives on the novel’s events, subtly calling the readers’ attention to the unstable nature of historical fiction. Filled with compelling drama, ruthless ambition, and tragic love, Bassiouney’s masterful trilogy brings the Mamluk’s rich cultural and architectural heritage to life through the eyes of one family.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Reem Bassiouney is professor of applied linguistics at American University in Cairo. Her novel, The Pistachio Seller, was awarded the Sawiris Prize for Best Novel of 2010, and the translation of that novel by Osman Nusairi was the 2009 winner of the King Fahd Prize. Roger Allen is the Sascha Jane Patterson Harvie Professor Emeritus of Social Thought and Comparative Ethics, School of Arts and Sciences, and professor emeritus of Arabic and comparative literature at the University of Pennsylvania. He received the 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award from Sheikh Hamad for Translation and International Understanding.
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Bindari, Sami. The House of Power. Boston. 1980. Houghton Mifflin. 0395285402. Translated from the Arabic by Sami Bindari & Mona St. Leger. Co-recipient of the Pegasus Prize for Literature awarded by Mobil Oil Corporation. 216 pages. hardcover. Jacket by Daniel Earl Thaxton. Translation of al-Sarāyah.
DESCRIPTION- This novel was selected by a committee of prominent scholars of Arabic literature, by Yahva Haqqi, member of Egypt's Supreme Council for Art, literature, and Social Sciences. THE HOUSE OF POWER is the first novel of this great Egyptian writer to appear in English. A potent story of love and hate, of violence and ancient faith, it evokes the oppressive quality of village life in Egypt a generation ago. The novel opens with the symbolic death of a village idealist, Saleh's father. Now Saleh must deal with the petty cruelties of local bureaucrats. As the months pass, Saleh grows tougher and there is an interval of calm. But beneath the calm run strains of long-buried resentments that will tear apart the village society and catapult Saleh into desperate flight across the desert. THE HOUSE OF POWER was first published in 1971 by the General Egyptian Book Organization.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Dr. Sami Bindari, a physician from Alexandria, heads the Gynecology and Obstetrics department of a maternity hospital. Mona St. Leger writes and translates poetry in Arabic, English, and French. She holds an advanced degree in English Literature and lives in the Washington D.C. area.
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Chedid, Andree. From Sleep Unbound. Athens. 1983. Swallow Press. 0804003998. Translated from the French by Sharon Spencer. 141 pages. hardcover. Translation of Sommeil délivré.
DESCRIPTION- FROM SLEEP UNBOUND portrays the life of Samya, an Egyptian woman who is taken at age 15 from her Catholic boarding school and forced into a loveless and humiliating marriage. Eventually sundered from every human attachment, Samya lapses into despair and despondence, and finally an emotionally caused paralysis. But when she shakes off the torpor of sleep, the sleep of avoidance, she awakens to action with the explosive energy of one who has been reborn. Professor Bettina Knapp, who provides the Foreword to this translation, describes Chedid as ‘one of France's outstanding creative spirits. Her way is profound and sensitive, her vision innovative in its archetypal delineations,. a product of two civilizations, two ways of life, two psyches. Chedid's literary works unity inner and outer aspects of Western and Middle-Eastern cultures' - (World Literature Today, Autumn 1977).
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Andre Chedid is a poet, essayist, dramatist and novelist of Egypto-Lebanese origin. Born and educated in Cairo, where she received a degree in literature from the American University she moved to Paris in 1946, and became a naturalized French citizen. She is the recipient of many literary awards, including the Prix Louise LabbE (poetry), 1969: Aigie d'or de la poesie, 1972; Grand prix de l'Academie Belge, 1974; Prix de l'afrique Mediteaneene, 1974; Prix Mallarme (poetry), 1976: and Prix Goncourt de la nouvelle, 1979. Sharon Spencer is professor of English and comparative literature at Montclair State College in New Jersey. A novelist herself, she received an award in fiction-writing from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts for 1981-82. She is the author of COLLAGE OF DREAMS: THE WRITINGS OF ANAÏS NIN and SPACE, TIME AND STRUCTURE IN THE MODERN NOVEL.
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Chedid, Andree. The Multiple Child. San Francisco. 1995. Mercury House. 156279079x. Translated from the French by Judith Radke. 178 pages. paperback. Cover illustration by Marcia Clay. Translation of L'enfant multiple.
DESCRIPTION- Set in Paris and war-torn Lebanon in the 1980s, THE MULTIPLE CHILDis a timeless tale in a spare yet elegant style by a powerful writer admired worldwide. The title character, Omar-Jo, a child of war and of peace, has the power and vision of Oskar of The Tin Drum and the gentle wisdom of The Little Prince. After Omar-Jo loses his parents and one of his arms in a bomb blast in Lebanon, his grandfather sends the boy to live with relatives in Paris. There he meets Maxime, the owner of a carousel that has fallen into disrepair. The child breathes new life into the carousel - a character in its own right - as well as into its owner and patrons. Omar-Jo plays the part of the wise clown: ‘all the zanies, all the fools, all the ‘grasiosos,' all the minstrels, the itinerant players, the white-faced clowns, the Monsieur Loyals, the Augustes, of times past and present, dwelt in his body.' In this novel, Chedid illuminates the essence of conflict and redemption.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Andree Chedid is a poet, dramatist and novelist. Born and educated in Cairo, she moved to Paris, where she now lives, in 1946. Her works have won major literary awards including the Prix Goncourt (for short stories) and the Prix Mallarme (for poetry).
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Chedid, Andree. The Sixth Day. London. 1987. Serpent's Tail. 0852421118. Translated from the French by Isobel Strachey. 170 pages. paperback. Cover illustration by Sue Hillwood-Harris. Translation of: Le sixième jour.
DESCRIPTION- Foremost among Arab women writers, Chedid may be at her best in this slight, simple tale of Om Hassan, a woman exhausting herself in the struggle to bring her grandson whole through the ravages of cholera. The contagion, and reaction to it, force the two to seek isolation, first amidst the millions of Cairo and then on a small boat making its way down the Nile to the seathe way somehow to hope, to new life. The novel's lustrous prose and its concluding epiphany are more than enough to explain why this novel, written in 1960 and published in translation in England in 1962, should finally have been made available to American readers. - LIBRARY JOURNAL.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Andree Chedid is a poet, dramatist and novelist. Born and educated in Cairo, she moved to Paris, where she now lives, in 1946. Her works have won major literary awards including the Prix Goncourt (for short stories) and the Prix Mallarme (for poetry).
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Cossery, Albert. A Splendid Conspiracy. New York. 2010. New Directions. 9780811217798. Translated from the French by Alyson Waters. 224 pages. paperback. Translation of Un complot de saltimbanques.
DESCRIPTION- Summoned home to Egypt after a long European debauch (disguised as 'study'), our hero Teymour-in the opening line of A Splendid Conspiracy-is feeling 'as unlucky as a flea on a bald man's head.' Poor Teymour sits forlorn in a provincial cafe, a far cry from his beloved Paris. Two old friends, however, rescue him. They applaud his phony diploma as perfect in 'a world where everything is false' and they draw him into their hedonistic rounds as gentlemen of leisure. Life, they explain, 'while essentially pointless is extremely interesting.' The small city may seem tedious, but there are women to seduce, powerful men to tease, and also strange events: rich notables are disappearing. Eyeing the machinations of our three pleasure seekers and nervous about the missing rich men, the authorities soon see-in complex schemes to bed young girls-signs of political conspiracies. The three young men, although mistaken for terrorists, enjoy freedom, wit, and romance. After all, though 'not every man is capable of appreciating what is around him,' the conspirators in pleasure certainly do.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Albert Cossery (3 November 1913 - 22 June 2008) was an Egyptian-born French writer of Greek Orthodox Syro-Lebanese descent, born in Cairo. Albert Cossery was born to a well-off Levantine-Egyptian family in Cairo, where his parents were wealthy small-property owners. In 1998, he told Abdallah Naaman: ‘We are the ‘Shawams' (Syro-Lebanese, referring to the Bilad al-Sham) of Egypt. My father is a Greek Orthodox native of the village of al-Qusayr, near Homs, in Syria. Upon arriving in Cairo at the end of the 19th century, our surname's pronunciation was simplified to ‘Cossery' (from ‘Qusayri').' At the age of 17, inspired by reading HonorE de Balzac, emigrated to Paris. He came there to continue his studies which he never did to devote himself to, writing and settled permanently in the French capital in 1945, where he lived until his death in 2008. In 60 years he only wrote eight novels, in accordance with his philosophy of life in which ‘laziness' is not a vice but a form of contemplation and meditation. In his own words: ‘So much beauty in the world, so few eyes to see it.' At the age of 27 he published his first book, Les hommes oubliEs de Dieu (‘Men God Forgot'). During his literary career he became close friend of other writers and artists such as Lawrence Durrell, Albert Camus, Jean Genet and Giacometti. Cossery died on 22 June 2008, aged 94. His books, which always take place in Egypt or other Arab countries, portray the contrast between poverty and wealth, the powerful and the powerless, in a witty although dramatic way. His writing mocks vanity and the narrowness of materialism and his principal characters are mainly vagrants, thieves or dandies that subvert the order of an unfair society. Often auto-biographical characters, like Teymour, the hero of the novel Un complot de saltimbanques, a young man that forges a diploma of chemical engineer after a life of enjoyment and lust abroad instead of study and gets back to his home town and enters in an unexpected intringue against the authorities with his dandy friends. He is considered by some to be the last genuine ‘anarchist' or free thinking writer of western culture by his humorous and provocative although lucid and profound view of human relations and society. His writing style does not submit to an academic or experimental approach which makes him a vivid, catchy storyteller, without the boredom nor artificial ambiguity of some classical (which he is) or avantgarde writers. The sageness of his works are monuments to the freedom of being and thought against materialism, the contemporary obsession with consumption and productivity, the arrogance and abuse of authority, the vanity of social formalities and the injustice of the wealthy towards the poor. In 1990 Cossery was awarded the Grand Prix de La Francophonie de l´Academie française and in 2005 the Grand Prix Poncetton de la SGDL. The first of his books translated in English are Men God Forgot (first translated by Harold Edwards of Faruk University, Alexandria, Egypt, not by Henry Miller, whose note on Cossery appeared on a later 1963 City Lights Books edition, and published in the USA in 1946 by George Leite's Circle Editions of Berkeley), The House of Certain Death (New Directions, 1949), The Lazy Ones (New Directions, 1952), and Proud Beggars (Black Sparrow Press, 1981). Three more of Cossery's novels have since been published in English translation: Anna Moschovakis' The Jokers (NYRB Classics) and Alyson Waters' A Splendid Conspiracy and The Colors of Infamy (New Directions). As of 2012, Une ambition dans le dEsert and Les FainEants dans la vallEe fertile remain untranslated into English.
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Cossery, Albert. Men God Forgot. Berkeley. 1946. Circle Editions. Translated From French by H. E. 139 pages. hardcover. Translation of Les hommes oubliés de Dieu.
DESCRIPTION- Not that the little people are to be found exclusively in the little nations such as Egypt. Quite the contrary. For the moment, however, it is not the little people so much in whom we are interested as the forgotten people of the world. They exist everywhere, mostly in the big nations, and often in the biggest cities. They are lodged in the heart of civilization, like a cancer. They are the people you seldom notice when you go for a walk, or when the innumerable street lamps begin to blaze. As Cossery says, ‘that is how civilization makes itself felt, as lights which it scatters around it to blind the people.' - HENRY MILLER. Albert Cossery was born in Cairo in 1913, the son of middle-class parents. He studied law in Paris before the outbreak of the last war. During the war Cossery served in the Egyptian Merchant Navy. He now lives in Paris, devoting his time completely to literary work. THE LAZY ONES was his 2nd novel; a book of short stories about Egyptian life, Men God Forgot, was published in the United States by George Leite. His novel, THE HOUSE OF CERTAIN DEATH, appeared in the Directions Series in 1949.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Albert Cossery (3 November 1913 - 22 June 2008) was an Egyptian-born French writer of Greek Orthodox Syro-Lebanese descent, born in Cairo. Albert Cossery was born to a well-off Levantine-Egyptian family in Cairo, where his parents were wealthy small-property owners. In 1998, he told Abdallah Naaman: ‘We are the ‘Shawams' (Syro-Lebanese, referring to the Bilad al-Sham) of Egypt. My father is a Greek Orthodox native of the village of al-Qusayr, near Homs, in Syria. Upon arriving in Cairo at the end of the 19th century, our surname's pronunciation was simplified to ‘Cossery' (from ‘Qusayri').' At the age of 17, inspired by reading HonorE de Balzac, emigrated to Paris. He came there to continue his studies which he never did to devote himself to, writing and settled permanently in the French capital in 1945, where he lived until his death in 2008. In 60 years he only wrote eight novels, in accordance with his philosophy of life in which ‘laziness' is not a vice but a form of contemplation and meditation. In his own words: ‘So much beauty in the world, so few eyes to see it.' At the age of 27 he published his first book, Les hommes oubliEs de Dieu (‘Men God Forgot'). During his literary career he became close friend of other writers and artists such as Lawrence Durrell, Albert Camus, Jean Genet and Giacometti. Cossery died on 22 June 2008, aged 94. His books, which always take place in Egypt or other Arab countries, portray the contrast between poverty and wealth, the powerful and the powerless, in a witty although dramatic way. His writing mocks vanity and the narrowness of materialism and his principal characters are mainly vagrants, thieves or dandies that subvert the order of an unfair society. Often auto-biographical characters, like Teymour, the hero of the novel Un complot de saltimbanques, a young man that forges a diploma of chemical engineer after a life of enjoyment and lust abroad instead of study and gets back to his home town and enters in an unexpected intringue against the authorities with his dandy friends. He is considered by some to be the last genuine ‘anarchist' or free thinking writer of western culture by his humorous and provocative although lucid and profound view of human relations and society. His writing style does not submit to an academic or experimental approach which makes him a vivid, catchy storyteller, without the boredom nor artificial ambiguity of some classical (which he is) or avantgarde writers. The sageness of his works are monuments to the freedom of being and thought against materialism, the contemporary obsession with consumption and productivity, the arrogance and abuse of authority, the vanity of social formalities and the injustice of the wealthy towards the poor. In 1990 Cossery was awarded the Grand Prix de La Francophonie de l´Academie française and in 2005 the Grand Prix Poncetton de la SGDL. The first of his books translated in English are Men God Forgot (first translated by Harold Edwards of Faruk University, Alexandria, Egypt, not by Henry Miller, whose note on Cossery appeared on a later 1963 City Lights Books edition, and published in the USA in 1946 by George Leite's Circle Editions of Berkeley), The House of Certain Death (New Directions, 1949), The Lazy Ones (New Directions, 1952), and Proud Beggars (Black Sparrow Press, 1981). Three more of Cossery's novels have since been published in English translation: Anna Moschovakis' The Jokers (NYRB Classics) and Alyson Waters' A Splendid Conspiracy and The Colors of Infamy (New Directions). As of 2012, Une ambition dans le dEsert and Les FainEants dans la vallEe fertile remain untranslated into English.
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Cossery, Albert. Proud Beggars. Santa Barbara. 1981. Black Sparrow Press. 0876854528. Translated by Thomas W. Cushing. 193 pages. hardcover. Translation of Mendiants et orgueilleux.
DESCRIPTION- Albert Cossery was born in Cairo in 1913, the son of middle-class parents. He studied law in Paris before the outbreak of the last war. During the war Cossery served in the Egyptian Merchant Navy. He now lives in Paris, devoting his time completely to literary work. THE LAZY ONES was his 2nd novel; a book of short stories about Egyptian life, Men God Forgot, was published in the United States by George Leite. His novel, THE HOUSE OF CERTAIN DEATH, appeared in the Directions Series in 1949.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Albert Cossery (3 November 1913 - 22 June 2008) was an Egyptian-born French writer of Greek Orthodox Syro-Lebanese descent, born in Cairo. Albert Cossery was born to a well-off Levantine-Egyptian family in Cairo, where his parents were wealthy small-property owners. In 1998, he told Abdallah Naaman: ‘We are the ‘Shawams' (Syro-Lebanese, referring to the Bilad al-Sham) of Egypt. My father is a Greek Orthodox native of the village of al-Qusayr, near Homs, in Syria. Upon arriving in Cairo at the end of the 19th century, our surname's pronunciation was simplified to ‘Cossery' (from ‘Qusayri').' At the age of 17, inspired by reading HonorE de Balzac, emigrated to Paris. He came there to continue his studies which he never did to devote himself to, writing and settled permanently in the French capital in 1945, where he lived until his death in 2008. In 60 years he only wrote eight novels, in accordance with his philosophy of life in which ‘laziness' is not a vice but a form of contemplation and meditation. In his own words: ‘So much beauty in the world, so few eyes to see it.' At the age of 27 he published his first book, Les hommes oubliEs de Dieu (‘Men God Forgot'). During his literary career he became close friend of other writers and artists such as Lawrence Durrell, Albert Camus, Jean Genet and Giacometti. Cossery died on 22 June 2008, aged 94. His books, which always take place in Egypt or other Arab countries, portray the contrast between poverty and wealth, the powerful and the powerless, in a witty although dramatic way. His writing mocks vanity and the narrowness of materialism and his principal characters are mainly vagrants, thieves or dandies that subvert the order of an unfair society. Often auto-biographical characters, like Teymour, the hero of the novel Un complot de saltimbanques, a young man that forges a diploma of chemical engineer after a life of enjoyment and lust abroad instead of study and gets back to his home town and enters in an unexpected intringue against the authorities with his dandy friends. He is considered by some to be the last genuine ‘anarchist' or free thinking writer of western culture by his humorous and provocative although lucid and profound view of human relations and society. His writing style does not submit to an academic or experimental approach which makes him a vivid, catchy storyteller, without the boredom nor artificial ambiguity of some classical (which he is) or avantgarde writers. The sageness of his works are monuments to the freedom of being and thought against materialism, the contemporary obsession with consumption and productivity, the arrogance and abuse of authority, the vanity of social formalities and the injustice of the wealthy towards the poor. In 1990 Cossery was awarded the Grand Prix de La Francophonie de l´Academie française and in 2005 the Grand Prix Poncetton de la SGDL. The first of his books translated in English are Men God Forgot (first translated by Harold Edwards of Faruk University, Alexandria, Egypt, not by Henry Miller, whose note on Cossery appeared on a later 1963 City Lights Books edition, and published in the USA in 1946 by George Leite's Circle Editions of Berkeley), The House of Certain Death (New Directions, 1949), The Lazy Ones (New Directions, 1952), and Proud Beggars (Black Sparrow Press, 1981). Three more of Cossery's novels have since been published in English translation: Anna Moschovakis' The Jokers (NYRB Classics) and Alyson Waters' A Splendid Conspiracy and The Colors of Infamy (New Directions). As of 2012, Une ambition dans le dEsert and Les FainEants dans la vallEe fertile remain untranslated into English.
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Cossery, Albert. The Colors of Infamy. New York. 2011. New Directions. 9780811217958. Translated from the French by Alyson Waters. 96 pages. paperback. NDP1215. Cover design by Erik Rieselbach. Translation of Les Couleurs de l'infamie.
DESCRIPTION- A delightful, deeply funny novel about the triumph of the perfect prankster - an elegant gentleman pickpocket in Cairo. His eyes ‘shine with a glimmer of perpetual amusement'; his sartorial taste is impeccable; Ossama is ‘a thief, not a legitimated thief, such as a minister, banker, or real-estate developer; he is a modest thief.' He knows ‘that by dressing with the same elegance as the licensed robbers of the people, he could elude the mistrustful gaze of the police,' and so he glides lazily around the cafés of Cairo, seeking his prey. His country may be a disaster, but he's a hedonist convinced that ‘nothing on this earth is tragic for an intelligent man.' One fat victim (‘everything about him oozed opulence and theft on a grand scale') is relieved of his crocodile wallet. In it Ossama finds not just a gratifying amount of cash, but also a letter - a letter from the Ministry of Public Works, cutting off its ties to the fat man. A source of rich bribes heretofore, the fat man is now too hot to handle; he's a fabulously wealthy real-estate developer, lately much in the news because one of his cheap buildings has just collapsed, killing 50 tenants. Ossama ‘by some divine decree has become the repository of a scandal' of epic proportions. And so he decides he must act. Among the books to be treasured by the utterly singular Albert Cossery, his last, hilarious novel, THE COLORS OF INFAMY, is a particular jewel.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Albert Cossery (3 November 1913 - 22 June 2008) was an Egyptian-born French writer of Greek Orthodox Syro-Lebanese descent, born in Cairo. Albert Cossery was born to a well-off Levantine-Egyptian family in Cairo, where his parents were wealthy small-property owners. In 1998, he told Abdallah Naaman: ‘We are the ‘Shawams' (Syro-Lebanese, referring to the Bilad al-Sham) of Egypt. My father is a Greek Orthodox native of the village of al-Qusayr, near Homs, in Syria. Upon arriving in Cairo at the end of the 19th century, our surname's pronunciation was simplified to ‘Cossery' (from ‘Qusayri').' At the age of 17, inspired by reading HonorE de Balzac, emigrated to Paris. He came there to continue his studies which he never did to devote himself to, writing and settled permanently in the French capital in 1945, where he lived until his death in 2008. In 60 years he only wrote eight novels, in accordance with his philosophy of life in which ‘laziness' is not a vice but a form of contemplation and meditation. In his own words: ‘So much beauty in the world, so few eyes to see it.' At the age of 27 he published his first book, Les hommes oubliEs de Dieu (‘Men God Forgot'). During his literary career he became close friend of other writers and artists such as Lawrence Durrell, Albert Camus, Jean Genet and Giacometti. Cossery died on 22 June 2008, aged 94. His books, which always take place in Egypt or other Arab countries, portray the contrast between poverty and wealth, the powerful and the powerless, in a witty although dramatic way. His writing mocks vanity and the narrowness of materialism and his principal characters are mainly vagrants, thieves or dandies that subvert the order of an unfair society. Often auto-biographical characters, like Teymour, the hero of the novel Un complot de saltimbanques, a young man that forges a diploma of chemical engineer after a life of enjoyment and lust abroad instead of study and gets back to his home town and enters in an unexpected intringue against the authorities with his dandy friends. He is considered by some to be the last genuine ‘anarchist' or free thinking writer of western culture by his humorous and provocative although lucid and profound view of human relations and society. His writing style does not submit to an academic or experimental approach which makes him a vivid, catchy storyteller, without the boredom nor artificial ambiguity of some classical (which he is) or avantgarde writers. The sageness of his works are monuments to the freedom of being and thought against materialism, the contemporary obsession with consumption and productivity, the arrogance and abuse of authority, the vanity of social formalities and the injustice of the wealthy towards the poor. In 1990 Cossery was awarded the Grand Prix de La Francophonie de l´Academie française and in 2005 the Grand Prix Poncetton de la SGDL. The first of his books translated in English are Men God Forgot (first translated by Harold Edwards of Faruk University, Alexandria, Egypt, not by Henry Miller, whose note on Cossery appeared on a later 1963 City Lights Books edition, and published in the USA in 1946 by George Leite's Circle Editions of Berkeley), The House of Certain Death (New Directions, 1949), The Lazy Ones (New Directions, 1952), and Proud Beggars (Black Sparrow Press, 1981). Three more of Cossery's novels have since been published in English translation: Anna Moschovakis' The Jokers (NYRB Classics) and Alyson Waters' A Splendid Conspiracy and The Colors of Infamy (New Directions). As of 2012, Une ambition dans le dEsert and Les FainEants dans la vallEe fertile remain untranslated into English.
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Cossery, Albert. The House of Certain Death. New York. 1949. New Directions. Translated from the French by Stuart Kayser. 186 pages. hardcover. Direction #11. Translation of La Maison de la mort certaine.
DESCRIPTION- The Egyptian novelist Albert Cossery, who now lives in Paris and writes in French, was discovered, for America at least, by Henry Miller, who considers; Cossery one of the most powerful and promising of the world's younger writers. The ‘House of Certain Death' is in the slums of an Egyptian city, a grim tenement dilapidated to the point of imminent collapse, whose inhabitants are too poor and too wretched to contend against their fate. With the eye of a realist and the compassion of a saint, Cossery gives us the terror and the poetry of these lives forgotten by God. Albert Cossery was born in Cairo in 1913, the son of middle-class parents. He studied law in Paris before the outbreak of the last war. During the war Cossery served in the Egyptian Merchant Navy. He now lives in Paris, devoting his time completely to literary work. THE LAZY ONES was his 2nd novel; a book of short stories about Egyptian life, Men God Forgot, was published in the United States by George Leite. His novel, THE HOUSE OF CERTAIN DEATH, appeared in the Directions Series in 1949.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Albert Cossery (3 November 1913 - 22 June 2008) was an Egyptian-born French writer of Greek Orthodox Syro-Lebanese descent, born in Cairo. Albert Cossery was born to a well-off Levantine-Egyptian family in Cairo, where his parents were wealthy small-property owners. In 1998, he told Abdallah Naaman: ‘We are the ‘Shawams' (Syro-Lebanese, referring to the Bilad al-Sham) of Egypt. My father is a Greek Orthodox native of the village of al-Qusayr, near Homs, in Syria. Upon arriving in Cairo at the end of the 19th century, our surname's pronunciation was simplified to ‘Cossery' (from ‘Qusayri').' At the age of 17, inspired by reading HonorE de Balzac, emigrated to Paris. He came there to continue his studies which he never did to devote himself to, writing and settled permanently in the French capital in 1945, where he lived until his death in 2008. In 60 years he only wrote eight novels, in accordance with his philosophy of life in which ‘laziness' is not a vice but a form of contemplation and meditation. In his own words: ‘So much beauty in the world, so few eyes to see it.' At the age of 27 he published his first book, Les hommes oubliEs de Dieu (‘Men God Forgot'). During his literary career he became close friend of other writers and artists such as Lawrence Durrell, Albert Camus, Jean Genet and Giacometti. Cossery died on 22 June 2008, aged 94. His books, which always take place in Egypt or other Arab countries, portray the contrast between poverty and wealth, the powerful and the powerless, in a witty although dramatic way. His writing mocks vanity and the narrowness of materialism and his principal characters are mainly vagrants, thieves or dandies that subvert the order of an unfair society. Often auto-biographical characters, like Teymour, the hero of the novel Un complot de saltimbanques, a young man that forges a diploma of chemical engineer after a life of enjoyment and lust abroad instead of study and gets back to his home town and enters in an unexpected intringue against the authorities with his dandy friends. He is considered by some to be the last genuine ‘anarchist' or free thinking writer of western culture by his humorous and provocative although lucid and profound view of human relations and society. His writing style does not submit to an academic or experimental approach which makes him a vivid, catchy storyteller, without the boredom nor artificial ambiguity of some classical (which he is) or avantgarde writers. The sageness of his works are monuments to the freedom of being and thought against materialism, the contemporary obsession with consumption and productivity, the arrogance and abuse of authority, the vanity of social formalities and the injustice of the wealthy towards the poor. In 1990 Cossery was awarded the Grand Prix de La Francophonie de l´Academie française and in 2005 the Grand Prix Poncetton de la SGDL. The first of his books translated in English are Men God Forgot (first translated by Harold Edwards of Faruk University, Alexandria, Egypt, not by Henry Miller, whose note on Cossery appeared on a later 1963 City Lights Books edition, and published in the USA in 1946 by George Leite's Circle Editions of Berkeley), The House of Certain Death (New Directions, 1949), The Lazy Ones (New Directions, 1952), and Proud Beggars (Black Sparrow Press, 1981). Three more of Cossery's novels have since been published in English translation: Anna Moschovakis' The Jokers (NYRB Classics) and Alyson Waters' A Splendid Conspiracy and The Colors of Infamy (New Directions). As of 2012, Une ambition dans le dEsert and Les FainEants dans la vallEe fertile remain untranslated into English.
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Cossery, Albert. The Jokers. New York. 2010. NYRB Classics. 9781590173251. Translated by Anna Moschovakis. Introduction by James Buchan. 145 pages. paperback. Cover photograph: Abbas, presidential campaign poster, Damascus, Syria, 1991. Translation of La Violence et la dérision.
DESCRIPTION- Who are the jokers? The jokers are the government, and the biggest joker of all is the governor, a bug-eyed, strutting, rapacious character of unequaled incompetence who presides over the nameless Middle Eastern city where this effervescent comedy by Albert Cossery is set. The jokers are also the revolutionaries, no less bumbling and no less infatuated with the trappings of power than the government they oppose. And the jokers are Karim, Omar, Heykal, Urfy, and their friends, free spirits who see the other jokers for the jokers they are and have cooked up a sophisticated and, most important, foolproof plan to enliven public life with a dash of subversive humor. The joke is on them all.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Albert Cossery (3 November 1913 - 22 June 2008) was an Egyptian-born French writer of Greek Orthodox Syro-Lebanese descent, born in Cairo. Albert Cossery was born to a well-off Levantine-Egyptian family in Cairo, where his parents were wealthy small-property owners. In 1998, he told Abdallah Naaman: ‘We are the ‘Shawams' (Syro-Lebanese, referring to the Bilad al-Sham) of Egypt. My father is a Greek Orthodox native of the village of al-Qusayr, near Homs, in Syria. Upon arriving in Cairo at the end of the 19th century, our surname's pronunciation was simplified to ‘Cossery' (from ‘Qusayri').' At the age of 17, inspired by reading HonorE de Balzac, emigrated to Paris. He came there to continue his studies which he never did to devote himself to, writing and settled permanently in the French capital in 1945, where he lived until his death in 2008. In 60 years he only wrote eight novels, in accordance with his philosophy of life in which ‘laziness' is not a vice but a form of contemplation and meditation. In his own words: ‘So much beauty in the world, so few eyes to see it.' At the age of 27 he published his first book, Les hommes oubliEs de Dieu (‘Men God Forgot'). During his literary career he became close friend of other writers and artists such as Lawrence Durrell, Albert Camus, Jean Genet and Giacometti. Cossery died on 22 June 2008, aged 94. His books, which always take place in Egypt or other Arab countries, portray the contrast between poverty and wealth, the powerful and the powerless, in a witty although dramatic way. His writing mocks vanity and the narrowness of materialism and his principal characters are mainly vagrants, thieves or dandies that subvert the order of an unfair society. Often auto-biographical characters, like Teymour, the hero of the novel Un complot de saltimbanques, a young man that forges a diploma of chemical engineer after a life of enjoyment and lust abroad instead of study and gets back to his home town and enters in an unexpected intringue against the authorities with his dandy friends. He is considered by some to be the last genuine ‘anarchist' or free thinking writer of western culture by his humorous and provocative although lucid and profound view of human relations and society. His writing style does not submit to an academic or experimental approach which makes him a vivid, catchy storyteller, without the boredom nor artificial ambiguity of some classical (which he is) or avantgarde writers. The sageness of his works are monuments to the freedom of being and thought against materialism, the contemporary obsession with consumption and productivity, the arrogance and abuse of authority, the vanity of social formalities and the injustice of the wealthy towards the poor. In 1990 Cossery was awarded the Grand Prix de La Francophonie de l´Academie française and in 2005 the Grand Prix Poncetton de la SGDL. The first of his books translated in English are Men God Forgot (first translated by Harold Edwards of Faruk University, Alexandria, Egypt, not by Henry Miller, whose note on Cossery appeared on a later 1963 City Lights Books edition, and published in the USA in 1946 by George Leite's Circle Editions of Berkeley), The House of Certain Death (New Directions, 1949), The Lazy Ones (New Directions, 1952), and Proud Beggars (Black Sparrow Press, 1981). Three more of Cossery's novels have since been published in English translation: Anna Moschovakis' The Jokers (NYRB Classics) and Alyson Waters' A Splendid Conspiracy and The Colors of Infamy (New Directions). As of 2012, Une ambition dans le dEsert and Les FainEants dans la vallEe fertile remain untranslated into English.
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Di-Capua, Yoav. Gatekeepers of the Arab Past: Historians and History Writing in Twentieth-Century Egypt. Berkeley. 2009. University of California Press. 9780520257337. 4 b/w photographs, 7 tables. An Ahmanson Foundation Book in the Humanities. 406 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- This groundbreaking study illuminates the Egyptian experience of modernity by critically analyzing the foremost medium through which it was articulated: history. The first comprehensive analysis of a Middle Eastern intellectual tradition, Gatekeepers of the Past examines a system of knowledge that replaced the intellectual and methodological conventions of Islamic historiography only at the very end of the nineteenth century. Covering more than one hundred years of mostly unexamined historucal literature in Arabic, Yoav Di-Capua explores Egyptian historical thought, examines the careers of numerous critical historians, and traces this tradition's uneasy relationship with colonial forms of knowledge as well as with the post-colonial state.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Yoav Di-Capua is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin.
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Edwards, I. E. S. The Pyramids of Egypt. Harmondsworth/Middlesex. 1949. Pelican/Penguin Books. Drawings by John Cruikshank Rose. 256 pages. paperback. A168.
DESCRIPTION- How and why did the ancient kings of Egypt build their Pyramids? These are two of the questions which this book sets out to answer, and a novel explanation is offered to account for the invention of the Pyramids. Excavations conducted in and around the Pyramids during the past century have revealed the astonishingly elaborate measures devised by the Egyptian kings to provide for their supposed wants in the next life and also to defeat, but always without success, the incursions of the tomb-robber. The story of their efforts to achieve this twofold aim, by the constant adaptation and development of their Pyramids, is here recounted, with the aid of numerous drawings and photographs to illustrate the principal changes. Written specially for the Pelican series, this book first appeared in 1947. The present reprint is unchanged, save for one or two minor corrections.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Iorwerth Eiddon Stephen Edwards (21 July 1909 - 24 September 1996) - known as I. E. S. Edwards - was an English Egyptologist considered to be a leading expert on the pyramids.Born in London, Edwards attended Merchant Taylors' School where he studied Hebrew and later at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Cambridge University, gaining a 'First' in Oriental Languages. He was awarded the William Wright studentship in Arabic and received his doctorate in 1933. In 1934 he joined the British Museum as Assistant Keeper in the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities. He published Hieroglyphic Texts for Egyptian Stellae. in 1939. During World War II he was sent to Egypt on military duty. In 1946 he wrote The Pyramids of Egypt, which was published by Penguin Books in 1947. In 1955 he was appointed the Keeper of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum and organized the Tutankhamun exhibition in 1972. He remained there until his retirement in 1974. On leaving the British Museum he worked with UNESCO during the rescue of the temple complex at Philae. He was also Vice-President of the Egypt Exploration Society, a Fellow of the British Academy (1962) and was awarded the CBE in 1968 for his services to the British Museum.
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El Saadawi, Nawal. The Circling Song. London/Atlantic Highlands. 1989. Zed Books. 0862328179. Translated from the Arabic. Simultaneous Hardcover Edition. 88 pages. paperback. Cover: Phyllis Mahon. Translation of الأغنية الدائ.
DESCRIPTION- Hamida and Hamido are twins, grown from a single embryo inside one womb. Violently parted, they search the city in the darkening circles of a dream, only to find, lose and again find each other, each time as if it were the first. Their journey-terrifying and exact-leads to an unbroken cycle of corruption and brutality. 'An introspective. book in which Saadawi's preoccupations-sexual violence, military brutality, and the corruption of those in power-take shape in a. private nightmare.'--Independent.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Nawal El Saadawi (born October 27, 1931) is an Egyptian feminist writer, activist, physician and psychiatrist. She has written many books on the subject of women in Islam, paying particular attention to the practice of female genital cutting in her society. She is founder and president of the Arab Women's Solidarity Association and co-founder of the Arab Association for Human Rights. She has been awarded honorary degrees on three continents. In 2004, she won the North-South prize from the Council of Europe. In 2005, the Inana International Prize in Belgium. Nawal el Saadawi has held positions of Author for the Supreme Council for Arts and Social Sciences, Cairo; Director General of the Health Education Department, Ministry of Health, Cairo, Secretary General of Medical Association, Cairo, Egypt, and Medical Doctor, University Hospital and Ministry of Health. She is the founder of Health Education Association and the Egyptian Women Writer's Association; she was Chief Editor of Health Magazine in Cairo, Egypt and Editor of Medical Association Magazine.
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El Saadawi, Nawal. The Innocence of the Devil. Berkeley. 1994. University of California Press. 0520088891. Translated from the Arabic by Sherif Hetata. 233 pages. hardcover. Translation of Jannāt wa-Iblīs.
DESCRIPTION- Nawal El Saadawi's books are known for their powerful denunciation of patriarchy in its many forms: social, political, and religious. Set in an insane asylum, The Innocence of the Devil is a complex and chilling novel that recasts the relationships of God and Satan, of good and evil. Intertwining the lives of two young women as they discover their sexual and emotional powers, Saadawi weaves a dreamlike narrative that reveals how the patriarchal structures of Christianity and Islam are strikingly similar: physical violation of women is not simply a social or political phenomenon, it is a religious one as well. While more measured in tone than Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, Saadawi's novel is similar in its linguistic, literary, and philosophical richness. Evoking a world of pain and survival that may be unfamiliar to many readers, it speaks in a universal voice that reaches across cultures and is the author's most potent weapon. Nawal El Saadawi is an Egyptian feminist, socialist, medical doctor, and writer. Her works include The Hidden Face of Eve (1982) and Memoirs from the Women's Prison (California, 1994). Sherif Hetata, who is married to Saadawi, is a physician and writer who spent thirteen years in prison for speaking out against the Egyptian government.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Nawal El Saadawi (born October 27, 1931) is an Egyptian feminist writer, activist, physician and psychiatrist. She has written many books on the subject of women in Islam, paying particular attention to the practice of female genital cutting in her society. She is founder and president of the Arab Women's Solidarity Association and co-founder of the Arab Association for Human Rights. She has been awarded honorary degrees on three continents. In 2004, she won the North-South prize from the Council of Europe. In 2005, the Inana International Prize in Belgium. Nawal el Saadawi has held positions of Author for the Supreme Council for Arts and Social Sciences, Cairo; Director General of the Health Education Department, Ministry of Health, Cairo, Secretary General of Medical Association, Cairo, Egypt, and Medical Doctor, University Hospital and Ministry of Health. She is the founder of Health Education Association and the Egyptian Women Writer's Association; she was Chief Editor of Health Magazine in Cairo, Egypt and Editor of Medical Association Magazine. Fedwa Malti-Douglas is Martha C. Kraft Professor of Humanities at Indiana University and the author of Men, Women, and God(s): Nawal El Saadawi and Arab Feminist Poetics (California, 1995).
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El Saadawi, Nawal. Two Women in One. London. 1985. Al Saqi Books/ZED Books. 0863561160. Translated from the Arabic by Osman Nusairi & Jana Gough. 124 pages. hardcover. The jacket design is based on the Arabic monogram huwa. (original title: Imra'atan fi imra'a. 1975 - Manshurat Dar al-Adab, Beruit).
DESCRIPTION- Two Women in One is the story of Bahiah Shaheen. Bahiah Shaheen is an 18-year-old medical student and daughter of a prominent Egyptian public official. She finds the male students in her class rough, coarse and alien. Her father, too, seems to belong to a race apart, and the young woman has long ceased to be surprised at not being her real self in his presence. But what, she wonders, is this real self? Of one thing she is certain: it is not the hard-working, well-behaved medical student from the comfortable middle-class background familiar to all who know her. One day as she is looking at a painting, a stranger comes up and engages her in conversation. This proves to be the beginning of Bahiah Shaheen's road to self-discovery and the start of her realization that one can find fulfillment in life. Two Women in One is not merely the story of Bahiah Shaheen. It is also the story of countless women in the Third World, their hopes and ambitions, and their quest for emancipation and dignity. It is a telling reminder for women everywhere that hope should never yield to despair, that the future does hold a brighter promise. Nawal el-Saadawi first came to the attention of English-speaking audiences with the publication of The Hidden Face of Eve. Her reputation as a powerful and moving writer was further enhanced with the appearance two years later of a novel, Woman at Point Zero. She lives and works in Cairo, and is a frequent visitor to Europe and the United States.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Nawal El Saadawi (born October 27, 1931) is an Egyptian feminist writer, activist, physician and psychiatrist. She has written many books on the subject of women in Islam, paying particular attention to the practice of female genital cutting in her society. She is founder and president of the Arab Women's Solidarity Association and co-founder of the Arab Association for Human Rights. She has been awarded honorary degrees on three continents. In 2004, she won the North-South prize from the Council of Europe. In 2005, the Inana International Prize in Belgium. Nawal el Saadawi has held positions of Author for the Supreme Council for Arts and Social Sciences, Cairo; Director General of the Health Education Department, Ministry of Health, Cairo, Secretary General of Medical Association, Cairo, Egypt, and Medical Doctor, University Hospital and Ministry of Health. She is the founder of Health Education Association and the Egyptian Women Writer's Association; she was Chief Editor of Health Magazine in Cairo, Egypt and Editor of Medical Association Magazine.
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El Saadawi, Nawal. Woman at Point Zero. London/Atlantic Highlands. 1994. Zed Books. 0862321107. Translated from the Arabic by Sherif Hetata. 108 pages. paperback. Cover: Phyllis Mahon. Translation of امرأة عند نقطة الص.
DESCRIPTION- From her prison cell, Firdaus, sentenced to die for having killed a pimp in a Cairo street, tells of her life from village childhood to city prostitute. Society's retribution for her act of defiance--death--she welcomes as the only way she can finally be free. 'Saadawi writes with directness and passion, transforming the systematic brutalization of peasants and of women into powerful allegory.'--New York Times Book Review.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Nawal El Saadawi (born October 27, 1931) is an Egyptian feminist writer, activist, physician and psychiatrist. She has written many books on the subject of women in Islam, paying particular attention to the practice of female genital cutting in her society. She is founder and president of the Arab Women's Solidarity Association and co-founder of the Arab Association for Human Rights. She has been awarded honorary degrees on three continents. In 2004, she won the North-South prize from the Council of Europe. In 2005, the Inana International Prize in Belgium. Nawal el Saadawi has held positions of Author for the Supreme Council for Arts and Social Sciences, Cairo; Director General of the Health Education Department, Ministry of Health, Cairo, Secretary General of Medical Association, Cairo, Egypt, and Medical Doctor, University Hospital and Ministry of Health. She is the founder of Health Education Association and the Egyptian Women Writer's Association; she was Chief Editor of Health Magazine in Cairo, Egypt and Editor of Medical Association Magazine.
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El-Saadawi, Nawal. Memoirs From the Women's Prison. Berkeley. 1994. University of California Press. 0520088883. Translated from the Arabic by Marilyn Booth. Afterword by The Author. 204 pages. paperback. Translation of مذكرات فى سجن ال.
DESCRIPTION- Often likened to Rigoberta Menchu and Nadine Gordimer, Nawal El Saadawi is one of the world's leading feminist authors. Director of Health and Education in Cairo, she was summarily dismissed from her post in 1972 for her political writing and activities. In 1981 she was imprisoned by Anwar Sadat for alleged ‘crimes against the State' and was not released until after his assassination. Memoirs from the Women's Prison offers both firsthand witness to women's resistance to state violence and fascinating insights into the formation of women's community. Saadawi describes how political prisoners, both secular intellectuals and Islamic revivalists, forged alliances to demand better conditions and to maintain their sanity in the confines of their cramped cell. Saadawi's haunting prose makes Memoirs an important work of twentieth-century literature. Recognized as a classic of prison writing, it touches all who are concerned with political oppression, intellectual freedom, and personal dignity.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Nawal El Saadawi (born October 27, 1931) is an Egyptian feminist writer, activist, physician and psychiatrist. She has written many books on the subject of women in Islam, paying particular attention to the practice of female genital mutilation in her society. She is founder and president of the Arab Women's Solidarity Association and co-founder of the Arab Association for Human Rights. She has been awarded honorary degrees on three continents. In 2004, she won the North-South prize from the Council of Europe. In 2005, the Inana International Prize in Belgium. Nawal el Saadawi has held positions of Author for the Supreme Council for Arts and Social Sciences, Cairo; Director General of the Health Education Department, Ministry of Health, Cairo, Secretary General of Medical Association, Cairo, Egypt, and Medical Doctor, University Hospital and Ministry of Health. She is the founder of Health Education Association and the Egyptian Women Writer's Association; she was Chief Editor of Health Magazine in Cairo, Egypt and Editor of Medical Association Magazine.[
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Essa, Ibrahim. The Televangelist: A Novel. Cairo. 2016. Hoopoe/American University in Cairo Press. 9789774167188. Hoopoe imprint. Translated by Jonathan Wright. 484 pages. paperback. Cover design: Amr Kafrawy. Winner of the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize Nominee for Jonathan Wright (2016), Translation of مولانا.
DESCRIPTION- Meet Egypt's top TV preacher Hatem el-Shenawi: a national celebrity revered by housewives and politicians alike for delivering Islam to the masses. Charismatic and quick-witted, he has friends in high places. But when he is entrusted with a secret that threatens to wreak havoc across the country, he is drawn into a web of political intrigue at the very heart of government. Can Hatem's fame and fortune save him from this unspeakable scandal?
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bestselling Egyptian author Ibrahim Essa is a renowed journalist, TV personality, and political commentator. He lives in Cairo, Egypt. Translator of the winning novel in the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and winner of the Saif-Ghobash-Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, Jonathan Wright was formerly the Reuters bureau chief in Cairo. He has translated Alaa Al-Aswany, Youssef Ziedan & Hassan Blassim. He lives in London, UK.
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Fayyad, Soleiman. Voices. New York/London. 1993. Marion Boyars. 0714529451. Translated from the Arabic and with an introduction by Hosam Aboul-Ela. 112 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Susi Mawani. Translation of أصوات.
DESCRIPTION- Hamid Ibn-Mustafa Al-Bahairi left the village of his birth at the age of ten and went to seek his fortune in Europe. Paris made him rich, and he is now a successful business man, married to an educated cosmopolitan French woman. But when he decides to visit his original family home in the eastern region of the Nile Delta, he unwittingly condemns both his wife and the village to become locked in a series of frustrating and disturbing encounters - cultural, religious and emotional - which are politely glossed over at first, until they finally become the makings of grim tragedy. Told through the voices of the principal local protagonists in this tense drama (the officials, Hamid and his brother, the fiercely jealous women, the only French-speaking villager - but never the visiting Simone), VOICES gives an objective but deeply compassionate glimpse of people's lives thrown into confusion. The familiar and the strange continually press upon each other as the villagers struggle to come to terms with what was originally intended to be the joyful return of a favorite son.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Soleiman Fayyad (February 7, 1929, Nile Delta, Egypt - February 26, 2015) published his first work in Cairo in 1961, and since published several volumes of short stories, children's books and dictionaries of Arabic grammar and usage. Recognized as an exponent of contemporary Egyptian narrative - not unlike the Nobel prizewinner Naguib Mahfouz and Yusuf Idriss, the father of the modern Egyptian short story Fayyad has become part of the generation of Egyptian writers who rejected the sentimental romanticism of previous writers in favor of a more uncompromisingly psychological fiction. The novel VOICES is his first work of fiction to be published in English. Hosam Aboul-Ela, his translator, is the American-born son of an Egyptian father and an American mother. He lives in Texas.
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Fishere, Ezzedine C. Embrace on Brooklyn Bridge. Cairo/New York. 2017. American University in Cairo Press/Hoopoe. 9789774168192. Translated by John Peate. 164 pages. paperback. Translation of عناق عند جسر برو.
DESCRIPTION- On the eve of Salma’s twenty-first birthday, scattered friends and family converge on New York for a celebration organized by Darwish, her obstinate grandfather. Each guest’s journey to this fated gathering takes on an unexpected significance, as they find themselves revisiting the choices they have made in life, and rethinking their relationships with one another and the country in which they live. Traveling seamlessly between Egypt and the United States, Embrace on Brooklyn Bridge is a story about how we construct and shift our identities, and about a family's search for home.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ezzedine C. Fishere is an acclaimed Egyptian writer, academic, and diplomat. He has written numerous successful and bestselling novels and he also writes political articles for Arabic, English, and French news outlets. He currently teaches at Dartmouth College in the US, where he lives. John Peate has translated the works of numerous Arab authors, and has been a university teacher and a BBC journalist.
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Ghali, Waguih. Beer in the Snooker Club. New York. 1964. Knopf. 220 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Beer in the Snooker Club is about a young Copt named Ram, who, like the author, has little money, but has benefited from a life of privilege. A politically savvy novel set in the 1950s, the narrative critiques both the British colonial enterprise and the regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser. Ram and his equally impoverished friend Font meet and befriend a Jewish communist from a wealthy family named Edna. At the time, the two boys were students at the university and involved in demonstrations against the continued British presence in the Suez Canal Zone. A romance develops between Ram, a Coptic Christian, and Edna, an Egyptian Jew. Edna encourages Ram and Font to round out their education, and helps support sending them to London. Ram and Font's visit to London is cut short by the 1956 Suez Crisis. Upon his return to Cairo, Ram is struck by the brutality of the Nasser regime. The novel portrays two societies in transition. Following the 1956 Suez Crisis, Egypt's foreign minority communities began leaving, and the cosmopolitan character of Egypt's cities began to wane. The Suez Crisis also signaled the end of Great Britain's reign as a colonial power. Beer in the Snooker Club captures both of these transitions. Ghali was at work on a second novel when he died on January 5, 1969. In his diary, Ghali referred to the work in progress as the “Ashl novel.” Upon his death, he left behind fragments of this unfinished novel as well as six notebooks of diaries. Cornell University Library has digitized this archive of unpublished work. As Ahdaf Soueif notes, “Waguih Ghali's excellent novel Beer in the Snooker Club was published by Andre Deutsch in 1964. It attracted attention and enthusiastic reviews. The same happened when it was reissued in the Penguin New Writers Series in 1968.” The novel was positively reviewed in both the Times (London) and the New York Times, as well as in the Guardian (Manchester), The New Statesman, the Times Literary Supplement, and The New Yorker, and elsewhere. In his contemporaneous review of the novel Martin Levin calls the book “a small masterpiece of a novel that does several things with astonishing virtuosity. It gives an Egyptian's view of Nasser's Egypt that brilliantly communicates the texture of this experience. It depicts political conflicts before and after Suez in terms of imagery that transcend journalistic platitudes. And it creates an original and complex protagonist.” Two years prior to the third reissue of Beer in the Snooker Club, in a letter to the editors of the London Review of Books, novelist Gabriel Josipovici wrote, “Beer in the Snooker Club is the best book ever written about Egypt (better even than my grandfather's Goha le Simple) and it is a crying shame that it is out of print.” Each subsequent reissue generated additional positive reviews, attesting to the continued importance of the novel. The novel was cited in some cultural analyses following the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. Helen Stuhr-Rommereim wrote that the novel's “themes echo a similar discourse that fills Cairo today.” Negar Azimi also wrote that Beer in the Snooker Club “presents uncanny parallels to today's Egypt, where artists, intellectuals and youth at large are beginning to fashion a new cultural republic of sorts even as they also struggle to find their bearings.”
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Waguih Ghali (Feb 25, 192(?) Egypt– Jan 5, 1969 London, England) was a Coptic, Anglophone Egyptian writer, best known for his novel Beer in the Snooker Club (Andre Deutsch, 1964). Fearing political persecution, Ghali spent his adult years impoverished, living in exile in Europe. He died by his own hand on January 5, 1969. Waguih Ghali was born in Alexandria, Egypt to a Coptic family. According to Ghali's friend and editor, Diana Athill, Ghali carefully obscured details about his past. Ghali's diary confirms his birthdate (February 25), but not his birth year. He was likely born between 1927 and 1929. When he was young, his father died, and his mother (nee Ibrahim) remarried. In his diary Ghali writes about his family's financial struggles. Homeless, he shuttled among friends and relatives in both Alexandria and Cairo. Yet, members of his extended family were wealthy and influential, and one sees the evidence of a life of privilege in his writings as well. Ghali attended Victoria College, variously at the Alexandria and Cairo campuses, from 1944-1947. He studied in the Faculty of Medicine at Cairo University, and was present when the students staged a demonstration on December 4, 1948 that left the police chief, Selim Zaki, dead. Ghali started but did not complete medical studies in at the Sorbonne in Paris. He left Paris in 1953. He also lived in London in the mid-1950s. One report suggests that he left Egypt for good in 1958. However, personal narrative essays he published in the Guardian (Manchester) between 1957 and 1959 about life in exile suggest that Ghali was already living in Europe by that time. After living in Stockholm, Ghali moved to West Germany in 1960. According to Athill he picked up whatever work he could find, including at the docks in Hamburg, as laborer in factories, and as a clerk. From 1964 until 1966, he was employed by the British Army Royal Pay Corps in Rheydt, West Germany. In May 1966 Ghali returned to London, where he continued to pick up odd jobs. On December 26, 1968 Waguih Ghali swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills in Diana Athill's apartment. He died on January 5, 1969. Athill published a fictionalized account of her relationship with Ghali entitled After a Funeral (1986). Between 1957 and 1959 Ghali published six short personal narrative essays in The Guardian (Manchester). These essays are Ghali's first known published works. The first article, “My Friend Kamal,” recounts Ghali's political activism in Cairo in the late 1940s. This piece reappears in fictionalized form in Beer in the Snooker Club. The remaining essays, along with another piece also published in The Guardian in 1965, recount his experiences living in exile in Europe: “My Friend Kamal,” 5 Jun 1957; “Lessons for Mr. Luigi,” 21 Apr 1958; “Culture for Daimler,” 24 Nov 1958; “The Writers,” 29 Jan 1959; “An Indian Courier,” 16 March 1959; “Captains of My Ship,” 12 Nov 1959; “The Roses are Real,” 20 Feb 1965. Ghali began composing the novel Beer in the Snooker Club while living in Stockholm and he completed it in West Germany. The novel was first published by Andre Deustch in London in 1964. It was reprinted by Penguin in 1968 and by Serpent's Tail in 1987 and 2010. Beer in the Snooker Club has been translated into French, Hebrew, Dutch, Arabic, Italian, and Spanish.
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Ghali, Waguih. The Diaries of Waguih Ghali: An Egyptian in the Swinging Sixties Volume 1, 1964-66. Cairo. 2016. American University in Cairo Press. 9789774167805. Edited by May Hawas. 250 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- In 1968 Egyptian novelist and political exile Waguih Ghali committed suicide in the London flat of his editor, friend, and sometime lover, Diana Athill. Ghali left behind six notebooks of diaries that for decades were largely inaccessible to the public. An Egyptian in the Swinging Sixties is the first publication of its kind of the journals, casting fascinating light on a likeable and highly enigmatic literary personality. Waguih Ghali (1930?-69), author of the acclaimed novel Beer in the Snooker Club, was a libertine, sponger, and manic depressive, but also an extraordinary writer, a pacifist, and a savvy political commentator. Covering the last four years of his life, Ghali's Diaries offer an exciting glimpse into London's swinging sixties. Moving from West Germany to London and Israel, and back in memory to Egypt and Paris, the entries boast of endless drinking, countless love affairs, and of mingling with the dazzling intellectuals of London, but the Diaries also critique the sinister political circles of Jerusalem and Cairo, describe Ghali's trepidation at being the first Egyptian allowed into Israel after the 1967 War, and confess in detail the pain and difficulties of writing and exile. Including two interviews conducted by Deborah Starr, with celebrated literary editor Diana Athill, OBE, and with Ghali's cousin, former director of UNICEF-Geneva, Samir Basta, the Diaries bring together those most familiar with Ghali's life and work, and offer a fresh take on a distinctive author and a vibrant decade.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Waguih Ghali (Feb 25, 192(?) Egypt– Jan 5, 1969 London, England) was a Coptic, Anglophone Egyptian writer, best known for his novel Beer in the Snooker Club (Andre Deutsch, 1964). Fearing political persecution, Ghali spent his adult years impoverished, living in exile in Europe. He died by his own hand on January 5, 1969. May Hawas received her PhD in literature from Leuven University in 2014. In addition to her editorial experience she has worked in various NGOs concerned with women's issues and youth employment. Some of her short stories have been published in Mizna Journal, Yellow Medicine, and African Writing. She currently teaches English literature at the University of Alexandria.
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Ghali, Waguih. The Diaries of Waguih Ghali: An Egyptian Writer in the Swinging Sixties Volume 2: 1966-68. Cairo. 2017. The American University in Cairo Press. 9789774168123. Edited by May Hawas. 218 pages. hardcover. Photograph of Waguih Ghali in 1968 by Rosine Nusimovici. Jacket design by studio medikova.
DESCRIPTION- In 1968 Egyptian novelist and political exile Waguih Ghali committed suicide in the London flat of his editor, friend, and sometime lover, Diana Athill. Ghali left behind six notebooks of diaries that for decades were largely inaccessible to the public. An Egyptian in the Swinging Sixties is the first publication of its kind of the journals, casting fascinating light on a likeable and highly enigmatic literary personality. Waguih Ghali (1930?-69), author of the acclaimed novel Beer in the Snooker Club, was a libertine, sponger, and manic depressive, but also an extraordinary writer, a pacifist, and a savvy political commentator. Covering the last four years of his life, Ghali's Diaries offer an exciting glimpse into London's swinging sixties. Volume 2 of the Diaries covers the period from 1966 to 1968. Moving from West Germany to London and Israel, and back in memory to Egypt and Paris, the entries boast of endless drinking, countless love affairs, and of mingling with the dazzling intellectuals of London, but the Diaries also critique the sinister political circles of Jerusalem and Cairo, describe Ghali's trepidation at being the first Egyptian allowed into Israel after the 1967 War, and confess in detail the pain and difficulties of writing and exile. Including an interview conducted by Deborah Starr, with Ghali's cousin, former director of UNICEF-Geneva, Samir Basta.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Waguih Ghali (February 25, 192(?) Egypt– Jan 5, 1969 London, England) was a Coptic, Anglophone Egyptian writer, best known for his novel Beer in the Snooker Club (Andre Deutsch, 1964). Fearing political persecution, Ghali spent his adult years impoverished, living in exile in Europe. He died by his own hand on January 5, 1969. May Hawas received her PhD in literature from Leuven University in 2014. In addition to her editorial experience she has worked in various NGOs concerned with women's issues and youth employment. Some of her short stories have been published in Mizna Journal, Yellow Medicine, and African Writing. She currently teaches English literature at the University of Alexandria.
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Ghanem, Fathy. The Man Who Lost His Shadow. London. 1966. Chapman & Hall. Translated from the Arabic by Desmond Stewart. 352 pages. hardcover. Translation of الرجل الذي فقد.
DESCRIPTION- An Egyptian novel in four parts, each part depicting, from a different viewpoint, the rise of a young Arab journalist to the Editor's chair of a leading Cairo newspaper. First published in English in 1966, this novel tells the story of Yusif Abdul Hamid, a young and ambitious Cairo journalist, through the eyes of four people in Mabruka, the young peasant girl who marries Yusif's aging father while strongly attracted to Yusif; Samia, a minor actress, who Yusif lives with and almost marries but in the end rejects; Muhammad Nagi, the newspaper editor who then marries Samia and who is pushed out of his job by Yusif; and finally Yusif himself, editor-in-chief of the newspaper al-Ayyam, a stranger to himself, "someone I neither love nor hate."
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Fathi Ghanem (2 March 1924 – 24 February 1999) was an Egyptian writer. Ghanem was born in Cairo to a working-class family. He graduated from the Faculty of Law, Fuad I University, in 1944, then worked as a reporter for Ruz al-Youssef [ar], a newspaper published by the foundation of the same name. Later, he worked as an editor for Al Gomhuria and chairman of the board of directors at the Dar Al Tahrir Foundation, the newspaper's publisher.
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Gran, Peter. The Persistence of Orientalism: Anglo-American Historians and Modern Egypt. Syracuse. 2020. Syracuse University Press. 9780815636984. 232 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Why is the 1798 Napoleonic invasion of Egypt routinely accepted as a watershed moment between premodern and modern in general histories on the Middle East? Although decades of scholarship, most-notably Edward Said's Orientalism, have critiqued traditional binaries of developed and undeveloped in Arab studies, the narrative of 1798 symbolizing the coming of the modern west to the rescue of the static east endures. Peter Gran's The Persistence of Orientalism is the first book to take stock of this dominant paradigm, interrogating its origins and the ways in which scholarship is produced to perpetuate it. Gran surveys the history of American studies of Modern Egypt, examining three central issues: the periodization of modern professional knowledge in the US in the 1890s, the contemporary identity of orientalism and its critique, and the close connection between Oriental Despotism and the dominant formulation of American identity found in American Studies and in American life. Reinvigorating the conversation on the historiography of modern Egypt, this volume will influence a new generation of scholars studying the Middle East and beyond.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Peter Gran is professor of history at Temple University. He is author of several books including Islamic Roots of Capitalism: Egypt, 1760-1840.
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Hassan, Waïl S. and Darraj, Susan Muaddi (editors). Approaches to Teaching the Works of Naguib Mahfouz. New York. 2012. Modern Language Association. 9781603291095. Approaches to Teaching World Literature. 234 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Naguib Mahfouz is the Arab world's best-known writer and the single most important chronicler and analyst of twentieth-century Egypt. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988, and since then his work has been increasingly studied in North American university classrooms. This first volume in the MLA series Approaches to Teaching World Literature to focus on an Arab author or Arabic literature provides an introduction to Mahfouz. In part 1, "Materials," the editors discuss Mahfouz's background, influence, and critical reception. In part 2, "Approaches," the volume's contributors offer information, resources, and insights for teaching his work. Topics covered include the Arabian Nights tradition in Mahfouz's work, the challenge of teaching Mahfouz in English translation, the Nasserite intellectual in The Beggar, the image of Alexandria in Miramar, the bitterness of British occupation in Midaq Alley, and the quest of Sufism in "Zaabalawi."
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Waïl S. Hassan is associate professor of comparative literature at the University of Illinois, Urbana. He is the author of Tayeb Salih: Ideology and the Craft of Fiction and Immigrant Narratives: Orientalism and Cultural Translation in Arab American and Arab British Literature and the translator of Abdelfattah Kilito's Thou Shalt Not Speak My Language. Susan Muaddi Darraj is associate professor of English at Hartford Community College and a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University. She edited Scheherazade's Legacy: Arab and Arab American Women on Writing. She is the author of a short fiction collection, The Inheritance of Exile.
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Hussein, Taha. An Egyptian Childhood: the autobiography of Taha Hussein. London. 1981. Heinemann. 0435902288. African Writers Series. Translated by E. H. Paxton. 85 pages. paperback. AWS228. AWS original. Translation of الأيا.
DESCRIPTION- The first part of Taha Hussein’s three-part autobiography and an important work by one of modern Egypt's greatest writers and thinkers. An Egyptian Childhood (1929) is full of the sounds and smells of rural Egypt. It tells of Hussein's childhood and early education in a small village in Upper Egypt, as he learns not only to come to terms with his blindness but to excel in spite of it and win a place at the prestigious Azhar University in Cairo.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Taha Hussein (November 15, 1889 - October 28, 1973) was one of the most influential 20th-century Egyptian writers and intellectuals, and a figurehead for the Egyptian Renaissance and the modernist movement in the Middle East and North Africa. His sobriquet was 'The Dean of Arabic Literature'. He was nominated for a Nobel prize in literature fourteen times.
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Hussein, Taha. The Sufferers: Stories and Polemics. Cairo. 1993. American University In Cairo Press. 9774242998. Translated from the Arabic by Mona El-Zayyat. 144 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- These pieces were first published in the periodical al-Katib al-Masri in 1946, but when they were collected in book form in 1947 the book was banned by the government of Egypt. It was finally published in Lebanon, as was only published in Egypt after the 1952 revolution. This edition is the second paperback printing of the 1993 English translation based on the 1955 edition. The stories reflect the author's frustration at the complacency of the wealthy upper classes of pre-Revolution Egypt in the face of the poverty and misery of the majority of the Egyptian population.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Taha Hussein (November 15, 1889 - October 28, 1973) was one of the most influential 20th-century Egyptian writers and intellectuals, and a figurehead for The Egyptian Renaissance and the modernist movement in the Middle East and North Africa. His sobriquet was "The Dean of Arabic Literature". He was nominated for a Nobel prize in literature fourteen times. Taha Hussein was born in Izbet el Kilo, a village in the Minya Governorate in central Upper Egypt. He went to a kuttab, and thereafter was admitted to El Azhar University, where he studied Religion and Arabic literature. From an early age, he was reluctant to take the traditional education to his heart. Hussein was the seventh of thirteen children, born into a lower-middle-class family. He became blind at the age of three, the result of faulty treatment by an unskilled practitioner, a condition which caused him a great deal of anguish throughout his entire life. Hussein met and married Suzanne Bresseau (1895–1989) while attending the University of Montpellier in France. She was referred to as "sweet voice". This name came from her ability to read to him as he was trying to improve his grasp of the French language. Suzanne became his wife, best friend and the mother of his two children and was his mentor throughout his life. Taha Hussein's children, his daughter Amina and her younger brother Moenis, were both important figures in Egypt. Amina, who died at the age of 70, was among the first Egyptian women to graduate from Cairo University. She and her brother, Moenis, translated his Adib (The Intellectual) into French. This was especially important to their father, who was an Egyptian who had moved to France and learned the language. When the secular Cairo University was founded in 1908, he was keen to be admitted, and despite being blind and poor he won a place. In 1914, he became the second graduate to receive a PhD, with a thesis on the sceptic poet and philosopher Abu-Alala' Al-Ma'ari. He went on to become a professor of Arabic literature there. In 1919, he was appointed a professor of history at Cairo University. Additionally, he was the founding Rector of the University of Alexandria. Although he wrote many novels and essays, in the West he is best known for his autobiography, Al-Ayyam (The Days) which was published in English as An Egyptian Childhood (1932) and The Stream of Days (1943). However, it was his book of literary criticism On Pre-Islamic Poetry of 1926 that bought him some fame in the Arab world. In this book, he expressed doubt about the authenticity of much early Arabic poetry, claiming it to have been falsified during ancient times due to tribal pride and rivalry between tribes. He also hinted indirectly that the Qur'an should not be taken as an objective source of history. Consequently, the book aroused the intense anger and hostility of the religious scholars at Al Azhar and many other traditionalists, and he was accused of having insulted Islam. However, the public prosecutor stated that what Taha Hussein had said was the opinion of an academic researcher and no legal action was taken against him, although he lost his post at Cairo University in 1931. His book was banned but was re-published the next year with slight modifications under the title On Pre-Islamic Literature (1927). Taha Hussein was an intellectual of the Egyptian Renaissance and a proponent of the ideology of Egyptian nationalism along with what he called Pharaonism, believing that Egyptian civilization was diametrically opposed to Arab civilization, and that Egypt would only progress by reclaiming its ancient pre-Islamic roots. After Hussein obtained his MA from the University of Montpellier, he continued his studies and received another PhD at the Sorbonne. With this accomplishment, Hussein became the first Egyptian and member of the mission to receive an MA and a doctorate (PhD) from France. For his doctoral dissertation, written in 1917, Hussein wrote on Ibn Khaldun, a Tunisian historian, claimed by some to be the founder of sociology. Two years later, in 1919, Hussein made his way back to Egypt from France with his wife, Suzanne, and was appointed professor of history at Cairo University. In 1950, Hussein was appointed Minister of Education, and was able to put into action his motto: "Education is like the air we breathe and the water we drink." Mr. Farid Shehata was his personal secretary and his eyes and ears during this period. Without Taha Hussein and his passion to promote education, millions of Egyptians would never have become literate. In 1950, he was appointed a Minister of Knowledge (Ministry of Education nowadays) in which capacity he led a call for free education and the right of everyone to be educated. Additionally, he was an advocate against the confinement of education to the rich people only. In that respect, he said, "Education is as water and air, the right of every human being". Consequently, in his hands, education became free and Egyptians started getting free education. He also transformed many of the Quranic schools into primary schools and converted a number of high schools into colleges such as the Graduate Schools of Medicine and Agriculture. He is also credited with establishing a number of new universities. Taha Hussein held the position of chief editor of a number of newspapers and wrote innumerable articles. He was also a member of several scientific academies in Egypt and around the world.
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Hutchins, W. M. (editor). Egyptian Tales and Short Stories of the 1970s and 1980s. Cairo. 1987. American University of Cairo Press. 9774241711. 188 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- This anthology introduces the reader to contemporary Egyptian society as well as to modern Egyptian literature. From incredible folklore to fascinating character snippets, Egyptian Tales and Short Stories of the 1970s and 1980s introduces the work of Egyptian writers to the international world. The short stories contained in this anthology, thirty-two in all, display various themes and atmospheres - city, village, contemporary, eternal, political, reality and odd - but all of them speak to our hearts with questions of humanity. Published in Cairo in 1987, containing 32 short stories by as many writers published between 1970 and 1987. Four-fifths of the stories were from the 1980s.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - William Maynard Hutchins, who teaches at Appalachian State University of North Carolina, was educated at Berea, Yale, and the University of Chicago. His translations have appeared in Words Without Borders, InTranslation, and Banipal Magazine of Modern Arabic Literature. He has received two Literary Translation Awards from the National Endowment for the Arts. His most recent translations are The Diesel by Thani Al-Suwaidi, A Land Without Jasmine by Wajdi al-Ahdal, The Grub Hunter by Amir Tag Elsir, and a newly revised translation of Return of the Spirit by Tawfiq al-Hakim.
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Ibrahim, Sonallah. The Committee. Syracuse. 2001. Syracuse University Press. 0815607261. Afterword by Roger Allen. Translated from the Arabic by Mary St. Germain and Charlene Constable. 167 pages. hardcover. Cover: Lynn Hoppel. Translation of اللجن.
DESCRIPTION- Sun'allah Ibrahim has been called the Egyptian Kafka. And no wonder, this wry take on Kafka's The Trial revolves around its narrator's attempts to petition successfully the elusive ruling body of his country, known simply as "the Committee." Consequences for his actions range from the absurd to the hideous.In Kafkaesque fashion - an intriguingly symbolic and minimalist style - Ibrahim offers an unbroken first-person narrative rendered in brief, crisp prose framed by a conspicuous absence of vivid imagery. Furthermore, the petitioner is a man without identity. The ideal antihero, he remains, as does his country, unnamed throughout the intricate plot with a locale suggestive of 1970s Cairo.The Committee sardonically pierces the inflammatory terrain between ordinary men, unbridled displays of power, and other broader concerns of the author's native Egypt. The novel's corrosive, shocking conclusion catapults satiric surrealism into a new realm.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Son'allah Ibrahim (born 1937) is an Egyptian novelist and short story writer and one of the "Sixties Generation" who is known for his leftist and nationalist views which are expressed rather directly in his work. His novels, especially later ones, incorporate many excerpts from newspapers, magazines and other political sources as a way to enlighten the people about a certain political or social issue. Because of his political opinions he was imprisoned during the 1960s; his imprisonment is featured in his first book, a collection of short stories titled That Smell, which was one of the first writings in Egyptian literature to adopt a modernist tinge. His last book Memoirs of the Oasis Prison returns to the same theme. In harmony with his political ideas, in 2003 he refused to accept a prestigious literary award worth 100,000 Egyptian pounds from Egypt's Ministry of Culture.
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Ibrahim, Sonallah. The Smell of It and Other Stories. London. 1971. Heinemann. 043590633x. African Writers Series. Translated from the Arabic by Denys Johnson-Davies. 118 pages. paperback. AWS95. AWS original. Translation of تلك الرائحة وقصص أ.
DESCRIPTION- Following his release from prison during the general amnesty of 1964, Ibrāhīm finished his first novel, Tilka al-rāʾiḥah (1966; Eng. trans. The Smell of It, & Other Stories). The work's DESCRIPTIONs of the experience of imprisonment made it politically subversive, and it shocked Egyptian censors with its frank treatment of sexuality between inmates. The book was banned in Egypt, and two decades passed before an uncensored version was available there. Inseparable from its political context was the novel's bold realism, which challenged Arabic literary orthodoxy.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Son'allah Ibrahim (born 1937) is an Egyptian novelist and short story writer and one of the 'Sixties Generation' who is known for his leftist and nationalist views which are expressed rather directly in his work. His novels, especially later ones, incorporate many excerpts from newspapers, magazines and other political sources as a way to enlighten the people about a certain political or social issue. Because of his political opinions he was imprisoned during the 1960s; his imprisonment is featured in his first book, That Smell, which was one of the first writings in Egyptian literature to adopt a modernist tinge. In harmony with his political ideas, in 2003 he refused to accept a prestigious literary award worth 100,000 Egyptian pounds from Egypt's Ministry of Culture.
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Idris, Yusuf. City of Love and Ashes. Cairo. 1999. American University in Cairo Press. 9774245016. Translated by R. Neil Hewison. 166 pages. hardcover. Jacket painting by Maher Ali, Mixed media, 1998. Winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Award for Literature (1997). Translation of قصة حب.
DESCRIPTION- Cairo, January 1952. Egypt is at a critical point in its modern history, struggling to throw off the yoke of the seventy-year British occupation and its corrupt royalist allies. Hamza is a committed young radical, his goal to build a secret armed brigade to fight for freedom, independence, and national self-esteem. Fawziya is a woman with a mission too, keen to support the cause. Among the ashes of the city love may grow, but at a time of national struggle what place do personal feelings have beside the greater love for a shackled homeland? In this finely crafted novel, Yusuf Idris, best known as the master of the Arabic short story, brings to life not only some of the most human characters in modern Arabic fiction but the soul of Cairo itself and the soul of a national consciousness focused on liberation. ‘Like the Russian aristocrats of Chekhov, the provincial bourgeoisie of Flaubert, or the Ibo villagers of Achebe, Idris raises his authentic characters into convincing types within their context: he makes us live their agonies and hopes.' - Ferial Ghazoul.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - YUSUF IDRIS (May 19, 1927, Sharqia Governorate, Egypt - August 1, 1991, London, United Kingdom) was born in 1927 in Egypt. While a medical student his work against Farouk's regime and the British led to his imprisonment and suspension from college. After graduation he worked at Kasr el Eini, the largest government hospital. He supported Nasser's rise to power but became disillusioned in 1954 at the time when his first collection of stories The Cheapest Nights was published. He became a Health Inspector in 1956 but in 1960 gave up medicine and became editor of the Cairo newspaper Al Gornhoureya. Between 1956 and 1960 he travelled extensively in the Arab world and in 1961 went to join the freedom fighters in the Algerian mountains; he was decorated by the new government after the departure of the French. In 1963 he was awarded the Egyptian Order of the Republic. Although famous for his writing, success and recognition did not divert him from political issues, and in 1969 his play The Schemers was censored because of his criticism of Nasser's policies. Eventually, his opposition led him to retire from public view. Only after the October war of 1973 was he appointed one of the literary editors of Al Ahram, the great Cairo newspaper.
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Idris, Yusuf. Rings of Burnished Brass: Short Stories. London/Washington DC. 1984. Heinemann/Three Continents Press. 0435994212. Translated from the Arabic by Catherine Cobham. 142 pages. paperback. AWS267. Cover illustration by Ahmed Mustapha.
DESCRIPTION- These stories have the completeness of a novel. or novella, but are written with the economy and intensity of the short story at its most precise and dramatic. Idris takes his readers directly to the heart of his stories and the people who inhabit that fictional world. The stories are remarkable for the consistency of their underlying preoccupation with human compassion and love, and the mysterious sacredness of human life, as for the variety of subject matter and stylistic development and experimentation. The title story ‘Rings of Burnished Brass' tells of an encounter between a well-off middle-aged woman and a poor boy of eighteen, while ‘The Stranger' is the story of a young boy's relationship with an outlaw and murderer in the Egyptian countryside during the Second World War. ‘The Black Policeman' is a somber story of a torturer and one of his victims. ‘The Siren' is the drama of a surrender, that of the peasant woman Fathiyya to the Man in the Suit, reflecting her surrender to urban civilization, to Cairo, the sea from which ‘thousands of hands stretched out,. treacherous sirens calling to her, smoothing the way for her to plunge in.' Idris restores faith to the art of good story telling which he relishes, comsummates and protects. CONTENTS: The stranger -- The black policeman -- The siren -- Rings of burnished brass.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Yusuf Idris (also Yusif Idris, May 19, 1927 - August 1, 1991) was an Egyptian writer of plays, short stories, and novels. Idris was born in Faqous. He originally trained to be a doctor, studying at the University of Cairo. He sought to put the foundations of a modern Egyptian theatre based on popular traditions and folklore, his main success in this quest was his most famous work, a play called "Al-Farafeer" depicting two main characters: the Master and the "Farfour" [=poor layman]. For some time he was a regular writer in the famous daily newspaper Al-Ahram. It is known that he was nominated several times to win the Nobel prize for literature. From the English edition of The Cheapest Nights: "While a medical student his work against Farouk's regime and the British led to his imprisonment and suspension from College. After graduation, he worked at Kasr el Eini, the largest government hospital in Egypt. He supported Nasser's rise to power but became disillusioned in 1954 at the time when his first collection of stories The Cheapest Nights was published. Yusuf Idris' stories are powerful and immediate reflections of the experiences of his own rebellious life. His continuing contact with the struggling poor enables him to portray characters sensitively and imaginatively." Idris won the 1997 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature for his novel City of Love and Ashes. Idris' daughter Basma Idris is also a published writer.
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Idris, Yusuf. The Cheapest Nights. New York. 2020. Penguin Books. 9780143133988. Introduction by Wadida Wassef. 185 pages. paperback. Cover illustration by Christina Chung. Translation of أرخص ليال.
DESCRIPTION- From the “genius of the short story,” a collection illuminating the lives of the Egyptian lower class by one of the most important and innovative voices of Egyptian literature. One of Egypt's most acclaimed and well-known authors, Yusuf Idris is heralded as a “renovator and genius of the short story” whose signature stylistic device–the combination of literary and colloquial language à la Huckleberry Finn–transformed Arabic literature. The Cheapest Nights is a collection of some of his most important works, the title story of which follows a man who, unable to sleep, angrily meditates on the state of his life and the extreme poverty in which he finds himself. With compassion, astute observational skills, and biting humor, Idris explores the fraught lives of the Egyptian working class, all the while turning a critical eye on the power structures that oppress them. His collection of short stories, with a foreword by author Ezzedine C. Fishere, is a piercing exploration of power and religion, love and death.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Yusuf Idris (also Yusif Idris, May 19, 1927 - August 1, 1991) was an Egyptian writer of plays, short stories, and novels. Idris was born in Faqous. He originally trained to be a doctor, studying at the University of Cairo. He sought to put the foundations of a modern Egyptian theatre based on popular traditions and folklore, his main success in this quest was his most famous work, a play called "Al-Farafeer" depicting two main characters: the Master and the "Farfour" [=poor layman]. For some time he was a regular writer in the famous daily newspaper Al-Ahram. It is known that he was nominated several times to win the Nobel prize for literature. From the English edition of The Cheapest Nights: "While a medical student his work against Farouk's regime and the British led to his imprisonment and suspension from College. After graduation, he worked at Kasr el Eini, the largest government hospital in Egypt. He supported Nasser's rise to power but became disillusioned in 1954 at the time when his first collection of stories The Cheapest Nights was published. Yusuf Idris' stories are powerful and immediate reflections of the experiences of his own rebellious life. His continuing contact with the struggling poor enables him to portray characters sensitively and imaginatively." Idris won the 1997 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature for his novel City of Love and Ashes. Idris' daughter Basma Idris is also a published writer.
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Idris, Yusuf. The Cheapest Nights: Short Stories. London. 1978. Heinemann. 0435902091. African Writers Series. Translated from the Arabic by Wadida Wassef. 196 pages. paperback. AWS209. Cover photograph by Ahmed Mustapha. AWS original. Translation of أرخص ليال.
DESCRIPTION- 'Yusuf Idris, in my opinion, is the renovator and genius of the short story.' Tewfik al Hakim. Yusuf Idris' stories are powerful and immediate reflections of the experiences of his own rebellious life. His continuing contact with the struggling poor enables him to portray characters such as the peasant Abdul Kerim who lusts after wedding feasts and dancing girls but returns to 'The Cheapest Nights', fathering more children on his already overburdened wife. The hero's restless pursuit of women in 'The Dregs of the City' probably reflects his own precocious sexual exploits. The book is full of characters such as the red-haired, half-English, half-Egyptian temptress who gives herself only to foreigners in 'Did You Have to Turn On the Light, Li-Li ?'
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - YUSUF IDRIS (May 19, 1927, Sharqia Governorate, Egypt - August 1, 1991, London, United Kingdom) was born in 1927 in Egypt. While a medical student his work against Farouk's regime and the British led to his imprisonment and suspension from college. After graduation he worked at Kasr el Eini, the largest government hospital. He supported Nasser's rise to power but became disillusioned in 1954 at the time when his first collection of stories The Cheapest Nights was published. He became a Health Inspector in 1956 but in 1960 gave up medicine and became editor of the Cairo newspaper Al Gornhoureya. Between 1956 and 1960 he travelled extensively in the Arab world and in 1961 went to join the freedom fighters in the Algerian mountains; he was decorated by the new government after the departure of the French. In 1963 he was awarded the Egyptian Order of the Republic. Although famous for his writing, success and recognition did not divert him from political issues, and in 1969 his play The Schemers was censored because of his criticism of Nasser's policies. Eventually, his opposition led him to retire from public view. Only after the October war of 1973 was he appointed one of the literary editors of Al Ahram, the great Cairo newspaper.
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Idris, Yusuf. The Essential Yusuf Idris: Masterpieces of the Egyptian Short Story. Cairo. 2009. American University in Cairo Press. 9789774162428. Edited by Denys Johnson-Davies. Translated from the Arabic by Catherine Cobham. 268 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Andrea El-Akshar.
DESCRIPTION- Yusuf Idris (1927–91), who belonged to the same generation of pioneering Egyptian writers as Naguib Mahfouz and Tawfiq al-Hakim, is widely celebrated as the father of the Arabic short story. He studied and practiced medicine, but his interests were in politics and the support of the nationalist struggle, and in writing―and his writing, whether in his regular newspaper columns or in his fiction, often reflected his political convictions. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature more than once, and when the prize went to Naguib Mahfouz in 1988, Idris felt that he had been passed over because of his outspoken views on Israel. In all, Yusuf Idris wrote some twelve collections of superbly crafted short stories, mainly about ordinary, poor people, many of which have been translated into English and are included, along with an extract from one of his novels, in this collection of the best of his work.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Yusuf Idris (also Yusif Idris, May 19, 1927 - August 1, 1991) was an Egyptian writer of plays, short stories, and novels. Idris was born in Faqous. He originally trained to be a doctor, studying at the University of Cairo. He sought to put the foundations of a modern Egyptian theatre based on popular traditions and folklore, his main success in this quest was his most famous work, a play called "Al-Farafeer" depicting two main characters: the Master and the "Farfour" [=poor layman]. For some time he was a regular writer in the famous daily newspaper Al-Ahram. It is known that he was nominated several times to win the Nobel prize for literature. From the English edition of The Cheapest Nights: "While a medical student his work against Farouk's regime and the British led to his imprisonment and suspension from College. After graduation, he worked at Kasr el Eini, the largest government hospital in Egypt. He supported Nasser's rise to power but became disillusioned in 1954 at the time when his first collection of stories The Cheapest Nights was published. Yusuf Idris' stories are powerful and immediate reflections of the experiences of his own rebellious life. His continuing contact with the struggling poor enables him to portray characters sensitively and imaginatively." Idris won the 1997 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature for his novel City of Love and Ashes. Idris' daughter Basma Idris is also a published writer.
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Idris, Yusuf. The Sinners. Washington DC. 1984. Lynne Rienner Publishers. 0894103938. Translated from the Arabic by Kristin Peterson-Ishaq. 118 pages. hardcover. Cover art and drawings by Max Winkler. Translation of الحرام.
DESCRIPTION- The Sinners, a novel by the contemporary Egyptian writer Yusuf Idris, focuses on the discovery of a baby's corpse. An intense desire to bring the killer to justice arouses the local peasants, and gives them the excuse to pry into the lives of the entire community. The primary suspects are a group of indigent migrant workers, and the question of their guilt or innocence soon reveals other kinds of truths. The best-known novel of one of Egypt's leading writers, The Sinners is an evocative account of life in pre-revolutionary Egypt, taking a hard look at the social mores and taboos of peasant society. Yusuf Idris was born in 1927 in Egypt. His imprisonment for political activities against Farouk's regime interrupted his medical school education. Following graduation, he worked in the medical field until 1960, when he became editor of the Cairo newspaper Al Gomhoureya. His rising fame as a writer did not divert him from political activity, which led to the censorship of his writing and pressure from authorities. A collection of his short stories, The Cheapest Nights, is also available from Three Continents.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Yusuf Idris (also Yusif Idris, May 19, 1927 - August 1, 1991) was an Egyptian writer of plays, short stories, and novels. Idris was born in Faqous. He originally trained to be a doctor, studying at the University of Cairo. He sought to put the foundations of a modern Egyptian theatre based on popular traditions and folklore, his main success in this quest was his most famous work, a play called "Al-Farafeer" depicting two main characters: the Master and the "Farfour" [=poor layman]. For some time he was a regular writer in the famous daily newspaper Al-Ahram. It is known that he was nominated several times to win the Nobel prize for literature. From the English edition of The Cheapest Nights: "While a medical student his work against Farouk's regime and the British led to his imprisonment and suspension from College. After graduation, he worked at Kasr el Eini, the largest government hospital in Egypt. He supported Nasser's rise to power but became disillusioned in 1954 at the time when his first collection of stories The Cheapest Nights was published. Yusuf Idris' stories are powerful and immediate reflections of the experiences of his own rebellious life. His continuing contact with the struggling poor enables him to portray characters sensitively and imaginatively." Idris won the 1997 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature for his novel City of Love and Ashes. Idris' daughter Basma Idris is also a published writer.
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Johnson-Davies, Denys (editor). Egyptian One-act Plays. London. 1981. Heinemann. African Writers Series. Selected and translated from the Arabic by Denys Johnson-Davies. 118 pages. paperback. AWS232. AWS original.
DESCRIPTION- Includes - The interrogation by Farid Kamil, The Trap by Alfred Farag, Marital bliss by Abdel-Moneim Selim, The wheat well by Ali Salem, and The donkey market by Tewfik al-Hakim.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Denys Johnson-Davies (also known as Abdul Wadud) was an eminent Arabic-to-English literary translator who translated, inter alia, several works by Nobel Prize-winning Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz, Sudanese author Tayeb Salih, Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish and Syrian author Zakaria Tamer. Johnson-Davies, referred to as 'the leading Arabic-English translator of our time' by Edward Said, translated more than twenty-five volumes of short stories, novels, plays, and poetry, and was the first to translate the work of Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz. He was also interested in Islamic studies and was co-translator of three volumes of Prophetic Hadith. He wrote a number of children's books adapted from traditional Arabic sources, including a collection of his own short stories, Fate of a Prisoner, which was published in 1999. Born in 1922 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada of English parentage, Johnson-Davies spent his childhood in Sudan, Egypt, Uganda, and Kenya, and then was sent to England at age 12. Johnson-Davies studied Oriental languages at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and lectured on translation and English literature at several universities across the Arab World. In 2006, he published his memoirs In 2007, he was awarded the Sheikh Zayed Book Award 'Culture Personality of the Year', valued at about $300,000. In his latter years he lived between Marrakesh and Cairo. Denys Johnson-Davies died in Egypt on 22 May 2017.
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Johnson-Davies, Denys (editor). Egyptian Short Stories. London. 1978. Heinemann. African Writers Series. 135 pages. paperback. AWS196. AWS original.
DESCRIPTION- Includes 'House of flesh' by Yusuf Idris, 'Grandad Hasan' by Yahya Taher Abdullah, 'Within the walls' by Edward El-Kharrat, 'The performer' by Ibrahim Aslan, 'The whistle' by Abdul Hakim Kassem, 'Suddenly it rained' by Baha Taher, 'The man who saw the sole of his left foot in a cracked mirror' by Lutfi Al-Khouli, 'A conversation from the third floor' by Mohamed El-Bisatie, 'Yusuf Murad Morcos' by Nabil Gorgy, 'The conjurer made off with the dish' by Naguib Mahfouz, 'The accusation' by Suleiman Fayyad, 'A place under the dome' by Abdul Rahman Fahmy, 'The country boy' by Yusuf Sibai, 'The snake' by Sonallah Ibrahim, 'The crush of life' by Yusuf Sharouni, 'A story from prison' by Yahya Hakki & 'The child and the king' by Gamil Atia Ibrahim.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Denys Johnson-Davies (also known as Abdul Wadud) was an eminent Arabic-to-English literary translator who translated, inter alia, several works by Nobel Prize-winning Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz, Sudanese author Tayeb Salih, Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish and Syrian author Zakaria Tamer. Johnson-Davies, referred to as 'the leading Arabic-English translator of our time' by Edward Said, translated more than twenty-five volumes of short stories, novels, plays, and poetry, and was the first to translate the work of Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz. He was also interested in Islamic studies and was co-translator of three volumes of Prophetic Hadith. He wrote a number of children's books adapted from traditional Arabic sources, including a collection of his own short stories, Fate of a Prisoner, which was published in 1999. Born in 1922 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada of English parentage, Johnson-Davies spent his childhood in Sudan, Egypt, Uganda, and Kenya, and then was sent to England at age 12. Johnson-Davies studied Oriental languages at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and lectured on translation and English literature at several universities across the Arab World. In 2006, he published his memoirs In 2007, he was awarded the Sheikh Zayed Book Award 'Culture Personality of the Year', valued at about $300,000. In his latter years he lived between Marrakesh and Cairo. Denys Johnson-Davies died in Egypt on 22 May 2017.
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Lichtheim, Miriam. Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume 1 - the Old & Middle Kingdoms. Berkeley. 2006. University of California Press. 0520248422. With a New Foreword by Antonio Loprieno. 300 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- First published in 1973 - and followed by Volume II in 1976 and Volume III in 1980 - this anthology has assumed classic status in the field of Egyptology and portrays the remarkable evolution of the literary forms of one of the world's earliest civilizations. Volume I outlines the early and gradual evolution of Egyptian literary genres, including biographical and historical inscriptions carved on stone, the various classes of literary works written with pen on papyrus, and the mortuary literature that focuses on life after death. Introduced with a new foreword by Antonio Loprieno. Volume II shows the culmination of these literary genres within the single period known as the New Kingdom (1550-1080 B.C.). With a new foreword by Hans-W. Fischer-Elfert. Volume III spans the last millennium of Pharaonic civilization, from the tenth century B.C. to the beginning of the Christian era. With a new foreword by Joseph G. Manning.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - For thirty years Miriam Lichtheim was Near East Bibliographer and Lecturer at University of California, Los Angeles. She retired in 1974 to devote herself to Egyptological research and later moved to Jerusalem where she taught at Hebrew University. She died in 2004. Antonio Lopriano is Professor of Egyptology at the University of Basel, Switzerland.
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Lichtheim, Miriam. Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume 2 - the New Kingdom. Berkeley. 2006. University of California Press. 0520248430. With a New Foreword by Hans-W. Fischer-Elfert. 264 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- First published in 1973 - and followed by Volume II in 1976 and Volume III in 1980 - this anthology has assumed classic status in the field of Egyptology and portrays the remarkable evolution of the literary forms of one of the world's earliest civilizations. Volume I outlines the early and gradual evolution of Egyptian literary genres, including biographical and historical inscriptions carved on stone, the various classes of literary works written with pen on papyrus, and the mortuary literature that focuses on life after death. Introduced with a new foreword by Antonio Loprieno. Volume II shows the culmination of these literary genres within the single period known as the New Kingdom (1550-1080 B.C.). With a new foreword by Hans-W. Fischer-Elfert. Volume III spans the last millennium of Pharaonic civilization, from the tenth century B.C. to the beginning of the Christian era. With a new foreword by Joseph G. Manning.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - For thirty years Miriam Lichtheim was Near East Bibliographer and Lecturer at University of California, Los Angeles. She retired in 1974 to devote herself to Egyptological research and later moved to Jerusalem where she taught at Hebrew University. She died in 2004. Antonio Lopriano is Professor of Egyptology at the University of Basel, Switzerland.
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Lichtheim, Miriam. Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume 3 - the Late Period. Berkeley. 2006. University of California Press. 0520248449. With a New Foreword by Joseph G. Manning. 253 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- First published in 1973 - and followed by Volume II in 1976 and Volume III in 1980 - this anthology has assumed classic status in the field of Egyptology and portrays the remarkable evolution of the literary forms of one of the world's earliest civilizations. Volume I outlines the early and gradual evolution of Egyptian literary genres, including biographical and historical inscriptions carved on stone, the various classes of literary works written with pen on papyrus, and the mortuary literature that focuses on life after death. Introduced with a new foreword by Antonio Loprieno. Volume II shows the culmination of these literary genres within the single period known as the New Kingdom (1550-1080 B.C.). With a new foreword by Hans-W. Fischer-Elfert. Volume III spans the last millennium of Pharaonic civilization, from the tenth century B.C. to the beginning of the Christian era. With a new foreword by Joseph G. Manning.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - For thirty years Miriam Lichtheim was Near East Bibliographer and Lecturer at University of California, Los Angeles. She retired in 1974 to devote herself to Egyptological research and later moved to Jerusalem where she taught at Hebrew University. She died in 2004. Antonio Lopriano is Professor of Egyptology at the University of Basel, Switzerland.
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Mahfouz, Naguib. Adrift On the Nile. New York. 1993. Doubleday. 0385423225. Nobel Prize Winner. Translated from the Arabic by Frances Liardet. 168 pages. hardcover. Cover painting by Steven Rydberg.Cover design by Julie Duquet. Translation of ثرثرة فوق ا.
DESCRIPTION- For the thousands of devoted readers of Naguib Mahfouz's The Cairo Trilogy, ADRIFT ON THE NILE - first published in Arabic in 1966 - will be an exciting and dramatic change of pace. In elegant and economic prose, Mahfouz creates - out of the simplest of plots - a telling commentary on human nature. It is the late sixties, and for the group of friends who meet night after night on a houseboat moored along the banks of the Nile, life is not what it used to be. Nasser has ushered in an age of enormous social change; responsibility is the watchword, and there is no time for the frivolous or the absurd. In this serious world, the theory of ‘art for art's sake' has been usurped by the concepts of committed theater, social realism, and art with a message for the people. These middle-aged and middle-class sons and daughters of the old bourgeoisie are left high and dry, to gather beneath the moonlight, smoking and chatting, hoping to re-create the cozy and enchanted world they so dearly miss. Their witty sallies are as inconsequential as the midges that weave around the lamp. They wistfully hark back to the High Middle Ages of the Mamluk sultans. Their constant companion is the pipe, filled with kif or hashish, whose heady smoke provides oblivion from their existential terror and despair. But one night, art and reality collide - with unforeseen consequences. At once thrilling and deeply serious, ADRIFT ON THE NILE is a tale that exposes the crisis of man - and artist - in modern times.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911-2006) was born in the crowded Cairo district of Gamaliya. He graduated in philosophy from King Fuad University in 1934, and went on to write nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. WILLIAM M. HUTCHINS is the principal translator of Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy, and has most recently translated Mohammed Khudayyir's Basrayatha (AUC Press, 2007), Fadhil al-Azzawi's THE LAST OF THE ANGELS (AUC Press, 2007), and CELL BLOCK FIVE (AUG Press, 2008).
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Mahfouz, Naguib. Arabian Nights and Days. New York. 1995. Doubleday. 0385468881. Translated from the Arabic by Denys Johnson-Davies. 229 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Stephan Daigle, Jacket design by Mario J, Pulice. Jacket typography by Anita Karl. Translation of ليالي ألف ل.
DESCRIPTION- Drawing on the characters and the spirit of the classic A Thousand and One Nights, ARABIAN NIGHTS AND DAYS is a significant departure for Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz. Though he is best known for chronicling his own times, in this novel, first published in Arabic in 1982, Mahfouz injects new life into an Arabic masterpiece. Though it is set in an Islamic city in medieval times, the modern reader will find much in this novel that is surprisingly familiar. It depicts a city plagued by widespread corruption among its most powerful citizens, and a pervasive sense of social unrest and insecurity. The chief of police is kept particularly busy dealing with the underground activities of various religious sects that are intent on changing the unscrupulous regime. Amid all of this, as in the original Arabian Nights, genies appear out of bottles accidentally opened by innocent individuals, affecting their lives in exciting, sometimes detrimental, ways. The structure of the Arabian Nights provides for Mahfouz, a writer interested in the moral and political issues of his day, a convenient vehicle for criticizing the society in which he lives, a society in which corruption is rife. The religious sects in this novel are not at all different from the Islamic fundamentalist movements of today that call for drastic political changes. Famed for his skill as a storyteller, Naguib Mahfouz has here produced a novel that is as colorful and entertaining as the book that inspired it.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911-2006) was born in the crowded Cairo district of Gamaliya. He graduated in philosophy from King Fuad University in 1934, and went on to write nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. WILLIAM M. HUTCHINS is the principal translator of Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy, and has most recently translated Mohammed Khudayyir's Basrayatha (AUC Press, 2007), Fadhil al-Azzawi's THE LAST OF THE ANGELS (AUC Press, 2007), and CELL BLOCK FIVE (AUG Press, 2008).
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Mahfouz, Naguib. Autumn Quail. Cairo. 1986. American University In Cairo Press. 977424107x. Translated from the Arabic by Roger Allen. Revised by John Rodenbeck. 147 pages. paperback. Originally published in Arabic as Summan wa-al-kharif, 1962.
DESCRIPTION- First published in Arabic in 1962, AUTUMN QUAIL is a tale of moral responsibility, alienation, and political downfall featuring a corrupt young bureaucrat, Isa ad-Dabbagh, who is one of the early victims of the purge after Nasser's 1952 Revolution. With the loss of his position and prestige, and with his loyalty to the old regime intact, Isa is unable to adjust to the new administration and drifts aimlessly for months, loath to make any decisions about his future. The conflict between his emotional instincts and his gradual intellectual acceptance of the Revolution forms the framework for a remarkable portrait of the clash between past and present, a portrait that is ultimately an optimistic one in which the two will peacefully coexist. Winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature,
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911-2006) was born in the crowded Cairo district of Gamaliya. He graduated in philosophy from King Fuad University in 1934, and went on to write nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. WILLIAM M. HUTCHINS is the principal translator of Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy, and has most recently translated Mohammed Khudayyir's Basrayatha (AUC Press, 2007), Fadhil al-Azzawi's THE LAST OF THE ANGELS (AUC Press, 2007), and CELL BLOCK FIVE (AUG Press, 2008).
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Mahfouz, Naguib. Before the Throne. Cairo/New York. 2009. American University in Cairo press. 9789774162916. Translated from the Arabic by Raymond Stock. 164 pages. hardcover. Jacket photograph by Mohsen Allam. Jacket design by Andrea El-Akshar. Translation of أمام العرش: حوار مع الحكا.
DESCRIPTION- In this extraordinary drama-in-dialogue, Naguib Mahfouz reveals his love for all of Egypt's extensive history - and his deep knowledge of it. In Before the Throne, he summons nearly sixty of Egypt's rulers to the afterlife Court of Osiris, from a king who unified Egypt for the first time, around 3000 BC, to a president assassinated by religious extremists in 1981. He includes names as familiar as the pharaoh Ramesses II and as obscure as the medieval vizier Qaraqush. Defending their behavior before the divine tribunal, those who acted for the nation's good are honored with immortality, but those who failed to protect it leave the gilded hall of eternal justice with a very different verdict. Full of Mahfouz's unique insight into his country's timeless qualities, this controversial work skillfully traces five thousand years of Egypt's past as it flows into the present, through the mind of its most acclaimed author.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911-2006) was born in the crowded Cairo district of Gamaliya. He graduated in philosophy from King Fuad University in 1934, and went on to write nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. WILLIAM M. HUTCHINS is the principal translator of Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy, and has most recently translated Mohammed Khudayyir's Basrayatha (AUC Press, 2007), Fadhil al-Azzawi's THE LAST OF THE ANGELS (AUC Press, 2007), and CELL BLOCK FIVE (AUG Press, 2008).
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Mahfouz, Naguib. Cairo Modern. Cairo. 2008. American University in Cairo Press. 9789774161568. Translated from the Arabic by William M. Hutchins. 242 pages. hardcover. Jacket photograph courtesy of the Hazak family archive. Jacket design by Andrea El-Akshar. Translation of القاهرة الجدي.
DESCRIPTION- The novelist's camera pans from the dome of King Fuad University (now Cairo University) to students streaming out of the campus, focusing on four students in their twenties, each representing a different trend in Egypt in the 1930s. Finally the camera comes to rest on Mahgub Abd al-Da'im. A scamp, he fancies himself a nihilist, a hedonist, an egotist, but his personal vulnerability is soon revealed by a family crisis back home in al-Qanatir, a dusty, provincial town on the Nile that is also a popular destination for Cairene day-trippers. His emotional life also fluctuates between the extremes of a street girl, who makes her living gathering cigarette butts, and his wealth- cousin Tahiya. Since he thinks that virtue is merely a social construct how far will our would-be nihilist go in trying to fulfill his unbridled ambitions? What if he discovers that high society is more corrupt and cynical than he is? With a wink back at Goethe's Faust and Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrews, Mahgub becomes a willing collaborator in his own corruption. Published in Arabic in the 1940s, this cautionary morality tale about self-defeating egoism and ill-digested foreign philosophies comes from the same period as one of the writer's best-known works, MIDAQ ALLEY. Both novels are comic and heartfelt indictments not so much of Egyptian society between the world wars as of human nature and our paltry attempts to establish just societies.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911-2006) was born in the crowded Cairo district of Gamaliya. He graduated in philosophy from King Fuad University in 1934, and went on to write nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. WILLIAM M. HUTCHINS is the principal translator of Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy, and has most recently translated Mohammed Khudayyir's Basrayatha (AUC Press, 2007), Fadhil al-Azzawi's THE LAST OF THE ANGELS (AUC Press, 2007), and CELL BLOCK FIVE (AUG Press, 2008).
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Mahfouz, Naguib. Children of Gebelawi. New York. 1981. Three Continents Press/Heinemann. 0435994158. Translated from the Arabic by Philip Stewart. Arab Authors series. 355 pages. paperback. AA15/AWS225. Cover design by Ahmed Mustapha. Translation of أولاد حارتن.
DESCRIPTION- It is not often that preachers lead their flocks into the streets to shout for the banning of novel hailed by many as a masterpiece, nor that the editor of a great newspaper has to rely on his friendship with the Head of State to ensure that a serial is published uncut to the end. But this is what happened in Nasser's Egypt in 1959 when the semi-official Al-Ahram printed ‘Children of Gebelawi' by Naguib Mahfouz. So great was the uproar that no Egyptian publisher dared bring it out in book form, and for years it passed from hand to hand in the newspaper version. It was only in 1967, and in Lebanon, that it was at last made available, slightly expurgated, by Dar-al-Adab. The reason for these strong reactions was that Naguib Mahfouz had boldly taken up the issues that most deeply divide Egypt and, perhaps, the world. The Successive heroes of his imaginary Cairo alley relive unawares the lives of Adam, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed; and their aged ancestor, Gebelawi, represents God, or rather ‘not God, but a certain idea of God that men have made', as Mahfouz put it in the course of discussion with me, so that his fate takes on a dreadful significance. Most readers became so passionately involved that they could see in the novel only their own ideology, or that of their most hated opponents, though a closer study would have shown them that the book has many dimensions and that its interpretation is no simple task. Mahfouz confounded friends and foes alike by his choice of subject. He had earned a reputation for himself as ‘the Galsworthy of Egypt', particularly with his Trilogy, which he completed in 1952 and for which he shared the State Prize for Literature in 1957. Why now did this chronicle of social history turn to a religious theme? A second look at his earlier work show that his spiritual preoccupations were by no means new. Even in MIDAQ ALLEY (available in English as number 2 of Heinemann's Arab Authors series), first published in 1947 and often superficially described as ‘Dickensian' - though Mahfouz admits to never having managed to read more than half a Dickens novel - the two key figures are Radwan Hussainy, ‘who stepped lightly over the sorrows of the world, his heart soaring towards heaven as he embraced all men in his love', and Sheikh Darwish, ‘who had abandoned family, friends and acquaintances, and had wandered off into the world of God'. Similarly, in the works published since 1959 Mahfouz has returned again and again to the subjects of illusion and reality, hallucination and mystic enlightenment, most notably in Zaabalawi (translated in volume 3 of Arab Authors) which is the author's gloss on GebelawL Naguib Mahfouz was born in 1911 in Gemalia and lived there till the age of six. Its sights and sounds and smells were to provide him with the setting for all the works written between the pharaonic novels of 1939 till 1944 and the ‘post-revolutionary' writings of 1960 onwards. He did a degree in philosophy, but turned aside from a university career feeling that it would take him away from his vocation of writer. All his book have been produced in the spare time left to him by his jobs: in the University Secretariat (1936-39), in the Ministry of Religious Affairs (1939-^54) and in the Ministry of Culture (from 1954; the year in which he also married and moved from his mother's home). With the Revolution of 1952, occurring just after he had finished writing the Trilogy, he felt ‘that the world I had made it my mission to describe had disappeared', as he told me. For five years he wrote nothing; then, in 1957, seized by a new and original literary plan, whose genesis he is unable to explain, he set to work on CHILDREN OF GEBELAWI. In it he was to take the reader one last time into his vanished world. Now, though, it was no longer the Gemalia of recent history, assailed by wireless and Marxism and British soldiers, but a half imaginary society, cut off from outside events and influences, a distillation of the old Cairo, depicted with a wealth of detail. Gebelawi Alley is situated on the frontier between real districts of Cairo and a fictitious ‘Mukattam Desert' (which is occupied in fact by the endless cities of the dead, in which the ‘houses' are family tombs). On the eastern horizon looms a real mountain, Gebel Mukattam, whose brooding presence gives animist undertones to the name of Gebelawi, which means ‘Mountain Dweller.' Over it all hangs the sky, ever changing and rarely forgotten despite the fact that so much of the action takes place in dark rooms, cramped courtyards and narrow alleys. This attention to the heavens, like so many other details, is by no means incidental but points to the deeper meaning of the book. - from he introduction by Philip Stewart. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911-2006) was born in the crowded Cairo district of Gamaliya. He graduated in philosophy from King Fuad University in 1934, and went on to write nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. WILLIAM M. HUTCHINS is the principal translator of Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy, and has most recently translated Mohammed Khudayyir's Basrayatha (AUC Press, 2007), Fadhil al-Azzawi's THE LAST OF THE ANGELS (AUC Press, 2007), and CELL BLOCK FIVE (AUG Press, 2008).
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Mahfouz, Naguib. Children of the Alley. New York. 1996. Doubleday. 0385420943. Translated from the Arabic by Peter Theroux. 449 pages. hardcover. Jacket Illustration By John Martinez Jacket Design By Mario J. Pulice. Translation of أولاد حارت.
DESCRIPTION- Deeply spiritual and prophetic, CHILDREN OF THE ALLEY represents what is certainly one of the most important books in the long and illustrious career of Nobel Prize-winning author Naguib Mahfouz. He guides us, in this rich and intricate novel, on a journey through the history of the tumultuous alley belonging to a delightful - and sometimes diabolical - Egyptian family: the descendants of a man named Gabalawi. We accompany them in their struggles to right their wrongs, to eke out a better existence for themselves and their cohorts - and we discover a second, hidden, and daring narrative: the spiritual history of humankind. From the supreme feudal lord who disowns one son for cruel pride and puts another to the test, to the savior of a succeeding generation who frees his people from bondage, we find the men and women of a modern Cairo neighborhood unwittingly reenacting the lives of their holy ancestors: the ‘children of the alley.' Neither a parable nor an allegory, CHILDREN OF THE ALLEY is a rich, self-contained novel that happens to echo with the same, rivalries, battles, love affairs, and miracles of the ancient world. It confirms again the richness and variety of Mahfouz's storytelling and his status as ‘the single most important writer in modern Arabic literature' (Newsweek). NAGUIB MAHFOUZ was born in Cairo in 1911 and began writing when he was seventeen. He has written more than thirty novels and fourteen collections of short stories. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1988. PETER THEROUX is the author of SANDSTORMS: DAYS AND NIGHTS IN ARABIA (1990) and TRANSLATING L.A.-1994. He is the translator of several major Arab novels. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911-2006) was born in the crowded Cairo district of Gamaliya. He graduated in philosophy from King Fuad University in 1934, and went on to write nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. WILLIAM M. HUTCHINS is the principal translator of Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy, and has most recently translated Mohammed Khudayyir's Basrayatha (AUC Press, 2007), Fadhil al-Azzawi's THE LAST OF THE ANGELS (AUC Press, 2007), and CELL BLOCK FIVE (AUG Press, 2008).
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Mahfouz, Naguib. Fountain and Tomb. Washington DC. 1988. Three Continents Press. 0894105809. Translated from the Arabic by Soad Sobhy. Essam Fattouh, James Kenneson. Illustratins by Max Winkler. 120 pages. hardcover. Translation of حكايات حارت.
DESCRIPTION- Born in 1911 in the El-Gamaliya district of Old Cairo, Naguib Mahfouz witnessed the upheavals of war, martial law, the rebellion of 1919, the deportation of Saad Zaghloul in 1921, the institution of the unpopular constitution of 1923, the return of Zaghloul from exile, and his death in 1927. These events provide the political and historical context of this novel of an adult reminiscences of childhood in Egypt of the 1920s. Skepticism enters the alley in the person of a free-thinking schoolteacher; The whole district is scandalized when a young woman takes a job as a government clerk; A gang leader dies and no one rises up to take his place - the order of society has changed and a local tyrant is no longer needed; A sheikh once revered as a fortune-teller wanders into beggary; A Sufi monastery is rumored to be torn down to make way for urban development, an action unthinkable only a few years earlier. All Mahfouz' major themes and techniques find a place in FOUNTAIN AND TOMB. Naguib Mahfouz was one of the most popular writers of the Egypt and the Arabic-speaking world, where his work is read by the barely literate and the highly educated alike. Mahfouz is a consummate storyteller, whose style is both accessible and experimental, and who never avoids asking difficult philosophical and political questions - How can a man be happy? Is evil made by men or is it part of the structure of things? What do society and individual owe each other and why are they so often in conflict? How and why do cultures change? When values are being transformed, what is right? How much influence should tradition, religion, and politics exert on our lives? How shall we live both among others and within ourselves?'
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911-2006) was born in the crowded Cairo district of Gamaliya. He graduated in philosophy from King Fuad University in 1934, and went on to write nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. WILLIAM M. HUTCHINS is the principal translator of Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy, and has most recently translated Mohammed Khudayyir's Basrayatha (AUC Press, 2007), Fadhil al-Azzawi's THE LAST OF THE ANGELS (AUC Press, 2007), and CELL BLOCK FIVE (AUG Press, 2008).
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Mahfouz, Naguib. Midaq Alley, Cairo. Beirut. 1966. Khayats. Translated from the Arabic by Trevor Le Gassick. 319 pages. hardcover. Translation of زقاق المد.
DESCRIPTION- ‘The rapid development in politics, economics and social affairs in the Arab countries during this century has been accompanied by parallel developments in all fields of cultural activity. Arabic fiction has fully shared in this spectacular renaissance. Throughout the 19th century there was great interest amongst Arab intellectuals in the translation of novels into Arabic from European languages and also in the composition of historical fiction. Their work marked a total departure from traditional forms of creative prose writing in Arabic which had previously been restricted to episodic, encyclopaedic works of which the THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS is the outstanding example. It was not, however, until 1914 that the Egyptian writer Muhammad Hussain Haikal published what can probably be considered the first Arabic novel. His ZAINAB, written in Europe in 1911 and published in 1914, is a story of Egyptian village life and is thought to be partly autobiographical. Even Haikal, however, cannot be considered a novelist in the usually accepted sense; he published only one other novel and his high reputation now rests chiefly on his work in social and Political affairs. It is particularly since the 1920's that a wide variety of authors throughout the Arab world has been writing fiction of all sorts, concentrating especially on the short story as a chosen form. Generally, they were inspired by western novels and opportunity for expression was given them by the rising standards of literacy, the proliferation of the press and the foundation of many cultural magazines. Taha Hussain, Tawfiq al-Hakim, Mahmoud Teymour and Mahmoud Kamil from Egypt, and Khalil Jibran and Mikha'il Nu'aima of Lebanese origin and American upbringing are the major names in Arabic fiction for the first half on this century, but not one of them either can be considered a novelist. They each wrote short novels, usually of allegorical or autobiographical nature, but without exception their main literary interests were in other fields. It is in fact only since the beginning of the Second World War that the novel has developed into a major Arabic literary form, chiefly through the work of a new generation of Egyptian writers. The extent of the field that has so quickly appeared is indeed remarkable. There are half a dozen living Egyptian writers, each with many novels to their credit and their work inspires deep interest among the Arab reading public. Naguib Mahfouz is widely considered to be the most brilliant of these novelists. Born in December 1911, in the Jamaliyyah quarter of Cairo, the son of a middle-class merchant, Naguib Mahfouz graduated with a degree in philosophy from Cairo University in 1934. He has since been employed in a wide range of positions in various departments of the Egyptian civil service. He worked for a time in the administration of Cairo University and with the Ministry of Waqfs. He was also for periods General Director and Board Chairman on the governmental cinema organisation. At present he is Technical Adviser to the General Egyptian Organisation for Cinema and Broadcasting. Naguib Mahfouz began his writing activity in 1932, before his university graduation, with the publication of a translation of an English work concerning Ancient Egypt. Shortly after his graduation he began writing for the magazine al-Risalah and between 1935 and 1938 he wrote and published a collection of short stories and three historical novels. From 1938 to 1944 he wrote five novels set in contemporary Egypt, and the third of these was MIDAQ ALLEY. From 1945 until the Revolution of 1952, Naguib Mahfouz was busy organising and writing his major work, the Trilogy and it is since its publication in book form in 1956-1957 that his reputation as the greatest Arab novelist has grown. The work depicts the life of a prosperous Egyptian Muslim merchant and his family during the period from 1917 until the end of the Second World War. Totalling over 1,500 closely printed pages, the work is a brilliant portrayal of the moral, social and political attitudes of two generations of middle-class Egyptians faced with all the challenges presented by the rapid and violent currents of change in Egypt this century. In 1959 a new novel, the allegorical CHILDREN OF OUR QUARTER was serialized in the newspaper al-Ahram but it proved to be the center of much controversy and the author decided not to publish it as a book. In fact no new novel written since the Revolution was published in book form by Mahfouz until 1962. Since that date he has published five new short novels and two collections of short stories. Before the Revolution he was striving to paint a true and accurate picture of contemporary society. In all he has written since, he has attempted to study through his plots and characters social and philosophical ideas that interest him. In recent years the works of Naguib Mahfouz have been showered with praise and serialized for radio and television; several have become films. He enjoys a probably greater fame and reputation in Egypt and the other Arab countries than any other literary figure. His works are interesting not only for the brilliant light they shed on so many aspects of contemporary life in the Middle East. He deals also with eternal problems common to all humanity - life and death, youth and growing old, the relationship between God and man, between parents and children, husband and wife and problems of allegiance to political and social philosophies. Reprinted six times since its first publication in book form, MIDAQ ALLEY is probably Mahfouz' most popular work. It is set, in common with much of his earlier work, in the ancient Cairo quarter of Khan al-Khalili near where he was born and lived the first six years of his life. The novel's title is that of the name of a little alley near the revered Hussaini mosque. The alley is the real hero of the novel; it is itself timeless and without change and quite oblivious to the lives off its inhabitants. Midaq Alley has no central plot nor dominant character. A dozen or more are shown interacting with one another. Through descriptive commentary, dialogue and plot carefully arranged for dramatic and humourous effect, the author brings his colourful characters to life with all the skill of a great artist. Naguib Mahfouz' work is indeed a faithful ‘mirror of the times' through which the Arab world and Egypt in particular are now passing. Non-Arabs, brought up in different religious and social climates and restricted by a near-impenetrable barrier of language problems, do not find it easy to understand or even imagine how such people as this book describes live and feel, even though they are to be found in any town of the contemporary Arab world. It is hoped this translation will somehow increase this understanding amongst readers of English whilst giving them the full measure of interest and enjoyment they expect from a novel.' - from the introduction by TREVOR LE GASSICK. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911-2006) was born in the crowded Cairo district of Gamaliya. He graduated in philosophy from King Fuad University in 1934, and went on to write nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. WILLIAM M. HUTCHINS is the principal translator of Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy, and has most recently translated Mohammed Khudayyir's Basrayatha (AUC Press, 2007), Fadhil al-Azzawi's THE LAST OF THE ANGELS (AUC Press, 2007), and CELL BLOCK FIVE (AUG Press, 2008).
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Mahfouz, Naguib. Miramar. London. 1978. Heinemann. 0435901974. African Writers Series. Edited and revised by Maged el Kommos and John Rodenbeck; introduced by John Fowles. 141 pages. paperback. Cover design by Elizabeth Rodenbeck. Translation of ميرامار.
DESCRIPTION- A highly charged, tightly written tale of intersecting lives that provides us with both an engaging and powerful story as well as a vivid portrait of life in Egypt in the late 1960's. ‘With MIRAMAR we are in the hands of a considerable novelist, and one who knows his country's complex problems, and complex soul, profoundly.' - John Fowles.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911-2006) was born in the crowded Cairo district of Gamaliya. He graduated in philosophy from King Fuad University in 1934, and went on to write nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988.
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Mahfouz, Naguib. Palace of Desire. New York. 1991. Doubleday. 0385264674. Translated from the Arabic by William Maynard Hutchins. Lorne M. Kenny & Olive E. Kenny. 425 pages. hardcover. Jacket photograph - Culver Pictures. Jacket design by Carin Goldberg. Translation of Qasr al-Shawq.
DESCRIPTION- With PALACE OF DESIRE, the eagerly awaited second volume of the trilogy, the master storyteller spins a sensual, provocative tale, following the family into the awakening world of the 1920s, where increased freedoms prove as troubling as domination and repression once did. Here we find al-Sayyid Ahmad, the stern and aging patriarch, pursuing the sexually alluring dancer Zanuba - only to find that she has secretly married his son Yasin. His long-suffering wife Amina, and daughters Khadija and the radiant Aisha, test the loosening reins of societal and paternal control, even as they protect and nurture their own children. And Kamal, the idealistic youngest son, ardently courts the sophisticated daughter of a rich Europeanized family, in one of the most moving portrayals of unrequited love in literature. Like PALACE WALK, PALACE OF DESIRE affords a fascinating look at a period of modern Egyptian history by lovingly and painstakingly examining the day-to-day lives of a single family. More important, however, is that it is a deeply human, enormously entertaining novel that takes us to the very heart of a family's existence; ‘we get to know these people,' wrote the Chicago Tribune, ‘as we know few people in our own lives.' Filled with compelling drama and earthy humor, and as lyrically evocative as the street that gives the novel its title, PALACE OF DESIRE is an unforgettable story of the sometimes violent clash between ideals and longings, dreams and realities.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ was born in Cairo in 1911 and began writing when he was seventeen. A student of philosophy and an avid reader, he has been influenced by many Western writers, including Flaubert, Balzac, Zola, Camus, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and, above all, Proust. He has more than thirty novels to his credit, ranging from his earliest historical romances to his most recent experimental novels. In 1988, Mr. Mahfouz was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He lives in the Cairo suburb of Agouza with his wife and two daughters. WILLIAM MAYNARD HUTCHINS is an associate professor in the Philosophy and Religion Department of Appalachian State University in North Carolina. He is the editor and principal translator of EGYPTIAN TALES AND SHORT STONES OF THE 1970S AND 1980S and other works. LORNE AND OLIVE KENNY live in Toronto. Together they have published a number of translations from the Arabic. Olive Kenny is the translator of WEDDING SONG by Naguib Mahfouz.
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Mahfouz, Naguib. Palace Walk. New York. 1990. Doubleday. 0385264658. Translated from the Arabic by William M. Hutchins & Olive E. Kenny. 501 pages. hardcover. Jacket photograph - Culver Pictures. Jacket design by Carin Goldberg. Translation of بين القص.
DESCRIPTION- The Cairo Trilogy is recognized internationally as Nobel Prize-winning author Naguib Mahfouz's most important work. With the long-anticipated translation of PALACE WALK - the first volume of The Cairo Trilogy, originally published in Arabic in 1956 - English-language audiences may discover Mahfouz's unforgettable epic for the first time. Palace Walk transports us into the lives of a Muslim family in Cairo during Egypt's occupation by British forces in the early 1900s. Al-Sayyid Ahmad is a man whose character subsumes extraordinary contradictions. He is somber and tyrannical with his wife and children; they cannot guess at his nighttime pleasure in the sensual, his deep satisfaction with the aesthetic and erotic. His wife, Amina, reconciles herself to a type of security based on surrender, a willing prisoner in a society where it is forbidden for a virtuous woman ever to show her face to any man outside of her immediate family. Aisha, their beautiful and spirited younger daughter, dares to peer too closely through the intricate latticed balcony from which the women view the world. And Fahmy, their first son, is caught up in student demonstrations and the violence that threatens them all as Egypt struggles to become free. These are a few of the people we meet on Palace Walk, the street in Cairo that courses between two long-disappeared palaces. It is a powerful metaphor for this vivid novel that shows us the duality of its characters' lives in a tantalizing world of harsh realities and gossamer spirits, at once severe and alluring, and in a society moving from tradition toward modernity. NAGUIB MAHFOUZ was born in Cairo in 1911 and began writing when he was seventeen. A student of philosophy and an avid reader, he has been influenced by many Western writers, including Flaubert, Balzac, Zola, Camus, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and, above all, Proust. He has more than thirty novels to his credit, ranging from his earliest historical romances to his most recent experimental novels. In 1988, Mr. Mahfouz was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He lives in the Cairo suburb of Agouza with his wife and two daughters. WILLIAM M. HUTCHINS is a professor in the Philosophy and Religion Department at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. OLIVE E. KENNY is the translator of WEDDING SONG by Naguib Mahfouz and other works of Arabic literature. She lives in Toronto, Canada. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911-2006) was born in the crowded Cairo district of Gamaliya. He graduated in philosophy from King Fuad University in 1934, and went on to write nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. WILLIAM M. HUTCHINS is the principal translator of Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy, and has most recently translated Mohammed Khudayyir's Basrayatha (AUC Press, 2007), Fadhil al-Azzawi's THE LAST OF THE ANGELS (AUC Press, 2007), and CELL BLOCK FIVE (AUG Press, 2008).
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Mahfouz, Naguib. Respected Sir. London. 1986. Quartet Books. 0704325969. Translated from the Arabic by Dr. Rasheed El-Enany. 155 pages. hardcover. Cover illustration by Sabiha Khemir.Design by Namara. Translation of حضرة المحتر.
DESCRIPTION- RESPECTED SIR is a story of vaulting ambition. Its chief protagonist is a latter-day version of Dr. Faustus who made a compact with the devil to surrender his soul to him in return for a life of infinite power. Only Othman Bayyumi has none of the grandeur of a Dr Faustus and his devil has no external form. His is the story of a young man who joins the civil service of the Egyptian government at the lowest point of the professional scale as an archives clerk. From the first minute in his career, as he is introduced to the Director-General of the department, he is seized by a mad desire to become one day Director-General himself and to occupy the very room he now stands in as a petty clerk. From that moment he devotes his whole being to the fulfillment of this ambition. This is a well-worn theme; but it is the original and powerful metaphor in which Mahfouz retells it that gives it fresh life. For the story is rendered in vocabulary and imagery which evoke an exalted and arduous religious quest, as though the attainment of the position of Director-General were a sacred mission, ordained by divine will, for the sake of which no sacrifice is too great. Naguib Mahfouz is considered one of the greatest novelists that the Arabic language has produced. Born in 1911, he is at seventy-five the grand old man of Arabic fiction enjoying the affection and reverence of both critics and a vast reading public. During his long career he has given expression in powerful literary metaphor; to the hopes and frustrations of his nation whose modern life has been a long act of unceasing turbulence. So much do his readers identify with his work (a great deal of which has been adapted for the cinema theatre and television) that many of his characters have become household names in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab World. His work is steeped in local reality and appeals to that which is universal and permanent in human nature. This is attested to by the good reception that his fiction has met with in English and other languages since the publication in 1966 of his first translated novel MIDAQ ALLEY. Dr Rasheed El-Enany has been a lecturer modern Arabic studies at the University of Exeter since 1978. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911-2006) was born in the crowded Cairo district of Gamaliya. He graduated in philosophy from King Fuad University in 1934, and went on to write nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. WILLIAM M. HUTCHINS is the principal translator of Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy, and has most recently translated Mohammed Khudayyir's Basrayatha (AUC Press, 2007), Fadhil al-Azzawi's THE LAST OF THE ANGELS (AUC Press, 2007), and CELL BLOCK FIVE (AUG Press, 2008).
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Mahfouz, Naguib. Sugar Street. New York. 1992. Doubleday. 0385264690. Translated from the Arabic by William Maynard Hutchins & Angele Botros Samaan. 309 pages. hardcover. Jacket photograph - Culver Pictures. Jacket design by Carin Goldberg. Translation of السكري.
DESCRIPTION- In PALACE WALK, the first volume of the English-language debut of The Cairo Trilogy, Nobel Prize-winner Naguib Mahfouz spun a mesmerizing tale of the lives of a Muslim family in Cairo during the British occupation of Egypt in the early years of this century. PALACE OF DESIRE, the provocative second volume, followed the family into the awakening world of the 1920s. The master storyteller crowns these two bestselling achievements with SUGAR STREET, the trilogy's climactic conclusion, in which the family of al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad moves into the middle of the twentieth century, and the seeds of contemporary Egypt are sown. Aging and ill, the family patriarch now surveys the world from his house's latticed balcony, as his long-suffering wife Amina once did. His children face middle age: daughter Khadija is comfortably married, living on Sugar Street; the once-radiant Aisha, husband and sons lost to typhoid, lives an ashen wraith in her parents' house, her only hope embodied in her lovely, fragile daughter; elder son Yasin has curbed his profligate ways somewhat and settled into complacent domesticity with Zanuba, his father's former mistress; and introspective Kamal, whose unrequited love for a privileged girl was the bittersweet centerpiece of Palace of Desire, devotes himself to an academic career, and seeks love in the arms of a buxom prostitute who once consorted with his father. But it is in the grandsons of al-Sayyid Ahmad that we see a modern Egypt emerging. Khadija's son Ahmad becomes a communist activist, while his brother Abd al-Muni'm becomes a Muslim fundamentalist - both working for what they believe will be a better world. And Ridwan, inheritor of his father Yasin's suave charm and sensual nature, launches a promising political career abetted by a homosexual relationship with a prominent politician - a liaison with profound implications for the young man, and for his family's fortunes. In this enthralling conclusion to Naguib Mahfouz's masterpiece trilogy - richly detailed and affectionately told - SUGAR STREET is not only a thoroughfare in old Cairo: it is a state of being, a window into Egypt's exotic past that casts a revealing light on its present.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ was born in Cairo in 1911 and began writing when he was seventeen. A student of philosophy and an avid reader, he has been influenced by many Western writers, including Flaubert, Balzac, Zola, Camus, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and above all, Proust. He has more than thirty novels to his credit, ranging from his earliest historical romances to his most recent experimental novels. In 1988, Mr. Mahfouz was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He lives in the Cairo suburb of Agouza with his wife and two daughters. WILLIAM MAYNARD HUTCHINS is a professor of philosophy in the Department of English and Comparative Literature of the American University in Cairo. He is the editor and principal translator of Egyptian Tales and Short Stories of the 1970s and 1980s and other works of Arabic Literature. ANGELE BOTROS SAMAAN is a professor of English literature at Cairo University and author of a number of translations of Arabic into English.
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Mahfouz, Naguib. The Beggar. Cairo. 1986. American University In Cairo Press. 9774241355. Translated from the Arabic by Kristin Walker Henry & Nariman Khales Naili Al-Warraki. 124 pages. paperback. Cover picture is a detail from a painting by Mahmoud Said.Cover design by Liliane Karnouk. Translation of الشحا.
DESCRIPTION- Set in Cairo shortly after the 1952 Revolution, THE BEGGAR portrays the psychological torment of a man whose conscience has died and the struggle he undergoes to discover the meaning of his existence. Mahfouz not only draws the reader inside the mind of the central character but into the conscience of a nation as it tries to chart its course between the often contradictory goals of art and science, idealism and realism. Naguib Mahfouz is Egypt's most famous novelist and his leading role in Arabic literature remains assured. He is now the author of no fewer than thirty novels and more than a hundred short stories; in Egypt each new-publication is regarded as a major cultural event and his name to inevitably among the first mentioned in any literary discussion from Gibralter to the Gulf. If only because of his impact on the Arab world, Mahfouz must be considered an author of international importance.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911-2006) was born in the crowded Cairo district of Gamaliya. He graduated in philosophy from King Fuad University in 1934, and went on to write nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. WILLIAM M. HUTCHINS is the principal translator of Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy, and has most recently translated Mohammed Khudayyir's Basrayatha (AUC Press, 2007), Fadhil al-Azzawi's THE LAST OF THE ANGELS (AUC Press, 2007), and CELL BLOCK FIVE (AUG Press, 2008).
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Mahfouz, Naguib. The Beginning & the End. New York. 1989. Doubleday. 0385264577. Translated from the Arabic by Ramses Awad. 413 pages. hardcover. Jacket Illustration By Anthony Russ.Jacket Design By Robbin Schiff. Translation of بداية ونها.
DESCRIPTION- Both powerful social history and a touching family portrait, this 1956 novel by the Nobel Prize-winning author probes the social and economic pressures that shape, and ultimately shatter, a middle-class Egyptian family. The sudden death of Kamel Effendi plunges his family into poverty. Overnight their comfortable life is transformed into a desperate struggle to survive. In spite of the mother's valiant efforts, family pride is sacrificed, humiliations swallowed, small compromises made that lead not to salvation but deeper into a moral and spiritual morass from which there is no escape. In the tragedy of one proud family, Mahfouz exposes the inequities and almost medieval conventions of Egyptian society. The leading Arabic novelist, Naguib Mahfouz was born in Cairo in 1911 and began writing when he was seventeen. A student of philosophy and an avid reader, he has been influenced by many Western writers, he says, including Flaubert, Balzac, Zola, Camus, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and above all, Proust. Until his retirement in 1972, Mahfouz worked in various government ministries - but he was always writing. Today he has more than thirty novels to his credit, ranging from his early historical romances to his most recent experimental novels. He lives in the Cairo suburb of Agouza with his wife and two daughters. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911-2006) was born in the crowded Cairo district of Gamaliya. He graduated in philosophy from King Fuad University in 1934, and went on to write nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. WILLIAM M. HUTCHINS is the principal translator of Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy, and has most recently translated Mohammed Khudayyir's Basrayatha (AUC Press, 2007), Fadhil al-Azzawi's THE LAST OF THE ANGELS (AUC Press, 2007), and CELL BLOCK FIVE (AUG Press, 2008).
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Mahfouz, Naguib. The Coffee House. Cairo/New York. 2010. American University in Cairo Press. 9789774163517. Translated from the Arabic by Raymond Stock. 145 pages. hardcover. Jacket photograph by Amr Khadr. Design by Andrea El-Akshar. Translation of Qushtumur.
DESCRIPTION- On a school playground in the stylish Cairo suburb of Abbasiya, five young boys become friends for life, making a nearby cafe, Qushtumur, their favorite gathering spot forever. One is the narrator, who, looking back in his old age on their seven decades together, makes the other four the heroes of his tale, a Proustian (and classically Mahfouzian) quest in search of lost time and the memory of a much-changed place. In a seamless stream of personal triumphs and tragedies, their lives play out against the backdrop of two world wars, the 1952 Free Officers coup, the defeat of 1967 and the redemption of 1973, the assassination of a president, and the simmering uncertainties of the transitional 1980s. But as their nation grows and their neighborhood turns from the green, villa-studded paradise of their youth into a dense urban desert of looming towers, they still find refuge in the one enduring landmark in their ever-fading world: the humble coffee-house called Qushtumur.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911-2006) was born in the crowded district of Gamaliya. He wrote nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. RAYMOND STOCK, assistant professor of Arabic and Middle East studies at Drew University; is writing a biography of Naguib Mahfouz. He is the translator of numerous works by Mahfouz, most recently BEFORE THE THRONE (2009).
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Mahfouz, Naguib. The Harafish. New York. 1994. Doubleday. 0385423241. Translated from the Arabic by Catherine Cobham. 407 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Mario J. Pulice. Jacket photograph by Culver Photos. Translation of Malhamat al-harafish.
DESCRIPTION- An author of extraordinary range, Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz has written novels of numerous different styles and genres, but none perhaps has had the phenomenal impact of his Cairo Trilogy, which in its American editions has sold more than 250,000 copies. Readers the world over have been mesmerized by this multigenerational family saga. Now, in THE HARAFISH, Mahfouz returns to this style of sweeping narrative at which he has proved himself a master. In this captivating novel, Mahfouz chronicles the dramatic history of the al-Nagi family - a family that moves, over many generations, from the heights of power and glory to the depths of decadence and decay. THE HARAFISH begins with the tale of Ashur al-Nagi, a man who grows from humble origins to become a great leader, a legend among his people. The name of Ashur signifies a time of glory for the harafish, or the common people, when they were led by one of their own. Generation after generation, however, Ashur's descendants grow further from his legendary example. They lose touch with their origins as they amass and then lose large fortunes, marry prostitutes when they marry at all, and develop rivalries that end in death. Finally, one generation produces a Nagi who restores the family name to its former glory. A mythic tale told for a modern audience, THE HARAFISH is a compelling display of the weaknesses of the human character - pride, dishonesty, lust, and greed - and of the greatness that we are capable of when we overcome them. NAGUIB MAHFOUZ was born in Cairo in 1911 and began writing when he was seventeen. He has written more than thirty novels and fourteen collections of short stories. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988. CATHERINE COBHAM teaches Arabic at St. Andrews University, Scotland, and has translated a number of contemporary Arab writers, including Yusuf Idris, Hanan al-Shaykh, and Liana Badr. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911-2006) was born in the crowded district of Gamaliya. He wrote nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. RAYMOND STOCK, assistant professor of Arabic and Middle East studies at Drew University; is writing a biography of Naguib Mahfouz. He is the translator of numerous works by Mahfouz, most recently BEFORE THE THRONE (2009).
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Mahfouz, Naguib. The Journey of Ibn Fattouma. New York. 1992. Doubleday. 0385423233. Translated from the Arabic by Denys Johnson-Davies. 149 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Steven Rydberg. Translation of رحلة بن فطو.
DESCRIPTION- First published in Arabic in 1983, this brief but powerful parable is set in a mythical, timeless Middle East. It is presented as the journal of a wanderer known as Ibn Fattouma, whose boyhood tutor had extolled the virtues of travel as a way of finding the true meaning of life. He joins a caravan and sets out to explore the world, his ultimate destination the enigmatic land of Gebel. Raised in an Islamic society, Ibn Fattouma finds to his surprise that many of the countries he visits, though heathen, are in some ways superior to his own. His first stop results in marriage to a non-believer, and children. However, war with another country and a clash with a city official cause him to lose his family, and he is forced to leave. In another country he is imprisoned for twenty years, accused of crimes against the state. Civil war frees him, and he moves on again, always seeking an intangible he is never able to find, always vulnerable to the winds of social and political change. Finally, he joins a caravan bound for Gebel-a country so distant and mysterious that no one has ever been known to reach it and return to tell the tale. The Swedish Academy of Letters in awarding Naguib Mahfouz the 1988 Nobel prize for literature noted that Mahfouz ‘through works rich in nuance-now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous-has formed an Arabic narrative art that applies to all mankind.'Naguib Mahfouz was born in 1911 in the crowded Cairo district of Gamaliyya, an area on which he has drawn heavily for the setting of many of his novels. He worked in various government ministries until his retirement in 1971. He began writing at the age of seventeen, and his first novel, set in ancient Egypt, was published in 1939. Since then he has written over thirty novels and more than a hundred short stories, many of which have been made into successful films. Today Naguib Mahfouz lives in the Cairo suburb of Agouza with his wife and two daughters. The Swedish Academy of Letters in awarding Naguib Mahfouz the 1988 Nobel Prize for literature noted that Mahfouz ‘through works rich in nuance--now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous--has formed an Arabic narrative art that applies to all mankind.'. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911-2006) was born in the crowded district of Gamaliya. He wrote nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. RAYMOND STOCK, assistant professor of Arabic and Middle East studies at Drew University; is writing a biography of Naguib Mahfouz. He is the translator of numerous works by Mahfouz, most recently BEFORE THE THRONE (2009).
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Mahfouz, Naguib. The Naguib Mahfouz Reader. Cairo. 2016. American University in Cairo Press. 9789774167591. Edited by Denys Johnson-Davies. 352 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Naguib Mahfouz, the first and only writer of Arabic to be awarded the Nobel prize for literature, wrote prolifically from the 1930s until shortly before his death in 2006, in a variety of genres: novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, a regular weekly newspaper column, and in later life his intensely brief and evocative Dreams. His Cairo Trilogy achieved the status of a world classic, and the Swedish Academy of Letters in awarding him the 1988 Nobel prize for literature noted that Mahfouz through works rich in nuance-now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous-has formed an Arabic narrative art that applies to all mankind. Here Denys Johnson-Davies, described by Edward Said as the leading Arabic-English translator of our time, makes an essential selection of short stories and extracts from novels and other writings, to present a cross-section through time of the very best of the work of Egypt's Nobel literature laureate.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006) was born in the crowded Cairo district of Gamaliya. He wrote nearly 40 novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988. Denys Johnson-Davies has produced more than thirty volumes of translation of modern Arabic literature, including The Essential Tawfiq al-Hakim (AUC Press, 2008) and The Essential Yusuf Idris (AUC Press, 2009). He received the Sheikh Zayed Book Award in 2007 for Personality of the Year in the Field of Culture.
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Mahfouz, Naguib. The Search. Cairo. 1987. American University In Cairo Press. 9774241606. Translated from the Arabic by Mohamed Islam. 126 pages. paperback. Cover picture - 'The Gate (1983)' by Fathi Ahmed (woodcut). Cover design by Liliane Karnouk. Translation of الطريق.
DESCRIPTION- In THE SEARCH a young man, hoping to escape a sordid background and an impoverished future, sets out to find the father he has never known. But in the course of his quest he becomes entangled with two women and is enticed into murder. ‘THE SEARCH is noted among the works of Mahfouz (and among Arabic novels in general) for its style and technique - the ‘stream of consciousness' approach allows past, present, and future to mingle freely in the mind of the protagonist. It also stands out for its aim and meaning. The significance of the novel lies mainly in its symbolic nature and in its manifold possible readings: is the young man searching for his roots, for religious belief, for national traditions, or for political identity? Much could be said for each interpretation (pr for all interpretations), and this is what gives the novel its remarkable value.' - Mahmoud el Rable, Cairo University.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911-2006) was born in the crowded district of Gamaliya. He wrote nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. RAYMOND STOCK, assistant professor of Arabic and Middle East studies at Drew University; is writing a biography of Naguib Mahfouz. He is the translator of numerous works by Mahfouz, most recently BEFORE THE THRONE (2009).
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Mahfouz, Naguib. The Seventh Heaven: Stories of the Supernatural. Caciro & New York. 2005. American University In Cairo Press. 9774249402. Translated from the Arabic by Raymond Stock. 151 pages. hardcover. Jacket photograph by R. Neil Hewison. Designed by Andrea El-Akshar/AUC Press Design Center. Translation of السماء الساب.
DESCRIPTION- Naguib Mahfouz, famed for his uncanny power to depict the real world, is equally ingenious at capturing the surreal, the otherworldly, and the supernatural. The ghostly side of Mahfouz's fiction, though less well known than his other works, nonetheless remains a haunting presence. This collection of stories sifted from his later writings brings these restless spirits for the first time in English: A murdered man finds himself in the first level of what he mistakes for Paradise - where he faces, along with historical figures such as Akhenaten. Woodrow Wilson, and Gamal Abd al-Nasser, a strange system of earthly probation that may (or may not) get him to the fabled Seventh Heaven. A teenager is warned not to go near the allegedly haunted wood in his neighborhood, only to be drawn into the secret, enchanted life he finds within it. An honest perfume seller is accosted on a night out by angry skeletons, who threaten to march upon his alley as an avenging army if the sinners there do not change their ways. Satan speaks to us directly - to confess that there is still, despite the flood of evil in our times, an honorable man in the land. These and the other startling stories in THE SEVENTH HEAVEN make a vivid contribution to the translated works of Egypt's - and the Arab world's - greatest modern author.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911-2006) was born in the crowded district of Gamaliya. He wrote nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. RAYMOND STOCK, assistant professor of Arabic and Middle East studies at Drew University; is writing a biography of Naguib Mahfouz. He is the translator of numerous works by Mahfouz, most recently BEFORE THE THRONE (2009).
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Mahfouz, Naguib. The Thief and the Dogs. Cairo. 1984. American University in Cairo Press. 9774240340. Revised by John Rodenbeck. Translated from the Arabic by Trevor Le Gassick & M. M. Badawi. 108 pages. paperback. Cover picture: The Shadow of Kob-Kab (1946) by Hamed Nada. Cover design by Liliane Karnouk. Translation of: al-Liṣṣ wa-al-kilāb.
DESCRIPTION- Out of prison for less than a day, thief Said Mahran quickly resumes his old ways, and worse. Angered by his young daughter's refusal to even shake hands with the parent she has not seen in four years, and by the chilly reception from Rauf Ilwan, a former colleague in crime whom he suspects of having betrayed him to the police, Mahran goes berserk and seeks revenge with a gun. But this onetime Robin Hood (an ardent nationalist, he stole only from "people who deserved to be robbed") accidentally murders two innocents instead of his intended victims, the new husband of his ex-wife and Ilwan. Pursued by the press and the police, he finds refuge with a prostitute he knows; her flat has a view of a cemetery. The Nobel laureate writes here with remarkable clarity and eloquence. His tale of the haunted, hunted Mahran feverish and suspenseful, introspective and subtle. In just 176 pages, he offers a complex psychological portrait of a man hell-bent on ruining himself.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911-2006) was born in the crowded district of Gamaliya. He wrote nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. RAYMOND STOCK, assistant professor of Arabic and Middle East studies at Drew University; is writing a biography of Naguib Mahfouz. He is the translator of numerous works by Mahfouz, most recently BEFORE THE THRONE (2009).
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Mahfouz, Naguib. The Thief and the Dogs. New York. 1989. Doubleday. 0385264615. Revised by John Rodenbeck. Translated from the Arabic by Trevor Le Gassick & M. M. Badawi. 159 pages. hardcover. Jacket Illustration By Anthony Russo Jacket Design By Robbin Schiff.
DESCRIPTION- A compelling psychological thriller by the 1988 Nobel laureate, THE THIEF AND THE DOGS is the masterly portrait of a contemporary Egyptian Robin Hood and his relentless rush to self-destruction. Just released from prison, Said Mahran finds that he has been betrayed in every way - emotionally, physically, intellectually. His young daughter has forgotten him. His wife has married his friend. And his mentor, the man whose radical ideas inspired Said to rob from the rich, is now rich and powerful himself. In a confusion of idealism and bitterness, Said tries to strike back with reckless abandon, but succeeds only in destroying himself. First published in Arabic in 1961, THE THIEF AND THE DOGS is a stunning stream-of-consciousness novel. ‘Mahfouz is not only a Hugo and a Dickens, but also a Galsworthy, a Mann, a Zola and a Jules Romains.' - Edward Said, London Review of Books. ‘Through works rich in nuance - now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous - [Naguib Mahfouz] has formed an Arabic narrative art that applies to all mankind.' - The Swedish Academy of Letters in awarding Naguib Mahfouz the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature. The leading Arabic novelist, Naguib Mahfouz was born in Cairo in 1911 and began writing when he was seventeen. A student of philosophy and an avid reader, he has been influenced by many Western writers, he says, including Flaubert, Balzac, Zola, Camus, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and above all, Proust. Until his retirement in 1972, Mahfouz worked in various government ministries - but he was always writing. Today he has more than thirty novels to his credit, ranging from his earliest historical romances to his most recent experimental novels. He lives in the Cairo suburb of Agouza with his wife and two daughters. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911-2006) was born in the crowded district of Gamaliya. He wrote nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. RAYMOND STOCK, assistant professor of Arabic and Middle East studies at Drew University; is writing a biography of Naguib Mahfouz. He is the translator of numerous works by Mahfouz, most recently BEFORE THE THRONE (2009).
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Mahfouz, Naguib. The Time and the Place and Other Stories. New York. 1991. Doubleday. 0385264712. Translated from the Arabic by Denys Johnson-Davies. 175 pages. hardcover. Jacket Illustration By Anthony Russ.Jacket Design By Robbin Schiff.
DESCRIPTION- Since Naguib Mahfouz was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988, his novels been received with great enthusiasm and excitement by English-language readers around the world. His vivid and deeply affecting tales of life in twentieth-century Cairo have won him widespread critical acclaim. The author of more than thirty novels, the ‘Dickens of the Cairo cafes' (Newsweek) has published fourteen volumes of short stories in his native Arabic. Now, available for the first time in English, comes this collection, THE TIME AND THE PLACE AND OTHER STORIES. These twenty stories represent nearly thirty years of Mahfouz's career, the earliest having first appeared in Arabic in 1962 and the most recent in 1988. Well known as a writer who prefers familiar surroundings, Mahfouz has set all but one of these stories in Cairo, while the other takes place in Alexandria. Sixteen of the stories have not previously appeared in English. Selected and translated by the distinguished scholar Denys Johnson-Davies, these stories have all the celebrated and distinctive characters and qualities found in Mahfouz's novels: the denizens of the dark narrow alleyways of Cairo who struggle to survive their poverty; dark ruminations on death; experiments with the supernatural; and witty excursions into Cairene middle-class life. Unquestionably, this collection serves as a worthy and welcome addition to the distinguished oeuvre of this world-class writer.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ was born in Cairo in 1911 and began writing when he was seventeen. A student of philosophy and an avid reader, he has been influenced by many Western writers, including Flaubert, Balzac, Zola, Camus, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and above all, Proust. He lives with his wife and two daughters in the Cairo suburb of Agouza where he continues to write - both fiction and his weekly column for Egypt's leading newspaper, Al-Ahram. DENYS JOHNSON-DAVIES, described by Edward Said as ‘the leading Arabic-English translator of our time,' has published nearly twenty volumes of short stories, novels, and poetry translated from modern Arabic literature. He lives much of the time in Cairo.
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Mahfouz, Naguib. Voices From the Other World: Ancient Egyptian Tales. Cairo & New York. 1989. American University in Cairo Press. 9774247582. Translated from the Arabic by Raymond Stock. 79 pages. hardcover. Designed by Andrea El-Akshar/AUC Press Design Center.
DESCRIPTION- The forces of law and order disturb a district's too-perfect peace at the dawn of Egyptian civilization. A wise and popular pharaoh is betrayed by his own son, and by his dearest friends--then makes a most peculiar decision. A mummy returns to life after three thousand years, to confront the arrogant new race that now rules the land. A favored prince flees to a faraway country when the king dies suddenly, leaving his true love behind - only to come back to question her about their forty lost years. A famous young writer, composer of a legendary epic of Pharaoh's greatest battle with the Hittites, is carried off without warning by a mysterious disease - then speaks to us in this life from beyond the veil of death. Such are the tales that make up this volume of five masterly stories by the young Naguib Mahfouz, all inspired by the Egypt of the pharaohs. Like three novels set in ancient times that he published early in his career, and two more with pharaonic themes that he produced four decades later, these stories reveal his wide reading of Egypt's (and the world's) oldest history and literature. All of these gems, however, are very much his own creations. Their voices speak with the familiar genius of Egypt's greatest modern writer - though they call from a very different world than the one for which he is best known.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ was born in 1911 in the crowded Cairo district of Gamaliya, an area on which he has drawn heavily for the setting of many of his novels. He worked in various government ministries until his retirement in 197i. He began writing serious work at the age of seventeen, and his first novel was published in 1939. Since then he has written nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous cinema plots and scenarios, many of which have been made into successful films. Naguib Mahfouz lived in the Cairo suburb of Agouza with his wife and two daughters until his death in 2006. RAYMOND STOCK is writing a biography of Naguib Mahfouz. A doctoral student in Arabic literature at the University of Pennsylvania, his articles, poems, and translations from Arabic have appeared in publications in Egypt, the United States, and other countries.
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Mahfouz, Naguib. Wedding Song. Cairo. 1984. American University in Cairo Press. 9774240189. Edited & Revised by Mursi Saad El Din & John Rodenbeck. Translated from the Arabic by Olive E. Kenny. 100 pages. paperback. Translation of أفراح الق.
DESCRIPTION- Time is the villain of this brilliant drama by the Egyptian author and 1988 Nobel laureate - cruel time, which transforms dreams into nightmares, sons and lovers into enemies, idealists into cynics. Like Rashomon, Mahfouz's WEDDING SONG unfolds through different voices, different perspectives. Four characters - the leading man, the playwright, his father, and his mother - explain the genesis of a sensational new play that either may be an extraordinary work of the imagination or a brazen confession of sordid family secrets. As each interprets the story, four distinct, if tangential, dramas are created out of the raw materials of life. First published in 1981, this tightly woven novel is one of Mahfouz's most recent works. ‘He is not only a Hugo and a Dickens, but also a Galsworthy, a Mann, a Zola and a Jules Remains.' - Edward Said, London Review of Books. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911-2006) was born in the crowded Cairo district of Gamaliya. He graduated in philosophy from King Fuad University in 1934, and went on to write nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. WILLIAM M. HUTCHINS is the principal translator of Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy, and has most recently translated Mohammed Khudayyir's Basrayatha (AUC Press, 2007), Fadhil al-Azzawi's THE LAST OF THE ANGELS (AUC Press, 2007), and CELL BLOCK FIVE (AUG Press, 2008).
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Manley, Deborah and Abdel-Hakim, Sahar (editors). A Nile Anthology: Travel Writing through the Centuries. Cairo/New York. 2015. American University in Cairo Press. 9789774167232. A Publication of The American University in Cairo Press. 160 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- The stretch of the longest river in the world that nurtured the world's first great civilization has drawn and impressed visitors since ancient times. The Greeks were fascinated by the mysterious annual flood of the Nile that brought both water and nourishing silt to the lands along its banks, while nineteenth-century travelers were amazed by the magnificent tombs and temples of Upper Egypt. A Nile Anthology brings together the accounts and reflections of visitors and travelers to the Nile between Luxor and Aswan through the ages, from Herodotus in the fifth century BC, and the Arab geographers of medieval times, to such nineteenth-century luminaries as Amelia Edwards, Florence Nightingale, Jean Francois Champollion, Edward Lane, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. From the practicalities of river travel to DESCRIPTIONs of the pharaonic monuments, via the sights, sounds, and smells of the teeming souks, our writers guide us through a world and an age long gone. About the series: The elegant, pocket-sized volumes in the AUC Press Anthology series feature the writings and observations of travel writers and diarists through the centuries. Vivid and evocative travelers' accounts of some of the world's great cities and regions are enhanced by the exquisite vintage design in small hardback format that make the books ideal gift books as well as perfect travel companions. Designed on cream paper stock and beautifully illustrated with line drawings and archival photographs. Contributors: Includes writings by: Herodotus, Amelia Edwards, Florence Nightingale, Jean Francois Champollion, Edward Lane, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Deborah Manley is the author of a number of books, including a biography of Henry Salt and The Trans-Siberian Railway: A Traveller's Anthology. Sahar Abdel-Hakim is an assistant professor in the Department of English at Cairo University and is the author of a number of essays on women travelers to Egypt. They are both founding members of the Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East (ASTENE). Together they edited Traveling through Egypt: From 450.
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Moussa, Sabri. Seeds of Corruption. Boston. 1980. Houghton Mifflin. 0395285410. Winner Pegasus Prize For Literature. Translated from the Arabic by Mona N. Mikhail. 169 pages. hardcover. Jacket by Danile Earl Thaxton. (original title: Fasad al-amkinah).
DESCRIPTION- Set in the harsh desert of eastern Egypt, Seeds of Corruption is the tale of a Ulysses-like hero in search of himself and his ultimate salvation. The novel becomes a singularly compelling play between the peace and desolation of the desert, the corruption of the dissolute Egyptian king and his court, the purity of the hero's daughter, and the simple dignity of the fishermen and desert Bedouins. Seeds of Corruption eloquently portrays the corruption of the Egyptian monarchy and the aristocracy before 1952 as aided by foreign influence. Nicola, a mine engineer of European background, must decide his true identity. Is he an exploiter, like his bourgeois business partner, or is he more like the people of the desert whom he admires so deeply for their ancestral dignity and sense of honor? The novel offers a vivid and colorful panorama of the Eastern desert by the Red Sea. Such a distant place is a refreshing departure and Moussa's style is rich in imagery and metaphors, making this book a masterpiece of fine Arabic writing.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Sabri Moussa was born in 1932 in Dumiyat, Egypt, and lives in Cairo. He started writing in 1951 and has published four collections of short stories, three novels, three travel books and scripts for ten major Egyptian films, some of which, including Al-Boustagi [The Postman], are now considered classics.
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Mustagab, Mohamed. Tales from Dayrut: Short Stories. Cairo/New York. 2015. American University in Cairo Press. 9789774167072. Translated by Humphrey Davies. 214 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- This collection of fourteen connected stories and a novella, From the Secret History of Numan Abdel Hafez, takes us deep into Upper Egypt and the village of Dayrut al-Sharif, in which Mohamed Mustagab was born. To depict a world renowned for its poverty, ignorance, vendettas, and implacable code of honor, Mustagab deploys the black humor and Swiftian sarcasm of the insider who knows his society only too well. When the stillness of a day's end is shattered by a single gunshot, poignant beauty merges seamlessly into horror, and when a police officer seeking to unravel a murder finds himself with more body parts than he knows what to do with, violence tips as easily into farce. In counterpoint, the author's often surrealist imagination explores the mysteries of a landscape where seductive women haunt dusty paths and a man may find himself crushed like a worm beneath another's foot. Elsewhere, the horizons of 'my village' expand to include other countries (the author worked in the Arabian Peninsula for a number of years), where equally disastrous consequences follow on folly and self-delusion. Previously almost unknown in English, Mustagab's voice is both original and disturbing.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mohamed Mustagab (1938-2006), born in the Upper Egyptian town of Dayrut, was general director of the Academy of the Arabic Language in Cairo, and wrote prolifically in the latter half of the twentieth century, receiving numerous prizes. From the Secret Life of Numan Abdel Hafez was chosen as one of the top hundred novels from the Arab world in the last century. Humphrey Davies is the translator of a number of Arabic novels, including The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany (AUC Press, 2004). He has twice been awarded the Saif Ghobash-Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation.
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Parkinson, R. B. (translator). Tale of Sinuhe. New York. 2009. Oxford University Press. 9780199555628. Oxford World's Classics. Translated with introduction and notes by R.B. Parkinson. 336 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Drawing on recent advances in Egyptology, R. B. Parkinson's new translations bring to life for the modern reader the golden age of Egyptian fictional literature, the Middle Kingdom (c. 1940-1640 BC). The book features The Tale of Sinuhe, acclaimed as the masterpiece of Egyptian poetry, which tells of a courtier's adventures after he flees Egypt. Other works include stories of fantastic wonders from the court of the builder of the Great Pyramid, a lyrical dialogue between a man and his soul on the nature of death and the problem of suffering, and teachings about the nature of virtue and wisdom, one of which is bitterly spoken from the grave by the assassinated king Amenemhat I, founder of the Twelfth Dynasty. A general introduction discusses the historical context of the poetry, the nature of poetry, and the role of literature in ancient Egyptian culture. , while a full set of notes explicates allusions, details of mythology, place-names, and the like. Parkinson's book provides, for the first time, a literary reading to enable these poems to entertain and instruct the modern reader, as they did their original audiences three-and-a-half thousand years ago.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - R. B. Parkinson is Assistant Keeper in the Department of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum.
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Qandil, Mohamed al-Mansi. A Cloudy Day on the Western Shore. Syracuse. 2018. Syracuse University Press. 9780815611097. Translated from the Arabic by Barbara Romaine. 6 x 9. Series: Middle East Literature in Translation. 400 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Shortlisted for the Arabic Booker Prize in 2010, this finely constructed epic traces the turbulent life of Aisha, an Egyptian girl raised in a Christian convent beyond the reach of a predatory uncle. With her English education, Aisha crosses paths with Lord Cromer, British consul-general of Egypt, and famed archaeologist Howard Carter, with whom she will trek to locate Tutankha men's tomb. Fate briefly favors Aisha when she falls in love with the Egyptian sculptor Mahmoud Mukhtar, until events conspire to move her life along a darker path. Part allegory, part magical realism, this novel is threaded with aspects of Egyptian antiquity, including semihistorical accounts of the excavations of ancient Egyptian relics and the tortured jealousies that accompanied them. A deftly written journey through momentous occasions in world history, A Cloudy Day on the Western Shore explores questions of Egypt's identity and history, and the implications—for better or worse—of European exploitation of the treasures of pharaonic civilization. Novelist Qandil skillfully allows readers to encounter complex questions of colonialism, gender, and sectarianism— all through the symbolic lens of an unlikely Egyptian heroine. “This is an extremely well-crafted and indeed often erudite work of fiction. ” —Roger Allen, author of The Arabic Novel: An Historical and Critical Introduction.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Award-winning Egyptian novelist Mohamed al-Mansi Qandil was born in the Nile delta. He went to medical school and worked as a country doctor before beginning to write fiction. He has published several novels, short-story collections, and children's books, and now lives in Canada. Barbara Romaine has translated a number of novels by Radwa Ashour, as well as Bahaa' Taher's Aunt Safiyya and the Monastery. In 2011, her translation of Spectres was runner-up for the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize. She has taught Arabic at several universities for over twenty years.
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Qasim, Abd al-Hakim. Rites of Assent: Two Novellas. Philadelphia. 1995. Temple University Press. 9781566393546. Border Lines. 172 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Abd al-Hakim Qasim (1935-1990), one of modern Egypt's great novelists, began writing short stories while imprisoned for his leftwing politics under the Nasser regime in the 1960s. This period in Qasim's life, along with his subsequent exile in Germany and his opposition to the Camp David Agreement, led him to avoid political commentary in his writing. He focused on people and events in the Egyptian village and the down-to-earth Sufi Islam practiced there. Still, the history of his political beliefs ensured his work would remain controversial, and most was published abroad in Beirut or Baghdad. The power and inventiveness of modern Egyptian writing are manifest in this first English-language translation of two novellas that Qasim published together during his lifetime. ‘Al-Mahdi’ is the story of Awadallah, an impoverished Coptic umbrella maker forced to convert to Islam by members of the local Muslim brotherhood. Awadallah's conversion, both unwilling and insincere, torments him with guilt, and he soon falls gravely ill. At the same time, subplots explore the philandering mayor's attempt to seduce his maid, and an affectionate homoerotic relationship between two young men in the Brotherhood. Elegantly narrated and visually evocative, ‘Al-Mahdi’ illuminates everyday religious tensions in a small Egyptian town. Where ‘Al-Mahdi’ ends with Awadallah's death, ‘Good News from the Afterlife’ opens virtually at the mouth of the grave a testament to Qasim's versatility and compositional sense. This fantastical story brilliantly interweaves a young village boy's thoughts and the spiritual, sensual, and sometimes macabre recollections of a dead man newly lowered into his burial place. Memories and experiences mingle with images of the afterlife, as the deceased is judged by the Muslim angels of death and the boy suddenly hears that his grandfather has died. In the end, the boy awakes atop a grave, throwing into question which, if not all, of the story's strange events had been dreamed.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Abdel Hakim Qasem (1934–1990) is considered one of the most significant authors in Egyptian literature during the past thirty years. Judith Caesar of the American University of Sharjah wrote that Qasem was "relatively little-known". He was born in Al Bandara village, near Tanta. During the 1950s he moved to Cairo, and began writing until the 1960s when he was imprisoned for four years, for his political associations, by the Nasser government. He lived in exile in Berlin from 1974 until 1985. He then came back to Cairo, where he died in 1990. He wrote five novels, four novellas, five short story collections, and one play. Peter Theroux is the translator of Abdelrahman Munif's ‘Cities of Salt trilogy’, author of several books, and winner of the Arabic Translation Award from Columbia University's Translation Center. Samia Mehrez, Assistant Professor of Arabic Literature at the American University in Cairo, is the author of Egyptian Writers: Between History and Fiction.
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Rabie, Mohammed. Otared: A Novel. Cairo. 2016. American University in Cairo Press. 9789774167843. Translated by Robin Moger. 352 pages. paperback. Translation of عطارد.
DESCRIPTION- Ahmed Otared is a Cairene police officer and trained sniper. When the country is invaded and occupied by a force of foreign mercenaries he joins the underground resistance, embarking on a new bloodthirsty career. As the violence he encounters and participates in intensifies, a terrifying reality, bubbling below the surface of 'normal' life, is revealed to him, and he finds himself in a fantasia of torture and torment, a hellscape from which there is no deliverance. This unflinching and grisly tale is made vivid through Mohammed Rabie's brutally beautiful writing.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Born in 1978, Mohammad Rabie is the author of three acclaimed novels. His first novel, Amber's Planet, won first prize in the Emerging Writers category of the Sawiris Cultural Award in 2012. He lives in Cairo, Egypt. Robin Moger studied Egyptology and Arabic at Oxford University before working as a journalist in Cairo for six years. He is the translator of A Dog with No Tail by Hamdi Abu Golayyel (AUC Press, 2009) and Women of Karantina by Nael Eltoukhy (AUC Press, 2014), and his translation for Writing Revolution (2013) won the 2013 English PEN Award for outstanding writing in translation.
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Rami, Sonia. Antiquity Street. New York. 1992. Farrar Straus Giroux. 0374105340. 242 pages. hardcover. Jacket art courtesy of the author.Jacket design by Honi Werner.
DESCRIPTION- A Young Egyptian woman studying at Harvard returns home to Cairo to visit her ailing father, a distinguished former diplomat and a member of the privileged Turkish-Egyptian upper class. She finds the sedate and decorous household of her family subtly changed: attending her father is a handsome orderly, a flamboyant dandy named Alex whom her mother has ‘found' on Antiquity Street, in the poor section of the city. Even after the young woman discovers Alex's secret life, she remains in love with him. Her family, predictably, is horrified by her affair with Alex; more ambiguous is her own consternation, the part desire, part dread summoned in her by this ‘poor Greek' so little her equal in education, taste, and class. In sensual language that evokes the powerful exoticism of Cairo and Alexandria as deftly as do the novels of Lawrence Durrell, Antiquity Street movingly explores the persistence of the past in a changing present. For the young woman's father - the aristocratic pasha - and for her family, the post-Nasser era has meant increasing isolation and loss of prestige: they recall the past with nostalgia. For Alex, the past is something to be desperately concealed and ardently reinvented. The articulate, willful, daring woman at the center of this unusual love story is torn between these two versions of Egypt, between her persisting devotion to her family and her passion for Alex. It is the remarkable achievement of Antiquity Street to record that struggle with persuasive candor and feeling.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Sonia Rami is an Egyptian writer.
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Rifaat, Alifa. Distant View of a Minaret & Other Stories. London. 1983. Quartet Books. 0704324016. Translated from the Arabic by Denys Johnson-Davies. 116 pages. hardcover. Cover illustration by Sabiha Khemir. Designed by Namara Features.
DESCRIPTION- Alifa Rifaat, an Egyptian, lifts the veil on what it means to be a woman living within a traditional Muslim society. This collection of short stories admits the reader into a hidden private world, regulated by the call of the mosque. The book provides accounts of death, the lives of women in purdah and the frustrations of everyday life.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Fatimah Rifaat (June 5, 1930 - January 1996), better known by her pen name Alifa Rifaat , was an Egyptian author whose controversial short stories are renowned for their depictions of the dynamics of female sexuality, relationships, and loss in rural Egyptian culture. While taking on such controversial subjects, Fatimah Rifaat's protagonists remained religiously faithful with passive feelings towards their fate. Her stories did not attempt to undermine the patriarchal system; rather they were used to depict the problems inherent in a patriarchal society when men do not adhere to their religious teachings that advocate for the kind treatment of women. Fatimah Rifaat used the psydonymn Alifa to prevent embarrassment on the part of her family due to the themes of her stories and her writing career.
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Roller, Duane W. Cleopatra: A Biography. New York. 2010. Oxford University Press. 9780195365535. Women in Antiquity. 11 halftones, 3 maps. 272 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Few personalities from classical antiquity are more famous--yet more poorly understood--than Cleopatra VII, queen of Egypt. In this major biography, Duane Roller reveals that Cleopatra was in fact a learned and visionary leader whose overarching goal was always the preservation of her dynasty and kingdom. Roller's authoritative account is the first to be based solely on primary materials from the Greco-Roman period: literary sources, Egyptian documents (Cleopatra's own writings), and representations in art and coinage produced while she was alive. His compelling portrait of the queen illuminates her prowess as a royal administrator who managed a large and diverse kingdom extending from Asia Minor to the interior of Egypt, as a naval commander who led her own fleet in battle, and as a scholar and supporter of the arts. Even her love affairs with Julius Caesar and Marcus Antonius--the source of her reputation as a supreme seductress who drove men to their doom--were carefully crafted state policies: she chose these partners to insure the procreation of successors who would be worthy of her distinguished dynasty. That Cleopatra ultimately lost to her Roman opponents, Roller contends, in no way diminishes her abilities. Roller tells his tale smoothly and accessibly. .The resulting portrait is that of a complex, many-sided figure, a potent Hellenistic ruler who could move the tillers of power as skillfully as any man, and one far and nobly removed from the 'constructed icon' of popular imagination. --The New York Times Book Review A rich account of late Ptolemaic culture. --The New Yorker Offers a superb panorama of the society and culture of late Ptolemaic Egypt, with vivid sketches of the (remarkably vigorous) intellectual life of Cleopatra's Alexandria and the structural instabilities of the late Ptolemaic state. --Times Literary Supplement Besides providing a compelling story and breathing fresh air into a heretofore two-dimensional caricature from history, Roller's 'Cleopatra' provides an interesting commentary on the attitudes still prevalent towards women who rule. --Christian Science Monitor Compulsively readable. --Bookslut A definitive account of a queen of remarkable strength. --Publishers Weekly
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Historian, archaeologist, and classical scholar, Duane W. Roller is Professor Emeritus of Greek and Latin at The Ohio State University. The author of eight books, including Through the Pillars of Herakles and The Building Program of Herod the Great, he has excavated in Greece, Italy, Turkey, and the Levant.
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Romer, John (introduction). The Egyptian Book of the Dead. New York. 2008. Penguin Books. 9780140455502. Introduction by Wallace Budge. 734 pages. paperback. Cover - Anubis and Thoth weighing the soul of the deceased, detail of a painted wooden chest, c. 1075-945 B.C.
DESCRIPTION- THE EGYPTIAN BOOK OF THE DEAD is a unique collection of funerary texts from a wide variety of sources, dating from the fifteenth to the fourth century BC. Consisting of spells, prayers and incantations, each section contains instructions to enable the dead to overcome obstacles and establish themselves in the Egyptian afterlife. The papyri were often left in sarcophagi to travel with the dead on their journey, and were full of advice about the ferrymen, gods and kings they would meet on the way. Offering valuable insights into ancient Egypt, THE EGYPTIAN BOOK OF THE DEAD has also long inspired fascination with the occult and the afterlife. John Romer's introduction examines the historical outline of the work as well as the literary influence of the text on modern culture. This edition of E. A. Wallis Budge's translation includes a full text with accompanying illustrations, and also contains suggested further reading.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge (27 July 1857 - 23 November 1934) was an English Egyptologist, Orientalist, and philologist who worked for the British Museum and published numerous works on the ancient Near East. He made trips to Egypt and the Sudan on behalf of the British Museum to buy antiquities, and helped it build its collection of cuneiform tablets, manuscripts, and papyri. He published many books on Egyptology, helping to bring the findings to larger audiences. In 1920 he was knighted for his service to Egyptology and the British Museum.
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Ruhayyim, Kamal. Menorahs and Minarets: A Novel. Cairo. 2017. The American University in Cairo Press. 9789774168314. Translated by Sarah Enany. Hoopoe Fiction. 224 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- In the third part of Kamal Ruhayyim's trilogy, Galal, the son of a mixed Jewish/Muslim family returns to Egypt after ten years in Paris. What he finds is a society in flux, yet still stifled by convention. As his sense of alienation increases, Galal searches for a way to put down roots in a society where he feels he no longer truly belongs, as he struggles with his confused relationships with his extended family: Jewish cosmopolitan businessmen on one side and Muslim rural farmers on the other. Ruhayyim paints an uncompromising portrait of the rigid traditions, passed on from generation to generation, that reach into the most intimate areas of peoples' lives, as family elders curb or otherwise circumscribe how the younger generation lives and loves.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kamal Ruhayyim, born in Egypt in 1947, has a PhD in law from Cairo University. He is the author of a collection of short stories and five novels, including Diary of a Jewish Muslim (AUC Press, 2014) and Days in the Diaspora (AUC Press, 2012). Through his career in the Egyptian police force and Interpol he has lived in Cairo and Paris. Sarah Enany, with a Ph.D. in drama, is a lecturer in the English Department of Cairo University. Her translation credits include works by Yusuf Idris, Mohamed Salmawy, Jerzy Grotowski, and Kamal Ruhayyim's Diary of a Jewish Muslim and Days in the Diaspora (AUC Press, 2014, 2012).
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Sabaseviciute, Giedre. Sayyid Qutb: An Intellectual Biography. Syracuse. 2021. Syracuse University Press. 9780815637288. Modern Intellectual and Political History of the Middle East. 288 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- No Arab historical figure is more demonized than the Egyptian literati-turned-Islamist Sayyid Qutb. A poet and literary critic in his youth, Qutb is known to have abandoned literature in the 1950s in favor of Islamism, becoming its most prominent ideologist to this day. In a sharp departure from this common narrative, Sabaseviciute offers a fresh perspective on Qutb's life that examines his Islamist commitment as a continuation of his literary project. Contrary to the notion of Islam's incompatibility with literature, the book argues that Islamism provided as Qutb with a novel way to pursue his metaphysical quest at a time when the rising anti-colonial movement brought the Romantic models of literature to their demise. Drawing upon unexplored material on Qutb's life-book reviews, criticism, intellectual collaborations, memoirs, and personal interviews with his former acquaintances-Sabaseviciute traces the development of Qutb's thought in line with his shifting networks of friendship and patronage. In a distinct sociological take on Arab intellectual and literary history, this book unveils the unexplored dimensions of Qutb's involvement in Cairo's burgeoning cultural scene.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Giedre Sabaseviciute is research fellow at the Oriental Institute in the Czech Academy of Sciences, specializing in Egypt’s intellectual past and present.
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Shalaby, Khairy. The Time-Travels of the Man Who Sold Pickles and Sweets: A Novel. Cairo. 2016. American University in Cairo Press. 9789774167928. Translated by Michael Cooperson. 320 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Ibn Shalaby, like many Egyptians, is looking for a job. Yet, unlike most of his fellow citizens, he is prone to sudden dislocations in time. Armed with his trusty briefcase and his Islamic-calendar wristwatch, he bounces uncontrollably through Egypt's rich and varied past, with occasional return visits to the 1990s. Through his wild and whimsical adventures, he meets, befriends, and falls out with sultans, poets, and an assortment of celebrities-from Naguib Mahfouz to the founder of the city of Cairo. Khairy Shalaby's nimble story-telling brings this witty odyssey to life.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Khairy Shalaby (1938-2011) was born in Kafr al-Shaykh in Egypt's Nile Delta. He wrote seventy books, including novels, short stories, historical tales, and critical studies. His novel The Lodging House was awarded the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature in 2003, and was published in English translation by the AUC Press in 2006. Michael Cooperson is professor of Arabic language and literature at the University of California, Los Angeles.
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Sharouni, Yusuf. Blood Feud. London. 1984. Heinemann. 0435906534. Selected & Translated from the Arabic by Deny Johnson-Davies. 137 pages. hardcover. Cover illustration by Ibrahim Salahi.
DESCRIPTION- The development of a talent that is distinguished and individual is shown in these ten stories, written over a period of thirty-five years. While they could only come from an Egyptian writer, their main theme is universal: man's feeling of inadequacy and impotence in the face of the pressures of modern living. Highly skilled at analyzing characters, Sharouni's stories are nevertheless primarily about situations and states of being. In ‘The Crush of Life', for instance, he deals, through the main character's excessive corpulence, with the psychological difficulties that beset the inhabitants of a capital such as Cairo where too many people are occupying too little space. In Sharouni's stories the presence of Freud and Kafka are never far below the surface.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Yusuf Sharouni was born in 1924 in Upper Egypt. He studied philosophy and psychology at Cairo University and worked for several years in the Sudan as a teacher. More recently he has held a senior post at the Supreme Council for the Arts, Literature and Social Sciences in Cairo. Although his output has not been large, he quickly made a reputation as one of the Arab world's leading short story writers.
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Shaw, Ian and Nicholson, Paul (in association with The British Museum). The Princeton Dictionary of Ancient Egypt. Princeton. 2008. Princeton University Press. 9780691137629. 368 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- For more than a decade, Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson's DICTIONARY OF ANCIENT EGYPT has been the most informative and useful dictionary of ancient Egypt available, one that Library Journal called ‘a preeminent source' and ‘the essential choice.' Now fully revised and updated, this new edition covers the most important discoveries and scholarship in the field since 1995. Written by two archaeologists, each with more than twenty years of excavation experience in Egypt, this authoritative dictionary defines and explains important themes, sites, objects, individuals, and historical periods throughout four thousand years of Egyptian civilization. More than 600 A-to-Z entries provide concise information on all aspects of ancient Egypt and Nubia during the pharaonic and Graeco-Roman periods. Each entry is followed by a bibliography, allowing readers to pursue subjects in more detail. The dictionary is lavishly illustrated with photographs, line drawings, site plans, and maps. THE PRINCETON DICTIONARY OF ANCIENT EGYPT is an indispensable resource for researchers, students, and anyone with an interest in the ancient world. INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING FEATURES - Completely revised text; More than 600 up-to-date alphabetical entries ranging from agriculture to Zawiyet el-Mayitin, and includes more than 80 new terms; Up-to-date bibliographies for each entry; Revised and enlarged maps and diagrams; More than 500 illustrations; Thoroughly indexed and cross-referenced; Includes a chronology of dynasties, a list of Egyptologists mentioned in the text, and an alphabetical list of Theban tombs.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ian Shaw is senior lecturer in Egyptian archaeology at the University of Liverpool. His books include The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Egyptian Warfare and Weapons. Paul Nicholson is senior lecturer in archaeology at Cardiff University. His books include Egyptian Faience and Glass and Brilliant Things for Akhenaten. Shaw and Nicholson are the coeditors of Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology.
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Soueif, Ahdaf. Sandpiper. London. 1996. Bloomsbury Books. 0747524815. 150 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- A compelling and complex study of perspective, ways of seeing, ways of feeling.the cast is international. An American, a Greek, an Arab, an Englishwoman: these characters are caught in situations which are culturally foreign and have the power to alter or reshape their ways of looking at the world.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ahdaf Soueif (born 23 March 1950) is an Egyptian novelist and political and cultural commentator. Soueif was born in Cairo, where she lives, and was educated in Egypt and England. She studied for a PhD in linguistics at the University of Lancaster. Her sister is the human and women's rights activist and mathematician Laila Soueif. Her debut novel, In the Eye of the Sun (1993), set in Egypt and England, recounts the maturing of Asya, a beautiful Egyptian who, by her own admission, "feels more comfortable with art than with life." Her second novel The Map of Love (1999) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, has been translated into 21 languages and sold over a million copies. She has also published two works of short stories, Aisha (1983) and Sandpiper (1996) - a selection from which was combined in the collection I Think Of You in 2007, and Stories Of Ourselves in 2010. Soueif writes primarily in English, but her Arabic-speaking readers say they can hear the Arabic through the English. She translated Mourid Barghouti's I Saw Ramallah (with a foreword by Edward Said) from Arabic into English. Along with her readings of Egyptian history and politics, Soueif also writes about Palestinians in her fiction and non-fiction. A shorter version of "Under the Gun: A Palestinian Journey" was originally published in The Guardian and then printed in full in Soueif's recent collection of essays, Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common Ground (2004) and she wrote the introduction to the NYRB's reprint of Jean Genet's Prisoner of Love.[citation needed] In 2008 she initiated the first Palestine Festival of Literature, of which she is the Founding Chair. Soueif is also a cultural and political commentator for the Guardian newspaper and she has been reporting on the Egyptian revolution. In January 2012 she published Cairo: My City, Our Revolution - a personal account of the first year of the Egyptian revolution. Her sister Laila Soueif, and Laila's children, Alaa Abd El-Fatah and Mona Seif, are also activists. She was married to Ian Hamilton with whom she had two sons, Omar Robert Hamilton and Ismail Richard Hamilton.
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Tignor, Robert L. Egypt: A Short History. Princeton. 2010. Princeton University Press. 9780691147635. 25 color illustrations 6 halftones. 2 maps. 363 pages. hardcover. 7500.
DESCRIPTION- This is a sweeping, colorful, and concise narrative history of Egypt from the beginning of human settlement in the Nile River valley 5000 years ago to the present day. Accessible, authoritative, and richly illustrated, this is an ideal introduction and guide to Egypt's long, brilliant, and complex history for general readers, tourists, and anyone else who wants to better understand this vibrant and fascinating country, one that has played a central role in world history for millennia - and that continues to do so today. Respected historian Robert Tignor, who has lived in Egypt at different times over the course of five decades, covers all the major eras of the country's ancient, modern, and recent history. A cradle of civilization, ancient Egypt developed a unique and influential culture that featured a centralized monarchy, sophisticated art and technology, and monumental architecture in the form of pyramids and temples. But the great age of the pharaohs is just the beginning of the story and Egypt: A Short History also gives a rich account of the tumultuous history that followed - from Greek and Roman conquests, the rise of Christianity, Arab-Muslim triumph, and Egypt's incorporation into powerful Islamic empires to Napoleon's 1798 invasion, the country's absorption into the British Empire, and modern, postcolonial Egypt under Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak. This book provides an indispensable key to Egypt in all its layers - ancient and modern, Greek and Roman, and Christian and Islamic.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Robert L. Tignor (born November 20, 1933) is Rosengarten Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at Princeton University. He teaches courses on modern African history and world history and publishes on the same subjects. .
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Wilkinson, Toby (translator). Writings from Ancient Egypt. New York. 2017. Penguin Books. 9780141395951. Introduction by Toby Wilkinson. 384 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- A collection of rare texts from Ancient Egypt, newly translated for this essential edition The fascination that Ancient Egypt holds in our minds has many sources, but at the heart of it lie hieroglyphics. This extraordinary writing system was for many years seen as the ultimate puzzle, before finally being cracked in the 1820s. Preserved carved in stone or inked on papyri, hieroglyphic writings give a unique insight into an awe-inspiring but also deeply mysterious culture. For this collection, Toby Wilkinson has translated a rich selection of pieces, ranging from accounts of battles to hymns to stories to royal proclamations. Entertaining and revelatory, this is an essential resource for studying one of humankind's great civilizations.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Toby Wilkinson is a fellow of Clare College, Cambridge. He has written a number of major books on Ancient Egypt, including The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt, which won the Hessell-Tiltman prize. He has excavated at the Egyptian sites of Buto and Memphis.
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ETHIOPIA
[ ETHIOPIA - Literature - Folklore ]Courlander, Harold and Leslau, Wolf. The Fire on the Mountain and Other Ethiopian Stories. New York. 1970. Holt Rinehart and Winston. 0030352509. Illustrated by Robert Kane. 30 pages. hardcover. Cover illustration by Robert Kane.
DESCRIPTION- The Fire on the Mountain by Harold Courlander and Wolf Leslau is a companion volume to Mr. Courlander's earlier work, THE COW-TAIL SWITCH and other West African Stories. The folk literature of Ethiopia represents a cross current of cultures of the Middle East, Africa, and the West. Some of the tales in this collection have counterparts in Moslem-Africa, Arabia, and India; others bear a resemblance to stories known in Central and Western Europe. Many, however, bear the mark of strictly local invention, and virtually all of them have been so colored by the life and custom of the Ethiopian people that they have a flavor of their own. Though there are many languages and many tribes in Ethiopia, the stories the people tell around their fires at night are the same, for they have been carried back and forth for centuries in the migrations of cattle herders, by camel caravans, and by the traders. Where the stories came from in the beginning no one knows, but many, no doubt, were told for the first time by wise old men in grass-covered huts in Ethiopian mountain villages. Here now, in this new collection by Harold Courlander and Wolf Leslau are the tales Ethiopians love: how the GuragE servant won his land through justice, how the Tota outwitted the leopard and his jackal, how the white mouse found a worthy wife, and many more. Sometimes the heroes and villains of these stories are men, sometimes they are animals. The characters are sometimes very wise, and sometimes they are very silly. Often the tales are about the weaknesses and vanities of all human beings, or about right and wrong. In the adventures of the hyena, the elephant, and the leopard who roam the countryside; in the stories of how the hare, the monkey, and the jackal defend themselves by their cleverness against the larger beasts, there are lessons to be learned by everyone. For at the root of the triumphs and misfortunes of all these animals there is a meaningful and penetrating wisdom which is the product of the experience of all men through the ages. Harold Courlander is well known as a novelist and a student of folklore. Both he and Mr. Leslau heard these particular stories from native Ethiopians. Many of them were told by young boys and by elderly priests which indicates the appeal that folk tales have for both young and old. The illustrations by Robert Kane are imaginative and appropriate.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Harold Courlander (September 18, 1908 - March 15, 1996) was an American novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist, an expert in the study of Haitian life. The author of 35 books and plays and numerous scholarly articles, Courlander specialized in the study of African, Caribbean, Afro-American (U.S.), and American Indian cultures. He took a special interest in oral literature, cults, and Afro-American cultural connections with Africa. Courlander was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, the son of noted American painter, David Courlander of Detroit, Michigan. Courlander received a B.A. in English from the University of Michigan in 1931. At the University of Michigan, he received three Avery Hopwood Awards (one in drama and two in literary criticism). He attended graduate school at the University of Michigan and Columbia University. He spent time in the 1930s on a farm in Romeo, Michigan. There, he built a one-room log cabin in the woods where he would spend much of his time writing. With the prize money from the Hopwood Awards, Courlander took his first field trip to Haiti, inspired by the writings of William Buehler Seabrook. In 1939, he published his first book about Haitian life entitled HAITI SINGING. Over the next 30 years, he traveled to Haiti more than 20 times. His research focused on religious practices, African retentions, oral traditions, folklore, music, and dance. His book, THE DRUM AND THE HOE: LIFE AND LORE OF THE HAITIAN PEOPLE, published in 1960, became a classic text for the study of Haitian culture. Courlander also took numerous field trips to the southern United States, recording folk music in the 1940s and 1950s. From 1947–1960, he served as a general editor of Ethnic Folkways Library (he actually devised the label name) and recorded more than 30 albums of music from different cultures (e.g., the cultures of Indonesia, Ethiopia, West Africa, Haiti, and Cuba). In 1950, he also did field recordings in Alabama later transcribed by John Benson Brooks. In the 1960s, Courlander began a series of field trips to the American Southwest to study the oral literature and culture of the Hopi Indians. His collection of folk tales, PEOPLE OF THE SHORT BLUE CORN: TALES AND LEGENDS OF THE HOPI INDIANS, was issued in 1970 and was quickly recognized as an indispensable work in the study of oral literature. From 1942-43, during World War II, Harold Courlander served as a historian for the Air Transport Command for the Douglas Aircraft Project 19 in Gura, Eritrea. Courlander then worked as a writer and editor for the Office of War Information in New York and Bombay, India, from 1943-46. From 1946 until 1956, he worked as a news writer and news analyst for the Voice of America in New York City. He was an information specialist and speech writer for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations from 1956–1957. He was a writer and editor for The United Nations Review from 1957–1960. From 1960 until 1974, Courlander was African specialist, Caribbean specialist, feature writer, and senior news analyst for the Voice of America in Washington, D.C. Always sympathetic to the plight of animals, Courlander, in his later years would write with his rescued, mixed German Shepherd dog, Sandy, at his side. Even in the 1990s, Courlander still used the same Royal typewriter he had purchased in the 1940s. Courlander never learned typing as they teach it in school and always typed his manuscripts using two fingers. Courlander wrote seven novels, his most famous being THE AFRICAN, published in 1967. The novel was the story of a slave's capture in Africa, his experiences aboard a slave ship, and his struggle to retain his native culture in a hostile new world. In 1978, Courlander filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, charging that Alex Haley, the author of ROOTS, had copied 81 passages from his novel. Courlander's pre-trial memorandum in the copyright infringement law suit stated: ‘Defendant Haley had access to and substantially copied from The African. Without The African, Roots would have been a very different and less successful novel, and indeed it is doubtful that Mr. Haley could have written ROOTS without the African. Mr. Haley copied language, thoughts, attitudes, incidents, situations, plot and character.' In his Expert Witness Report submitted to federal court, Professor of English, Michael Wood of Columbia University, stated: ‘The evidence of copying from THE AFRICAN in both the novel and the television dramatization of Roots is clear and irrefutable. The copying is significant and extensive. ROOTS. .plainly uses THE AFRICAN as a model: as something to be copied at some times, and at other times to be modified, but always it seems, to be consulted. ROOTS takes from THE AFRICAN phrases, situations, ideas, aspects of style and plot. ROOTS finds in The African essential elements for its depiction of such things as a slave's thoughts of escape, the psychology of an old slave, the habits of mind of the hero, and the whole sense of life on an infamous slave ship. Such things are the life of a novel; and when they appear in ROOTS, they are the life of someone else's novel.' After a five-week trial in federal district court, Courlander and Haley settled the case with a financial settlement and a statement that ‘Alex Haley acknowledges and regrets that various materials from THE AFRICAN by Harold Courlander found their way into his book ROOTS.' During the trial, presiding U.S. District Court Judge Robert J. Ward stated, ‘Copying there is, period.' In a later interview with BBC Television, Judge Ward stated, ‘Alex Haley perpetrated a hoax on the public.' During the trial, Alex Haley had maintained that he had not read THE AFRICAN before writing ROOTS. Shortly after the trial, however, a minority studies teacher at Skidmore College, Joseph Bruchac, came forward and swore in an affidavit that he had discussed with Haley THE AFRICAN in 1970 or 1971 and had, in fact, given his own personal copy of THE AFRICAN to Haley. This event took place a good number of years prior to the publication of ROOTS. Wolf Leslau was born on November 14, 1906. in Krzepice, 20 miles northwest of the famed city of Czestochowa. He was orphaned at a young age, but an older brother kept the family functioning, and at eighteen, he graduated from a Polish high school that devoted a considerable part of its curriculum to Hebrew and Jewish subjects; such schools were common in the reconstituted Polish state after World War I. In his teen years, he joined the left-wing Zionist movement Ha-Shomer Ha-Tsa'ir and after high school, prepared himself for moving to Israel and life in a kibbutz. The British, however, refused him an entry permit to Palestine, apparently because he showed signs of having had tuberculosis. His mother, who died from the disease, would seat him on her lap and share her food with him when he was a child, and Wolf was sure that he contracted the disease from her. Instead of tilling the soil of Palestine, he was destined to break ground of a different sort. A series of peregrinations ensued, which reached their happy culmination two decades later in Los Angeles. The first step, in 1926, was a move to Vienna, where he enrolled in the Hebrew Pedagogium. The Pedagogium boasted faculty of university caliber, but Wolf was more interested in a working agreement between the school and the University of Vienna, which allowed students in the former to enroll in the latter. At the University, he studied Akkadian, Arabic, and a subject far off the beaten path that he found especially intriguing--the South Arabic family of languages. Not least of all, soon after arriving in Vienna, he met Charlotte Halpern, who would be his affectionate and supportive partner for more than seventy years. In 1931, Wolf moved with Charlotte to Paris in order to study with Marcel Cohen, an expert on the languages of Ethiopia. He received diplomas in South Arabic and the Ethiopian languages, a language family related to South Arabic; as a dissertation, he wrote an etymological dictionary of Sokotri, one of the South Arabic dialects; and he began teaching South Arabic and Ethiopian languages. After the French capitulated in 1940, he and Charlotte fled to the South. He was interned by the Vichy authorities, managed to get released, and with the help of a relief agency, escaped to New York in 1942, together with Charlotte and their infant daughter. He held part time positions at an École des hautes études that had been created in New York for refugee scholars, at the Asia Institute, and at the New School for Social Research. In 1951, he received an appointment at Brandeis, was still an associate professor in 1955, and was not especially happy with the atmosphere at Brandeis, which was in its infancy. Then he and Paul Dodd, dean of Letters and Science at UCLA, were introduced. UCLA had begun a program in Hebrew with the help of funds contributed by members of the Jewish community and it committed itself to funding a permanent position should the experiment succeed. The university was now ready to fulfill its commitment, but Dodd envisaged something grander--a Department of Near Eastern Languages and a Center for Near Eastern Studies. The meeting with Wolf was a meeting of kindred spirits. After Dodd made short work of having the appropriate faculty committee affix its stamp of approval, Wolf was hired in 1955 as Professor of Hebrew. He was housed in the Department of Classics, and a Professor of Arabic, Irfan Kawar (Shahid), was appointed and housed in Oriental Languages. Wolf was added to the Committee on Near Eastern Studies, became chairman of the Committee in the following year, and then made one of his many contributions to the university by recommending, and pushing for, the appointment of Gustave Von Grunebaum as the first Director of a Center for Near Eastern Studies. Both men had the ear of the Administration, each gave the other unstinting cooperation, and the days were happy ones when funding was plentiful. Further appointments in Near Eastern languages and in the social sciences followed. In 1959, the university established a department of Near Eastern Languages; for a time it was a department of Near Eastern and African Languages and eventually chose for itself its current name, the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. The initial faculty consisted of professors of Hebrew, Semitic, Arabic, and Persian-Turkish, who had hitherto been housed in the Departments of Classics and Oriental Languages. Wolf was chairman, a capacity in which he served until 1965. Despite having had no previous administrative experience, he was strikingly adept at the job, establishing a warm rapport with the university administration and proving himself an efficient and visionary departmental administrator. In those days, the chancellor had a yearly reception for faculty. A few remaining souls—their hair long since gone white—may recall how Wolf would gather new faculty before the reception and, like a proud mother hen escorting her chicks, present them to the chancellor and deans so that they could see how well university resources were being utilized. More likely than not, he would knock on the administration's door a short time later to request funding for an additional appointment. The Leslau-Von Grunebaum “master plan” gave the Department form and direction as it grew, although not every element was implemented. The university deemed other demands more pressing, for example, than professorships in the languages and literatures of all the Eastern Churches--Armenian, Geez, Syriac, and even Georgian. The Department today has a healthy Armenian program and offers courses in the Syriac language, but the other components of the Eastern Church concept fell by the wayside. Wolf nonetheless sowed the seeds that developed into the breadth and strengths of today's Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. For his dictionary of Sokotri, he relied on materials collected by Austrian researchers who, early in the nineteenth century, visited the areas where the language was spoken. He was eager, however, to do his own field work, and after the war, from 1946 into the 70's, made repeated trips to Ethiopia in order to record languages and dialects that were spoken in outlying pockets but had no writing system. He wrote down what he heard on index cards and when tape recorders became available—and he was able to convince customs officers, with a helpful word from Emperor Haile Selassie himself, to allow the mysterious machine into the country without the payment of a king's ransom in fees—he employed that device as well. One of the deans would ask him when he returned from field trips: “Well, Wolf, how many new languages did you discover this time?” On returning to the United States, and then when the Emperor was deposed and travel to Ethiopia was no longer feasible, he resorted to informants from Ethiopia who happened to be here. An ingenious tactic of his was to have a speaker of one of the village dialects who was also literate in Amharic write down, in his native tongue and in Amharic characters, his recollections of village life. A number of volumes in this vein, representing various languages and dialects, were later published, in transliteration and translation, under the title Ethiopians Speak. They still serve linguists and anthropologists. Wolf molded the materials he gathered into a prodigious number of publications, and his full bibliography, which includes an invaluable reference grammar and dictionary of Amharic, as well as studies in Hebrew, Arabic, and general Semitics, exceeds 300 entries. His approach, once he had recorded materials, was more along the lines of traditional philology than of modern linguistics. His final book, published in 2004, The Verb in Masqan as Compared with Other Gurage Dialects, was based on material gathered decades earlier. Anyone reading the introduction would visualize an author at the height of his scholarly powers; it is hard to comprehend how the book could have come from the hands of a frail ninety-seven year old with failing eye sight. Upon completing the Masqan book, Wolf, as a matter of course, turned to a study of yet another of the Gurage dialects, Gogot. But age had finally taken its toll, and he was unable to bring that project to completion. He was recognized as the world authority on Ethiopian languages. Grover Hudson of Michigan State University describes him in an obituary as “the greatest Semiticist linguist of the post-war generation.” Among the many honors that he received, he especially cherished the Haile Selassie Prize for Ethiopian Studies--he was the second recipient, Marcel Cohen having been the first--and an honorary degree from the Hebrew University. Charlotte Leslau died in 1998, and Wolf, full of days, on November 18, 2006.
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Ghermandi, Gabriella. Queen of Flowers and Pearls: A Novel. Bloomington. 2015. Indiana University Press. 9780253015471. Global African Voices. Translated by Giovanna Bellesia-Contuzzi iand Victoria Offredi Poletto. 304 pages. paperback. Translation of Regina di fiori e di perle.
DESCRIPTION- Mahlet, a young Ethiopian girl with a gift for storytelling, has a special bond with Yacob, the oldest in her household. When Yacob tells her stories of how he and the other warriors fought in the resistance against the Italian occupation of Ethiopia, Mahlet vows to become the keeper and teller of her family’s stories. From the time of Menelik to the present, Mahlet's long voyage through time and space links thousands of stories between Africa and Europe. Intensely personal, this powerful and beautifully narrated novel tells the story of the Italian occupation of Ethiopia as well as of others around the globe who have suffered under colonialism or have been forcibly exiled from their homelands.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Gabriella Ghermandi was born in Addis Ababa and lives in Bologna, Italy. She writes and acts in narrative plays that she produces in Italy and Switzerland. She also conducts creative writing workshops for schools. This is her first novel. Giovanna Bellesia-Contuzzi is Professor of Italian Language and Literature at Smith College. She is translator, with Victoria Offredi Poletto of Little Mother (IUP, 2011). Victoria Offredi Poletto is Senior Lecturer in Italian Emerita at Smith College.
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Girma, Baalu. Oromay: A Novel. New York. 2025. Soho Press. 9781641296663. Translated by David DeGusta and Mesfin Felleke Yirgu. 401 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by David Litman. Translation of Oromāy.
DESCRIPTION- December 1981, Ethiopia. Tsegaye Hailemaryam, a well-known journalist for the state-run media, has just landed in Asmara. He is on assignment as the head of propaganda for the Red Star campaign, a massive effort by the Ethiopian government to end the Eritrean insurgency. There, amid the city's bars and coffeehouses buzzing with spies and government agents, he juggles the demands of his superiors while trying to reassure his fiancée back home that he's not straying with Asmara's famed beauties. As Tsegaye falls in love with Asmara—and, in spite of his promises, with dazzling, enigmatic local woman Fiammetta—his misgivings about the campaign grow. Tsegaye confronts the horror of war when he is sent with an elite army unit to attack the insurgents' mountain stronghold. In the aftermath, he encounters betrayals that shake his faith in both the regime and human nature. Oromay became an instant sensation when first published in 1983 and was swiftly banned for its frank depiction of the regime. The author vanished soon thereafter; the consensus is that he was murdered in retaliation for Oromay. A sweeping and timeless story about power and betrayal in love and war, the novel remains Girma's masterpiece.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bealu Girma (22 September 1939 – 1984) was an Ethiopian journalist and author known for his criticism of prominent members of the Derg in his book Oromay ("The End"). He was a notable journalist during the time of Emperor Haile Selassie I and served in various media positions in the country. Girma also wrote notable works, including Beyond the Horizon, The Bell of Conscience, The Call of the Red Star, and Haddis. Girma was born to an Indian father from Gujarat and an Ethiopian mother in Illubabor Province, Ethiopia, in 1939, while fascist forces led by the Axis were occupying the country. Nonetheless, Girma's career centered around the capital, Addis Ababa. His writings were influenced by George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, and other critics of government and philosophical positions regarding freedom and natural rights for societies. He also served as acting deputy minister of information and then as minister during Mengistu Haile Mariam's rule. In 1984, Girma disappeared, widely suspected to have been assassinated by the Derg for his critical writings and opposition to the government of Ethiopia at the time.
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Jonas, Raymond. The Battle of Adwa: African Victory in the Age of Empire. Cambridge. 2011. Harvard University Press. 9780674052741. 413 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Tassaw Habta Wald. Cover design by Lisa Roberts.
DESCRIPTION- In March 1896 a well-disciplined and massive Ethiopian army did the unthinkable - it routed an invading Italian force and brought Italy's war of conquest in Africa to an end. In an age of relentless European expansion, Ethiopia had successfully defended its independence and cast doubt upon an unshakable certainty of the age - that sooner or later all Africans would fall under the rule of Europeans. This event opened a breach that would lead, in the aftermath of world war fifty years later, to the continent's painful struggle for freedom from colonial rule. Raymond Jonas offers the first comprehensive account of this singular episode in modern world history. The narrative is peopled by the ambitious and vain, the creative and the coarse, across Africa, Europe, and the Americas - personalities like Menelik, a biblically inspired provincial monarch who consolidated Ethiopia's throne; Taytu, his quick-witted and aggressive wife; and the Swiss engineer Alfred Ilg, the emperor's close advisor. The Ethiopians' brilliant gamesmanship and savvy public relations campaign helped roll back the Europeanization of Africa. Figures throughout the African diaspora immediately grasped the significance of Adwa, Menelik, and an independent Ethiopia. Writing deftly from a transnational perspective, Jonas puts Adwa in the context of manifest destiny and Jim Crow, signaling a challenge to the very concept of white dominance. By reopening seemingly settled questions of race and empire, the Battle of Adwa was thus a harbinger of the global, unsettled century about to unfold.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Raymond Jonas is Giovanni and Amne Costigan Professor of History at the University of Washington.
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Kapuscinski, Ryszard. The Emperor: Downfall of An Autocrat. San Diego. 1983. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 0151287716. Translated from the Polish by William R. Brand & Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand. 180 pages. hardcover. Jacket photo: United Press International. Jacket design by Bob Silverman.
DESCRIPTION- ‘The Emperor is the nightmare that men of power dream when they are most alone. It is a bone-chilling, brilliant tale, as precise in its cut-glass literary style as in its political insights. Taut, yet brimming with aphorism, it is the ultimate re-creation of power in decay.' - Alvin Toffler. After Haile Selassie was deposed in 1974, Ryszard Kapuscinski - Poland's top foreign correspondent - went to Ethiopia to piece together a firsthand account of how the Emperor governed his country and why he fell from power. At great risk to himself, Kapuscinski interviewed members of the imperial circle who had gone into hiding. The result is this remarkable book, an extraordinary study of power anywhere. Humorous and grotesque, acute and moving, the stories of the Emperor's servants and associates portray a man utterly determined to preserve autocratic rule. They tell how he established a network of informants, pitted potential rivals against one another, cultivated his image as sole benefactor. The eyewitnesses describe autocracy's strengths and autocracy's flaws, the people around the Emperor who were ‘on their knees - but with knives.' When The Emperor was published in Poland in 1978, it was widely viewed as an allegory of dictatorship in general. Critics saw its publication as a key event in shaping the consensus for reform in Poland, and the book spawned a score of stage adaptations in 1981 alone. Whether read as historical documentary or political allegory, The Emperor is a dazzling literary performance.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ryszard Kapuscinski, Poland's most celebrated foreign correspondent, was born in 1932 in Piñsk (in what is now Belarus) and spent four decades reporting on Asia, Latin America, and Africa. He is also the author of IMPERIUM, ANOTHER DAY OF LIFE, and THE SOCCER WAR. His books have been translated into twenty-eight languages. Kapuscinski died in 2007.
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Mengestu, Dinaw. How To Read the Air. New York. 2010. Riverhead Books. 9781594487705. 307 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Rodrigo Corral.
DESCRIPTION- From the prizewinning international literary star: the searing and powerful story of one man's search for redemption. Dinaw Mengestu's first novel, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, earned the young writer comparisons to Bellow, Fitzgerald, and Naipaul, and garnered ecstatic critical praise and awards around the world for its haunting depiction of the immigrant experience. Now Mengestu enriches the themes that defined his debut with a heartbreaking literary masterwork about love, family, and the power of imagination, which confirms his reputation as one of the brightest talents of his generation. One early September afternoon, Yosef and Mariam, young Ethiopian immigrants who have spent all but their first year of marriage apart, set off on a road trip from their new home in Peoria, Illinois, to Nashville, Tennessee, in search of a new identity as an American couple. Soon, their son, Jonas, will be born in Illinois. Thirty years later, Yosef has died, and Jonas needs to make sense of the volatile generational and cultural ties that have forged him. How can he envision his future without knowing what has come before? Leaving behind his marriage and job in New York, Jonas sets out to retrace his mother and father's trip and weave together a family history that will take him from the war-torn Ethiopia of his parents' youth to his life in the America of today, a story - real or invented - that holds the possibility of reconciliation and redemption.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Dinaw Mengestu (born 30 June 1978) is an Ethiopian-American novelist and writer. In addition to three novels, he has written for Rolling Stone on the war in Darfur, and for Jane Magazine on the conflict in northern Uganda. His writing has also appeared in Harper's, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous other publications. He is the Program Director of Written Arts at Bard College. In 2007 the National Book Foundation named him a "5 under 35" honoree. Since his first book was published in 2007, he has received numerous literary awards, and was selected as a MacArthur Fellow in 2012. Dinaw Mengestu was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. His family left Ethiopia during the war when he was two years old and immigrated to the United States. He was raised in Peoria, Illinois, and graduated from Fenwick High School in Oak Park, Illinois. Mengestu received his B.A. in English from Georgetown University, and his MFA in fiction from Columbia University.Mengestu's dEbut novel, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, was published in the United States in March 2007 by Penguin Riverhead. It tells the story of Sepha Stephanos, who fled the warfare of the Ethiopian Revolution 17 years before and immigrated to the United States. He owns and runs a failing grocery store in Logan Circle, then a poor African-American section of Washington, D.C. that is becoming gentrified. He and two fellow African immigrants, all of them single, deal with feelings of isolation and nostalgia for home. Stephanos becomes involved with a white woman and her daughter, who move into a renovated house in the neighborhood. The novel was published in the United Kingdom as Children of the Revolution in May 2007 by Jonathan Cape. It has been translated into more than a dozen languages. Mengestu's second novel, How to Read the Air, was published in October 2010. Part of the novel was excerpted in the July 12, 2010, issue of The New Yorker, after Mengestu was selected as one of their "20 under 40" writers of 2010. This novel was also the winner of the 2011 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. This literary award was established in 2007 by the Baton Rouge Area Foundation. In 2014, he was selected for the Hay Festival's Africa39 project as one of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with the potential and the talent to define the trends of the region.
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Mengestu, Dinaw. The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears. New York. 2007. Riverhead. 9781594489402. 229 pages. hardcover. Jacket photograph by Ohad Ben-Yoseph. Original art in pghotograp by Alicia K. Cosnahan.
DESCRIPTION- The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, is the debut novel of Ethiopian author Dinaw Mengestu. Published in 2007 by the Penguin Group the novel focuses on the life of Sepha Stephanos, an Ethiopian immigrant living in Washington, D.C. after fleeing his country's revolution seventeen years earlier. Running a failing grocery store he ruminates on the past as he faces his own inward crisis of displacement and identity while simultaneously marveling at the gentrification of his neighborhood. This book took close to four years to write and Mengestu spent the better part of a year reviewing it. The original version of this novel was published in the UK as "Children of the Revolution". The name was changed by the publishers before being published in the US because they didn't want the book to sound political.[1] His novel, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (2007) was translated into 12 languages, and named a New York Times Notable Book. The book was also awarded the Guardian First Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, among numerous other honors.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Dinaw Mengestu (born 30 June 1978) is an Ethiopian-American novelist and writer. In addition to three novels, he has written for Rolling Stone on the war in Darfur, and for Jane Magazine on the conflict in northern Uganda. His writing has also appeared in Harper's, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous other publications. He is Lannan Chair of Poetics at Georgetown University. In 2007 the National Book Foundation named him a "5 under 35" honoree. Since his first book was published in 2007, he has received numerous literary awards, and was selected as a MacArthur Fellow in 2012.
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Mezlekia, Nega. Notes From the Hyena's Belly: An Ethiopian Boyhood. New York. 2001. Picador. 0312269889. Winner of the Governor General's Award. 368 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- In this powerful memoir, Nega Mezlekia recalls in vivid detail his boyhood in the aridity of Jijiga, Ethiopia, and his bold journey to manhood during the 1970s and 1980s, his country's most turbulent period. In a narrative that sparkles with wit, Mezlekia traces his personal evolution from child to soldier. We meet Wondwossen, his best friend and collaborator in mischief; Mr. Alula, their embattled teacher; Mr. Tadesse, full-time school director and part-time poacher; Ms. Yetaferu, the Orthodox Christian boarder who manages to find a saint to worship each day of the year and thus to avoid gainful employment; and Yeneta, the local priest who is privy to the languages of heaven and hell. Mezlekia describes the hardships that consumed Ethiopia after the fall of Emperor Haile Selassie and the rise to power of the communist junta, whose merciless Red Terror slaughtered 100,000 Ethiopian youths. Mezlekia himself was forced, at the age of eighteen, to join a guerrilla army, and had several brushes with death at the hands of reactionary exorcists, but he somehow survived the bloodbath. Notes from the Hyena's Belly teems with the smells, sights, and sounds of life in the Horn of Africa - its violent, ingenious people and its underworld of screeching monkeys, lions, and hyenas. Part autobiography and part social history, this is an unforgettable portrait of a world where the boundaries of credulity are challenged daily. Out of this rich, sundrenched land where modern corruption rides ancient custom like a predator, Mezlekia crafts a world elegant in its aridity, extreme in its absurdity, and vast in its ironies.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Nega Mezlekia (born 1958) is an Ethiopian writer who writes in English. His first language is the Amharic language, but since the 1980s he has lived in Canada so speaks and writes in English. Nega was born in Jijiga, the oldest son of Mezlekia, a bureaucrat in the Imperial government. Although initially supporting the revolution that deposed Emperor Haile Selassie, he grew strongly critical of the regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam. As a late teenager he abandoned his mother and siblings and set off with his best friend to join one of the armed rebel groups. In 1983 he left his position at Haramaya University to accept an engineering scholarship and study at Wageningen University. After two years in the Netherlands he was still unable to return home so moved to Canada instead. He has still never returned to Ethiopia. He recounted his life story in his first book, Notes from the Hyena's Belly. Published in 2000, his book won the Governor General's Award for English language non-fiction that same year. Mezlekia followed it up with the novel The God Who Begat a Jackal, which concerns an old Ethiopian myth. Although he still is a practicing engineer he indicates that he misses that sense of myth and spirituality from his youth. Shortly after Mezlekia's award win for Notes from the Hyena's Belly, poet and editor Anne Stone alleged that she had ghostwritten all but the final 20 pages of the book. While Mezlekia acknowledged that as a non-native speaker of English he needed some assistance in ensuring that his ideas made it to the page in correct English, he responded that the book was fundamentally his own and that Stone's role in the book's publication was strictly that of a copy editor, and sued Stone for defamation. The resulting controversy led to considerable debate in the Canadian press, with most critics acknowledging that it can be extremely difficult to clearly determine how much of a role an editor can take in shaping a text before they should properly be credited as a coauthor. Several scholarly theses on the nature and limits of the author/editor relationship have cited the Mezlekia case
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Price, Leontyne. Aida. San Diego. 1990. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 015200405x. Based On The Opera by Giuseppe Verdi. Illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon. 32 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- With depth and understanding, acclaimed diva Leontyne Price retells this famous opera about the beautiful princess of Ethiopia. 'The Dillons magnificently capture the drama with powerful full-page illustrations that resemble stage sets. Ideal for reading aloud during an Egyptian unit, in music classes, to children attending the opera, or for the pure aesthetic experience.' - Booklist.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mary Violet Leontyne Price (born February 10, 1927) is an American soprano. Born and raised in Laurel, Mississippi, she rose to international acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s, and was the first African American to become a leading artist at the Metropolitan Opera. One critic characterized Price's voice as "vibrant", "soaring" and "a Price beyond pearls", as well as "genuinely buttery, carefully produced but firmly under control", with phrases that "took on a seductive sinuousness." Time magazine called her voice "Rich, supple and shining, it was in its prime capable of effortlessly soaring from a smoky mezzo to the pure soprano gold of a perfectly spun high C." A lirico spinto (Italian for "pushed lyric") soprano, she was considered especially well suited to the roles of Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini, as well as several in operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. After her retirement from the opera stage in 1985, she continued to appear in recitals and orchestral concerts until 1997. Among her many honors are the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1964), the Spingarn Medal (1965), the Kennedy Center Honors (1980), the National Medal of Arts (1985), numerous honorary degrees, and 19 Grammy Awards for operatic and song recitals and full operas, and a special Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989, more than any other classical singer. In October 2008, she was one of the recipients of the first Opera Honors given by the National Endowment for the Arts.
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Selassie, Bereket Habte. Emperor Haile Selassie. Athens. 2014. Ohio University Press. 9780821421277. Ohio Short Histories of Africa. 4¼ × 7. 156 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- The rise and fall of an enlightened monarch blinded by absolute power Emperor Haile Selassie was an iconic figure of the twentieth century, a progressive monarch who ruled Ethiopia from 1916 to 1974. This book, written by a former state official who served in a number of important positions in Selassie's government, tells both the story of the emperor's life and the story of modern Ethiopia. After a struggle for the throne in 1916, the young Selassie emerged first as regent and then as supreme leader of Ethiopia. Over the course of his nearly six-decade rule, the emperor abolished slavery, introduced constitutional reform, and expanded educational opportunity. The Italian invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930s led to a five-year exile in England, from which he returned in time to lead his country through World War II. Selassie was also instrumental in the founding of the Organization of African Unity in 1963, but he fell short of the ultimate goal of a promised democracy in Ethiopia. The corruption that grew under his absolute rule, as well as his seeming indifference to the famine that gripped Ethiopia in the 1970s, led finally to his overthrow by the armed forces that he had created. Haile Selassie was an enlightened monarch in many ways, but also a man with flaws like any other. This short biography is a sensitive portrayal of Selassie as both emperor and man, by one who knew him well.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bereket Habte Selassie is William E. Leuchtenburg Professor of African Studies and Law, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and former attorney general of Ethiopia as well as associate justice of the Supreme Court of Ethiopia.
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Sellassie, B. M. Sahle. The Afersata: An Ethiopian Novel. London. 1969. Heinemann. 0435900528. African Writers Series. 90 pages. paperback. AWS52. Cover illustration by Pedro Guedes.
DESCRIPTION- 'The night Narnaga's hut was burnt down all the inhabitants of the thirty villages of Wudma were asleep.' Who is the culprit? The men set about finding out by means of the ancient institution of the Afersata, the traditional Ethiopian way of investigating crimes. Although various sessions are held and many witnesses are examined nobody is found guilty. This story centres round the Afersata and vividly shows the interaction of characters in such circumstances. There are the petty government officials who authorise the holding of the Afersata meetings, the elders who conduct the Afersata ceremony, members of the submerged class who see a recognition of their civic rights in being allowed to sit at the meetings and young civil servants who, advocate reforms. They all help to bring this African village to life.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - SAHLE SELLASSIE BERHANE MARIAM was born in 1936. He has studied at the University College in Addis Ababa, l'UniversitE d'Aix-Marseille and at the University of California, Los Angeles. He contributed short stories and articles in English and Amharic to publications in Ethiopia. Shinega's Village, a novel written in Chaha, has been published in English by the University of California Press, and Wotat Yifredew, a novel in Amharic, appeared in Addis Ababa. He is now a staff training officer.
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Sellassie, Sahle. Shinega's Village: Scenes of Ethiopian Life. Berkeley. 1964. University of California Press. Translated by Wolf Leslau from Chaha. 112 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- A fictionalised memoir of life in an Ethiopian village in the mid-twentieth century, and the first Ethiopian novel to be published in English.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Berhane Mariam Sahle Sellassie (born 1936) is an Ethiopian author who has written in three languages: Gurage, English, and Amharic. He wrote the first novel in Chaha, a Gurage dialect, which was translated into English by Wolf Leslau for publication with the title Shinega's Village. This was followed by several books in English; The Afersata (1969) is perhaps the best known of these. He has written a major work in Amharic about the war with Italy, 1935 to 1941, and has translated other works.
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Sellassie, Sahle. Warrior King. London. 1974. Heinemann. 043590163x. African Writers Series. 150 pages. paperback. AWS163. Cover photograph by George Hallett.
DESCRIPTION- Warrior King is that rarity in the African Writers Series, a historical novel. It is the exciting and fast-moving story of the rise of Kassa Hailu to become Emperor Teowodros II, or Theodore as he has been called. Sahle Sellassie has drawn on the full richness of 19th century Ethiopian history to show a strong man reuniting the provinces of the Empire. The epic story is given human proportions by being introduced through the eyes of a peasant boy, Gebreye. He joins Kassa Hailu's outlaw band which sets out to destroy a corrupt regime of usurpers.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Berhane Mariam Sahle Sellassie (born 1936) is an Ethiopian author who has written in three languages: Gurage, English, and Amharic. He wrote the first novel in Chaha, a Gurage dialect, which was translated into English by Wolf Leslau for publication with the title Shinega's Village. This was followed by several books in English; The Afersata (1969) is perhaps the best known of these. He has written a major work in Amharic about the war with Italy, 1935 to 1941, and has translated other works.
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Shiferraw, Mahtem. Fuchsia. Lincoln. 2016. University of Nebraska Press. 9780803285569. Foreword by Kwame Dawes. African Poetry Book series Kwame Dawes, series editor. 6 x 9. 83 pages. paperback. Cover painting: Red Arada by Getahun Assefa Balcha.
DESCRIPTION- Winner of the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets, Ethiopian American Mahtem Shiferraw's Fuchsia examines conceptions of the displaced, disassembled, and nomadic self. Embedded in her poems are colors, elements, and sensations that evoke painful memories related to deep-seated remnants of trauma, war, and diaspora. Yet rooted in these losses and dangers also lie opportunities for mending and reflecting, evoking a distinct sense of hope. Elegant and traditional, the poems in Fuchsia examine what it means to both recall the past and continue onward with a richer understanding. ‘Fuchsia, culled from robust life and a finely tuned imagination, captures mysteries of the heart and mind alongside everyday rituals. Each poem dares us line by line, and suddenly we're inside the delicate mechanism of a deep song. The magical, raw, bittersweet duende of Fuchsia speaks boldly. The personal history and emotional architecture of Ethiopia and Eritrea reside in every portentous poem here. But the stories, each shaped and textured by true feeling, are also ours because they beckon to us.' - Yusef Komunyakaa, author of The Emperor of Water Clocks.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mahtem Shiferraw is a native of Ethiopia and Eritrea and now lives in Los Angeles, California. Her work has appeared in Mandala Journal, Callaloo, Luna Luna Magazine, Cactus Heart Press, Blast Furnace, and Mad Hatters' Review.
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Tuma, Hama. The Case of the Socialist Witchdoctor and Other Stories. Portsmouth. 1993. Heinemann. 0435905902. African Writers Series. 192 pages. paperback. Cover design by Touchpaper. Cover illustration by Greg Becker.
DESCRIPTION- The repressive regime in Ethiopia places innocent people in the dock. In 'The Case of the Socialist Witchdoctor' and related stories Hama Tuma puts the regime itself on trial. Other stories take place outside the courtroom - in bars, brothels, guerilla hideouts and village huts - where life is equally full of vengeance and betrayal. These are terrible tales, their darkness shot through with brilliant flashes of satire and irony.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Hama Tuma (born 1949) is an Ethiopian poet and writer in the Amharic and English languages. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Tuma studied Law in Addis Ababa University. He became an advocate for democracy and justice. This has caused him to be banned by three different Ethiopian governments. This situation sharpened his use of satire and he is known as one of Ethiopia's greatest satirists. He has travelled widely but currently lives in Paris with his wife and daughter. His books have been translated into English, Italian, French, and Hebrew.
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Worku, Daniachew. The Thirteenth Sun. London. 1973. Heinemann. African Writers Series. 173 pages. paperback. AWS125.
DESCRIPTION- In part, The Thirteenth Sun reflects Worku's own long record of political activism, which cost him his academic position at Haile Selassie I University in Addis Ababa, where he specialized in Amharic language and literature. The Thirteenth Sun (a reference to the last month of the 13-month Ethiopian calendar) is an allegory of Ethiopia under the reactionary rule of Haile Selassie, but this allegory is submerged in an extraordinarily concrete, vivid, and poetic portrayal of Ethiopian society in the microcosm of a pilgrimage to a mountain shrine. Ethiopian society and culture and the country's diverse national character are all dealt with in an often sardonic but compassionate narrative.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Daniachew Worku, (born 1936, Addis Ababa, Eth. - died 1994/95), Ethiopian writer of drama, fiction, poetry, and literary history, best known outside Ethiopia for his novel in English, The Thirteenth Sun (1973).
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Wrong, Michela. I Didn't Do It For You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation. New York. 2005. Harper Collins. 0060780924. 432 pages. hardcover. Jacket photograph by Reuters/Corbis.
DESCRIPTION- ‘Scarred by decades of conflict and occupation, the craggy African nation of Eritrea has weathered the world's longest-running guerrilla war. The dogged determination that secured victory against Ethiopia, its giant neighbor, is woven into the national psyche, the product of a series of cynical foreign interventions. Fascist Italy wanted Eritrea as the springboard for a new, racially pure Roman empire, Britain sold off its industry for scrap, the United States needed a base for its state-of-the-art spy station, and the Soviet Union used it as a pawn in a proxy war.' Michael Wrong reveals the breathtaking abuses this tiny nation has suffered and tells the story of colonialism itself. Along the way, we meet a formidable African emperor, a pigheaded English suffragette, and a guerilla fighter who taught himself French cuisine in the bush.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Michela Wrong (born 1961) is a British journalist and author who spent six years as a foreign correspondent covering events across the African continent for Reuters, the BBC, and the Financial Times. Her debut book, In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz (2001), covers the time she has spent in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) as it transitioned from the leadership of Mobutu Sese Seko to that of Laurent-DEsirE Kabila. Her second book, I Didn't Do It For You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation (2004), is the story of Eritrea and its existence through Italian, British, American and Ethiopian occupation. It's Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower (2009) tells the story of John Githongo, a Kenyan journalist and civil society activist who, in 2002, took on a senior anti-corruption role within the newly elected government of President Mwai Kibaki. In this role, Githongo uncovered widespread evidence of corruption (notably the Anglo-Leasing scandal) located high up within the Kibaki government. The book also discusses the role of ethnicity in Kenyan politics and is strongly critical of the response of the international aid community to the Githongo case. The World Bank and the British government's aid department (the Department for International Development) come in for particularly strong criticism, though notable exceptions are also highlighted, such as Edward Clay, the then British High Commissioner to Kenya. Wrong writes regularly for the New Statesman magazine. She currently lives in London. Wrong is also the granddaughter of Oxford historian Edward Murray Wrong and daughter of the eminent nephrologist Oliver Wrong.
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GABON
[ GABON - POURQUOI MPONGWE - Children’s Books ]Aardema, Verna. Princess Gorilla and a New Kind of Water. New York. 1988. Dial Press. 0803704127. Illustrations by Victoria Chess. 32 pages. hardcover. Cover art by Victoria Chess.
DESCRIPTION- This Pourquoi tale of the Mpongwe explains why talapoins live in trees. King Gorilla finds a barrel of vinegar and decides to use the vinegar to get a strong and powerful husband for his daughter. Will the princess get to marry the gorilla of her dreams? Verna Aardema was a school teacher in Michigan from 1934 to 1973. Her writing is very unique with stories full of expressive animal characters. Many of her books have won various awards.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Verna Norberg Aardema Vugteveen (June 6, 1911 - May 11, 2000), best known by the name Verna Aardema, was an American writer of children's books. Verna Norberg was born in New Era, Michigan. She graduated from Michigan State University with a B.A. of Journalism in 1934. She worked as a grade school teacher from 1934 to 1973 and became a correspondent for the Muskegon Chronicle in 1951, a job that lasted until 1972, the year before she retired from teaching. From an early age she knew that she would be a writer. She spent every free second reading anything she could get her hands on. In her senior year at Michigan State she won three writing contests; although not her first, they were the most influential in her decision to pursue the childhood dream. She first considered writing for children when her daughter refused to eat until she'd heard one of her mother's stories. These bribes were often set in the places that she had been reading about recently, and as she became more and more interested in Africa, they began to be set there more frequently. In 1960 she published her first set of stories, Tales from the Story Hat which were very successful, and so she continued to adapt traditional tales and folklore from distant cultures, (usually from Africa and Mexico) to expose young children to the vast variety of human expression. Her book, Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears (1975), illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon, received the Caldecott Medal in 1976 and the Brooklyn Art Books for Children Award in 1977. Who's in Rabbit's House? 1977 was the 1977 School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and a Lewis Carroll Shelf Award winner in 1978. Aardema received the Children's Reading Round Table Award in 1981, and several of her works have been selected as Notable Books by the American Library Association. Her Oh Kojo! How Could You! won the 1984 Parents' Choice Award for Literature.
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Mengara, Daniel. Mema. Portsmouth. 2003. Heinemann. 0435909231. African Writers Series. 128 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Mema engages the reader with its dramatic tale of a woman struggling against the constraints of her community, yet proves to be a multi-layered novel exploring a culture in transition.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Daniel Mengara was born in Minvoul, Gabon, in 1967. He holds a BA from Omar Bongo University in Gabon, an MA from Illinois State University, and a PhD and MA from the University of Nice, France. Mengara has published several articles in the areas of francophone, post-colonial, and African studies. Mema is his debut novel. He is also founder of the Bongo Doit Partir, a political organisation which sets itself in opposition to the Omar Bongo regime and which promotes democracy in Gabon. He currently works as Professor of World Languages and Cultures at Montclair State University and is the Executive Director of SORAC (Society of Research on African Cultures).
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Mintsa, Justine. Awu's Story: A Novel. Lincoln. 2018. University of Nebraska Press. 9781496206930. Translated and with an Introduction by Cheryl Toman. Foreword by Thérèse Kuoh -Moukoury. 5 1/2 x 8 1/2. 138 pages. paperback. Translation of Histoire d'Awu.
DESCRIPTION- At the dawn of the twenty-first century, villages in the Fang region of northern Gabon must grapple with the clash of tradition and the evolution of customs throughout modern Africa. With this tension in the background, the passionate, deft, and creative seamstress Awu marries Obame, after he and his beloved wife, Bella, have been unable to conceive. Because all three are reluctant participants in this arrangement, theirs is an emotionally fraught existence. Through heartbreaking and disastrous events, Awu grapples with long-standing Fang customs that counter her desire to take full control of her life and home. Supplemented with a foreword and critical introduction highlighting Justine Mintsa's importance in African literature, Awu's Story is an essential work of African women's writing and the only published work to meditate this deeply on some of the Fang's most cherished legends and oral history. Praise for the original French edition: “Electrifying, striking, and raw, Awu's Story recounts the realities women face within the family and society in a small village in Gabon. This text incites debate about cultural differences, plunging the reader to the very heart of Gabonese traditions.” - Lire le Monde. “This novel that invites the reader to rethink the very foundation of inherited customs is still very valid today.” - Africultures.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Justine Mintsa is a Gabonese author and, before her retirement in 2016, was an English professor at Omar Bongo University in Libreville. She has also worked in Gabon's Ministry of Culture and the Arts for sixteen years. In 2012 Mintsa was named advisor to Gabon's prime minister and head of the Department of Education and Culture. Cheryl Toman is a professor of French, the chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, and the director of the Women's and Gender Studies Program at Case Western Reserve University. She is the author of Women Writers of Gabon: Literature and Her- story. ThErèse Kuoh-Moukoury is a novelist, journalist, children's rights advocate, and activist. She is the author of Essential Encounters, making her the first woman novelist of francophone Africa.
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GAMBIA
[ GAMBIA - Literature ]Conton, William. The African. Boston. 1960. Little Brown. 244 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Graphic House, Inc.
DESCRIPTION- The African is the odyssey of a man voyaging between the violent eddies of disparate civilizations, who must at every turn decide in which pattern he shall learn and love and lead. It is the story of Kisimi Kamara, born in a remote village in the West African colony of Songhai, who is educated first by missionaries, then in England, and who becomes the first Prime Minister of his country when it achieves independence. From the vividly portrayed bush background through the sojourn, both idyllic and tragic, in England to his dramatic triumph in creating and leading to victory a new native party, Kisimi is at once a symbol of African aspirations and a warmly realized protagonist. THE AFRICAN is wholly unlike any other novel to come out of Africa. Its author, who is Headmaster of the high school in Accra, Ghana, is a man deeply involved in his people's efforts to compress centuries of educational, social and political achievement into a few short decades. He has written here a book which should stand as a landmark of African fiction and African ideals. With its supple and forthright style, it introduces to American readers a writer of remarkable qualifications for bringing alive the ideals and realities of his continent and relating an absorbing tale of an unforgettable man of our times. WILLIAM CONTON was born in 1925 in Bathurst, Gambia, West Africa, the son of a clergyman. He was educated in schools and colleges in West Africa and in England, receiving a B.A. from Durham University. He lives in Accra, Ghana, with his wife and three sons and one daughter.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - William Farquhar Conton (27 October 1925 - July 2002) was a Sierra Leonean educator, historian and novelist. He was born at Bathurst, Gambia, in 1925 and educated in Sierra Leone and the United Kingdom. From 1947 to 1953 he was Durham University Lecturer in History at Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone, and from there went on to become headmaster of Accra High School. In 1953 he was appointed Principal of Government Secondary School, Bo, and in 1960 Principal of Prince of Wales School, Freetown. He is now Chief Education Officer in Sierra Leone, and lives in Freetown with his wife and five children. As well as The African he has published a two-volume study of West Africa in history.
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Kamara, Bakari (performer). Hunters and Crocodiles: Narratives of a Hunters' Bard. Kent. 1990. Unesco/Paul Norbury. 0904404838. Translated & Edited by Gordon Innes & Bakari Sidibe. 123 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Matthew Norbury.
DESCRIPTION- The two narratives which comprise this book, 'Mambi and the Crocodile' and 'Mammadu and the Great Beast' are translations of Mandinka texts recorded during a live performance in The Gambia by Bakari Kamara in 1969. He was a member of a very ancient Mandinka profession - that of a hunters' bard. Though The Gambia is one of the world's smallest countries, it is a land of great cultural and linguistic diversity, with some twelve languages being spoken within its borders. Not surprisingly, it possesses a particularly rich oral literature, which embraces not only story-telling of the kind found thioughout West Africa but also a strong bardic tradition of epic narrative, recounting the exploits of heroes many centuries ago. When presenting the narratives, Bakari Kamara accompanied himself on the typical instrument of the hunters' bards, the simbingo, which is similar in shape to the kora of the court bards, but smaller, with fewer strings and with a long, curved neck.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - GORDON INNES retired as Head of the Department of Africa, School of Oriental & African Studies at the University of London, in 1984 after an academic career of over thirty years as an Africa specialist. His extensive research took him to West Africa on a number of occasions and he has written extensively on the language and literature of the area. Hunters and Crocodiles is his tenth book.
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Peters, Lenrie. Katchikali: Poems. London. 1971. Heinemann. 0435901036. African Writers Series. 70 pages. paperback. AWS103.
DESCRIPTION- ‘Peters is considered one of the most original voices of modern African poetry. A member of the African founding generation writing in English, he showed extensive pan-Africanism in his various volumes of poetry. His poems were mixed with medical terms, and sometimes his later works were angrier at the state of Africa than were his earlier volumes of poetry.’ from Delalorm Sesi Semabia (African Soulja: African Poetry Review).
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - The Gambian writer and surgeon Lenrie Leopold Wilfred Peters (September 1, 1932 - May 28, 2009) was born in Bathurst, Gambia, on September 1st, 1932. In 1949 he moved to Sierra Leone and went to Prince of Wales School, Freetown, where he gained his Higher School Certificate in science subjects. In 1952 he left Freetown to study in England. In between reading Natural Sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge, becoming president of the African Students’ Union, interesting himself in politics – he is a Pan-Africanist – and writing poetry and plays, he started The Second Round. After qualifying in medicine in London he did special work in surgery and is now practising in Bathurst.” . His surgery clinic in Banjul (formerly called Bathurst) operated for many years – during which Dr. Peters continued to write and publish poetry. He died in 2009 at the age of 76 in Dakar, Senegal.
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Peters, Lenrie. Satellites. London. 1967. Heinemann. African Writers Series. 103 pages. paperback. AWS37. Cover illustration by Gay Galsworthy.
DESCRIPTION- Lenrie Peters's poems have appeared in several journals in Britain and Africa. In 1964 a collection of his verse was published by Mbari Publications, Ibadan. A second collection of poetry is planned. 'The poems of Lenrie Peters have for me echoes of Soyinka: not in a derivative sense as such. But you find here the same mastery of the Ehglish language and the consequent relaxed use of it. And there is also the familiar intellectual approach to themes. -But then the comparison ends just there. the poets' imagination roams over a limitless area of the earth, from Kroo Town to Tchaikovsky and Yevtushenko to the Chinese explosion of the atom bomb. Nor is this in itself a fault, since it lends to his verse a rather solid metropolitan ring, which can undoubtedly appeal, to speakers of the English language anywhere. ' Ama Ata Aidoo in WestAfrica.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - LENRIE PETERS was born in Bathurst, Gambia in 1932. In 1949 he moved to Sierra Leone and went to Prince of Wales School, Freetown, where he gained his Higher School Certificate in science subjects. In 1952 he left Freetown to study in England. In between reading Natural Sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge, becoming President of the African Students' Union, interesting himself in politics (he is a Pan-Africanist) and writing poetry and plays, he started his novel The Second Round (AWS 22) which was published in 1965. He is now a qualified doctor who is specialising in surgery, but he still finds time for writing, which he says he finds painful but necessary.
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Peters, Lenrie. Selected Poetry. London. 1981. Heinemann. 0435902385. African Writers Series. 143 pages. paperback. AWS238. Cover photograph by George Hallett.
DESCRIPTION- This book provides a selection from Satellites and Katchikali as well as from Lenrie Peter's more recent work. He has an incisive style and although he writes within the tradition of European poetry he uses African themes and images. Romartus N. Egudu has recently said 'of all African poets of English expression, he is the least concerned about his country and most concerned about the fate of the continent as a whole. He considers himself first an African, and secondly a Gambian. Although Peters has not used the techniques of oral literature, or African linguistic devices, his poems reflect the African spirit and sensibility in their handling of socio-political problems'.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - LENRIE PETERS has a voice which has demanded thoughtful consideration since Mbari published his first collection in 1964. It was followed by Sate//ites (AWS 37) and Katchikali (AWS 103). His novel is The Second Round (AWS 22). He was born in Banjul in The Gambia in 1932. He went to the Prince of Wales School, Freetown and Trinity College, Cambridge. He is a surgeon and worked in hospitals at Guildford and Northampton before returning to his native Gambia.
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Peters, Lenrie. The Second Round. London. 1969. Heinemann Books. 0435900226. African Writers Series. 193 pages. paperback. AWS22. Cover drawing by Charles Keeping. Originally published in AWS series 1966.
DESCRIPTION- Full of anticipation, Dr Kawa returns to Sierra Leone after qualifying in England. But he finds Freetown strangely alien to him, an uneasy mixture of traditional African society and the world he has left behind in England. European customs and society have made their mark; the world of the whisky and soda, the fast car, the opulent house, the credit account, is here in Freetown. Kawa's mother and his friends expect him to take up his 'proper place' in local society, and his uncertainty, his apparent reluctance to do so, to marry and settle down, to acquire possessions, only confuse them. He drifts into a friendship with Laura, but leaves her when he finds her with a lover: then he is drawn into the unhappy lives of Marshall, his wife Clare, and her lover Freddie, already dying of cancer of the nose. But even they cannot provide the anchor he needs: with the disintegration of their lives there is nothing to keep Kawa Freetown. Once again he leaves, this time to serve in a lonely up-country hospital. 'A distinguished and memorable work of imagination.' - Gerald Moore in East Africa Journal.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Lenrie Leopold Wilfred Peters (1 September 1932 - 28 May 2009) was a Gambian surgeon, novelist, poet and educationist. Peters was born in Bathurst (now Banjul). His parents were Lenrie Ernest Ingram Peters and Kezia Rosemary. Lenrie Sr. was a Sierra Leone Creole of West Indian or black American origin. Kezia Rosemary was a Gambian Creole of Sierra Leonean Creole origin. Lenrie Jr. grew up in Bathurst and moved to Sierra Leone in 1949, where he was educated at the Prince of Wales School, Freetown, gaining his Higher School Certificate in science subjects. In 1952 he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, to read Natural Sciences, graduating with a B.Sc. in 1956; from 1956 to 1959 he worked and studied at the University College Hospital, London, and 1959 was awarded a Medical and Surgery diploma from Cambridge. Peters worked for the BBC from 1955 to 1968, on their Africa programmes. While at Cambridge he was elected president of the African Students' Union, and interested himself in Pan-Africanist politics. He also began writing poetry and plays, as well as starting work on his only novel, The Second Round (published in 1965). Peters worked in hospitals in Guildford and Northampton before returning to the Gambia, where he had a surgical practice in Banjul. He was a fellow of the West African College of Surgeons and the Royal College of Surgeons in England. Peters was President of the Historic Commission of Monuments of the Gambia, was president of the board of directors of the National Library of the Gambia and Gambia College from 1979 to 1987, and was a member and President of the West African Examination Council (WAEC) from 1985 to 1991. He died in Dakar, Senegal, aged 76.
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GHANA
[ GHANA - ASHANTI - Children’s Books ]Aardema, Verna. Half-A Ball-Of-Kenki: An Ashanti Tale. New York. 1979. Warne. 072326158x. Illustrations by Diane Stanley Zuromskis. 31 pages. hardcover. Cover illustration by Diane Stanley Zuromskis.
DESCRIPTION- Half-a-Ball-of-Kenki rescues Fly from Leopard and, in the ensuing fray, Leopard receives a spotted coat forever.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Verna Norberg Aardema Vugteveen (June 6, 1911 - May 11, 2000), best known by the name Verna Aardema, was an American writer of children's books. Verna Norberg was born in New Era, Michigan. She graduated from Michigan State University with a B.A. of Journalism in 1934. She worked as a grade school teacher from 1934 to 1973 and became a correspondent for the Muskegon Chronicle in 1951, a job that lasted until 1972, the year before she retired from teaching. From an early age she knew that she would be a writer. She spent every free second reading anything she could get her hands on. In her senior year at Michigan State she won three writing contests; although not her first, they were the most influential in her decision to pursue the childhood dream. She first considered writing for children when her daughter refused to eat until she'd heard one of her mother's stories. These bribes were often set in the places that she had been reading about recently, and as she became more and more interested in Africa, they began to be set there more frequently. In 1960 she published her first set of stories, Tales from the Story Hat which were very successful, and so she continued to adapt traditional tales and folklore from distant cultures, (usually from Africa and Mexico) to expose young children to the vast variety of human expression. Her book, Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears (1975), illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon, received the Caldecott Medal in 1976 and the Brooklyn Art Books for Children Award in 1977. Who's in Rabbit's House? 1977 was the 1977 School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and a Lewis Carroll Shelf Award winner in 1978. Aardema received the Children's Reading Round Table Award in 1981, and several of her works have been selected as Notable Books by the American Library Association. Her Oh Kojo! How Could You! won the 1984 Parents' Choice Award for Literature.
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Aidoo, Ama Ata. After the Ceremonies: New and Selected Poems. Lincoln. 2017. University of Nebraska Press. 9780803296947. Edited and with a foreword by Helen Yitah. African Poetry Book - Kwame Dawes, series editor. 6 x 9. 306 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Ama Ata Aidoo is one of the best-known African writers today. Spanning three decades of work, the poems in this collection address themes of colonialism, independence, motherhood, and gender in intimate, personal ways alongside commentary on broader social issues. After the Ceremonies is arranged in three parts: new and uncollected poems, some of which Aidoo calls “misplaced or downright lost”; selections from Aidoo's An Angry Letter in January and Other Poems; and selections from Someone Talking to Sometime. Although Aidoo is best known for her novels Changes: A Love Story and Our Sister Killjoy, which are widely read in women's literature courses, and her plays The Dilemma of a Ghost and Anowa, which are read and performed all over the world, her prowess as a poet shines in this collection. A Revelation “Ask whatsoever in my name, and I shall do it.” I saw these words or those amounting to same in a shop window that promised solace to a bewildered me and my world. “What a fantastical promise!” I thought. So here is to a humbler me who sees: the point in being God must be the power to say this, and more, and do.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - AMA ATA AIDOO was born in Abeadzi Kyiakor, in south central Ghana in 1942. She studied literature at the University of Ghana, won a fellowship to Stanford University, and subsequently accepted visiting professorships in the United States and Africa. Her poetry collections include Birds and Other Poems, Someone Talking to Sometime, and An Angry Letter in January and Other Poems. HELEN YITAH is an associate professor of English at the University of Ghana. She is the founding director of the University of Ghana–Carnegie Writing Centre and author of Throwing Stones in Jest: Kasena Women's Proverbial Revolt.
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Aidoo, Ama Ata. Changes: A Love Story. Portsmouth. 2003. Heinemann. 0435910140. African Writers Series. 192 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Changes is a story about Esi, an independent woman who leaves her husband, Oko, because he intrudes on her time and personal space. Confronted with the difficulty of finding love and companionship on acceptable terms, Esi meets Ali and falls in love, but she must decide if she is willing to make the changes necessary for a relationship. In Changes Ama Ata Aidoo addresses various issues in contemporary African women's lives: love, career, betrayal and family, without offering simple solutions.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Professor Ama Ata Aidoo, nee Christina Ama Aidoo (born 23 March 1940, Saltpond) is a Ghanaian author, playwright and academic. Born in Saltpond in Ghana's Central Region, she grew up in a Fante royal household, the daughter of Nana Yaw Fama, chief of Abeadzi Kyiakor, and Maame Abasema. Aidoo was sent by her father to Wesley Girls' High School in Cape Coast from 1961 to 1964. The headmistress of Wesley Girls' bought her her first typewriter. After leaving high school, she enrolled at the University of Ghana in Legon and received her Bachelor of Arts in English as well as writing her first play, The Dilemma of a Ghost, in 1964. The play was published by Longman the following year, making Aidoo the first published African woman dramatist. She worked in the United States of America where she held a fellowship in creative writing at Stanford University. She also served as a research fellow at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, and as a Lecturer in English at the University of Cape Coast, eventually rising there to the position of Professor. Aside from her literary career, Aidoo was appointed Minister of Education under the Provisional National Defence Council in 1982. She resigned after 18 months. She has also spent a great deal of time teaching and living abroad for months at a time. She has lived in America, Britain, Germany, and Zimbabwe. She is currently a Visiting Professor in the Africana Studies Department at Brown University. Aidoo's works of fiction particularly deal with the tension between Western and African world views. Her first novel, Our Sister Killjoy, was published in 1977 and remains one of her most popular works. Many of Aidoo's protagonists are women who defy the stereotypical women's roles of their time. Her novel Changes, won the 1992 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book (Africa). She is also an accomplished poet, and has written several children's books.
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Aidoo, Ama Ata. No Sweetness Here and Other Stories. New York. 1995. Feminist Press at City University of New York. 1558611185. Afterword by Ketu H. Katrak. 160 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- An early volume of short fiction from Ama Ata Aidoo. Set in West Africa, these stories chart a geography of consciousness during a period of transition from a colonial society through independence into a postcolonial world still in progress today. The characters-as many men as women come alive on these pages-enjoy good fortune and suffer pain in a tradtional African manner: through brilliant, witty, defiant, image-laden speech. The style of these stories renders African orality dramatically; characterization emerges as much through the unique voice as through physical appearance. The special strength of these stories lies in Aidoo's sensitivity to men's as well as women's lives. Sometimes one can feel even more compassion for the men who are often set in ways counter-productive to living in an African-controlled but tightly-hierarchical society. Even the most critical consciousness-the Western-educated African living abroad or returning home-sometimes doesn't "get it," for the changes are too vast, the future too uncharted. The title story suggests more than meets the eye. If there is no "sweetness," there is the salt essential to life, even if it comes from tears, and the strength that comes from a history of endurance. There is also the wit of the word and the compassion of family and friends. The volume is at once entertaining and deeply instructive not only about a changing Africa, but about such universal themes as love, marriage, work, family, sacrifice, privilege, and hierarchy.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Professor Ama Ata Aidoo, nee Christina Ama Aidoo (born 23 March 1940, Saltpond) is a Ghanaian author, playwright and academic. Born in Saltpond in Ghana's Central Region, she grew up in a Fante royal household, the daughter of Nana Yaw Fama, chief of Abeadzi Kyiakor, and Maame Abasema. Aidoo was sent by her father to Wesley Girls' High School in Cape Coast from 1961 to 1964. The headmistress of Wesley Girls' bought her her first typewriter. After leaving high school, she enrolled at the University of Ghana in Legon and received her Bachelor of Arts in English as well as writing her first play, The Dilemma of a Ghost, in 1964. The play was published by Longman the following year, making Aidoo the first published African woman dramatist. She worked in the United States of America where she held a fellowship in creative writing at Stanford University. She also served as a research fellow at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, and as a Lecturer in English at the University of Cape Coast, eventually rising there to the position of Professor. Aside from her literary career, Aidoo was appointed Minister of Education under the Provisional National Defence Council in 1982. She resigned after 18 months. She has also spent a great deal of time teaching and living abroad for months at a time. She has lived in America, Britain, Germany, and Zimbabwe. She is currently a Visiting Professor in the Africana Studies Department at Brown University. Aidoo's works of fiction particularly deal with the tension between Western and African world views. Her first novel, Our Sister Killjoy, was published in 1977 and remains one of her most popular works. Many of Aidoo's protagonists are women who defy the stereotypical women's roles of their time. Her novel Changes, won the 1992 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book (Africa). She is also an accomplished poet, and has written several children's books.
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Aidoo, Ama Ata. No Sweetness Here: Short Stories. Garden City. 1972. Anchor Press/Doubleday. 166 pages. paperback. A849. Cover Design by Jim McWilliams. Cover Painting by Floyd Sowell.
DESCRIPTION- This book introduces American readers to one of Africa's most gifted and creative young writers. Ama Ata Aidoo has written eleven skillfully crafted short stories set in today's Ghana, each dealing with a man or a woman facing a crisis in his personal life. Through these intense, human dramas, she portrays the anguish of a land and a people torn by the conflict between the values and customs of their traditional rural society and the new standards of their burgeoning, affluent cities - a conflict further overshadowed by the pervasive influence of Western culture and technology. What makes these stories compelling reading, however, is not only Miss Aidoo's insight into the problems of modern Africa, but her profound understanding of the passions, the sufferings, and the triumphs known to men and women of every age, every race, and every nation. Miss Aidoo's simple stories do more than many more strenuous efforts to make contemporary African experience accessible to outsiders. - from a review in Kirkus Review. Challenge-ambivalence-the pendulum of choices- homecoming-urban dissipation-the urban odyssey-urban delusions-rustic comp exities and naivetes-underprivileged womanhood and the arrogance of manhood-motherhood-the arrogance of the elite and its female victims-coups d'etat-other versions of the mother image. These are the themes Ama Ata Aidoo handles in her fiction. This young Ghanaian woman has a style which is not duplicated anywhere in English-speaking Africa: the superb use of dialogue, monologue, to evoke atmosphere, to create dramatic situations. Underneath the delicate texture of the diction one hears movement, an internal monologue, which tells us where it's at. - from the Introduction by, Ezekiel Mphahlele.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Professor Ama Ata Aidoo, nee Christina Ama Aidoo (born 23 March 1940, Saltpond) is a Ghanaian author, playwright and academic. Born in Saltpond in Ghana's Central Region, she grew up in a Fante royal household, the daughter of Nana Yaw Fama, chief of Abeadzi Kyiakor, and Maame Abasema. Aidoo was sent by her father to Wesley Girls' High School in Cape Coast from 1961 to 1964. The headmistress of Wesley Girls' bought her her first typewriter. After leaving high school, she enrolled at the University of Ghana in Legon and received her Bachelor of Arts in English as well as writing her first play, The Dilemma of a Ghost, in 1964. The play was published by Longman the following year, making Aidoo the first published African woman dramatist. She worked in the United States of America where she held a fellowship in creative writing at Stanford University. She also served as a research fellow at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, and as a Lecturer in English at the University of Cape Coast, eventually rising there to the position of Professor. Aside from her literary career, Aidoo was appointed Minister of Education under the Provisional National Defence Council in 1982. She resigned after 18 months. She has also spent a great deal of time teaching and living abroad for months at a time. She has lived in America, Britain, Germany, and Zimbabwe. She is currently a Visiting Professor in the Africana Studies Department at Brown University. Aidoo's works of fiction particularly deal with the tension between Western and African world views. Her first novel, Our Sister Killjoy, was published in 1977 and remains one of her most popular works. Many of Aidoo's protagonists are women who defy the stereotypical women's roles of their time. Her novel Changes, won the 1992 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book (Africa). She is also an accomplished poet, and has written several children's books.
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Aidoo, Ama Ata. The Girl Who Can and Other Stories. Portsmouth. 2002. Heinemann. 0435910132. African Writers Series. 151 pages. paperback. Cover illustration by Hassan Aliyu.
DESCRIPTION- In The Girl Who Can, the irrepressible Ama Ata Aidoo looks at the roles and rules, and the games people find themselves playing, often unwillingly. She analyses African women's struggle to find their rightful place in society. Her stories raise issues of choice and conflict, teasing about the issues with disarming frankness. How do people behave in cross-cultural relationships? In the modern world, where a plastic label identifies us, what is our identity? Will African women be in the driving seat in the twenty-first century? With the zest and humour, Aidoo raises these questions and provides some challenging answers. In this collection of short stories, Aidoo elevates the mundane in women's lives to an intellectual level in an attempt at challenging patriarchal structures and dominance in African society. Written from a child's perspective, Aidoo subverts the traditional beliefs and assumptions about the child's voice. Her inimitable sense of style and eloquence, explores love, marriage and relationships with all the issues they throw up for the contemporary African woman. In doing so, she manages to capture the very essence of womanhood.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Professor Ama Ata Aidoo, nee Christina Ama Aidoo (born 23 March 1940, Saltpond) is a Ghanaian author, playwright and academic. Born in Saltpond in Ghana's Central Region, she grew up in a Fante royal household, the daughter of Nana Yaw Fama, chief of Abeadzi Kyiakor, and Maame Abasema. Aidoo was sent by her father to Wesley Girls' High School in Cape Coast from 1961 to 1964. The headmistress of Wesley Girls' bought her her first typewriter. After leaving high school, she enrolled at the University of Ghana in Legon and received her Bachelor of Arts in English as well as writing her first play, The Dilemma of a Ghost, in 1964. The play was published by Longman the following year, making Aidoo the first published African woman dramatist. She worked in the United States of America where she held a fellowship in creative writing at Stanford University. She also served as a research fellow at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, and as a Lecturer in English at the University of Cape Coast, eventually rising there to the position of Professor. Aside from her literary career, Aidoo was appointed Minister of Education under the Provisional National Defence Council in 1982. She resigned after 18 months. She has also spent a great deal of time teaching and living abroad for months at a time. She has lived in America, Britain, Germany, and Zimbabwe. She is currently a Visiting Professor in the Africana Studies Department at Brown University. Aidoo's works of fiction particularly deal with the tension between Western and African world views. Her first novel, Our Sister Killjoy, was published in 1977 and remains one of her most popular works. Many of Aidoo's protagonists are women who defy the stereotypical women's roles of their time. Her novel Changes, won the 1992 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book (Africa). She is also an accomplished poet, and has written several children's books.
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Aidoo, Christina Ama Ata. The Dilemma of a Ghost. New York. 1971. Collier/Macmillan. Introduction by Karen C. Chapman. Collier African.American Library. 93 pages. paperback. 01202.
DESCRIPTION- Ato Yawson, a young Ghanaian educated in the United States, returns home with his strong-willed Harlem-born wife, Eulalie, whom he married without telling his tradition-conscious family. Ato, in his ambivalence between twentieth-century black America and his African heritage, attempts to bridge the two worlds. Eulalie, bringing with her dreams of "belonging" to a heroic, hallowed land, painfully discovers that Africa is not all colorful birds and peaceful rhythms of deep, mysterious rivers. In these immediate clashes between the tribe and the individual, the “primitive” and the modern, Ato and Eulalie confront barriers and obstacles which time, custom, and culture have made nearly insurmountable. The Dilemma of a Ghost is a play classic in its dramatic construction, heeding all the principles of tragedy while going beyond the rise and fall of a single tragic hero to include the tragedy of community and culture unable to change or to understand.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Professor Ama Ata Aidoo, nee Christina Ama Aidoo (born 23 March 1940, Saltpond) is a Ghanaian author, playwright and academic. Born in Saltpond in Ghana's Central Region, she grew up in a Fante royal household, the daughter of Nana Yaw Fama, chief of Abeadzi Kyiakor, and Maame Abasema. Aidoo was sent by her father to Wesley Girls' High School in Cape Coast from 1961 to 1964. The headmistress of Wesley Girls' bought her her first typewriter. After leaving high school, she enrolled at the University of Ghana in Legon and received her Bachelor of Arts in English as well as writing her first play, The Dilemma of a Ghost, in 1964. The play was published by Longman the following year, making Aidoo the first published African woman dramatist. She worked in the United States of America where she held a fellowship in creative writing at Stanford University. She also served as a research fellow at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, and as a Lecturer in English at the University of Cape Coast, eventually rising there to the position of Professor. Aside from her literary career, Aidoo was appointed Minister of Education under the Provisional National Defence Council in 1982. She resigned after 18 months. She has also spent a great deal of time teaching and living abroad for months at a time. She has lived in America, Britain, Germany, and Zimbabwe. She is currently a Visiting Professor in the Africana Studies Department at Brown University. Aidoo's works of fiction particularly deal with the tension between Western and African world views. Her first novel, Our Sister Killjoy, was published in 1977 and remains one of her most popular works. Many of Aidoo's protagonists are women who defy the stereotypical women's roles of their time. Her novel Changes, won the 1992 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book (Africa). She is also an accomplished poet, and has written several children's books.
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Anyidoho, Kofi. A Harvest of Our Dreams, with Elegy for the Revolution: poems. London. 1984. Heinemann. African Writers Series. paperback. AWS261.
DESCRIPTION- Kofi Anyidoho's poetry is respected as distinct in the way he weaves modernity into tradition and inspires hope by extending the three-chord rope of Ewe oral tradition. He not only writes with the background of Ewe oral tradition experiences but also enacts the very performance and oration of his poems in griotic style.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kofi Anyidoho (born 25 July 1947) is a Ghanaian poet and academic who comes from a family tradition of Ewe poets and oral artists. He is currently Professor of Literature at the University of Ghana. He has received numerous awards for his poetry, including the Valco Fund Literary Award, the Langston Hughes Prize, the BBC Arts and Africa Poetry Award, the Fania Kruger Fellowship for Poetry of Social Vision, Poet of the Year (Ghana), and the Ghana Book Award. Born in Wheta, in Ghana's Volta Region, Anyidoho was educated in Ghana and the USA, and holds a B.A. Honours degree in English & Linguistics from the University of Ghana, Legon, an M.A. in Folklore from Indiana University Bloomington and gained his PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of Texas at Austin. Having trained as a teacher at Accra Training College and at the Advanced Teacher Training College-Winneba, he taught primary, middle and secondary school, before joining the University of Ghana-Legon. Currently the Professor of Literature in the English Department, he has also been Director of the CODESRIA African Humanities Institute Program, acting Director of the School of Performing Arts and Head of the English Department. He was installed as the first occupant of the Kwame Nkrumah Chair in African Studies at the University of Ghana on 18 March 2010.
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Appiah, Kwame Anthony. In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture. New York. 1992. Oxford University Press. 0195068513. 225 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration - 'Man With Bicycle', Yoruba, Nigeria.
DESCRIPTION- Africa's intellectuals have long been engaged in a conversation among themselves and with Europeans and Americans about what it means to be African. At the heart of these debates on African identity are the seminal works of politicians, creative writers, and philosophers from Africa and its diaspora. In this book, Appiah asks how we should think about the cultural situation of these intellectuals, reading their works in the context both of European and American ideas and of Africa's own indigenous traditions. Appiah draws on his experiences as a Ghanaian in the New World to explore the writings of African and African-American thinkers. In the process, he contributes his own vision of the possibilities and pitfalls of an African identity in the late twentieth century. Setting out to dismantle the specious oppositions between ‘us' and ‘them', the West and the Rest, that have governed so much of the cultural debate about Africa in the modern world, Appiah maintains that all of us, wherever we live on the planet, must explore together the relations between our local cultures and an increasingly global civilization. Appiah combines philosophical analysis with more personal reflections, addressing the major issues in the philosophy of culture through an exploration of the contemporary African predicament. Kwame Anthony Akroma-Ampim Kusi Appiah was born in London (where his Ghanaian father was a law student) but moved as an infant to Ghana, where he grew up. His father, Joseph Emmanuel Appiah, a lawyer and politician, was also, at various times, a Member of Parliament, an Ambassador and a President of the Ghana Bar Association; his mother, the novelist and children's writer, Peggy Appiah, whose family was English, was active in the social, philanthropic and cultural life of Kumasi, where they lived. His three younger sisters Isobel, Adwoa and Abena, were born in Ghana. As a child, he spent a good deal of time in England, staying with his grandmother, Dame Isobel Cripps, widow of the English statesman Sir Stafford Cripps. Kwame Appiah was educated at the University Primary School at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi; at Ullenwood Manor, in Gloucestershire, and Port Regis and Bryanston Schools, in Dorset; and, finally, at Clare College, Cambridge University, in England, where he took both B.A. and Ph.D. degrees in the philosophy department. His Cambridge dissertation explored the foundations of probabilistic semantics; once revised, these arguments were published by Cambridge University Press as Assertion and Conditionals. Out of that first monograph grew a second book, For Truth in Semantics, which dealt with Michael Dummett's defenses of semantic anti-realism. Since Cambridge, he has taught at Yale, Cornell, Duke, and Harvard universities and lectured at many other institutions in the United States, Germany, Ghana and South Africa, as well as at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris; and he is now a member of the Princeton University faculty, where he is a member of the Philosophy Department and the University Center for Human Values. Professor Appiah has also published widely in African and African-American literary and cultural studies. In 1992, Oxford University Press published In My Father's House, which deals, in part, with the role of African and African-American intellectuals in shaping contemporary African cultural life. His current interests range over African and African-American intellectual history and literary studies, ethics and philosophy of mind and language; and he has also taught regularly about African traditional religions; but his major current work has to do (a) with the philosophical foundations of liberalism and (b) with questions of method in arriving at knowledge about values. Professor Appiah joined the Princeton faculty in 2002 as Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy and the University Center for Human Values. In 1996, he published Color Conscious: The Political Morality of Race with Amy Gutmann; in 1997 the Dictionary of Global Culture, co-edited with Henry Louis Gates Jr. Along with Professor Gates he has also edited the Encarta Africana CD-ROM encyclopedia, published by Microsoft, which became the Perseus Africana encyclopedia in book form. This is now available in a revised multi-volume edition from Oxford University Press. In 2003, he coauthored Bu Me BE: Proverbs of the Akan (of which his mother, the writer Peggy Appiah, was the major author), an annotated edition of 7,500 proverbs in Twi, the language of Asante. He is also the author of three novels, of which the first, Avenging Angel, was largely set at Clare College, Cambridge, and he reviews regulalry for the New York Review of Books. In 2004, Oxford University Press published his introduction to contemporary philosophy entitled Thinking It Through. In January 2005, Princeton University Press published The Ethics of Identity and in February 2006 Norton published Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, which won the 2007 Arthur Ross Award of the Council on Foreign Relations. In January 2008, Harvard University Press will publish his Experiments in Ethics, based on his 2005 Flexner lectures at Bryn Mawr. Professor Appiah has homes in New York city and near Pennington, in New Jersey, which he shares with his partner, Henry Finder, Editorial Director of the New Yorker magazine. In 2007, he is the President of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association and he will take on the task of Chairing the Executive Board of the American Philosophical Association in 2008. He is also currently Chair of the Board of the American Council of Learned Societies. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwame Anthony Appiah (born May 8, 1954) is a British-born Ghanaian-American philosopher, cultural theorist, and novelist whose interests include political and moral theory, the philosophy of language and mind, and African intellectual history. Kwame Anthony Appiah grew up in Ghana and earned a Ph.D. at Cambridge University. He is currently the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University.
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Armah, Ayi Kwei. Fragments. Boston. 1970. Houghton Mifflin. 287 pages. hardcover. Jacket by Helen Webber.
DESCRIPTION- Ayi Kwei Armah's first novel, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, was published in August, 1968. Time Magazine called the author ‘an artist right to his sizzling nerve ends.' The New York Times called his book ‘a rarity not only in the but first rank of African novels perhaps in the first rank of recent novels anywhere.' His second novel takes its major theme from the shattered spiritual vision versus the grotesque material expectations of Africa today. The larger vision in Fragments belongs mainly to three characters: NAANA - an old woman grown completely blind, whose shut-in mind disturbs her with recurrent dreams of an Africa not so eager to destroy itself in the chase after things - a better, more spiritual community; BAAKO - her grandson, a young artist just back from a foreign university, hoping to do useful creative work in a society increasingly reluctant to recognize beauty in anything other than material riches and power; JUANA - a Puerto Rican woman psychiatrist working in West Africa, for whom the place is another station in a quest for purpose. These three share a pagan vision of life, whose aim lies not in the successful individual's lonely scramble to the top of a society in diseased pain, but in the purification of the poisoned environment itself. The vision is out of joint, of course. For the whole society - and most emphatically the pompous, ostentatious and self-satisfied elite running it - is headily convinced of the exact opposite; the triumphant, overwhelming expectation is that social wealth should consistently go to stuff private bellies while public power is used to bloat petty egos. Inexorably, the vision collides with the massive solidity of this expectation and the impact shatters it. And Baako's peace of mind, never too certain, is also broken. Juana, brought closest to Baako by a love as sensual as it is deeply spiritual, offers a quiet hope. And the book ends as it began, with a mystic, poetic invocation by Naana to her departed ancestors.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ayi Kwei Armah (born 1939) is a notable Ghanaian writer. Born to Fante-speaking parents, and descending on his father's side from a royal family in the Ga nation, Armah was born in the port city of Sekondi-Takoradi in Ghana. Having attended Achimota School, he left Ghana in 1959 to attend Groton School in Groton, MA. After graduating he entered Harvard University, receiving a degree in sociology. Armah then moved to Algeria and worked as a translator for the magazine REvolution Africaine. In 1964, Armah returned to Ghana, where he was a scriptwriter for Ghana Television and later taught English at the Navrongo School. Between 1967 and 1968, he was editor of Jeune Afrique magazine in Paris. From 1968-1970, Armah studied at Columbia University, obtaining his MFA in creative writing. In the 1970s, he worked as a teacher in East Africa, at the College of National Education, Chang'ombe, Tanzania, and at the National University of Lesotho. He lived in Dakar, Senegal, in the 1980s and taught at Amherst and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In Fragments (1971), the protagonist, Baako, is a ‘been-to' - a man who has been to the United States and received his education there. Back in Ghana he is regarded with superstitious awe as a link to the Western life style. Baako's grandmother Naana, a blind-seer, stands in living contact with the ancestors. Under the strain of the unfulfilled expectations Baako finally breaks. As in his first novel, Armah contrasts the two worlds of materialism and moral values, corruption and dreams, two worlds of integrity and social pressure. Why Are We So Blest? (1972) was set largely in an American University, and focused on a student, Modin Dofu, who has dropped out of Harvard. Disillusioned Modin is torn between independence and Western values. He meets a Portuguese black African named Solo, who has already suffered a mental breakdown, and a white American girl, AimEe Reitsch. Solo, the rejected writer, keeps a diary, which is the substance of the novel. AimEe's frigidity and devotion to the revolution leads finally to destruction, when Modin is killed in the desert by O.A.S. revolutionaries. Trans Atlantic and African slave trades are the subject of Armah's Two Thousand Seasons (1973) in which a pluralized communal voice speaks through the history of Africa, its wet and dry seasons, from a period of one thousand years. Arab and European oppressors are portrayed as ‘predators,' ‘destroyers,' and ‘zombies'. The novel is written in allegorical tone, and shifts from autobiographical and realistic details to philosophical pondering, prophesying a new age. The Healers (1979) mixed fact and fiction about the fall of the celebrated Ashanti Empire. The healers in question are traditional medicine practitioners who see fragmentation as the lethal disease of Africa. Armah remained silent as a novelist for a long period until 1995 when he published Osiris Rising, depicting a radical educational reform group which reinstates ancient Egypt at the center of its curriculum. As an essayist Armah has dealt with the identity and predicament of Africa. His main concern is for the creation of a pan-African agency that will embrace all the diverse cultures and languages of the continent. Armah has called for the adoption of Kiswahili as the continental language.
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Armah, Ayi Kwei. Osiris Rising. Popenguine. 1995. Per Ankh. PER ANKH is an African printing and publishing company founded and managed by friends committed to the emergence of a quality African book industry. 305 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- OSIRIS RISING, Armah's sixth novel, takes its narrative structure from Africa's oldest source, the Isis-Osiris myth cycle. Its content has the urgent relevance of tomorrow s news. The protagonist, Ast, an African American scholar, travels to Africa seeking lifework and love. She finds both. But in the moment of discovery, she also finds that this is only seed time in Africa. Before future harvests and love's consummation, the continent's creative ones must discover ways, old and new, to end the millennial rule of destroyers.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ayi Kwei Armah (born 1939) is a notable Ghanaian writer. Born to Fante-speaking parents, and descending on his father's side from a royal family in the Ga nation, Armah was born in the port city of Sekondi-Takoradi in Ghana. Having attended Achimota School, he left Ghana in 1959 to attend Groton School in Groton, MA. After graduating he entered Harvard University, receiving a degree in sociology. Armah then moved to Algeria and worked as a translator for the magazine REvolution Africaine. In 1964, Armah returned to Ghana, where he was a scriptwriter for Ghana Television and later taught English at the Navrongo School. Between 1967 and 1968, he was editor of Jeune Afrique magazine in Paris. From 1968-1970, Armah studied at Columbia University, obtaining his MFA in creative writing. In the 1970s, he worked as a teacher in East Africa, at the College of National Education, Chang'ombe, Tanzania, and at the National University of Lesotho. He lived in Dakar, Senegal, in the 1980s and taught at Amherst and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In Fragments (1971), the protagonist, Baako, is a ‘been-to' - a man who has been to the United States and received his education there. Back in Ghana he is regarded with superstitious awe as a link to the Western life style. Baako's grandmother Naana, a blind-seer, stands in living contact with the ancestors. Under the strain of the unfulfilled expectations Baako finally breaks. As in his first novel, Armah contrasts the two worlds of materialism and moral values, corruption and dreams, two worlds of integrity and social pressure. Why Are We So Blest? (1972) was set largely in an American University, and focused on a student, Modin Dofu, who has dropped out of Harvard. Disillusioned Modin is torn between independence and Western values. He meets a Portuguese black African named Solo, who has already suffered a mental breakdown, and a white American girl, AimEe Reitsch. Solo, the rejected writer, keeps a diary, which is the substance of the novel. AimEe's frigidity and devotion to the revolution leads finally to destruction, when Modin is killed in the desert by O.A.S. revolutionaries. Trans Atlantic and African slave trades are the subject of Armah's Two Thousand Seasons (1973) in which a pluralized communal voice speaks through the history of Africa, its wet and dry seasons, from a period of one thousand years. Arab and European oppressors are portrayed as ‘predators,' ‘destroyers,' and ‘zombies'. The novel is written in allegorical tone, and shifts from autobiographical and realistic details to philosophical pondering, prophesying a new age. The Healers (1979) mixed fact and fiction about the fall of the celebrated Ashanti Empire. The healers in question are traditional medicine practitioners who see fragmentation as the lethal disease of Africa. Armah remained silent as a novelist for a long period until 1995 when he published Osiris Rising, depicting a radical educational reform group which reinstates ancient Egypt at the center of its curriculum. As an essayist Armah has dealt with the identity and predicament of Africa. His main concern is for the creation of a pan-African agency that will embrace all the diverse cultures and languages of the continent. Armah has called for the adoption of Kiswahili as the continental language.
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Armah, Ayi Kwei. The Beautyful Ones Are Not Born Yet. Boston. 1968. Houghton Mifflin. 215 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Helen Webber. Jacket photograph by Vasco Nerses.
DESCRIPTION- This is a novel which can change the perspective of our vision of the basic values of life. It is a novel about Africa, about a new African state, written by a man who was born there, came to the United States, to Groton and to Harvard, who went back to take part in his country's rebirth and had to leave, knowing he can only help from outside, if at all. ‘Inside' there is little but sloth, rot and greed. But in the mind and heart of the hero is a profound human integrity. This is a man strong enough to bear the remonstrance of the family he loves, to bear it while understanding their longing for the modern goods and material comforts they see in abundance around them. In this newly liberated country one finds the familiar traits of a materialistic society. Its politicians, not long since tribal, drive behind chauffeurs in big black cars, take their fashionably dressed wives to nightclubs, receive the hero and his wife in modern villas with well-stocked cocktail bars, whereas the hero, a modest railway clerk, lives his hard and simple days among the refuse and excrement of a corrupt society. But when the denouement occurs and in a sudden coup d'etat the old set of grafters is overthrown, it is he who effects the escape of the Minister so envied by his wife, an escape both literally and symbolically humiliating, but not by his design. The society this book portrays is not only a modern phenomenon, it offers the American reader a striking relevance in the misspelled slogan on the bus: ‘The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born.'
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ayi Kwei Armah, born in Takoradi, Ghana, in 1939, has lived in various places all along his country's coast and in the forest belt in the interior, as well as in the extreme north. He was educated at Achimota School in Ghana, then spent a year at Groton School in Massachusetts before going on to Harvard, where he earned a B.A. cum laude in Social Studies. He has worked as a French-English translator in Algiers, as a scriptwriter for television in Ghana and as an English teacher in Navrongo School, Ghana. Mr. Armah has also written for several publications, among them The New African, Drum Magazine, AtIantic Monthly and The New York Review of Books. He is currently a translator-editor on the staff of Jeune Afrique in Paris.
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Armah, Ayi Kwei. The Healers. Nairobi. 1978. East Africa Publishing House. 377 pages. paperback. Cover design and photo by B. B. Omondi.
DESCRIPTION- A century ago, one of Africa's great empires, Ashanti, fell. The root cause of that fall, symbolic of Africa's conquest, was not merely Europe's destructive strength. It was Africa's disunity: divisions among kindred societies; divisions within each society between aristocrats, commoners, slaves. Even then some saw this disunity as our people's deadliest disease. And they sought the only possible cure: unity. These were THE HEALERS. This is their story, a novel centered on the curative, creative vision of African unity. A story of the past, it speaks calmly to the present, and looks clearly to the future. Ayi Kwei Armah was born in Tekoradi in 1939 and educated at Achimota before taking his first degree in Political Sociology at Harvard and his Masters in Fine Arts at Columbia. Between 1970 and 1976, Ayi Kwei Armah lived and worked in Dar es Saelam as a professional writer. He later taught Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Lesotho.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ayi Kwei Armah (born 1939) is a notable Ghanaian writer. Born to Fante-speaking parents, and descending on his father's side from a royal family in the Ga nation, Armah was born in the port city of Sekondi-Takoradi in Ghana. Having attended Achimota School, he left Ghana in 1959 to attend Groton School in Groton, MA. After graduating he entered Harvard University, receiving a degree in sociology. Armah then moved to Algeria and worked as a translator for the magazine REvolution Africaine. In 1964, Armah returned to Ghana, where he was a scriptwriter for Ghana Television and later taught English at the Navrongo School. Between 1967 and 1968, he was editor of Jeune Afrique magazine in Paris. From 1968-1970, Armah studied at Columbia University, obtaining his MFA in creative writing. In the 1970s, he worked as a teacher in East Africa, at the College of National Education, Chang'ombe, Tanzania, and at the National University of Lesotho. He lived in Dakar, Senegal, in the 1980s and taught at Amherst and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In Fragments (1971), the protagonist, Baako, is a ‘been-to' - a man who has been to the United States and received his education there. Back in Ghana he is regarded with superstitious awe as a link to the Western life style. Baako's grandmother Naana, a blind-seer, stands in living contact with the ancestors. Under the strain of the unfulfilled expectations Baako finally breaks. As in his first novel, Armah contrasts the two worlds of materialism and moral values, corruption and dreams, two worlds of integrity and social pressure. Why Are We So Blest? (1972) was set largely in an American University, and focused on a student, Modin Dofu, who has dropped out of Harvard. Disillusioned Modin is torn between independence and Western values. He meets a Portuguese black African named Solo, who has already suffered a mental breakdown, and a white American girl, AimEe Reitsch. Solo, the rejected writer, keeps a diary, which is the substance of the novel. AimEe's frigidity and devotion to the revolution leads finally to destruction, when Modin is killed in the desert by O.A.S. revolutionaries. Trans Atlantic and African slave trades are the subject of Armah's Two Thousand Seasons (1973) in which a pluralized communal voice speaks through the history of Africa, its wet and dry seasons, from a period of one thousand years. Arab and European oppressors are portrayed as ‘predators,' ‘destroyers,' and ‘zombies'. The novel is written in allegorical tone, and shifts from autobiographical and realistic details to philosophical pondering, prophesying a new age. The Healers (1979) mixed fact and fiction about the fall of the celebrated Ashanti Empire. The healers in question are traditional medicine practitioners who see fragmentation as the lethal disease of Africa. Armah remained silent as a novelist for a long period until 1995 when he published Osiris Rising, depicting a radical educational reform group which reinstates ancient Egypt at the center of its curriculum. As an essayist Armah has dealt with the identity and predicament of Africa. His main concern is for the creation of a pan-African agency that will embrace all the diverse cultures and languages of the continent. Armah has called for the adoption of Kiswahili as the continental language.
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Armah, Ayi Kwei. Two Thousand Seasons. Nairobi. 1973. East Africa Publishing House. 321 pages. paperback. Photograph on the cover - Maelezo, Dar es Salaam.
DESCRIPTION- This novel takes its theme from the whole fantastic sweep of Africa's history; its style is rooted in the virtuosity of Africa's ancient narrative and lyric arts. A young group inexorably rebels against the forces destroying Africa. In a universe poisoned with the deadly values of the West, how shall a people devoted to life prevail? ‘Two Thousand Seasons is a work in the high tradition of African historical narrative. That the events so closely parallel actual historical facts gives us more reason to recommend such a forceful work. Ayi Kwei Armah has done a phenomenal job in giving to the world a novel of African life that speaks to the good, and the bad, the strengths and the weaknesses, yet makes no apologies for the Greatness that is Africa.' - Haki R. Madhubuti. ‘In Ayi Kwei Armah, those who have been seeking the perfect union of Afro-centric consciousness, historical relevance and literary excellence have found their living synthesis. This quiet scholar and humanist - this artist - writes with such lyric grace and deep intelligence that the reader is swept along in the power and beauty of the narrative, little realizing at first that the writer is subtly teaching the ancient, complex, violent and glorious story of Africa and of all of us who sprang from Her.' - Hoyt W. Fuller, Editor of First World Magazine.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ayi Kwei Armah (born 1939) is a notable Ghanaian writer. Born to Fante-speaking parents, and descending on his father's side from a royal family in the Ga nation, Armah was born in the port city of Sekondi-Takoradi in Ghana. Having attended Achimota School, he left Ghana in 1959 to attend Groton School in Groton, MA. After graduating he entered Harvard University, receiving a degree in sociology. Armah then moved to Algeria and worked as a translator for the magazine REvolution Africaine. In 1964, Armah returned to Ghana, where he was a scriptwriter for Ghana Television and later taught English at the Navrongo School. Between 1967 and 1968, he was editor of Jeune Afrique magazine in Paris. From 1968-1970, Armah studied at Columbia University, obtaining his MFA in creative writing. In the 1970s, he worked as a teacher in East Africa, at the College of National Education, Chang'ombe, Tanzania, and at the National University of Lesotho. He lived in Dakar, Senegal, in the 1980s and taught at Amherst and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In Fragments (1971), the protagonist, Baako, is a ‘been-to' - a man who has been to the United States and received his education there. Back in Ghana he is regarded with superstitious awe as a link to the Western life style. Baako's grandmother Naana, a blind-seer, stands in living contact with the ancestors. Under the strain of the unfulfilled expectations Baako finally breaks. As in his first novel, Armah contrasts the two worlds of materialism and moral values, corruption and dreams, two worlds of integrity and social pressure. Why Are We So Blest? (1972) was set largely in an American University, and focused on a student, Modin Dofu, who has dropped out of Harvard. Disillusioned Modin is torn between independence and Western values. He meets a Portuguese black African named Solo, who has already suffered a mental breakdown, and a white American girl, AimEe Reitsch. Solo, the rejected writer, keeps a diary, which is the substance of the novel. AimEe's frigidity and devotion to the revolution leads finally to destruction, when Modin is killed in the desert by O.A.S. revolutionaries. Trans Atlantic and African slave trades are the subject of Armah's Two Thousand Seasons (1973) in which a pluralized communal voice speaks through the history of Africa, its wet and dry seasons, from a period of one thousand years. Arab and European oppressors are portrayed as ‘predators,' ‘destroyers,' and ‘zombies'. The novel is written in allegorical tone, and shifts from autobiographical and realistic details to philosophical pondering, prophesying a new age. The Healers (1979) mixed fact and fiction about the fall of the celebrated Ashanti Empire. The healers in question are traditional medicine practitioners who see fragmentation as the lethal disease of Africa. Armah remained silent as a novelist for a long period until 1995 when he published Osiris Rising, depicting a radical educational reform group which reinstates ancient Egypt at the center of its curriculum. As an essayist Armah has dealt with the identity and predicament of Africa. His main concern is for the creation of a pan-African agency that will embrace all the diverse cultures and languages of the continent. Armah has called for the adoption of Kiswahili as the continental language.
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Armah, Ayi Kwei. Why Are We So Blest?. New York. 1972. Doubleday. 288 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Michael Horen.
DESCRIPTION- Modin is an African, a scholarship student at an American university. In the candor of his youth he probes his world - Africa: the immense, senseless poverty of millions damned; America: the immense, senseless wealth of the blessed. Examining his own place in this world, Modin collides with a shattering recognition: Today's African elite is heir to Africa's tiny but deadly class of slave sellers to the white West. The trade continues; only the tricks of the market place are sharper. The scholarship student is merely the elite African in embryo; his scholarship is an advance payment for services he is destined to render. This destiny of betrayal disgusts Modin. He leaves America, pursuing a better destiny: a life of revolutionary dedication to Africa. But Modin is spiritually entrapped in the West. Several purposeless affairs have brought him to a weirdly American female: Aimee, jaded at a green age, a frigid hedonist who thinks a revolution is any experience fantastic enough to give her the ultimate orgasm. Modin, trailing Aimee, seeks initiation into revolution. He is rebuffed. An interminable wait follows. The pair's love, running its natural course, degenerates into a brutal struggle for personal survival. The disintegration is observed by Solo Nkonam, a Portuguese-educated elite African, sharply perceptive but himself lacking the strength of nerve to travel back home from the spiritual wilderness of the Western world.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ayi Kwei Armah (born 1939) is a notable Ghanaian writer. Born to Fante-speaking parents, and descending on his father's side from a royal family in the Ga nation, Armah was born in the port city of Sekondi-Takoradi in Ghana. Having attended Achimota School, he left Ghana in 1959 to attend Groton School in Groton, MA. After graduating he entered Harvard University, receiving a degree in sociology. Armah then moved to Algeria and worked as a translator for the magazine REvolution Africaine. In 1964, Armah returned to Ghana, where he was a scriptwriter for Ghana Television and later taught English at the Navrongo School. Between 1967 and 1968, he was editor of Jeune Afrique magazine in Paris. From 1968-1970, Armah studied at Columbia University, obtaining his MFA in creative writing. In the 1970s, he worked as a teacher in East Africa, at the College of National Education, Chang'ombe, Tanzania, and at the National University of Lesotho. He lived in Dakar, Senegal, in the 1980s and taught at Amherst and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In Fragments (1971), the protagonist, Baako, is a ‘been-to' - a man who has been to the United States and received his education there. Back in Ghana he is regarded with superstitious awe as a link to the Western life style. Baako's grandmother Naana, a blind-seer, stands in living contact with the ancestors. Under the strain of the unfulfilled expectations Baako finally breaks. As in his first novel, Armah contrasts the two worlds of materialism and moral values, corruption and dreams, two worlds of integrity and social pressure. Why Are We So Blest? (1972) was set largely in an American University, and focused on a student, Modin Dofu, who has dropped out of Harvard. Disillusioned Modin is torn between independence and Western values. He meets a Portuguese black African named Solo, who has already suffered a mental breakdown, and a white American girl, AimEe Reitsch. Solo, the rejected writer, keeps a diary, which is the substance of the novel. AimEe's frigidity and devotion to the revolution leads finally to destruction, when Modin is killed in the desert by O.A.S. revolutionaries. Trans Atlantic and African slave trades are the subject of Armah's Two Thousand Seasons (1973) in which a pluralized communal voice speaks through the history of Africa, its wet and dry seasons, from a period of one thousand years. Arab and European oppressors are portrayed as ‘predators,' ‘destroyers,' and ‘zombies'. The novel is written in allegorical tone, and shifts from autobiographical and realistic details to philosophical pondering, prophesying a new age. The Healers (1979) mixed fact and fiction about the fall of the celebrated Ashanti Empire. The healers in question are traditional medicine practitioners who see fragmentation as the lethal disease of Africa. Armah remained silent as a novelist for a long period until 1995 when he published Osiris Rising, depicting a radical educational reform group which reinstates ancient Egypt at the center of its curriculum. As an essayist Armah has dealt with the identity and predicament of Africa. His main concern is for the creation of a pan-African agency that will embrace all the diverse cultures and languages of the continent. Armah has called for the adoption of Kiswahili as the continental language.
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Asare, Bediako. Rebel. London. 1976. Heinemann. 0435900595. African Writers Series. 160 pages. paperback. AWS59. Cover photo by Werner Forman.
DESCRIPTION- Rebel is an allegorical novel of great excitement about the conflict of old and new ideas. The people of Pachanga, isolated and unknown on an island off the coast of Africa, face extinction through starvation. Ngurumo realises that the patch of land which his people are endlessly tilling for food is rapidly becoming worn out. He has seen, not far off, a wonderfully lush plain beside a river. He tries to persuade his people that, because the grass grows so well, they could produce better crops if they moved there. Mzee Matata, the conservative fetish priest and ruler, says that the gods forbid it. He is already known to have been responsible for several deaths. People who displease him die strangely. He sees Ngurumo s a threat to his authority and arranges for his murder during a hunting expedition. The plot fails but this is only the beginning of Ngurumo's hazardous fight for leadership.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bediako Asare is an African journalist and author, initially from Ghana. He began his career working on local newspapers, then relocated to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to help launch The Nationalist newspaper. In 1969 he published his novel Rebel, about the conflict between traditional ways and modernity in Sub-Saharan Africa. Writing in Africa Report, Sheila Wilson said of The Rebel: 'The story is simple and the language unpretentious, and the impact of change and hope gives strength and quality to the novel.' Asare's novel The Stubborn was published in Nairobi in 1976. Stephen H. Arnold, reviewing it in the African Book Publishing Record, noted that its intended audience was '15-18 year olds of East African ruling classes' and that: 'The main themes are science versus superstition and the value of counsel from elders.'
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Awoonor, Kofi and Adali-Mortty, G. (editors). Messages: Poems From Ghana. London. 1971. Heinemann. 0435900420. African Writers Series. 190 pages. paperback. AWS42. Cover design is based on Ashanti gold weights. Originally published in the AWS series 1970.
DESCRIPTION- A new anthology from Ghana is long overdue. Voices of Ghana, which was published in 1957, was a milestone in the development of African writing. Some of the names which appeared in that collection appear here with new verse. Some of the names are new. Includes the works of Efua Sutherland, Kwesi Brew, Kofi Sey, G. Adali-Mortty, Ellis Komey, Kofi Awoonor, Joe de Graft, Albert Kayper-Mensah, Amu Djoleto, Cameron Duodu, Kojo Gyinaye Kyei, E. A. Winful, 14 poets altogether.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kofi Awoonor (March 13, 1935, Wheta, Ghana - September 21, 2013, Nairobi, Kenya) was born George Awoonor-Williams in Wheta, Ghana, to Ewe parents. He was a poet, literary critic, professor of comparative literature and served as an ambassador for Ghana. Awoonor earned a BA from University College of Ghana, an MA from University College, London, and a PhD in comparative literature from SUNY Stony Brook. He is the author of novels, plays, political essays, literary criticism, and several volumes of poetry, including Rediscovery and Other Poems (1964), Night of My Blood (1971), Ride Me, Memory (1973), The House by the Sea (1978), The Latin American and Caribbean Notebook (1992), and a volume of collected poems, Until the Morning After (1987). Awoonor's grandmother was an Ewe dirge singer, and the form of his early poetry draws from the Ewe oral tradition. He translated Ewe poetry in his critical study Guardians of the Sacred Word and Ewe Poetry (1974). Other works of literary criticism include The Breast of the Earth: A Survey of the History, Culture, and Literature of Africa South of the Sahara (1975). In the early 1970s, Awoonor served as chairman of the Department of Comparative Literature at SUNY Stony Book. He returned to Ghana in 1975 to teach at University College of Cape Coast. In Ghana, he was arrested and tried for suspected involvement in a coup. He was imprisoned without trial and was later released; he wrote about his time in jail in The House by the Sea. Awoonor resumed teaching after his sentence was remitted. In the 1980s, he was the Ghanaian ambassador to Brazil and Cuba and served as ambassador to the United Nations from 1990 to 1994; in 1990 he published Ghana: A Political History from Pre-European to Modern Times. Awoonor is author of the novels This Earth, My Brother… (1971) and Comes the Voyager at Last: A Tale of Return to Africa (1992). He died in the Westgate shopping mall attack in Kenya in September 2013. Geormbeeyi Adali-Mortty (born 1916) is a Ghanaian poet and writer. In 1958 Adali-Mortty joined the advisory committee of the international literary journal Black Orpheus. He contributed both poetry and political commentary to the Legon Observer: for example, 'A Spent Scare' (1967) was written in response to the coup which ended Nkrumah's rule.
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Awoonor, Kofi. This Earth, My Brother. : An Alegorical Tale of Africa. Garden City. 1971. Doubleday. 232 pages. hardcover. Jacket by Brad Olsen.
DESCRIPTION- This is not so much a novel as an allegory of the African predicament, an extraordinary fictional evocation of the quintessence of life in Africa today - the tragic spectre of people, existing, suffering, and dying. Set in Ghana, the "novel" deals with a young African lawyer, Amamu, who suffers a nervous breakdown and ultimately death, with the parallel degeneration of Africa herself. Using a highly poetic, impressionistic style, alternating with stark sections of realistic narrative, the author conjures up a grimly depressing African world dominated by decay, corruption and death. Two of his most recurrent images, the dunghill and a meadow of yellow butterflies, indicate his conflicting feelings about his continent. However, it is a dark and degenerative universe in which the dung- hill prevails over all else. In between the narrative the author deals with political structures, African education and the ravages of the sordid colonial era and the equally hopeless post-independence era on the African psyche. Beyond all this Africa is, in effect, indicted and proven guilty with no extenuating circumstances.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kofi Awoonor (March 13, 1935, Wheta, Ghana - September 21, 2013, Nairobi, Kenya) was born George Awoonor-Williams in Wheta, Ghana, to Ewe parents. He was a poet, literary critic, professor of comparative literature and served as an ambassador for Ghana. Awoonor earned a BA from University College of Ghana, an MA from University College, London, and a PhD in comparative literature from SUNY Stony Brook. He is the author of novels, plays, political essays, literary criticism, and several volumes of poetry, including Rediscovery and Other Poems (1964), Night of My Blood (1971), Ride Me, Memory (1973), The House by the Sea (1978), The Latin American and Caribbean Notebook (1992), and a volume of collected poems, Until the Morning After (1987). Awoonor's grandmother was an Ewe dirge singer, and the form of his early poetry draws from the Ewe oral tradition. He translated Ewe poetry in his critical study Guardians of the Sacred Word and Ewe Poetry (1974). Other works of literary criticism include The Breast of the Earth: A Survey of the History, Culture, and Literature of Africa South of the Sahara (1975). In the early 1970s, Awoonor served as chairman of the Department of Comparative Literature at SUNY Stony Book. He returned to Ghana in 1975 to teach at University College of Cape Coast. In Ghana, he was arrested and tried for suspected involvement in a coup. He was imprisoned without trial and was later released; he wrote about his time in jail in The House by the Sea. Awoonor resumed teaching after his sentence was remitted. In the 1980s, he was the Ghanaian ambassador to Brazil and Cuba and served as ambassador to the United Nations from 1990 to 1994; in 1990 he published Ghana: A Political History from Pre-European to Modern Times. Awoonor is author of the novels This Earth, My Brother… (1971) and Comes the Voyager at Last: A Tale of Return to Africa (1992). He died in the Westgate shopping mall attack in Kenya in September 2013.
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Awoonor, Kofi. Until the Morning After: Collected Peoms 1963-1985. Greenfield Center. 1987. Greenfield Review Press. 0912678690. 216 pages. paperback. Cover: Patrick J. Powers.
DESCRIPTION- Kofi Awoonor is one of Ghana's leading literary figures, and this book collects all three of his published books of poetry into one collection, adding some new poems. Interest in Awoonor has grown recently as he has begun appearing at literary festivals. He is active in the Ghanaian government, serving as Ghana's Ambassador to Brazil and to the United Nations. UNTIL THE MORNING AFTER includes Awoonor's "The House By The Sea" which details his years as a political prisoner.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kofi Awoonor (March 13, 1935, Wheta, Ghana - September 21, 2013, Nairobi, Kenya) was born George Awoonor-Williams in Wheta, Ghana, to Ewe parents. He was a poet, literary critic, professor of comparative literature and served as an ambassador for Ghana. Awoonor earned a BA from University College of Ghana, an MA from University College, London, and a PhD in comparative literature from SUNY Stony Brook. He is the author of novels, plays, political essays, literary criticism, and several volumes of poetry, including Rediscovery and Other Poems (1964), Night of My Blood (1971), Ride Me, Memory (1973), The House by the Sea (1978), The Latin American and Caribbean Notebook (1992), and a volume of collected poems, Until the Morning After (1987). Awoonor's grandmother was an Ewe dirge singer, and the form of his early poetry draws from the Ewe oral tradition. He translated Ewe poetry in his critical study Guardians of the Sacred Word and Ewe Poetry (1974). Other works of literary criticism include The Breast of the Earth: A Survey of the History, Culture, and Literature of Africa South of the Sahara (1975). In the early 1970s, Awoonor served as chairman of the Department of Comparative Literature at SUNY Stony Book. He returned to Ghana in 1975 to teach at University College of Cape Coast. In Ghana, he was arrested and tried for suspected involvement in a coup. He was imprisoned without trial and was later released; he wrote about his time in jail in The House by the Sea. Awoonor resumed teaching after his sentence was remitted. In the 1980s, he was the Ghanaian ambassador to Brazil and Cuba and served as ambassador to the United Nations from 1990 to 1994; in 1990 he published Ghana: A Political History from Pre-European to Modern Times. Awoonor is author of the novels This Earth, My Brother… (1971) and Comes the Voyager at Last: A Tale of Return to Africa (1992). He died in the Westgate shopping mall attack in Kenya in September 2013.
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Boateng, Yaw M. The Return: A Novel of the Slave Trade in Africa. New York. 1977. Pantheon Books. 0394417240. 120 pages. hardcover. Cover photo by George Hallett.
DESCRIPTION- A riveting historical novel by a young Ghanaian, The Return focuses on a continent shattered by the Western slave trade - a continent where Africans enslave other Africans, and smaller kingdoms are gobbled up by larger kingdoms supplied with guns and ammunition from the coffers of European and American slave traders. Against a backdrop of pillage, blood, hatred, revenge, and above all of African disunity, Boateng tells a gripping tale of conflict between two men, Seku and Jakpa. Because of his love for a woman, Seku inadvertently causes Jakpa to be sold into slavery. Seku in turn flees to the growing Asante kingdom (present-day Ghana). There he rises to be a great warrior, but once again comes face to face with Jakpa - previously a slave, now a scholar of the Asantes - who has sworn a blood oath to kill him. Over this panorama of precolonial Africa, a world seemingly without whites, hovers one powerful, unifying image - the ominous shadow of the Western slave ship just off the coast.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Yaw M. Boateng (1950-) is a Ghanaian novelist and playwright, born in Kumasi, Ghana and educated in Cape Coast and at Kumasi University of Science and Technology and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich. His first play was the historical Katier (1972), which was produced on Ghana Television. The Return (1977), a novel set in the nineteenth century, follows the story of Seku Wattara, a warrior who rises from obscurity to a position of influence as a general in the Asante army. His brother Jakpa, whom he once left for dead, comes to Asante as a Muslim scholar, discovering that Seku Wattara is still alive, Jakpa plots revenge. The novel is an exploration of the tragedy of Africans who sold each other into slavery for the benefit of Europeans
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Courlander, Harold and Prempeh, Alberet Kofi. The Hat-Shaking Dancer and Other Tales From the Gold Coast. New York. 1957. Harcourt Brace & Company. Illustrated by Enrico Arno. 115 pages. hardcover. Cover Illustration by Enrico Arno.
DESCRIPTION- This entertaining collection of twenty-one folk tales from the Ashanti peel of Africa's Gold Coast takes its title from a wild ‘dance' the spider Anansi performed when he tried to hide some burning hot beans under his hat. This greedy mistake not only cost him his dignity but also his hair, which is why you will now find that all spiders are bald. Other amusing explanations of natural facts and animal ways come into many of the tales - such as ‘Anansi's Rescue from the River,' which tells why the moon is in the sky, and ‘Osebo's Drum,' which tells why the turtle has a hard shell and the leopard has spots. Sometimes funny, sometimes wry, sometimes philosophical, these tales have a wisdom and humor to which all children respond. Modern Ashanti children still listen to them as eagerly as did their great-grandparents, and American children will likewise enjoy their colorful exaggeration and unusual animal characters. Helped by Albert Kofi Prempeh, a young student from the Gold Coast, Harold Courlander has skillfully retold these tales with a simplicity and rhythm that make them fun to read, wonderful to tell.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Harold Courlander (September 18, 1908 - March 15, 1996) was an American novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist, an expert in the study of Haitian life. The author of 35 books and plays and numerous scholarly articles, Courlander specialized in the study of African, Caribbean, Afro-American (U.S.), and American Indian cultures. He took a special interest in oral literature, cults, and Afro-American cultural connections with Africa. Courlander was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, the son of noted American painter, David Courlander of Detroit, Michigan. Courlander received a B.A. in English from the University of Michigan in 1931. At the University of Michigan, he received three Avery Hopwood Awards (one in drama and two in literary criticism). He attended graduate school at the University of Michigan and Columbia University. He spent time in the 1930s on a farm in Romeo, Michigan. There, he built a one-room log cabin in the woods where he would spend much of his time writing. With the prize money from the Hopwood Awards, Courlander took his first field trip to Haiti, inspired by the writings of William Buehler Seabrook. In 1939, he published his first book about Haitian life entitled HAITI SINGING. Over the next 30 years, he traveled to Haiti more than 20 times. His research focused on religious practices, African retentions, oral traditions, folklore, music, and dance. His book, THE DRUM AND THE HOE: LIFE AND LORE OF THE HAITIAN PEOPLE, published in 1960, became a classic text for the study of Haitian culture. Courlander also took numerous field trips to the southern United States, recording folk music in the 1940s and 1950s. From 1947–1960, he served as a general editor of Ethnic Folkways Library (he actually devised the label name) and recorded more than 30 albums of music from different cultures (e.g., the cultures of Indonesia, Ethiopia, West Africa, Haiti, and Cuba). In 1950, he also did field recordings in Alabama later transcribed by John Benson Brooks. In the 1960s, Courlander began a series of field trips to the American Southwest to study the oral literature and culture of the Hopi Indians. His collection of folk tales, PEOPLE OF THE SHORT BLUE CORN: TALES AND LEGENDS OF THE HOPI INDIANS, was issued in 1970 and was quickly recognized as an indispensable work in the study of oral literature. From 1942-43, during World War II, Harold Courlander served as a historian for the Air Transport Command for the Douglas Aircraft Project 19 in Gura, Eritrea. Courlander then worked as a writer and editor for the Office of War Information in New York and Bombay, India, from 1943-46. From 1946 until 1956, he worked as a news writer and news analyst for the Voice of America in New York City. He was an information specialist and speech writer for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations from 1956–1957. He was a writer and editor for The United Nations Review from 1957–1960. From 1960 until 1974, Courlander was African specialist, Caribbean specialist, feature writer, and senior news analyst for the Voice of America in Washington, D.C. Always sympathetic to the plight of animals, Courlander, in his later years would write with his rescued, mixed German Shepherd dog, Sandy, at his side. Even in the 1990s, Courlander still used the same Royal typewriter he had purchased in the 1940s. Courlander never learned typing as they teach it in school and always typed his manuscripts using two fingers. Courlander wrote seven novels, his most famous being THE AFRICAN, published in 1967. The novel was the story of a slave's capture in Africa, his experiences aboard a slave ship, and his struggle to retain his native culture in a hostile new world. In 1978, Courlander filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, charging that Alex Haley, the author of ROOTS, had copied 81 passages from his novel. Courlander's pre-trial memorandum in the copyright infringement law suit stated: ‘Defendant Haley had access to and substantially copied from The African. Without The African, Roots would have been a very different and less successful novel, and indeed it is doubtful that Mr. Haley could have written ROOTS without the African. Mr. Haley copied language, thoughts, attitudes, incidents, situations, plot and character.' In his Expert Witness Report submitted to federal court, Professor of English, Michael Wood of Columbia University, stated: ‘The evidence of copying from THE AFRICAN in both the novel and the television dramatization of Roots is clear and irrefutable. The copying is significant and extensive. ROOTS. .plainly uses THE AFRICAN as a model: as something to be copied at some times, and at other times to be modified, but always it seems, to be consulted. ROOTS takes from THE AFRICAN phrases, situations, ideas, aspects of style and plot. ROOTS finds in The African essential elements for its depiction of such things as a slave's thoughts of escape, the psychology of an old slave, the habits of mind of the hero, and the whole sense of life on an infamous slave ship. Such things are the life of a novel; and when they appear in ROOTS, they are the life of someone else's novel.' After a five-week trial in federal district court, Courlander and Haley settled the case with a financial settlement and a statement that ‘Alex Haley acknowledges and regrets that various materials from THE AFRICAN by Harold Courlander found their way into his book ROOTS.' During the trial, presiding U.S. District Court Judge Robert J. Ward stated, ‘Copying there is, period.' In a later interview with BBC Television, Judge Ward stated, ‘Alex Haley perpetrated a hoax on the public.' During the trial, Alex Haley had maintained that he had not read THE AFRICAN before writing ROOTS. Shortly after the trial, however, a minority studies teacher at Skidmore College, Joseph Bruchac, came forward and swore in an affidavit that he had discussed with Haley THE AFRICAN in 1970 or 1971 and had, in fact, given his own personal copy of THE AFRICAN to Haley. This event took place a good number of years prior to the publication of ROOTS.
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Darko, Amma. Beyond the Horizon. Portsmouth. 1995. Heinemann. 0435909908. African Writers Series. 140 pages. paperback. Cover illustration by Alan Bond. Cover design by Touchpaper.
DESCRIPTION- Gazing at her naked body in the mirror, Mara reflects on her transformation from naive Ghanaian village girl into a prostitute in a German brothel. Mara has been deceived by her husband, Akobi, into coming to Europe to find a ‘paradise', but as the truth about Akobi and her new life unfolds she realises she is trapped. The expectations of her family in Africa force her to remain, living a lie. BEYOND THE HORIZON is a gripping and provocative story of the plight of African women in Europe, and the false hopes of those they leave behind.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Amma Darko (born 1956) is a Ghanian novelist. She was born in Koforidua, Ghana, and grew up in Accra. She studied in Kumasi, where she received her diploma in 1980. Then she worked for the Science and Technology Center in Kumasi. During the 1980s, she lived and worked for some time in Germany. She has since returned to Accra. Her novels illustrate everyday life in Ghana. Her first novel, Beyond the Horizon, was originally published in German. Her most recent novels, Faceless and Not without flowers, were published in Ghana. Her work has been discussed in Vincent O. Odamtten's book Broadening the Horizon: Critical Introductions to Amma Darko, in the 2001 doctoral thesis by Louise Allen Zak "Writing her way: a study of Ghanaian novelist Amma Darko", and in several academic journals. Darko's first novel is influenced by her impressions of Germany, observing the interaction between Germans and Ghanaian immigrants.
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Darko, Amma. The Housemaid. Portsmouth. 1998. Heinemann. 0435910086. African Writers Series. 107 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- A dead baby and bloodstained clothes are discovered near a small village. Everyone is ready to comment on the likely story behind the abandoned infant. The men have one opinion, the women another. As the story rapidly unfolds it becomes clear that seven different women played their part in the drama. All of them are caught in a web of superstition, ignorance, greed and corruption.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Amma Darko (born 1956) is a Ghanaian novelist. She won The Golden Baobab Prize for one of her novels. She has published seven novels in total. She was born in Koforidua, Ghana, and grew up in Accra. She studied in Kumasi, where she received her diploma in 1980. Then she worked for the Science and Technology Center in Kumasi. During the 1980s, she lived and worked for some time in Germany. She has since returned to Accra. Her novels illustrate everyday life in Ghana. She also paints clear pictures of the exploitation of women through her works. Her first novel, Beyond the Horizon, was originally published in Germany. Her most recent novels, Faceless and Not without flowers, were published in Ghana. She also wrote The Housemaid. Her work has been discussed in Vincent O. Odamtten's book Broadening the Horizon: Critical Introductions to Amma Darko, in the 2001 doctoral thesis by Louise Allen Zak "Writing her way: a study of Ghanaian novelist Amma Darko", and in several academic journals.
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Davidson, Basil. Black Star: A View of the Life & Times of Kwame Nkrumah. New York. 1974. Praeger. 225 pages. hardcover. Jacket design: Les Williams.
DESCRIPTION- Nkrumah, the ‘black star' of Africa's modern resurgence, became a legend even in his remarkable and controversial lifetime. Some hailed him as a liberating hero; others saw him as an ogre and dictator. Some gave him the highest praise; others bitterly condemned him. But what was he really like? How great was his success or failure? And what will history's verdict be? Born in 1909, Kwame Nkrumah became, in 1957, the first Prime Minister of Ghana - the first of all the colonies of black Africa to achieve political independence. In 1966, he was overthrown by a military coup d'Etat. He died in exile during 1972. His body was then brought back to Ghana, where it was buried in his home village after full state honors. The head of Ghana's government led the mourners past Nkrumah's coffin. Basil Davidson first met Nkrumah in 1952 and continued his acquaintance with the African leader through the years. He tells Nkrumah's story against the sweep and drama of Nkrumah's times, taking for a text the tragic appeal of Othello: ‘Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice.' Davidson does not deny that Nkrumah had important failings, which he describes. But he agrees with Amilcar Cabral that history will see him as a strategist of genius in the African struggle against classical colonization and will award him an important place in the creative political life of the twentieth century. Davidson speaks in balanced terms about Nkrumah: ‘His work remains: in its essentials, beyond any doubt, a major work for Africa's progress. History will dissect his failings with a dry and careful hand. But it will measure these against his achievements, judging him always as a leader who was bound to act within his own capacities, and within the possibilities of his time.' To write this pioneering biography, the author has drawn on his wide experience of many years in the study of historical and modern Africa, and on a great variety of published and unpublished sources, including notes and memoirs of his own.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Basil Risbridger Davidson MC (9 November 1914 - 9 July 2010) was a British historian, writer and Africanist, particularly knowledgeable on the subject of Portuguese Africa prior to the 1974 Carnation Revolution. He wrote several books on the current plight of Africa. Colonialism and the rise of African emancipation movements were central themes of his work. He was an Honorary Fellow of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.
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Dawes, Kwame and Kinsella, John. A New Beginning: A Poem Cycle. Leeds. 2018. Peepal Tree Books. 9781845234249. 205 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Continuing their poetic dialogue, begun in 2016 with the critically acclaimed Speak From Here to There, poets Kwame Dawes and John Kinsella explore commonalities and difference, the results reminding us of how poetry can offer comfort and solace, and how it can ignite the peculiar creative frenzy that enriches. When Speak from Here to There was published in 2016 it was, remarkably, doing something quite new. There are of course the conversations implied in the poems of Coleridge and Wordsworth, but no two poets had committed to, in the words of Will Harris, the almost daily “structure of call-and-response, each utterance is filtered through the other”. A New Beginning offers, as Karen McCarthy Wolf noted in her review of Speak from Here, the same “warmth and a reassurance … in the correspondence itself, between a black man almost but not quite marooned in the white of America’s Midwest, and a white man negotiating his own exile from the vast physical and historical dissonance of Western Australia”, but there is much that carries that initial dialogue to new depths of trust, self-exposure and intimacy, to the expression of new themes, concerns and investigations of poetic form. This richly multi-layered dialogue arises from responses to each poet’s public world, to the private worlds of family, to the inner world of wondering how one can write “love poems in a time of war, these times of monstrous beasts”, and from the stimulus of the other’s poem arriving in the e-mail in-tray. This is the age of Trump, the monster “Lurking in the shadows”, of the seemingly unstoppable degradation of the Australian environment, of, in John Kinsella’s words, a time when there is no “exoneration or relief” in poetry “but witness and recounting”. Above all, though both poets express their anxieties about the limitations of the prophetic (“the pain of hope, and the terror of faithlessness”), there is the countervailing witness of their immensely fertile imaginative response to each other’s words and the comfort that “On the road, you long for the like-minded” is a longing that is being fulfilled. What is also clear is that for both poets there is also a generous space for the third party to the exchange – the reader.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwame Dawes is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica. He is the author of twenty-two books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. He is Glenna Luschei Editor-in-Chief of Prairie Schooner and George W. Holmes University Professor at the University of Nebraska. Dawes is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His awards include an Emmy, the Felix Dennis (Forward) Prize for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing, and the Windham Campbell Prize for poetry. John Kinsella's many books of poetry include Armour (Picador, 2010), Jam Tree Gully (WW Norton, 2012) and Drowning in Wheat: Selected Poems (Picador, 2016). He has published work in all genres and across a few of them as well, and collaborated with many artists, composers, writers and poets. He is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge University, and Professor of Literature and Sustainability at Curtin University. John Kinsella's many books of poetry include Armour (Picador, 2010), Jam Tree Gully (WW Norton, 2012) and Drowning in Wheat: Selected Poems (Picador, 2016). He has published work in all genres and across a few of them as well, and collaborated with many artists, composers, writers and poets. He is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge University, and Professor of Literature and Sustainability at Curtin University.
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Dawes, Kwame and Kinsella, John. In the Name of Our Families: A Poem Cycle. Leeds. 2020. Peepal Tree Books. 9781845234669. 235 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- themselves the intertwined tasks of exploring the long poetic line and making raids upon what has always been implicit in their conversations, the meaning of family. The long-breathed line becomes metonym and metaphor for a subject that is slippery, devious, problematic, comforting and challenging. Poems acknowledge the life-giving support of the domestic, but also confess that though they may write 'in the name of our families our families will care less for we will always fail them'. Theres the difficult meaning of ancestry: for Kinsella the heroic myths of the settler past, the grandmother 'usurping/with her birth cry' the land that once belonged to the aboriginal Noonga people, and knowing that as the family tree spreads, physical trees 'fall so fast. Roots and all'. For Dawes theres the immediate puzzle of the literally contested ownership of his Jamaican ancestral space (and the meaning of all past family spaces), but beyond that ancestry leads through slavery to the broken heritage of Africa. It is also about what one inherits not only from history but from the genes, the knowledge that comes to Dawes in this year of writing, that he has inherited the condition that has brought blindness to other family members. And in their place in the chain, both men ask what will they bequeath as husbands, fathers and writers to the future? Not least theres the painful reminder of the familys mortality, the surprise of death that undermines all sense of security. And beyond our own, what do we owe those who are not family, who may need, as Kinsella writes, 'every bit of loving going out there'. Kinsella begins the dialogue by hoping the long line 'will take me somewhere beyond the restraints of my past' and certainly both poets discover a deeply rewarding reflectiveness in the conversational expansiveness of voice, and sometimes the long line lends itself to a magnificent prophetic flow that like a mighty river carries all before it. But before the end, Dawes confesses, 'John, I am winded from these long-breathed lines', and in a poem that goes to the very heart of the connections between voice, metre, lineation and meaning, reminds us both that this is a dialogue between writers of real differences of vision, but one that has brought deep mutual and self-understanding.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwame Dawes is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica. He is the author of twenty-two books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. He is Glenna Luschei Editor-in-Chief of Prairie Schooner and George W. Holmes University Professor at the University of Nebraska. Dawes is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His awards include an Emmy, the Felix Dennis (Forward) Prize for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing, and the Windham Campbell Prize for poetry. John Kinsella's many books of poetry include Armour (Picador, 2010), Jam Tree Gully (WW Norton, 2012) and Drowning in Wheat: Selected Poems (Picador, 2016). He has published work in all genres and across a few of them as well, and collaborated with many artists, composers, writers and poets. He is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge University, and Professor of Literature and Sustainability at Curtin University. John Kinsella's many books of poetry include Armour (Picador, 2010), Jam Tree Gully (WW Norton, 2012) and Drowning in Wheat: Selected Poems (Picador, 2016). He has published work in all genres and across a few of them as well, and collaborated with many artists, composers, writers and poets. He is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge University, and Professor of Literature and Sustainability at Curtin University.
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Dawes, Kwame and Kinsella, John. Mortality: A Poem Cycle. Leeds. 2024. Peepal Tree Books. 9781845235932. 0 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- The sixth collection of this profound dialogue between two major poets from opposite sides of the world takes on the subject most of us try to avoid. Provoked by such things as near fatal accidents, family intimacies at points of crisis, the threat of rising temperatures and forest fires in Western Australia, poems confront the reality of physical rot, the fact that history is essentially the record of countless generations of the dead, but also celebrate the arts of mortality: the elegy, artistic ambition and the creation of a self to live by.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwame Dawes is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica. He is the author of twenty-two books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. He is Glenna Luschei Editor-in-Chief of Prairie Schooner and George W. Holmes University Professor at the University of Nebraska. Dawes is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His awards include an Emmy, the Felix Dennis (Forward) Prize for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing, and the Windham Campbell Prize for poetry. John Kinsella's many books of poetry include Armour (Picador, 2010), Jam Tree Gully (WW Norton, 2012) and Drowning in Wheat: Selected Poems (Picador, 2016). He has published work in all genres and across a few of them as well, and collaborated with many artists, composers, writers and poets. He is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge University, and Professor of Literature and Sustainability at Curtin University. John Kinsella's many books of poetry include Armour (Picador, 2010), Jam Tree Gully (WW Norton, 2012) and Drowning in Wheat: Selected Poems (Picador, 2016). He has published work in all genres and across a few of them as well, and collaborated with many artists, composers, writers and poets. He is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge University, and Professor of Literature and Sustainability at Curtin University.
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Dawes, Kwame and Kinsella, John. Speak from Here to There: A Poem Cycle. Leeds. 2016. Peepal Tree Books. 9781845233198. 243 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- This fourth instalment of poetic conversation, begun in 2014, between poets and friends Kwame Dawes and John Kinsella investigates the meaning of family. In their fourth round of dialogue, Kwame Dawes and John Kinsella set themselves the intertwined tasks of exploring the long poetic line and making interventions upon what has always been implicit in their conversations, the meaning of family. The long-breathed line becomes metonym and metaphor for a subject that is evasive, problematic, distressing, comforting, joyous and challenging. Poems acknowledge the life-giving support of the domestic, but also confess that though they may write “in the name of our families… our families will care less for we will always fail them”. There’s the difficult meaning of ancestry: for Kinsella the heroic myths of the settler past, the grandmother “usurping/with her birth cry” the land stolen from Aboriginal people, and knowing that as the family tree spreads, physical trees “fall so fast. Roots and all”. For Dawes there’s the immediate puzzle of the literally contested ownership of his Jamaican ancestral space (and the meaning of all past family spaces), but beyond that ancestry leads through slavery to the broken heritage of Africa. It is also about what one inherits not only from history but from the genes, the knowledge that comes to Dawes in this year of writing, that he has inherited the condition that has brought blindness to other family members. And in their place in the chain, both men ask what will they bequeath as husbands, fathers and writers to the future? Not least there’s the painful reminder of the family’s mortality, the surprise of death that undermines all sense of security. And beyond our own, what do we owe those who are not family, who may need, as Kinsella writes, “every bit of loving going out there.” Kinsella begins the dialogue by hoping the long line “will take me somewhere beyond the restraints of my past” and certainly both poets discover a deeply rewarding reflectiveness in the conversational expansiveness of voice, and sometimes the long line lends itself to a magnificent prophetic flow that like a mighty river carries all before it. But before the end, Dawes confesses, “John, I am winded from these long-breathed lines”, and in a poem that goes to the very heart of the connections between voice, metre, lineation and meaning, reminds us both that this is a dialogue between writers of real differences of vision, but one that has brought deep mutual and self-understanding.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwame Dawes is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica. He is the author of twenty-two books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. He is Glenna Luschei Editor-in-Chief of Prairie Schooner and George W. Holmes University Professor at the University of Nebraska. Dawes is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His awards include an Emmy, the Felix Dennis (Forward) Prize for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing, and the Windham Campbell Prize for poetry. John Kinsella's many books of poetry include Armour (Picador, 2010), Jam Tree Gully (WW Norton, 2012) and Drowning in Wheat: Selected Poems (Picador, 2016). He has published work in all genres and across a few of them as well, and collaborated with many artists, composers, writers and poets. He is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge University, and Professor of Literature and Sustainability at Curtin University. John Kinsella's many books of poetry include Armour (Picador, 2010), Jam Tree Gully (WW Norton, 2012) and Drowning in Wheat: Selected Poems (Picador, 2016). He has published work in all genres and across a few of them as well, and collaborated with many artists, composers, writers and poets. He is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge University, and Professor of Literature and Sustainability at Curtin University.
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Dawes, Kwame and Kinsella, John. Tangling With The Epic: A Poem Cycle. Leeds. 2019. Peepal Tree Books. 9781845234522. 122 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- The third in a quartet of poem-dialogues between Kwame Dawes and John Kinsella, begun in 2015 with the critically acclaimed 'Speak From Here to There' (2016), and followed by 'A New Beginning' (2018), Tangling With The Epic explores commonalities and difference, the results reminding us of how poetry can offer comfort and solace, and how it can ignite a peculiar creative frenzy that enriches. In writing 110 single or double Spenserian stanzas in dialogue with each other, Kwame Dawes and John Kinsella thoroughly deconstruct and recompose ideas about the epic. At times, the “stern constraints / of syllable and rhyme” construct the satisfying rigour of a lacerating Swiftian satire – almost as means of preventing a collapse into the incoherence of prophetic rage; at other times rhyme creates the beauty of form and the shapeliness of thought. Various epics of empire, past and present are sternly demolished: from the deceitful myths of the virtuous enterprise of the slave-owning Thomas Jefferson, to the Caribbean “where battles/ for tiny rocks were waged”, to Australian narratives of white nationhood, or the bloated Trumpian lies of MAGA. There is also, inevitably, a sense of caution about each writer’s own epic enterprise, for Kinsella “this desire I have that marries/ the north to the south”, or for Dawes the “hopes of grand mercy” we are constantly forced to abort. In response there is the comfort to be drawn from “pilfering small graces” of moments of epiphany, but in the very construction of the dialogue there is the metaphor of “the entangled webbing/ we spin” – as if one cannot not be part of some vaster human network, what Kinsella names later as the “slow unfolding/ of an epic that can’t really locate itself in time or place…” For the reader, there is much pleasure to be had in tracing the ways in which images, ideas and words migrate between poems, commented on, turned on their heads, or mined for meanings other than those seemingly intended. As the third of this sequence, distinctive personas, biographies, approaches to poetic form and language take the poetry in in the direction of the dramatic.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwame Dawes is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica. He is the author of twenty-two books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. He is Glenna Luschei Editor-in-Chief of Prairie Schooner and George W. Holmes University Professor at the University of Nebraska. Dawes is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His awards include an Emmy, the Felix Dennis (Forward) Prize for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing, and the Windham Campbell Prize for poetry. John Kinsella's many books of poetry include Armour (Picador, 2010), Jam Tree Gully (WW Norton, 2012) and Drowning in Wheat: Selected Poems (Picador, 2016). He has published work in all genres and across a few of them as well, and collaborated with many artists, composers, writers and poets. He is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge University, and Professor of Literature and Sustainability at Curtin University.
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Dawes, Kwame and Kinsella, John. UnHistory. Leeds. 2022. Peepal Tree Books. 9781845235321. 507 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- unHistory is a unique collection of four collections of poems in one binding: Codicil to History, Coda to History, Footnotes to History and Index to History. It is the fifth collection of poems written in dialogue by Kwame Dawes and John Kinsella. There were to be four collections of the dialogue in poems between Kwame Dawes in Nebraska (via Ghana and Jamaica) and John Kinsella in Western Australia, but both the demands of the times and the sense of there being much more to say resulted in a fifth: unHistory. And what work of contemporary history would be complete without a Codicil, a Coda, Footnotes and a poetic Index? unHistory takes on the world-wide rise in authoritarian governments; the Trumpite attempt to overthrow democracy in the USA; the battle between alarm and the cynicism of fossil fuel interests in confronting climate change; the light that Covid-19 threw on the fissures between poverty and wealth within countries and across the world order; the resurgence of Black demands for social justice after the murder of George Floyd (and many others) ; and conservative white nationalist attempts to close down the re-examination of colonial and imperial history’s shaping of racism and inequality in the present. But if unHistory is an essential record of our times by two world-leading poets, it is much more than that. It is an exploration of history’s undertones, its personal, familial and institutional resonances and of the relationship between public events and the literary imagination. How do you respond to the white man who politely asks Dawes why his poems seem so angry? How, as a poet, do you respond to the English literary tradition, rooted as it is in empire and colonialism? Index ends these four volumes in one with a sequence of poems in Spenserian stanzas, written with a sharp awareness of the divergence between the beauty of language and form in Spenser’s work, and Spenser’s English advocacy of the most brutal forms of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Ireland? For Kinsella, looking back at his forebears’ escape from famine in colonial Ireland, how is one to discuss and address white Australia’s brutal history of settler colonialism in its treatment of indigenous peoples? As in previous volumes, the marvel is poetry that has all the fluidity of spontaneous response, and the shapeliness and finesse of the most deeply considered work.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwame Dawes is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica. He is the author of twenty-two books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. He is Glenna Luschei Editor-in-Chief of Prairie Schooner and George W. Holmes University Professor at the University of Nebraska. Dawes is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His awards include an Emmy, the Felix Dennis (Forward) Prize for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing, and the Windham Campbell Prize for poetry. John Kinsella's many books of poetry include Armour (Picador, 2010), Jam Tree Gully (WW Norton, 2012) and Drowning in Wheat: Selected Poems (Picador, 2016). He has published work in all genres and across a few of them as well, and collaborated with many artists, composers, writers and poets. He is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge University, and Professor of Literature and Sustainability at Curtin University. John Kinsella's many books of poetry include Armour (Picador, 2010), Jam Tree Gully (WW Norton, 2012) and Drowning in Wheat: Selected Poems (Picador, 2016). He has published work in all genres and across a few of them as well, and collaborated with many artists, composers, writers and poets. He is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge University, and Professor of Literature and Sustainability at Curtin University.
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Dawes, Kwame. A Place to Hide and Other Stories. Leeds. 2003. Peepal Tree Books. 9781900715485. 310 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- A man lies in a newspaper-lined room dreaming an other life. Bob Marley's spirit flew into him at the moment of the singer's death. A woman detaches herself from her perfunctory husband and finds the erotic foreplay she longs for in journeying round the island. A man climbs Blue Mountain Peak to fly and hear the voice of God. Sonia paints her new friend Joan and hopes that this will be the beginning of a sexual adventure. Dawes's characters are driven by their need for intimate contact with people and with God, and their need to construct personal myths powerful enough to live by. In a host of distinctive and persuasive voices they tell stories that reveal their inner lives and give an incisive portrayal of contemporary Jamaican society that is unsparing in confronting its elements of misogyny and nihilistic violence. Indeed several stories question how this disorder can be meaningfully told without either sensationalism or despair. For Dawes, the answer is found in the creative energies that lie just the other side of chaos. In particular, in the dub vershan episodes, which intercut the stories, there are intense and moving celebrations of moments of reggae creation in the studio and in performance. Dawes has established a growing international reputation as a poet and these are stories that combine a poetic imagination with narrative drive, an acute social awareness and a deep inwardness in the treatment of character. In the penultimate story, 'Marley's Ghost', Dawes's imagination soars to towering myth. Kwame Dawes is the author of over thirty five books, and is widely recognized as one of the Caribbean's leading writers. He is Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner and a Chancellor's Professor of English at the University of Nebraska. His next book of poetry from Peepal Tree Press will be 'A New Beginning', a cycle of poems written with John Kinsella. He has been elected as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwame Dawes is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica. He is the author of twenty-two books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. He is Glenna Luschei Editor-in-Chief of Prairie Schooner and George W. Holmes University Professor at the University of Nebraska. Dawes is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His awards include an Emmy, the Felix Dennis (Forward) Prize for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing, and the Windham Campbell Prize for poetry.
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Dawes, Kwame. Back of Mount Peace. Leeds. 2010. Peepal Tree Books. 9781845231248. 91 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Characterized by a beautifully realized reciprocity between outer landscape and the characters' inner worlds, this remarkable sequence of lyric poetry explores the blossoming of an innately complicated relationship between a retired fisherman named Monty Cupidon and a naked, bloodied, and traumatized woman he encounters standing at a crossroad who cannot remember who she is or where she came from. The only clues to her former identity are the signs that she once wore a wedding ring, has a butterfly tattoo on her shoulder, and wears red nail polish on her toes. Woven with the narrative elements of mystery and suspense, the poems examine the relationship--from its innocent beginning through the decay of time and into the eventual corruptions of knowledge. Showing an exceptional delicacy of formal control that constantly reinforces the poem's insights and moving conclusions, the space between reflection and story, body and mind, and land and sea is examined as the couple begins to realize that in the very process of piecing their lives back together lies their relationship's probable end.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwame Dawes is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica. He is the author of twenty-two books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. He is Glenna Luschei Editor-in-Chief of Prairie Schooner and George W. Holmes University Professor at the University of Nebraska. Dawes is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His awards include an Emmy, the Felix Dennis (Forward) Prize for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing, and the Windham Campbell Prize for poetry.
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Dawes, Kwame. Bivouac. Leeds. 2010. Peepal Tree Books. 9781845231057. 195 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- When his father dies in suspicious circumstances, Ferron Morgan’s trauma is increased by the conflict within his family and his father’s friends over whether the death is the result of medical negligence or a political assassination. Ferron has lived in awe of his father’s radical commitments but is forced to admit that, with the 1980s’ resurgence of the political Right in the Caribbean, his father had lost faith, and was ‘already dead to everything that had meaning for him’. Ferron’s response to the death is further complicated by guilt, particularly over his recent failure to protect his fiancée, Dolores, from a brutal rape. He begins, though, to investigate the direction of his life with great intensity, in particular to confront his instinct to keep running from trouble This is a sharply focused portrayal of Jamaica at a tipping point in its recent past, in which the private grief and trauma condenses a whole society’s scarcely understood sense of temporariness and dislocation. For both Ferron and the society there has been the loss of ‘the corpse of one’s origins’ and the novel points to the need to find a way back before there can be a movement forward.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwame Dawes is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica. He is the author of twenty-two books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. He is Glenna Luschei Editor-in-Chief of Prairie Schooner and George W. Holmes University Professor at the University of Nebraska. Dawes is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His awards include an Emmy, the Felix Dennis (Forward) Prize for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing, and the Windham Campbell Prize for poetry.
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Dawes, Kwame. City of Bones: A Testament. Evanston. 2017. Northwestern University Press. 9780810134621. 232 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- As if convinced that all divination of the future is somehow a re-visioning of the past, Kwame Dawes reminds us of the clairvoyance of haunting. The lyric poems in City of Bones: A Testament constitute a restless jeremiad for our times, and Dawes's inimitable voice peoples this collection with multitudes of souls urgently and forcefully singing, shouting, groaning, and dreaming about the African diasporic present and future. As the twentieth collection in the poet's hallmarked career, City of Bones reaches a pinnacle, adding another chapter to the grand narrative of invention and discovery cradled in the art of empathy that has defined his prodigious body of work. Dawes's formal mastery is matched only by the precision of his insights into what is at stake in our lives today. These poems are shot through with music from the drum to reggae to the blues to jazz to gospel, proving that Dawes is the ambassador of words and worlds.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - KWAME DAWES is the author of nineteen books of poetry as well as numerous collections of fiction, criticism, and essays, and the editor of more than a dozen anthologies. Dawes is Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner and teaches at the University of Nebraska and in the Pacific M.F.A. Writing Program. He is the founding director of the African Poetry Book Fund and the artistic director of the Calabash International Literary Festival. He lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.
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Dawes, Kwame. Impossible Flying. Leeds. 2006. Peepal Tree Books. 9781845230395. 120 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Renowned poet Kwame Dawes presents his most personal and universal work in this collection of carefully arranged poems. Separated into four thematic sections, these poems reveal the author's family secrets with an overarching coherence and meaning, focusing primarily on the triangular relationship between himself, his father, and his younger brother. Establishing his family's mythology and the hopes that were invested in his brother, the verses also detail his brother's descent into madness and the resulting downfall that brought about his father's premature death, the poet's later-renewed relationship with his brother, and his attempts to bridge the gap between their disparate worlds--all with intensity, tautness, and eloquence.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwame Dawes is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica. He is the author of twenty-two books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. He is Glenna Luschei Editor-in-Chief of Prairie Schooner and George W. Holmes University Professor at the University of Nebraska. Dawes is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His awards include an Emmy, the Felix Dennis (Forward) Prize for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing, and the Windham Campbell Prize for poetry.
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Dawes, Kwame. Jacko Jacobus. Leeds. 1996. Peepal Tree Books. 9781900715065. 159 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Poor sower of seeds with a gift for dreaming, Jacko Jacobus knows that his destiny is to found a people to shake the nations. But when he has to flee Jamaica to escape his brother's wrath, he finds himself pushing crack for his Uncle Al in South Carolina. In writing his dub version of the myth of Jacob and Esau, Kwame Dawes builds on a gripping narrative of prophecy, love, deceit and murder to address contemporary Caribbean realities; and in portraying the conflict between Jacko's trickster, anancy inventiveness and the narrow righteousness of his brother Eric's path, he explores the universal tensions between Jacko's sense of duty as the chosen instrument of God, and his desire to make his own way, whatever the consequences. Kwame Dawes is widely acknowledged as the foremost Caribbean poet of the post-Walcott generation. He currently holds the position of Distinguished Poet In Residence and Louise Fry Scudder Professor of Liberal Arts at the University of South Carolina.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwame Dawes is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica. He is the author of twenty-two books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. He is Glenna Luschei Editor-in-Chief of Prairie Schooner and George W. Holmes University Professor at the University of Nebraska. Dawes is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His awards include an Emmy, the Felix Dennis (Forward) Prize for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing, and the Windham Campbell Prize for poetry.
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Dawes, Kwame. Midland. Athens. Ohio University Press. 9780821413562. 103 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- The winning manuscript of the fourth annual Hollis Summers Poetry Prize is also the exciting American debut by a poet who has already established himself as an important international poetic voice. Midland, the seventh collection by Kwame Dawes, draws deeply on the poet's travels and experiences in Africa, the Caribbean, England, and the American South. Marked equally by a lushness of imagery, an urgency of tone, and a muscular rhythm, Midland, in the words of the final judge, Eavan Boland, is 'a powerful testament of the complexity, pain, and enrichment of inheritance. It is a compelling meditation on what is given and taken away in the acts of generation and influence. Of a father's example and his oppression. There are different places throughout the book. They come willfully in and out of the poems: Jamaica. London. Africa. America. But all the places become one place in the central theme and undersong here: which is displacement. The achievement of this book is a beautifully crafted voice which follows the painful and vivid theme of homelessness in and out of the mysteries of loss and belonging. ' Midland is the work of a keen and transcendent intellect, a collection of poems that speaks to the landscape from inside, from an emotional and experiential place of risk and commitment.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - KWAME DAWES is the author of nineteen books of poetry as well as numerous collections of fiction, criticism, and essays, and the editor of more than a dozen anthologies. Dawes is Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner and teaches at the University of Nebraska and in the Pacific M.F.A. Writing Program. He is the founding director of the African Poetry Book Fund and the artistic director of the Calabash International Literary Festival. He lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.
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Dawes, Kwame. Natural Mysticism: Towards a New Reggae Aesthetic. Leeds. 1999. Peepal Tree Books. 9781900715225. 280 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Kwame Dawes speaks for all those for whom reggae defines the major experiences of life. He describes how reggae has been central to his sense of selfhood, his consciousness of place and society in Jamaica, his development as a writer - and why the singer Ken Boothe should be inseparably connected to his discovery of the erotic. Natural Mysticism is also a work of acute cultural analysis. Dawes argues that in the rise of roots reggae in the 1970s, Jamaica produced a form which was both wholly of the region and universal in its concerns. He contrasts this with the mainstream of Caribbean literature which, whilst anticolonial in sentiment was frequently conservative and colonial in form. Dawes finds in reggae's international appeal more than just an encouraging example. In the work of artists such as Don Drummond, Bob Marley, Winston Rodney and Lee "Scratch" Perry, he finds a complex aesthetic whose inner structure points in a genuinely contemporary and postcolonial direction.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwame Dawes is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica. He is the author of twenty-two books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. He is Glenna Luschei Editor-in-Chief of Prairie Schooner and George W. Holmes University Professor at the University of Nebraska. Dawes is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His awards include an Emmy, the Felix Dennis (Forward) Prize for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing, and the Windham Campbell Prize for poetry.
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Dawes, Kwame. New and Selected Poems, 1994-2002. Leeds. 2003. Peepal Tree Books. 9781900715706. 276 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Since Kwame Dawes published his Forward Poetry prize-winning Progeny of Air in 1994, six further collections have followed which have had a huge impact on Caribbean poetry. This collection contains a generous selection from all these volumes, showing the breadth and depth of Dawes' achievement.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwame Dawes is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica. He is the author of twenty-two books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. He is Glenna Luschei Editor-in-Chief of Prairie Schooner and George W. Holmes University Professor at the University of Nebraska. Dawes is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His awards include an Emmy, the Felix Dennis (Forward) Prize for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing, and the Windham Campbell Prize for poetry.
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Dawes, Kwame. Progeny of Air. Leeds. 1994. Peepal Tree Books. 9780948833687. 115 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Winner of the prize for the best first collection in the Forward Poetry Prize of 1994, Progeny of Air explores a childhood and youth spent in 1970's Jamaica. The collection links inner personal experience and social and historical perspectives to mutually enriching effect.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwame Dawes is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica. He is the author of twenty-two books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. He is Glenna Luschei Editor-in-Chief of Prairie Schooner and George W. Holmes University Professor at the University of Nebraska. Dawes is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His awards include an Emmy, the Felix Dennis (Forward) Prize for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing, and the Windham Campbell Prize for poetry.
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Dawes, Kwame. Prophets. Leeds. 1995. Peepal Tree Books. 9780948833854. 159 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- As 24-hour television, belching out the swaggering voices of American hellfire preachers, competes with dancehall, slackness and ganja for Jamaican minds, Clarice and Thalbot preach their own conflicting visions. Clarice has used her gifts to raise herself from the urban Jamaican ghetto. She basks in the adulation of her followers as they look to her for their personal salvation. Thalbot has fallen from comfort and security onto the streets. With his wild, matted hair and nakedness, he is a deranged voice in the wilderness. Whilst Clarice has her blue-eyed Jesus, Thalbot brandishes his blackness in the face of every passer-by. Clarice's visions give her power; Thalbot is at the mercy of every wandering spirit. But when, under cover of darkness, Clarice 'sins' on the beach, Thalbot alone knows of her fall. He sets out to journey, like Jonah, to denounce the prophetess and warn the Ninevite city of its coming doom. An epic struggle begins.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwame Dawes is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica. He is the author of twenty-two books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. He is Glenna Luschei Editor-in-Chief of Prairie Schooner and George W. Holmes University Professor at the University of Nebraska. Dawes is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His awards include an Emmy, the Felix Dennis (Forward) Prize for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing, and the Windham Campbell Prize for poetry.
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Dawes, Kwame. Prophets. Leeds. 2018. Peepal Tree Books. 9781845234041. 164 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- “The reissue of Kwame Dawes’ Prophets, accompanied by Jeremy Poynting's reader's guide, is a remarkable resurrection of a major work of Caribbean literature. Dawes’s poem takes on history, faith, sex, and poetry itself, in lyrical, sometimes contentious dialogue with the voices that have helped frame the poet’s sense of the world and his place in it. An exhilarating and expansive work of art.” – Jonathan Galassi, President and Publisher of Farrar, Straus, Giroux. As 24-hour television, belching out the swaggering voices of American hellfire preachers, competes with dancehall, slackness and ganja for Jamaican minds, Clarice and Thalbot preach their own conflicting visions. Clarice has used her gifts to raise herself from the urban Jamaican ghetto. She basks in the adulation of her followers as they look to her for their personal salvation. Thalbot has fallen from comfort and security onto the streets. With his wild matted hair and nakedness, he is a deranged voice in the wilderness. Whilst Clarice has her blue-eyed Jesus, Thalbot brandishes his blackness in the face of every passer-by. Clarice's visions give her power; Thalbot is at the mercy of every wandering spirit. But when, under cover of darkness, Clarice 'sins' on the beach, Thalbot alone knows of her fall. He sets out to journey, like Jonah, to denounce the prophetess and warn the Ninevite city of its coming doom. An epic struggle begins.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwame Dawes is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica. He is the author of twenty-two books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. He is Glenna Luschei Editor-in-Chief of Prairie Schooner and George W. Holmes University Professor at the University of Nebraska. Dawes is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His awards include an Emmy, the Felix Dennis (Forward) Prize for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing, and the Windham Campbell Prize for poetry.
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Dawes, Kwame. Shook Foil. Leeds. 1997. Peepal Tree Books. 9781900715140. 75 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- When the guitars tickle a bedrock of drum and bass, when the girl a shock out and a steady hand curve round her sweat-smooth waist, when the smell of Charlie mingles with the chemicals of her hair and the groove is of the sweetest friction - how is a young man to keep his way pure? Kwame Dawes's poetry rises to new heights in these psalms of confession and celebrations of reggae's power to prophesy, to seek after righteousness and seduce the body and mind. Here is poetry walking the bassline, which darts sweetly around the rigid lick of the rhythm guitar yet expresses all the sadness and alienation at the heart of reggae. This, for Dawes, is the earth which 'never tells me my true home' and where behind every chekeh of the guitar there is the ancestral memory of the whip's crack. Shook Foil dramatises the conflict between the purity of essences and the taints of the actual, not least in the poems which focus on Bob Marley's life. Here is the rhygin, word-weaving prophet and the philanderer with the desperate hunger for yard pumpum, the revealer of truths and the buffalo soldier who has married yard with show biz affluence. Above all there is the intense sadness of Marley's death, for how can one live without the duppy conqueror's defiant wail in an island gone dark for the passing of his song? But for Shook Foil there is always the gospeller's hope that the dead will rise from dub ruins and patch a new quilt of sound for the feet to prance on. And when the high hat shimmering and the bass drum thumping, what else to do but dance?
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwame Dawes is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica. He is the author of twenty-two books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. He is Glenna Luschei Editor-in-Chief of Prairie Schooner and George W. Holmes University Professor at the University of Nebraska. Dawes is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His awards include an Emmy, the Felix Dennis (Forward) Prize for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing, and the Windham Campbell Prize for poetry.
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Dawes, Kwame. Sturge Town: Poems. Leeds. 2023. Peepal Tree Books. 9781845235741. 158 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Sturge Town is a stunning collection of poems that connects with the earliest days of Kwame Dawes’ work as a poet, from the roots of childhood in Ghana to the reflections of a man turned sixty who is witnessing his children occupying the space he once considered his own. It ranges from poems that make something special of the everyday, to poems of the most astonishing imaginative leaps into the numinous. There are poems that speak most movingly of moments of acute self-reflection, family crises and losses through death, and there are the inventive poems of the dramatist drawn to create the stories of a rich variety of characters, many springing from the observation of paintings. Metrically careful and sonorous, these poems engage in a personal dialogue with the reader, serious, confessional, alarmed and sometimes teasing. They create highly visualised spaces, observed, remembered, imagined, the scenes of both outward and inner journeys. Organised in five sections, Sturge Town is a collection of finely shaped individual poems with the architecture of a densely interconnected whole, with the soaring grandeur and intimacy of a cathedral – both above and below ground. As the site of the ruined ancestral home of the Dawes, in one of the earliest post-slavery free villages in Jamaica, Sturge Town is both an actual place, a place of myth and a metaphor of the journeying that has taken Kwame Dawes from Ghana, through Jamaica, through South Carolina and now to Nebraska. It parallels a journeying through time, both personal, family and ancestral in which a keen sense of mortality makes life all the more precious. It signals a life deeply in tune with and sometimes shattered by the realities of political engagement, from the legacies of enslavement to the ubiquity of another Black man shot in the USA. It explores a spiritual journey that encompasses both the flawed reality of religious institutions and poems of spiritual transcendence that speak to believer and non-believer alike. It is above all the work of an unremitting investment in the beauty, the emotional depth and the vivid indeterminacy of poetry as an art of making.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwame Dawes is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica. He is the author of twenty-two books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. He is Glenna Luschei Editor-in-Chief of Prairie Schooner and George W. Holmes University Professor at the University of Nebraska. Dawes is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His awards include an Emmy, the Felix Dennis (Forward) Prize for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing, and the Windham Campbell Prize for poetry.
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Dawes, Kwame. Wheels. Leeds. 2011. Peepal Tree Books. 9781845231422. 205 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- In Wheels, Kwame Dawes brings the lyric poem face to face with the politics, natural disasters, social upheavals and ideological complexity of the world in the first part of this century. The poems do not pretend to have answers, and Dawes’s core interest remains the power of language to explore and discover patterns of meaning in the world around him. So that whether it is a poem about a near victim of the Lockerbie terrorist attack reflecting on the nature of grace, a sonnet sequence contemplating the significance of the election of Barak Obama, an Ethiopian emperor lamenting the death of a trusted servant in the middle of the twentieth century, a Rastafarian in Ethiopia defending his faith at the turn of the twenty-first century, a Haitian reflecting on the loss of everything familiar, these are poems seeking a way to understand the world. One sequence is framed around the imagined wheels of the prophet Ezekiel’s vision, mixing in images from Garcia Marquez’s novels, passages from the Book of Ezekiel and the current overwhelming bombardment of wall-to-wall news; another reflects on Ethiopia and Rastafarian faith; and a third dialogues with the postmodernist South Carolinian landscape artist, Brian Rutenberg. At the heart of the collection is a book’s worth of poems written in homage to the people of Haiti following repeated visits after the earthquake of 2010. The collection ends where Dawes’ poetry began: on the streets of Kingston, Jamaica. Somewhere between prophecy and meditation, this major and extensive new collection of Kwame Dawes’ work illuminates our confusing world.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwame Dawes is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica. He is the author of twenty-two books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. He is Glenna Luschei Editor-in-Chief of Prairie Schooner and George W. Holmes University Professor at the University of Nebraska. Dawes is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His awards include an Emmy, the Felix Dennis (Forward) Prize for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing, and the Windham Campbell Prize for poetry.
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De Graft, Joe. Beneath the Jazz and Brass: Poems. London. 1975. Heinemann. 0435901664. African Writers Series. 134 pages. paperback. AWS166.
DESCRIPTION- In this extraordinary collection of poems, Joe de Graft delves into the history of Ghana and the everyday experiences of love, nature, corruption, and the fight for justice. One of Ghana's most accomplished poets, Joe de Graft offers a journey through life's precious moments, ranging from the humourous to the heartbreaking. Spanning a wide breadth of topics, the search for truth and honesty is at the heart of Beneath the Jazz and Brass. 'Powerful and impactful poems, truly the voice of the poet who is fearless enough to say it like it is.' Madhulika Liddle.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Joseph Coleman de Graft, known as Joe de Graft (2 April 1924 - 1 November 1978), was a prominent Ghanaian writer, playwright and dramatist, who was appointed the first director of the Ghana Drama Studio in 1962. He produced and directed plays for radio, stage and television, as well as acting, and was also a poet and educator.
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De Graft, Joe. Muntu: A Play. London. 1977. Heinemann. 0435902644. African Writers Series. 104 pages. paperback. AWS264.
DESCRIPTION- Muntu is a broad treatment of African history from creation to the modern day.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Joseph Coleman de Graft, known as Joe de Graft (2 April 1924 - 1 November 1978), was a prominent Ghanaian writer, playwright and dramatist, who was appointed the first director of the Ghana Drama Studio in 1962. He produced and directed plays for radio, stage and television, as well as acting, and was also a poet and educator.
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Djoleto, Amu. Money Galore. London. 1975. Heinemann. 0435901613. African Writers Series. 192 pages. paperback. AWS161.
DESCRIPTION- An irreverent satire set in Ghana, told with serious intent, in which Amu Djoleto creates a world where people crave insatiably for money, fame, power, and sex.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Solomon Alexander Amu Djoleto (born 22 July 1929) is a Ghanaian writer and educator. Amu Djoleto was born at Manyakpogunor, Manya Krobo, Ghana, the son of Frederick Badu, a Presbyterian minister, and Victoria Shome Tetteh, ‘a modest trader'. He was educated at Accra Academy and St. Augustine's College, Cape Coast before reading English at the University of Ghana. He joined Ghana's Ministry of Education in the 1960s as a teacher and education officer. After studying textbook production at the Institute of Education, University of London, he returned to Ghana to edit the Ghana Teachers' Journal. At one point heading the Ministry of Education's publishing programme, he has continued to work for the Ministry of Education. Djoleto contributed to the poetry anthologies Voices of Ghana (1958) and Messages (1970), and his poems were collected in Amid the Swelling Act. However, he is best known for his novels, the first of which was The Strange Man (1967).
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Djoleto, Amu. The Strange Man. London. 1967. Heinemann. 279 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Charles Keeping.
DESCRIPTION- The funeral of his brother is the point of departure for this story of Old Mensa, a respected member of his village community in Ghana. We retrace his boyhood in the village, passed under the constant fear of the man who rings the village church bell. Mensa and his friends are always getting into trouble, and it is usually this man who detects them. A particularly vicious prank results in Mensa being sent to a boarding school in Accra. Mensa's schooldays are far from happy: the headmaster of his first boarding school delights in using the cane, and, since Mensa lives in his house, he becomes all too familiar with it. His next school is, if anything, worse and the headmaster corrupt and vicious. When Mensa leaves school it is with little regret. He finds a job in the civil service, marries, and sets about building a reputation as a man of standing. This is not always easy: there are those who are jealous of him and seek any opportunity for discrediting him. However, his greatest problems are with his own family - his brother and particularly with his lovely daughter Odole, who becomes the object of local scandal - and it is with events concerning his family that the book ends, leaving Mensa himself a sick and worried man.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Solomon Alexander Amu Djoleto (born 22 July 1929) is a Ghanaian writer and educator. Amu Djoleto was born at Manyakpogunor, Manya Krobo, Ghana, the son of Frederick Badu, a Presbyterian minister, and Victoria Shome Tetteh, ‘a modest trader'. He was educated at Accra Academy and St. Augustine's College, Cape Coast before reading English at the University of Ghana. He joined Ghana's Ministry of Education in the 1960s as a teacher and education officer. After studying textbook production at the Institute of Education, University of London, he returned to Ghana to edit the Ghana Teachers' Journal. At one point heading the Ministry of Education's publishing programme, he has continued to work for the Ministry of Education. Djoleto contributed to the poetry anthologies Voices of Ghana (1958) and Messages (1970), and his poems were collected in Amid the Swelling Act. However, he is best known for his novels, the first of which was The Strange Man (1967).
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Edgerton, Robert B. The Fall of the Asante Empire. New York. 1995. Free Press. 0029089263. 293 pages. hardcover. Jacket design: REM Studio, Inc. Jacket painting: ‘H. Melville and the Coghill Saving the Colours of the 24th Regiment 22nd January 1879’ by Alfonse de Neuville.
DESCRIPTION- In 1817, the first British envoy to meet the king of the Asante of West Africa was dazzled by his reception. A group of 5,000 Asante soldiers, many wearing immense caps topped with three foot eagle feathers and gold ram's horns, engulfed him with a 'zeal bordering on phrensy,' shooting muskets into the air. The envoy was escorted, as no fewer than 100 bands played, to the Asante king's palace and greeted by a tremendous throng of 30,000 noblemen and soldiers, bedecked with so much gold that his party had to avert their eyes to avoid the blinding glare. Some Asante elders wore gold ornaments so massive they had to be supported by attendants. But a criminal being lead to his execution - hands tied, ears severed, knives thrust through his cheeks and shoulder blades - was also paraded before them as a warning of what would befall malefactors. This first encounter set the stage for one of the longest and fiercest wars in all the European conquest of Africa. At its height, the Asante empire, on the Gold Coast of Africa in present-day Ghana, comprised three million people and had its own highly sophisticated social, political, and military institutions. Armed with European firearms, the tenacious and disciplined Asante army inflicted heavy casualties on advancing British troops, in some cases defeating them. They won the respect and admiration of British commanders, and displayed a unique willingness to adapt their traditional military tactics to counter superior British technology. Even well after a British fort had been established in Kumase, the Asante capital, the indigenous culture stubbornly resisted Europeanization, as long as the 'golden stool,' the sacred repository of royal power, remained in Asante hands. It was only after an entire century of fighting that resistance ultimately ceased. For the first time, anthropologist Robert Edgerton tells the story of the Hundred-Year War - from 1807 to 1900, between the British Empire and the Asante Kingdom - from the Asante point of view. Edgerton provides a much-needed correction to our one-sided view of native African societies as weak targets for colonial oppression.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Robert B. Edgerton (November 28, 1931 - March 12, 2017) taught in the Departments of Psychiatry and Anthropology at UCLA. He was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and president of the Society of Psychological Anthropology. His previous books include Warriors of the Rising Sun: A History of the Japanese Military and Hidden Heroism: Black Soldiers in America's Wars. He lived in Los Angeles.
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Getz, Trevor R. and Clarke, Liz. Abina and the Important Men: A Graphic History. New York. 2011. Oxford University Press. 9780199844395. Illustrated by Liz Clarke. 208 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Abina and the Important Men is a compelling and powerfully illustrated graphic history based on an 1876 court transcript of a West African woman named Abina, who was wrongfully enslaved and took her case to court. The book is a microhistory that does much more than simply depict an event in the past; it uses the power of illustration to convey important themes in world history and to reveal the processes by which history is made. The story of Abina Mansah--a woman without history who was wrongfully enslaved, escaped to British-controlled territory, and then took her former master to court--takes place in the complex world of the Gold Coast at the onset of late nineteenth-century colonialism. Slavery becomes a contested ground, as cultural practices collide with an emerging wage economy and British officials turn a blind eye to the presence of underpaid domestic workers in the households of African merchants. The main scenes of the story take place in the courtroom, where Abina strives to convince a series of important men--a British judge, two Euro-African attorneys, a wealthy African country gentleman, and a jury of local leaders--that her rights matter. Am I free? Abina inquires. Throughout both the court case and the flashbacks that dramatically depict her life in servitude, these men strive to silence Abina and to impose their own understandings and meanings upon her. The story seems to conclude with the short-term success of the important men, as Abina loses her case. But it doesn't end there: Abina is eventually redeemed. Her testimony is uncovered in the dusty archives by Trevor Getz and, through Liz Clarke's illustrations, becomes a graphic history read by people around the world. In this way, the reader takes an active part in the story along with the illustrator, the author, and Abina herself. Following the graphic history in Part I, Parts II-V provide detailed historical context for the story, a reading guide that reconstructs and deconstructs the methods used to interpret the story, and strategies for using Abina in various classroom settings.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Trevor R. Getz is Professor of History at San Francisco State University. He is the author of Modern Imperialism and Colonialism: A Global Perspective (2010) and Slavery and Reform in West Africa (2004). He is also the editor for the new Oxford University Press series, African World Histories, the first volumes of which will appear in 2012. Liz Clarke is a professional artist and graphic designer based in Cape Town, South Africa.
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James, C. L. R. Nkrumah and the Ghana Revolution. Westport. 1977. Lawrence Hill & Company. 0882080776. 228 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Twenty years ago, Ghana became the first African country to gain independence from a colonial power. This book, written over a period of years as the new nation was shaping itself, analyses the revolution which took place in the Gold Coast at the end of the 1940s and enforced the application of a complete independence scarcely envisaged by the colonial power until the eve of 1957. C. L. R. James describes how at the root of this revolution lay one of the most united and widespread mass movements the modern world has seen, and the relation between such a movement and the great leader it inevitably throws up. The author discusses as well the interlinked problems of independence and economic development not only in the context of Ghana itself in the early 1960s, with its atmosphere of disappointed hopes, but also by comparison with Lenin's co-operative solution and Nyerere's Ujamaa socialism of village co-operatives. He attributes the failure of democratic socialism, which had been promised by the first African countries to become independent, to the weight of the neo-colonial inheritance. His insights make this an indispensable work for students of modern African history.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Cyril Lionel Robert James (4 January 1901–19 May 1989) was an Afro-Trinidadian journalist, socialist theorist and writer. Born in Trinidad and Tobago, then a British Crown colony, James attended Queen's Royal College in Port of Spain before becoming a cricket journalist, and also an author of fiction. He would later work as a school teacher, teaching among others the young Eric Williams. Together with Ralph de Boissière, Albert Gomes and Alfred Mendes, James was a member of the anti-colonialist Beacon Group, a circle of writers associated with The Beacon magazine.
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Kayper-Mensah, A. W. The Drummer in Our Time: Poems. London. 1975. Heinemann. 0435901575. African Writers Series. 103 pages. paperback. AWS157. Cover design by Shyam Varma. AWS original.
DESCRIPTION- A. W. Kayper-Mensah is widely represented in anthologies including Messages: Poems from Ghana (AWS 42), the collection edited by Kofi Awoonor and G. Adali-Mortty. ‘This collection shows him in various moods. At times his poetry moves with lyrical smoothness from reality to unreality and back again. At other times he writes of Africa and of national feeling, but he is concerned with both Europe and Africa. Above all he has what O. R. Dathorne has described as 'his excellent ability to evoke the visual'.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Albert William Kayper-Mensah (1923–1980) was a Ghanian poet. Kayper-Mensah was born at Sekondi in Ghana in 1923. He went to Mfantsipim School, to the University of Cambridge to study Science and then to London to study Education. He taught for some years before working in Bonn and London for the Ghanaian Foreign Service. He won the Margaret Wrong Literary Prize in 1970 for his collection of poetry which was published in 1970 by Horst Erdmann in Tubingen.
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Konadu, Asare. A Woman in Her Prime. London. 1973. Heinemann. 0435900404. African Writers Series. 108 pages. paperback. AWS40. Cover design by Michael Whittlesea. AWS original. Originally published in AWS series 1967.
DESCRIPTION- In the small Ghanaian village of Brenhoma, Pokuvvaa, though a woman, has become a successful farmer. True happiness eludes her; to have reached middle age without children is considered a grave misfortune. She has felt compelled to divorce her first two husbands. Finally she married Kwado, who grew to love her for her charm, her sympathy and her sweet conversation. As the years pass Pokuwaa's prayers and sacrifices to the great God Tano are still unanswered, and her mother's obsession with child-bearing and her nagging intrusion would be unbearable for a woman less composed and mature. Finally, she rejects her mother's interference and recourse to charms, drugs and sacrifices to ensure a successful pregnancy, and achieves fulfilment and new happiness on her own terms.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - SAMUEL ASARE KONADU was born at Asamang in Ashanti, Central Ghana, in 1932, and educated at the Abuakwa State College in Southern Ghana. In 1951 he joined the Ghana information Service and worked as a reporter on a number of government newspapers and in broadcasting. He Rater went to London arid the Strasbourg University to study journalism before joining the Ghana News Agency. In 1963 he devoted himself to research into traditional customs and practices and. to writing. Ha also started his own publishing firm, Anowuo Publications and its first books have met with remarkable success. Ordained by the Oracle also appears in African Writers Series '(No. 55) and he has written several other novels.
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Konadu, Asare. Ordained By the Oracle. London. 1969. Heinemann. 0435900552. African Writers Series. 188 pages. paperback. AWS55. Cover illustration by Pedro Guedes. AWS original. Originally published as Come Back Dora, Accra: Anowuo Educational Publications.
DESCRIPTION- Boateng, a prosperous trader in Elmina, has the beginnings of disbelief in the old customs. His wife dies suddenly and he is put through forty days and forty nights of ritual. At this time of emotional crisis he begins to see the reasons behind the rites. The conflicting strains of emotion and social behaviour are vividly shown by this practised writer.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - SAMUEL ASARE KONADU was born at Asamang in Ashanti, Central Ghana, in 1932 and educated at the local primary/middle school and later at the Abuakwa State College in Southern Ghana. In 1951 he joined the Ghana Information Service and worked as a reporter on a number of government newspapers and in broadcasting. He later went to London and then to study journalism at Strasbourg University before joining the Ghana News Agency. In 1963 he devoted himself entirely to research into traditional customs and to writing. A novel, A Woman in her Prime, has already been published in African Writers Series. He has written several others. He has now started his own publishing firm, Anowuo Publications and its first books have met with remarkable success.
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Kwakye, Benjamin. The Clothes of Nakedness. Oxford. 1998. Heinemann. 0435912011. African Writers Series. 216 pages. paperback. Cover illustration by Alan Bond.
DESCRIPTION- Gabriel Bukari is an out-of-work taxi driver living from hand to mouth in a poor suburb of Accra: honest, kind-hearted, and faithful to his wife. When he meets Mystique Mysterious, the 'big man' who can get him a job, he is exposed to temptations he has never faced before. In this lively portrait of relations between rich and poor in urban Ghana, Benjamin Kwakye explores the seductive power of corruption and shows how ordinary people can be manipulated to make choices which threaten their community life.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Benjamin Kwakye (born 7 January 1967) is a Ghanaian novelist. His first novel, The Clothes of Nakedness, won the 1999 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, best first book, Africa. His novel The Sun by Night won the 2006 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Best Book Africa. His novel The Other Crucifix won the 2011 IPPY award. Kwakye was born in Accra, Ghana. He graduated from Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School. He practises law around Chicago, and is a director of the African Education Initiative.
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Laing, B. Kojo. Search Sweet Country. New York. 1987. Beech Tree/Morrow. 0688069053. 288 pages. paperback. Jacket design by Vittoria Semproni. Jacket illustration by Simon Dorrell.
DESCRIPTION- 1st Novel From Ghana. ‘Search Sweet Country,' according to Robert Frazer, writing in Wasafiri, ‘is a novel which many who have read in typescript consider to be the finest ever written in Africa. Accra, Ghana, in 1975, is a city as lively as Dickens' London and as richly evocative as Joyce's Dublin. Here young Kofi Loww wanders in search of direction and meaning, and here Kojo Okay POI, a young man with quite different values, seeks influence and power in post-colonial Africa. Kofi's lover, Adwoa Adde, is a 'Witch' whose flights over the city provide a startlingly real and compassionate vision of a city in the chaos of change; Dr. Sam Yaw Boadi, a hustling academic and corrupt government official, manipulates civil servants and fiscal policy in an attempt to control the country; Professor Kwesi Sackey, an idealist and social critic, fights the greed and cynicism of Dr. Boadi; and Bishop Budu, whose Smiling Saint Church has seceded from the Church of England, struggles to reconcile fading European culture with the resurgence of African beliefs. Laing evokes a complex world of idealism and cynicism, witchcraft and cunning, compassion and ambition. It is a society in conflict, both within and without, between native traditions and Western values, between tribal loyalties and a new national consciousness. But even in this crisis of identity each Ghanaian's spirit is inseparable from the soul of the community. The political ideologies and economic problems never overwhelm human values and events in Laing's Africa, where love and family, and the struggle for meaning and personal happiness, still provide the ground rules for policy and debate. The language is exhilaratingly free and powerful with artistry, the humor broad and spontaneous, and the men and women of Accra flawlessly observed even as, to the Western eye, they are instantly familiar and strange. Search Sweet Country is a poetic address on the African state of mind and the condition of the African heart. B. Kojo Laing was born in Kumasi, Ghana, in 1946 and attended schools in Ghana and Scotland, where he took a degree at Glasgow University in 1968, returning to Ghana that same year. He is also an acclaimed poet. ‘Laing writes Accra as Joyce writes Dublin. Search Sweet Country should not be undertaken lightly, but it should be undertaken.' - Glasgow Herald. ‘New and strange, a novel of charm, invention, and many poetic delights. Something new out of Africa, indeed.' - Books & Bookmen. ‘Hugely ambitious, joyfully spendthrift of language and ideas.' - The Listener.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - B. Kojo Laing or Bernard Kojo Laing (born 1 July 1946) is a Ghanaian novelist and poet, whose writing is characterised by its hybridity, whereby he uses Ghanaian Pidgin English and vernacular languages alongside standard English. His first two novels in particular - Search Sweet Country(1986) and Woman of the Aeroplanes (1988) - were praised for their linguistic originality, both books including glossaries that feature the author's neologisms as well as Ghanaian words. Laing was born in Kumasi, capital of Ghana's Ashanti region, the eldest son and fourth of the six children of George Ekyem Ferguson Laing (an Anglican priest who became the first African rector of the Anglican Theological College in Ashanti) and Darling Egan. Baptized as Bernard Ebenezer, he later stopped using his English Christian name, favouring his African identity instead. After some early education in Accra, Laing in 1957 went to continue his primary and secondary schooling in Scotland, attending Bonhill Primary School and the Vale of Leven Academy in Alexandria, Dunbartonshire. He graduated from Glasgow University in 1968 with a master's degree, before returning to Ghana and joining the civil service, remaining there until 1979. He subsequently worked for five years as an administrative secretary of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana-Legon and in 1984 became head of Saint Anthony's School in Accra. Laing emerged as a poet in the 1970s, with work ‘occasionally drawing on the techniques of surrealism', but received significant attention only with the appearance his first novel, Search Sweet Country, which was published in 1986 to critical acclaim, and won prizes including the Valco Award and the Ghana Book Award. Search Sweet Country was reissued by McSweeney's in 2012, with an Introduction by Binyavanga Wainaina. Reviewing it in The Slate Book Review, Uzodinma Iweala writes: ‘Reading Search Sweet Country is like reading a dream, and indeed at times it feels like the magical landscapes of writers like the Nigerian Ben Okri or the Mozambican Mia Couto. Each page delivers an intense blast of vivid imagery, a world in which landscapes come to life when inanimate objects receive human characterization. Laing. is a master stylist, and Search Sweet Country delivers an absorbing, if demanding, world for both its characters and the reader.' Publishers Weekly called it an ‘intricate, beautifully rambling novel. a compelling and rewarding read', while the reviewer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette observed: ‘'Search Sweet Country' can be read over and over, continually surprising with a fresh turn of phrase or nuance in character, always engaging, always beautiful. The search is worthwhile.' Laing's second novel, Woman of the Aeroplanes, was published in 1988, and has drawn comparison with the work of Ayi Kwei Armah. Laing has since published two further novels: Major Gentl and Achimota Wars (1992), which also won a Valco Award in 1993, and Big Bishop Roko and the Altar Gangsters (2006). His poetry collection, Godhorse was published in 1989. Laing has also written short stories, one of which - ‘Vacancy for the Post of Jesus Christ' - was included in The Heinemann Book of Contemporary African Stories (1992), edited by Chinua Achebe and C. L. Innes. Laing lives in Accra and since 2005 has devoted himself full-time to writing.
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Laing, Kojo. Godhorse: Poems. Oxford. 1990. Heinemann. 043590552x. African Writers Series. 57 pages. paperback. Cover design by Carrie Craig.
DESCRIPTION- A PAPERBACK ORIGINAL. This is a powerful, witty and original collection by Ghana's leading novelist and poet, Kojo Laing, with the linguistic inventiveness praised in his novels Search Sweet Country and Woman of the Aeroplanes, combines the ritualistic African and the abstracted European poetic tradition. His intense yet often playful contemplation of truths is reflected in his varied treatments of nature, love, death, politics and portraits of daily life. Godhorse is evocative, ironic and often humorous. Above all it communicates feeling and energy. Some reviews of Search Sweet Country - 'Hugely ambitious, joyfully spendthrift of language and ideas' The Listener. 'A novel of charm, invention and many poetic delights' Books & Bookmen'. The first truly modern novel to come out of Africa' Literary Review.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - B. Kojo Laing or Bernard Kojo Laing (born 1 July 1946) is a Ghanaian novelist and poet, whose writing is characterised by its hybridity, whereby he uses Ghanaian Pidgin English and vernacular languages alongside standard English. His first two novels in particular - Search Sweet Country(1986) and Woman of the Aeroplanes (1988) - were praised for their linguistic originality, both books including glossaries that feature the author's neologisms as well as Ghanaian words. Laing was born in Kumasi, capital of Ghana's Ashanti region, the eldest son and fourth of the six children of George Ekyem Ferguson Laing (an Anglican priest who became the first African rector of the Anglican Theological College in Ashanti) and Darling Egan. Baptized as Bernard Ebenezer, he later stopped using his English Christian name, favouring his African identity instead. After some early education in Accra, Laing in 1957 went to continue his primary and secondary schooling in Scotland, attending Bonhill Primary School and the Vale of Leven Academy in Alexandria, Dunbartonshire. He graduated from Glasgow University in 1968 with a master's degree, before returning to Ghana and joining the civil service, remaining there until 1979. He subsequently worked for five years as an administrative secretary of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana-Legon and in 1984 became head of Saint Anthony's School in Accra. Laing emerged as a poet in the 1970s, with work ‘occasionally drawing on the techniques of surrealism', but received significant attention only with the appearance his first novel, Search Sweet Country, which was published in 1986 to critical acclaim, and won prizes including the Valco Award and the Ghana Book Award. Search Sweet Country was reissued by McSweeney's in 2012, with an Introduction by Binyavanga Wainaina. Reviewing it in The Slate Book Review, Uzodinma Iweala writes: ‘Reading Search Sweet Country is like reading a dream, and indeed at times it feels like the magical landscapes of writers like the Nigerian Ben Okri or the Mozambican Mia Couto. Each page delivers an intense blast of vivid imagery, a world in which landscapes come to life when inanimate objects receive human characterization. Laing. is a master stylist, and Search Sweet Country delivers an absorbing, if demanding, world for both its characters and the reader.' Publishers Weekly called it an ‘intricate, beautifully rambling novel. a compelling and rewarding read', while the reviewer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette observed: ‘'Search Sweet Country' can be read over and over, continually surprising with a fresh turn of phrase or nuance in character, always engaging, always beautiful. The search is worthwhile.' Laing's second novel, Woman of the Aeroplanes, was published in 1988, and has drawn comparison with the work of Ayi Kwei Armah. Laing has since published two further novels: Major Gentl and Achimota Wars (1992), which also won a Valco Award in 1993, and Big Bishop Roko and the Altar Gangsters (2006). His poetry collection, Godhorse was published in 1989. Laing has also written short stories, one of which - ‘Vacancy for the Post of Jesus Christ' - was included in The Heinemann Book of Contemporary African Stories (1992), edited by Chinua Achebe and C. L. Innes. Laing lives in Accra and since 2005 has devoted himself full-time to writing.
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Laing, Kojo. Major Gentl and the Achimota Wars. Portsmouth. 1992. Heinemann. 0435909789. African Writers Series. 185 pages. paperback. Cover design by Keith Pointing. Cover illustration by Keith Pointing with Celeste Henney.
DESCRIPTION- Achimota City, 2020 AD., Major Gentl (of Africa) and Torro the Terrible (born simultaneously in Europe and South Africa) battle for control of the city in the Wars of Existence. Meanwhile, Gentl and his wife, Ama Three, fight against each other in a test of love, and their increasingly disillusioned children are forced to take sides. Gentl's favourite snakes serve as bodyguards against Torro's antics; Torro is protected by his own sadistic rats - he has two lives left, but is weakened by Gentl's patience. As these two prepare for the final conflict which will determine the fate of Achimota, the children of the land take up their own battle. In this provocative, witty, part-surreal novel, Kojo Laing's futuristic world has real possibilities. Some reviews of Kojo Laing's previous novel, Search Sweet Country - ‘Hugely ambitious, joyfully spendthrift of language and ideas' - The Listener. ‘A novel of charm, invention and many poetic delights' - Books and Bookmen. ‘The first truly modern novel to come out of Africa' - Literary Review. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - B. Kojo Laing or Bernard Kojo Laing (born 1 July 1946) is a Ghanaian novelist and poet, whose writing is characterised by its hybridity, whereby he uses Ghanaian Pidgin English and vernacular languages alongside standard English. His first two novels in particular - Search Sweet Country(1986) and Woman of the Aeroplanes (1988) - were praised for their linguistic originality, both books including glossaries that feature the author's neologisms as well as Ghanaian words. Laing was born in Kumasi, capital of Ghana's Ashanti region, the eldest son and fourth of the six children of George Ekyem Ferguson Laing (an Anglican priest who became the first African rector of the Anglican Theological College in Ashanti) and Darling Egan. Baptized as Bernard Ebenezer, he later stopped using his English Christian name, favouring his African identity instead. After some early education in Accra, Laing in 1957 went to continue his primary and secondary schooling in Scotland, attending Bonhill Primary School and the Vale of Leven Academy in Alexandria, Dunbartonshire. He graduated from Glasgow University in 1968 with a master's degree, before returning to Ghana and joining the civil service, remaining there until 1979. He subsequently worked for five years as an administrative secretary of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana-Legon and in 1984 became head of Saint Anthony's School in Accra. Laing emerged as a poet in the 1970s, with work ‘occasionally drawing on the techniques of surrealism', but received significant attention only with the appearance his first novel, Search Sweet Country, which was published in 1986 to critical acclaim, and won prizes including the Valco Award and the Ghana Book Award. Search Sweet Country was reissued by McSweeney's in 2012, with an Introduction by Binyavanga Wainaina. Reviewing it in The Slate Book Review, Uzodinma Iweala writes: ‘Reading Search Sweet Country is like reading a dream, and indeed at times it feels like the magical landscapes of writers like the Nigerian Ben Okri or the Mozambican Mia Couto. Each page delivers an intense blast of vivid imagery, a world in which landscapes come to life when inanimate objects receive human characterization. Laing. is a master stylist, and Search Sweet Country delivers an absorbing, if demanding, world for both its characters and the reader.' Publishers Weekly called it an ‘intricate, beautifully rambling novel. a compelling and rewarding read', while the reviewer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette observed: ‘'Search Sweet Country' can be read over and over, continually surprising with a fresh turn of phrase or nuance in character, always engaging, always beautiful. The search is worthwhile.' Laing's second novel, Woman of the Aeroplanes, was published in 1988, and has drawn comparison with the work of Ayi Kwei Armah. Laing has since published two further novels: Major Gentl and Achimota Wars (1992), which also won a Valco Award in 1993, and Big Bishop Roko and the Altar Gangsters (2006). His poetry collection, Godhorse was published in 1989. Laing has also written short stories, one of which - ‘Vacancy for the Post of Jesus Christ' - was included in The Heinemann Book of Contemporary African Stories (1992), edited by Chinua Achebe and C. L. Innes. Laing lives in Accra and since 2005 has devoted himself full-time to writing.
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Laing, Kojo. Woman of the Aeroplanes. New York. 1990. Morrow. 0688079415. 208 pages. hardcover. Jacket design and illustration by Bascove.
DESCRIPTION- Kojo Laing's first novel established him as one of Africa's most important writers: Reviewers compared Search Sweet Country to the work of Joyce, Dickens, and Balzac. This brilliant new novel confirms Laing's immense talent. Woman of the Aeroplanes is an enchanted journey through time and magic that starts in the colorful town of Tukwan in the Asante region of Ghana. A place touched with fantasy and ruled by its own quirky inventions, Tukwan is ‘the happy renegade of history.' Its citizens have agreed not to question the ground they stand on. They hold meetings on a sacred hill where the grass dances and the lake is adjusted by its ripples. This story is an account of an adventure they undertake - a trip abroad to their sister town, Levensvale, in Scotland. Laing's remarkable, rich writing and invasive metaphors bare the hearts and minds of his strange and wonderful characters: Moro the cola farmer dresses his Mercedes in underwear; day and night a vulture perches on Kofi's pipe; Mackie, a Scot, sleeps with one eye open and lives off emotional financing - he rents his heart to many women; Ed sets his hair in ‘sarcastic' waves; and Kwaku is followed everywhere by a flock of ducks. The aeroplanes they travel on are real, but sometimes they stand still or land themselves; other times, passengers climb down on ladders. In this magical novel of extraordinary people and inspired politics, Laing composes the image of an evolving Africa. Drawn from the richness of Ghanaian life and language, Woman of the Aeroplanes tells a tale of time and two small towns that rearranged history. Kojo Laing was born in Kumasi, Ghana, in 1946 and attended schools in Ghana and in Scotland, where he earned a degree from Glasgow University in 1968. He returned to Ghana that same year. Laing has published numerous books of poetry in Ghana and one in England. His acclaimed first novel, Search Sweet Country, was published in 1986.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - B. Kojo Laing or Bernard Kojo Laing (born 1 July 1946) is a Ghanaian novelist and poet, whose writing is characterised by its hybridity, whereby he uses Ghanaian Pidgin English and vernacular languages alongside standard English. His first two novels in particular - Search Sweet Country(1986) and Woman of the Aeroplanes (1988) - were praised for their linguistic originality, both books including glossaries that feature the author's neologisms as well as Ghanaian words. Laing was born in Kumasi, capital of Ghana's Ashanti region, the eldest son and fourth of the six children of George Ekyem Ferguson Laing (an Anglican priest who became the first African rector of the Anglican Theological College in Ashanti) and Darling Egan. Baptized as Bernard Ebenezer, he later stopped using his English Christian name, favouring his African identity instead. After some early education in Accra, Laing in 1957 went to continue his primary and secondary schooling in Scotland, attending Bonhill Primary School and the Vale of Leven Academy in Alexandria, Dunbartonshire. He graduated from Glasgow University in 1968 with a master's degree, before returning to Ghana and joining the civil service, remaining there until 1979. He subsequently worked for five years as an administrative secretary of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana-Legon and in 1984 became head of Saint Anthony's School in Accra. Laing emerged as a poet in the 1970s, with work ‘occasionally drawing on the techniques of surrealism', but received significant attention only with the appearance his first novel, Search Sweet Country, which was published in 1986 to critical acclaim, and won prizes including the Valco Award and the Ghana Book Award. Search Sweet Country was reissued by McSweeney's in 2012, with an Introduction by Binyavanga Wainaina. Reviewing it in The Slate Book Review, Uzodinma Iweala writes: ‘Reading Search Sweet Country is like reading a dream, and indeed at times it feels like the magical landscapes of writers like the Nigerian Ben Okri or the Mozambican Mia Couto. Each page delivers an intense blast of vivid imagery, a world in which landscapes come to life when inanimate objects receive human characterization. Laing. is a master stylist, and Search Sweet Country delivers an absorbing, if demanding, world for both its characters and the reader.' Publishers Weekly called it an ‘intricate, beautifully rambling novel. a compelling and rewarding read', while the reviewer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette observed: ‘'Search Sweet Country' can be read over and over, continually surprising with a fresh turn of phrase or nuance in character, always engaging, always beautiful. The search is worthwhile.' Laing's second novel, Woman of the Aeroplanes, was published in 1988, and has drawn comparison with the work of Ayi Kwei Armah. Laing has since published two further novels: Major Gentl and Achimota Wars (1992), which also won a Valco Award in 1993, and Big Bishop Roko and the Altar Gangsters (2006). His poetry collection, Godhorse was published in 1989. Laing has also written short stories, one of which - ‘Vacancy for the Post of Jesus Christ' - was included in The Heinemann Book of Contemporary African Stories (1992), edited by Chinua Achebe and C. L. Innes. Laing lives in Accra and since 2005 has devoted himself full-time to writing.
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Nkrumah, Kwame. Consciencism: Philosophy and Ideology for Decolonization. New York. 1970. Monthly Review Press. 0853451362. 122 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- ‘It is a brilliant tour de force, lucid and often witty; the writer is convinced that philosophy is about something and he wants to know what gadfly stung the great thinkers and how their thought grew from the life of their day.' - The Sunday Times (London). ' 'In Consciencism Nkrumah revises Marxism to give it a particular reference to Africa's needs and traditions. His lieutenants draw a parallel between Nkrumah's reinterpretation of Marxist and other philosophies with Lenin's attempts to adapt Marx to Russia's post-revolutionary conditions. He insists that the transition from the traditional communalism of African society to socialism can be achieved in an evolutionary way under the right conditions.' - The Observer ( London). ‘This is the first book by an African politician that attempts to reinterpret Western philosophy in the context of African change and that proceeds from this to enunciate a 'philosophy and ideology for decolonization and development.'. It opens up all the questions of the ethical basis of a society, of the relevance of its inherited institutions, of the cultural basis of the State, of the role of the individual in a unitary State. Above all it courageously tackles the problems of competing ideologies. This book marks the first stage of an attempt to hammer out in detail a form of Socialism appropriate to non-industrial Africa.' - Tribune (London).
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwame Nkrumah, P.C. (21 September 1909 - 27 April 1972) was the leader of Ghana and its predecessor state, the Gold Coast, from 1951 to 1966. He became the first Prime Minister of the Gold Coast in 1951, and led it to independence as Ghana in 1957, becoming the new country's first Prime Minister. After Ghana became a republic in 1960, Nkrumah became President. An influential 20th-century advocate of Pan-Africanism, he was a founding member of the Organisation of African Unity and was the winner of the Lenin Peace Prize in 1963. He saw himself as an African Lenin.
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Nkrumah, Kwame. Dark Days in Ghana. New York. 1968. International Publishers. 219 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- President Kwame Nkrumah exposes the true nature of the military-police dictatorship established in his country after the overthrow of his constitutional government on February 24, 1966, and sets it in the context of the wider African and world situation. He sees the coup as being directed against the fulfilment of his socialist policies in Ghana and thus delay the advance of the African Revolution. He demolishes the 'big lie' that Ghana needed to be rescued from 'economic chaos,' and sets forth his views on the struggle against imperialism and neo-colonialism in Africa.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwame Nkrumah, P.C. (21 September 1909 - 27 April 1972) was the leader of Ghana and its predecessor state, the Gold Coast, from 1951 to 1966. He became the first Prime Minister of the Gold Coast in 1951, and led it to independence as Ghana in 1957, becoming the new country's first Prime Minister. After Ghana became a republic in 1960, Nkrumah became President. An influential 20th-century advocate of Pan-Africanism, he was a founding member of the Organisation of African Unity and was the winner of the Lenin Peace Prize in 1963. He saw himself as an African Lenin.
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Nkrumah, Kwame. Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare: A Guide to the Armed Phase of the African Revolution. New York. 1969. International Publishers. 128 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- The founder of modern Ghana and an outstanding leader of the African Revolution presents his analysis of the new stage of the revolution and his proposals for the continental coordination of the armed and political struggle for liberation. This significant historical document provides basic source material for all those interested in the latest phase of the liberation movement in Africa.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwame Nkrumah, P.C. (21 September 1909 - 27 April 1972) was the leader of Ghana and its predecessor state, the Gold Coast, from 1951 to 1966. He became the first Prime Minister of the Gold Coast in 1951, and led it to independence as Ghana in 1957, becoming the new country's first Prime Minister. After Ghana became a republic in 1960, Nkrumah became President. An influential 20th-century advocate of Pan-Africanism, he was a founding member of the Organisation of African Unity and was the winner of the Lenin Peace Prize in 1963. He saw himself as an African Lenin.
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Opoku-Agyemang, Kwadwo. Cape Coast Castle: A Collection of Poems. Accra, Ghana. 1996. Afram publications. 104 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Cape Coast Castle is one of three slave castles on the coast of Ghana. The poet believes that a place so savaged became a victim of society, and a new orientation can only come about by breaking the ancient silence. Naming the trauma involves him in exploring the condition of the African world. Weaving an intricate network of powerful images, his verse is both forceful and lyrical. A teacher of literature at the University of Cape Coast, the poet is acknowledged as a strong voice among the new generation of African poets. ‘A poet of unusual precocity and force, he speaks with a strong irresistible voice among the new generation of black African poet. A master of the secret learnings of words. A weaver of an intricate network of image, of an adroitly executed kente of words.' - Niyi Osundare. ‘ We receive the gifts of clear lyrical verve and powerful images. His greatest strength is music, a lyricism that is light-footed and tender.' - Kofi Awoonor.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwadwo Opoku-Agyemang was born in 1952 in Ghana. He attended school in Cape Coast and has spent the majority of his working years at the University of Cape Coast where he teaches Literature in the Department of English. He spent two years at Clark Atlanta Univeristy as Fulbright Scholar in Residence. This is his second collection of poetry. He is currently at work on a novel predicated on the slave experience.
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Owusu, Martin. The Sudden Return and other plays. London. 1973. Heinemann. 0435901389. African Writers Series. 129 pages. paperback. AWS138.
DESCRIPTION- Although he is a significant figure on a national level as an actor, academic, teacher, and director, Owusu's reputation rests on his published stage plays. His most important play is a historical drama, The Mightier Sword, also published in The Sudden Return and Other Plays, based on events that occurred during the first Ashanti-Denkyira war.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Martin (Okyere) (1943-), Ghanaian dramatist. Born in Agona Kwaman, Ghana, the son of a catechist, Martin Owusu received his secondary schooling at Mfantsipim School, Cape Coast, where he was influenced by his teacher Joe de Graft; trained as a teacher at the Presbyterian Training College, Akropong-Akuapem; and completed the diploma in theatre studies at the School of Music and Drama in Legon. He has two postgraduate degrees: an M.Litt. from Bristol (1973) and a Ph.D. from Brandeis (1979), both concerned with the classical influences on West African playwrights. He has held appointments at universities in Ghana and the USA and is a senior lecturer the School of Performing Arts at Legon.
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Parkes, Nii Ayikwei. The Makings of You. Leeds. 2010. Peepal Tree Books. 9781845231590. 93 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Candid and sensitive, this collection journeys between Africa, Europe, and the Americas as the poet explores his family history. Told with wit and an engaging ambivalence, these narrative poems explore areas of imaginative fantasy, including a consideration of how the slave trade would have been different had its main mode of transportation been the hot-air balloon rather than the slave ship. Touching on both pain and rich rewards from the perspective of a black British poet, this volume's goal is to entertain, instruct, and encourage contemplation.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Nii Ayikwei Parkes is a Ghanaian-British writer and editor who has won acclaim as a children's author, poet, broadcaster and novelist. Winner of multiple international awards including the ACRAG award, his novel Tail of the Blue Bird won France's two major prizes for translated fiction – Prix Baudelaire and Prix Laure Bataillon – in 2014. Nii Ayikwei is the founder of flipped eye publishing, a leading small press, serves on the boards of World Literature Today and the AKO Caine Prize, and was chair of judges for the 2020 Commonwealth Prize. Currently Producer of Literature and Talks at Brighton Festival, he is the author of two collections of poetry The Makings of You (2010) and The Geez (2020), both published by Peepal Tree Press.
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Quartey, Kwei. Children of the Street: An Inspector Darko Dawson Mystery. New York. 2011. Random House. 9780812981674. Paperback original. 337 pages. paperback. Cover design by Joe Montgomery. Cover images: Jason R. Warren and Alan Tobey.
DESCRIPTION- In the slums of Accra, Ghana's fast-moving, cosmopolitan capital, teenagers are turning up dead. Inspector Darko Dawson has seen many crimes, but this latest string of murders - in which all the young victims bear a chilling signature - is the most unsettling of his career. Are these heinous acts a form of ritual killing or the work of a lone, cold-blooded monster? With time running out, Dawson embarks on a harrowing journey through the city's underbelly and confronts the brutal world of the urban poor, where street children are forced to fight for their very survival - and a cunning killer seems just out of reach.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwei Quartey is a crime fiction writer and physician living in Pasadena, California. Having practiced medicine for more than 20 years while simultaneously working as a writer, he has attained noteworthy achievements in both fields. Dr. Quartey balances the two professions by dedicating the early morning hours to writing before beginning a day in his clinic. Kwei Quartey attended medical school at Howard University in Washington, D.C. In 1990, he began practicing medicine in California with HealthCare Partners. Dr. Quartey later founded the facility's wound care center while working as an urgent care physician. As a crime fiction writer, Kwei Quartey made the Los Angeles Times Bestseller List in 2009. The following year, the G.O.G. National Book Club awarded him the title of Best Male Author. Having published Wife of the Gods (2009), Children of the Street (2011), Murder at Cape Three Points (2014), he anticipates publication of the fourth Darko Dawson novel in the series, Gold of the Fathers, in early January 2016. Death at the Voyager Hotel, a mystery e-novella not belonging to the series, was published July 2013. Dr. Quartey is also a member of the Los Angeles chapter of Sisters in Crime, a fiction writers' organization.
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Quartey, Kwei. Murder at Cape Three Points. New York. 2014. Soho Crime. 9781616953898. 322 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Katherine Grames. Jacket design by Janine Agro.
DESCRIPTION- Accra's hotshot Detective Inspector Darko Dawson returns to solve a complex mystery that will take him out of the city to the beautiful coasts of Ghana, where a grim double-murder seems to have larger political implications. At Cape Three Points on the beautiful Ghanaian coast, a canoe washes up at an oil rig site. The two bodies in the canoe - who turn out to be a prominent, wealthy, middle-aged married couple - have obviously been murdered; the way Mr. Smith-Aidoo has been gruesomely decapitated suggests the killer was trying to send a specific message - but what, and to whom, is a mystery. The Smith-Aidoos, pillars in their community, are mourned by everyone, but especially by their niece Sapphire, a successful pediatric surgeon in Ghana's capital, Accra. She is not happy that months have passed since the murder and the rural police have made no headway. When the Ghanaian federal police finally agree to get involved, Detective Inspector Darko Dawson of the Accra police force is sent out to Cape Three Points to investigate. Pretty as the coast is, he is not happy to be sent away from his wife and two sons, the younger of whom is recovering from a heart operation. And the more he learns about the case, the more convoluted and dangerous it becomes. Three Points has long been inhabited by tribal villages of subsistence fishers, but real estate entrepreneurs and wealthy oil companies have been trying to bribe the tribes to move out. Dawson roots out a host of motives for murder, ranging from personal vendettas to corporate conspiracies.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwei Quartey is a crime fiction writer and physician living in Pasadena, California. Having practiced medicine for more than 20 years while simultaneously working as a writer, he has attained noteworthy achievements in both fields. Dr. Quartey balances the two professions by dedicating the early morning hours to writing before beginning a day in his clinic. Kwei Quartey attended medical school at Howard University in Washington, D.C. In 1990, he began practicing medicine in California with HealthCare Partners. Dr. Quartey later founded the facility's wound care center while working as an urgent care physician. As a crime fiction writer, Kwei Quartey made the Los Angeles Times Bestseller List in 2009. The following year, the G.O.G. National Book Club awarded him the title of Best Male Author. Having published Wife of the Gods (2009), Children of the Street (2011), Murder at Cape Three Points (2014), he anticipates publication of the fourth Darko Dawson novel in the series, Gold of the Fathers, in early January 2016. Death at the Voyager Hotel, a mystery e-novella not belonging to the series, was published July 2013. Dr. Quartey is also a member of the Los Angeles chapter of Sisters in Crime, a fiction writers' organization.
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Quartey, Kwei. The Missing American: The First Emma Djan Investigation. New York. 2020. Soho Crime. 9781641292122. Paperback original. Includes 11 page preview of the next Emma Djan Investigation Sleep Well, My Lady. 421 pages. paperback. Front cover design by James Iacobeli. Cover images: Accraby Jennika Argent/Alamy Stock. Woman: Cory VanderPloeg/Gallery Stock.
DESCRIPTION- A 2021 Edgar Nominee for Best Novel. Accra private investigator Emma Djan’s first missing persons case will lead her to the darkest depths of the email scams and fetish priests in Ghana, the world’s Internet capital. When her dreams of rising through the Accra police ranks like her late father crash around her, 26-year-old Emma Djan is unsure what will become of her career. Through a sympathetic former colleague, Emma gets an interview with a private detective agency that takes on cases of missing persons, theft, and infidelity. It’s not the future she imagined, but it’s her best option. Meanwhile, Gordon Tilson, a middle-aged widower in Washington, DC, has found solace in an online community after his wife’s passing. Through the support group, he’s even met a young Ghanaian widow he’s come to care about. When her sister gets into a car accident, he sends her thousands of dollars to cover the hospital bill—to the horror of his only son, Derek. Then Gordon decides to surprise his new love by paying her a visit—and disappears. Fearing for his father’s life, Derek follows him across the world to Ghana, Internet capital of the world, where he and Emma will find themselves deep in a world of sakawa scams, fetish priests, and those willing to kill to protect their secrets.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwei Quartey is a crime fiction writer and physician living in Pasadena, California. Having practiced medicine for more than 20 years while simultaneously working as a writer, he has attained noteworthy achievements in both fields. Dr. Quartey balances the two professions by dedicating the early morning hours to writing before beginning a day in his clinic. Kwei Quartey attended medical school at Howard University in Washington, D.C. In 1990, he began practicing medicine in California with HealthCare Partners. Dr. Quartey later founded the facility's wound care center while working as an urgent care physician. As a crime fiction writer, Kwei Quartey made the Los Angeles Times Bestseller List in 2009. The following year, the G.O.G. National Book Club awarded him the title of Best Male Author. Having published Wife of the Gods (2009), Children of the Street (2011), Murder at Cape Three Points (2014), he anticipates publication of the fourth Darko Dawson novel in the series, Gold of the Fathers, in early January 2016. Death at the Voyager Hotel, a mystery e-novella not belonging to the series, was published July 2013. Dr. Quartey is also a member of the Los Angeles chapter of Sisters in Crime, a fiction writers' organization.
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Quartey, Kwei. Wife of the Gods. New York. 2009. Random House. 9781400067596. 320 pages. hardcover. Jacket design: Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich. Jacket images: African dress: Simon Clay, @ Anova Books Company Ltd., as featured in Duncan Grant, African Textiles, PRC Publishing, London, 2002; Ashanti kente cloth strips, collected between 1941 and 1943 (The Newark Museum.
DESCRIPTION- Lyrical and captivating, Kwei Quartey's debut novel brings to life the majesty and charm of Ghana - from the capital city of Accra to a small community where long-buried secrets are about to rise to the surface. In a shady grove outside the small town of Ketanu, a young woman - a promising med student - has been found dead under suspicious circumstances. Eager to close the case, the local police have arrested a poor, enamored teenage boy and charged him with murder. Needless to say, they are less than thrilled when an outside force arrives from the big city to lead an inquiry into the baffling case. Detective Inspector Darko Dawson, fluent in Ketanu's indigenous language, is the right man for the job, but he hates the idea of leaving his loving wife and young son, a plucky kid with a defective heart. Pressured by his cantankerous boss, Dawson agrees to travel to Ketanu, sort through the evidence, and tie up the loose ends as quickly and as efficiently as possible. But for Dawson, this sleepy corner of Ghana is rife with emotional land mines: an estranged relationship with the family he left behind twenty-five years earlier and the painful memory of his own mother's sudden, inexplicable disappearance. Dawson is armed with remarkable insight and a healthy dose of skepticism, but these gifts, sometimes overshadowed by his mercurial temper, may not be enough to solve this haunting mystery. In Ketanu, he finds that his cosmopolitan sensibilities clash with age-old customs, including a disturbing practice in which teenage girls are offered by their families to fetish priests as trokosi, or Wives of the Gods. This is a compelling and unique mystery, enriched by an exotic setting and a vivid cast. And Inspector Darko Dawson - dedicated family man, rebel in the office, and ace in the field - is one of the most appealing sleuths to come along in years.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Kwei Quartey is a crime fiction writer and physician living in Pasadena, California. Having practiced medicine for more than 20 years while simultaneously working as a writer, he has attained noteworthy achievements in both fields. Dr. Quartey balances the two professions by dedicating the early morning hours to writing before beginning a day in his clinic. Kwei Quartey attended medical school at Howard University in Washington, D.C. In 1990, he began practicing medicine in California with HealthCare Partners. Dr. Quartey later founded the facility's wound care center while working as an urgent care physician. As a crime fiction writer, Kwei Quartey made the Los Angeles Times Bestseller List in 2009. The following year, the G.O.G. National Book Club awarded him the title of Best Male Author. Having published Wife of the Gods (2009), Children of the Street (2011), Murder at Cape Three Points (2014), he anticipates publication of the fourth Darko Dawson novel in the series, Gold of the Fathers, in early January 2016. Death at the Voyager Hotel, a mystery e-novella not belonging to the series, was published July 2013. Dr. Quartey is also a member of the Los Angeles chapter of Sisters in Crime, a fiction writers' organization.
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Sekyi, Kobina. The Blinkards: A Play in Four Acts. London. 1974. Rex Collings. 0901720437. Introduction by J. Ayo Langley. 160 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- The Blinkards was staged by the Cosmopolitan Club in Cape Coast in 1915. No contemporary reviews have survived, and published memoirs make no mention of it. The play written in English and Fanti has as its central theme the dangers of unblinking and unthinking Europeanism. In this it faithfully reflects some of the key ideas and beliefs of the gifted and cultivated Cape Coast Nationalists who at this time dominated the press and the literary clubs. It is a comedy in the Shavian manner (Sekyi had been much influenced by Shaw's writing during his stay in England), laughing at the posturing and antics of the semi-educated who rejecting the richness and variety of their own cultural heritage aped, and aped unsuccessfully, European behaviour, customs, and manners. The play, however, is not only interesting and amusing in its own right, but is also fascinating for two other reasons. Firstly as being probably the first play by a West African to be written and acted in English. A literary landmark that has been forgotten and neglected. Secondly as a contemporary reflection of the times, a social document of great value. This edition with Dr Langley's introduction is the first publication of the play.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - William Esuman-Gwira Sekyi, better known as Kobina Sekyi (1 November 1892, Cape Coast - 1956) was a nationalist lawyer, politician and writer in the Gold Coast. Sekyi was the son of John Gladstone Sackey, headmaster of the Wesleyan School in Cape Coast, who was himself the son of Chief Kofi Sekyi, the Chief Regent of Cape Coast and Wilhelmina Pietersen, also known as Amba Paaba, daughter of Willem Essuman Pietersen (c.1844-1914), an Elmina-Cape Coast businessman and one-time President of the Aborigines' Rights Protection Society (ARPS), a later president of which was Sekyi's uncle, Henry van Hien, whose heir Sekyi was. Sekyi was educated at Mfantsipim School and studied philosophy at the University of London, accompanied to Britain by his maternal grandfather. He had originally wanted to become an engineer like his mother's younger brother, J.B. Essuman-Gwira, but because his family controlled the purse strings and they wished him to study law, that was the career he entered. He was called to the Bar from the Inner Temple in 1918. Sekyi became a lawyer in private practice in the Gold Coast. He was president of the Aborigines' Rights Protection Society, an executive member of the National Congress of British West Africa, and member of the Coussey Committee for constitutional change. He married Lilly Anna Cleanand, daughter of John Peter Cleanand and Elizabeth Vroom. Sekyi's comedy The Blinkards (1915) satirised the acceptance by a colonised society of the attitudes of the colonisers. His novel The Anglo-Fante was the first English-language novel written in the Cape Coast.
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Selormey, Francis. The Narrow Path. London. 1966. Heinemann. African Writers Series. 184 pages. paperback. AWS27.
DESCRIPTION- Kofi was born on the coast of Ghana during the 1920s, his grandfather a wealthy fisherman, his father a teacher. The story that he tells, nearly 40 years later, is of his early days at home and in school, brought up in a strict mission household and conflicting with his father.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Francis Selormey (15 April 1927 - 1983) was a Ghanaian novelist, teacher, scriptwriter and sports administrator. Born in Dzelukofe, in the Volta Region of Ghana, Selormey was brought up in Keta. He attended a Catholic primary school and then St. Augustine's College, Cape Coast. He studied physical education at the University of Ghana and in Germany before becoming a teacher. He was Senior Sports Organizer for the Central Region from 1960 to 1964. In 1965 he became a scriptwriter for the Ghana Film Industry Corporation. At some point he returned to sports administration, as Director of Sports for the Sports Council of Ghana. Married with six children, he spent the last years of his life as a farmer before his death in 1983. The Narrow Path: An African Childhood, was published in Heinemann's African Writers Series in 1966. Semi-autobiographical, it was 'the Bildungsroman of a Ghanaian school boy', who is 'caught between his love for an overly strict father who insists on Christian, Western ways and his own appreciation for other, traditional influences.'
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Tamakloe-Garr, Ayo. The Wolf at Number 4: A Novel. Athens. 2018. Ohio University Press. 9780821423547. Modern African Writing. 192 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Desire Mensah, a disgraced school teacher in her thirties, sees moving to sleepy little Cape Coast, Ghana, as her chance to get away from a shameful secret not buried deeply enough. And maybe, just maybe, she will find the love she craves and the husband her mother craves for her. But in Cape Coast, the past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past. That’s the kind of thing Wolfgang “Wolf” Ofori would say. Everyone says the eleven-year-old is a genius—eccentric though he is—and is bound to win Wonderkids, a quiz competition ordinarily for high school students. Wolf and Desire form a strange friendship, even as their mutual understanding both precipitates and reinforces each’s downfall. Before long, their struggles to exist in a world that dehumanizes and then throws the first stone whips up a perfect storm, with deadly consequences. Debut novelist Ayo Tamakloe-Garr drew inspiration from works such as A Streetcar Named Desire and Frankenstein to create The Wolf at Number 4, a story set in 1990s Ghana. The result is a chilling and funny gothic tale that will disarm readers even as it forces them to confront whether the wolves around us are born or made.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ayo Tamakloe-Garr was born in Accra to a Nigerian father and Ghanaian mother. His short stories have been published on the Flash Fiction Ghana and Writers Project Ghana blogs. The Wolf at Number 4 is his first novel.
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Wilson, Beth P. The Great Minu. Chicago. 1974. Follett Publishing. 069580409x. Illustrated by Jerry Pinkney. 32 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- A West Africa Folktale classic. Not understanding what he is told about the riches he sees in Accra, a poor country farmer decides his simple life is better.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Beth Pierre Wilson (1909-1991) was the second African American school teacher hired by the Oakland Public School District in 1939, where she worked for over 20 years before her retirement. Beth Pierre was born in Tacoma, Washington and graduated from the University of Puget Sound. She was the grand-daughter of John Newington Conna (1836-1921), "a pivotal figure in the early history and development of Washington State." Because of job discrimination, she moved to southern California where she enrolled at UCLA where she became a member of the Christian Scientist church. She married William Douglas Wilson (1907-1983) (marriage year unknown) who was born in Louisiana. The 1940 census data lists them as living at 1940 Acton Street #3, William's profession as "dental worker", and Beth's as "school teacher". William Wilson became a dentist with offices at 8th and Adeline. He shared offices with his two brothers, Clay M. Wilson, M.D and Edward J. Wilson, an insurance agent. Beth may have been born in 1906 (suggested by SSI death record) or in 1909 (suggested by 1940 census). The 1936 voter registration lists them as living at 3109 California Street in Berkeley. William's profession is "dentist" and is registered as a Republican (later data shows Democrat); Beth's profession is "teacher" and is registered as a Democrat. They had two children, Diane Wilson Thomas and Deal Wilson. Their granddaughter is Ghanya Thomas, a highly regarded professional at the University of California, Office of the President. Beth Pierre Wilson is the sister-in-law of Sheila Frances Wilson (Edward), the third African-American teacher in Berkeley and Ruby Wilson (Clay), a long-time teacher in the Oakland schools.
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Yirenki, Asiedu. Kivuli and other plays. London. 1980. Heinemann. 0435902164. African Writers Series. 154 pages. paperback. AWS216.
DESCRIPTION- Asiedu Yirenki’s work is primarily concerned with experimental adaptations of Ghanian folklore.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Asiedu Yirenkyi (8 December 1942 – 10 May 2018) was a Ghanaian playwright, actor, director, theatre company manager and author of screen plays. He was born Emmanuel Asiedu Yirenchi at Amanase in the Eastern Region of Ghana to Charles Okata Yirenkyi, a farmer and Comfort Yaa Nyarkoa, a homemaker and belonged to the Akyepere Kotoku clan (quarter) of Mampong Akuapem. He was the younger brother of the late Ghanaian actor and film maker Rev. Kofi Yirenkyi and the nephew of Ghanaian medical doctor and sculptor Dr. Oku Ampofo. Yirenkyi's name has been associated with pioneering roles in Drama and the National Theatre movement from the early days of Ghana's independence. He was a member of Ghana's first experimental theatre group in the late 1950s. In the early 1960s he joined Efua Sutherland's Drama Studio players as a boy actor and was among the group of studio players who performed on the night Dr. Kwame Nkrumah formally opened the Drama Studio in 1960. His formal education in Theatre began with a Diploma in Drama from the University of Ghana, Legon. In 1968, when Yirenkyi gained admission into the Yale School of Drama he made history by becoming the first Ghanaian to receive a grant to study drama in the USA. He graduated in 1971 with the prestigious John Golden Scholar Award in Playwriting. At Yale his mates included African American Theatre icon Walter Dallas and Henry Winkler. During his studentship at Yale he taught African history and African Literature at the James Hillhouse High School in New Haven, Connecticut. He returned to Ghana after his studies and lectured at the University of Ghana, Legon and at the Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria. Like writer Ama Ata Aidoo, also involved in the Ghana Drama Studio, Yirenkyi later served as a minister in the Provisional National Defence Council of Jerry Rawlings: he was Secretary for Culture and Tourism from 1982 to 1984, when he resigned. It was under his political leadership in 1983 that the first elaborate work on Ghana's Cultural Policy was carried out. Yirenkyi later served twice as the chairman of Ghana's National Folklore Board and as a World Bank consultant on the National Theatre of Ghana. He died on 10 May 2018 and in line with his wishes was interred at Mampong Akuapem
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GUINEA
[ GUINEA - Literature ]Fantoure, Alioum. Tropical Circle. Charlottesville. 1989. University Press Of Virginia. 0813912083. Translated from the French by Dorothy S. Blair. Introduction by Aliko Songolo. Simultaneous Release In Paperback. 264 pages. hardcover. Cover: Cameron Poulter Design.
DESCRIPTION- This novel, winner of the coveted Grand Prix de LittErature d'Afrique Noire, has been seen as a story about the struggles of nation-building in Africa, as a fierce depiction of dictatorships in the Third World, and as a profound meditation on the nature of pwer everywhere. This award-winning novel is a story of the struggles for nation-building in Africa and a profound meditation on the nature of power everywhere.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mohammed Alioum FantourE (born Mohammed TourE on November 27 , 1938 in ForEcariah in the Republic of Guinea) is a Guinean writer.
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Laye, Camara. A Dream of Africa. London. 1968. Collins. Translated from the French by James Kirkup. 191 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Bruce Macdonald. Translation of Dramouss.
DESCRIPTION- In this new novel by the author of The Dark Child and The Radiance of the King, the narrator returns from six years in Paris to an Africa on the ugly brink of independence. Through his family, his friends and his new wife, he rediscovers his own country, sees the magic, religion and ancient skills of his people replaced by naive political violence, and has a dream which reveals a terrifying period of unrest in the immediate future. Strongly autobiographical - DESCRIPTIONs of the narrator's experiences as a penniless student in Paris follow closely the author's own experiences and provide a continuation to The Dark Child - A Dream of Africa interweaves the narrator's story with a symbolic portrayal of the plight of Africa and her peoples to-day. But, as in the earlier books, it is the extraordinary perception and poetry of the writing that hold the reader's attention. The book has a compelling beauty, and James Kirkup has once again captured this in his translation. 'The first writer of genius to come out of Africa.' B.B.C.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Camara Laye (January 1, 1928 - February 4, 1980) was an African writer from Guinea. He was the author of The African Child (L'Enfant noir), a novel based loosely on his own childhood, and The Radiance of the King (Le Regard du roi). Both novels are among the earliest major works in Francophone African literature. Camara Laye later worked for the government of newly independent Guinea, but went into voluntary exile over political issues. Camara Laye was born in Kouroussa, a town in what was then the colony of French Guinea. His family were Malinke (a MandE speaking ethnicity), and he was born into a caste that traditionally worked as blacksmiths and goldsmiths. His mother was from the village of Tindican, and his immediate childhood surroundings were not predominantly influenced by French culture. He attended both Koranic and French elementary schools in Kouroussa. At age fifteen he went to Conakry, the colonial capital, to continue his education. He attended vocational studies in motor mechanics. In 1947, he travelled to Paris to continue studying mechanics. There he worked and took further courses in engineering and worked towards the baccalaurEat. Camara Laye published his first novel in 1953, the autobiographical L'Enfant noir (The African Child, also published under the title The Dark Child). It follows his own journey from childhood in Kouroussa, his education in Conakry, and eventual departure for France. The book won the Prix Charles Veillon in 1954. L'Enfant noir was followed the next year by Le Regard du roi (The Radiance of the King). The Radiance of the King was described by Kwame Anthony Appiah as 'one of the greatest of the African novels of the colonial period.' In 1956 Camara Laye returned to Africa, first to Dahomey, then the Gold Coast, and finally to newly independent Guinea, where he held several government posts. He left Guinea for Senegal in 1965 because of political issues, never returning to his home country. In 1966 Camara Laye's third novel, Dramouss (A Dream of Africa), was published. In 1978 his fourth and final work, Le Maître de la parole - Kouma Lafôlô Kouma (The Guardian of the Word), was published. The novel was based on a Malian epic told by the griot Babou Conde about Sundiata Keita, the thirteenth-century founder of the Mali Empire. Camara Laye's authorship of Le Regard du roi was questioned by literary scholar Adele King in her book Rereading Camara Laye.She claimed that he had considerable help in writing L'Enfant noir and did not write any part of Le Regard du roi. Scholar F. Abiola Irele, in an article called In Search of Camara Laye asserts that the claims are not 'sufficiently grounded' to adequately justify that Laye did not author the mentioned work.
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Laye, Camara. The Dark Child: The Autobiography of an African Boy. New York. 1954. Noonday Press. Introduction by Philippe Thoby-Marcellin. Translated by James Kirkup, Ernest Jones and Elaine Gottlieb. 188 pages. hardcover. Translation of L'enfant noir.
DESCRIPTION- A young Negro from French Guinea, Camara Laye, has written in remarkably deficate and, at the same time, passionate prose, his story of Africa and Africans. It is a story of everyday life, but an everyday life which must seem exotic to the Western reader. The supernatural was a significant part of young Camara Laye's life; not only did his mother possess the powers of awitch, but his father's hut was often visited by a small black snake, the guiding spirit of his race. Mr. Laye's literary skill, however, is such that the reader has no difficulty in grasping the reality of the emotions described here, the love for his mother (first of his father's two wives), awe and respect for his father, an accomplished goldsmith, and another kind of love for Marie, the young girl he meets while away at high school in Conakry, the capital of French Guinea. And most compelling are the scenes of tribal initiation, when he is terrified by the roaring of what he supposes are lions, and more terrified - though he dare not show it - of the ritual of circumcision. THE DARK CHILD is the autobiography of a young boy who loves Africa, who was brought up in its ways, who has recorded, without rancor or hostility, its customs, superstitions and education, its emotions and aspirations. The Dark Child has had an enormous success in Paris, where Camara Laye had been sent by his tribe to study engineering. Only twenty-six years old, Mr. Laye wrote the book evenings, after work, when, because of lack of funds, he had been forced to find a job in a factory in the suburbs. Lonely and unhappy in Paris, Camara Laye turned in THE DARK CHILD to an evocation of the memories of his childhood in Africa. Thanks to the royalties which he received Mr. Laye was able to visit his family this past winter, for the first time in six years.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Camara Laye (January 1, 1928 - February 4, 1980) was an African writer from Guinea. He was the author of The African Child (L'Enfant noir), a novel based loosely on his own childhood, and The Radiance of the King (Le Regard du roi). Both novels are among the earliest major works in Francophone African literature. Camara Laye later worked for the government of newly independent Guinea, but went into voluntary exile over political issues. Camara Laye was born in Kouroussa, a town in what was then the colony of French Guinea. His family were Malinke (a MandE speaking ethnicity), and he was born into a caste that traditionally worked as blacksmiths and goldsmiths. His mother was from the village of Tindican, and his immediate childhood surroundings were not predominantly influenced by French culture. He attended both Koranic and French elementary schools in Kouroussa. At age fifteen he went to Conakry, the colonial capital, to continue his education. He attended vocational studies in motor mechanics. In 1947, he travelled to Paris to continue studying mechanics. There he worked and took further courses in engineering and worked towards the baccalaurEat. Camara Laye published his first novel in 1953, the autobiographical L'Enfant noir (The African Child, also published under the title The Dark Child). It follows his own journey from childhood in Kouroussa, his education in Conakry, and eventual departure for France. The book won the Prix Charles Veillon in 1954. L'Enfant noir was followed the next year by Le Regard du roi (The Radiance of the King). The Radiance of the King was described by Kwame Anthony Appiah as 'one of the greatest of the African novels of the colonial period.' In 1956 Camara Laye returned to Africa, first to Dahomey, then the Gold Coast, and finally to newly independent Guinea, where he held several government posts. He left Guinea for Senegal in 1965 because of political issues, never returning to his home country. In 1966 Camara Laye's third novel, Dramouss (A Dream of Africa), was published. In 1978 his fourth and final work, Le Maître de la parole - Kouma Lafôlô Kouma (The Guardian of the Word), was published. The novel was based on a Malian epic told by the griot Babou Conde about Sundiata Keita, the thirteenth-century founder of the Mali Empire. Camara Laye's authorship of Le Regard du roi was questioned by literary scholar Adele King in her book Rereading Camara Laye.She claimed that he had considerable help in writing L'Enfant noir and did not write any part of Le Regard du roi. Scholar F. Abiola Irele, in an article called In Search of Camara Laye asserts that the claims are not 'sufficiently grounded' to adequately justify that Laye did not author the mentioned work.
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Laye, Camara. The Guardian of the Word. New York. 1984. Aventura. 0394724410. Translated From The French By James Kirkup. Vintage Library of Contemporary World Literature. 223 pages. paperback. Cover design by Keith Sheridan/Collage by Carol Wald. Translation of Le Maître de la parole.
DESCRIPTION- In the countries of West Africa ‘guardians of the word,' or ‘griots,' are the custodians of civilization, oral historians par excellence. Through them customs, legend, art and poetry are preserved. The Guardian of the Word, as told to Camara Laye by a griot, is the story of the warrior-hero Sundiata, and of the ancient empire of Mali that he founded. Even before his birth in 1202 the soothsayers have already predicted the later glory of Nankoma, the boy Sundiata. But born a cripple, he must overcome the taunts and jibes of his people. He flees into exile with his mother, wandering for years from kingdom to kingdom. Then begin the triumphs that lead to his inevitable ascendancy. The Guardian of the Word is a fabulous epic of treachery and battle, of love and magic, of ritual and ceremony, a work indispensable to any serious appreciation of African cultures. As told to the author by Babu CondE, the famous Malian griot, and displaying the beauty, nobility and poetry of the traditional art of Malinke story-telling, The Guardian of the Word is the saga of the founding of an empire that once stretched from the Sahara Desert and the borders of Nigeria to the Atlantic Ocean. ‘Though there are epic and biblical overtones throughout much of the narrative - especially with the hero motif and the extended genealogies - it is Laye's affinities with the modern novel that shape his epic and render it into a work of great beauty. Again and again, the tale opens up into a vivid scene or witty conversation that gives a heightened sense of dramatic immediacy. There are fascinating passages devoted to almost all of the important stages of traditional life: rites of passage, the marriage arrangements between the various wives of a polygamous household, funerary practices, and so on. This version of the Sundiata epic will probably become the definitive telling of a story that has haunted West African griots (and their modern transcribers) for generations.' - Charles R. Larson, (London) Times Literary Supplement.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Camara Laye (January 1, 1928 - February 4, 1980) was an African writer from Guinea. He was the author of The African Child (L'Enfant noir), a novel based loosely on his own childhood, and The Radiance of the King (Le Regard du roi). Both novels are among the earliest major works in Francophone African literature. Camara Laye later worked for the government of newly independent Guinea, but went into voluntary exile over political issues. Camara Laye was born in Kouroussa, a town in what was then the colony of French Guinea. His family were Malinke (a MandE speaking ethnicity), and he was born into a caste that traditionally worked as blacksmiths and goldsmiths. His mother was from the village of Tindican, and his immediate childhood surroundings were not predominantly influenced by French culture. He attended both Koranic and French elementary schools in Kouroussa. At age fifteen he went to Conakry, the colonial capital, to continue his education. He attended vocational studies in motor mechanics. In 1947, he travelled to Paris to continue studying mechanics. There he worked and took further courses in engineering and worked towards the baccalaurEat. Camara Laye published his first novel in 1953, the autobiographical L'Enfant noir (The African Child, also published under the title The Dark Child). It follows his own journey from childhood in Kouroussa, his education in Conakry, and eventual departure for France. The book won the Prix Charles Veillon in 1954. L'Enfant noir was followed the next year by Le Regard du roi (The Radiance of the King). The Radiance of the King was described by Kwame Anthony Appiah as 'one of the greatest of the African novels of the colonial period.' In 1956 Camara Laye returned to Africa, first to Dahomey, then the Gold Coast, and finally to newly independent Guinea, where he held several government posts. He left Guinea for Senegal in 1965 because of political issues, never returning to his home country. In 1966 Camara Laye's third novel, Dramouss (A Dream of Africa), was published. In 1978 his fourth and final work, Le Maître de la parole - Kouma Lafôlô Kouma (The Guardian of the Word), was published. The novel was based on a Malian epic told by the griot Babou Conde about Sundiata Keita, the thirteenth-century founder of the Mali Empire. Camara Laye's authorship of Le Regard du roi was questioned by literary scholar Adele King in her book Rereading Camara Laye.She claimed that he had considerable help in writing L'Enfant noir and did not write any part of Le Regard du roi. Scholar F. Abiola Irele, in an article called In Search of Camara Laye asserts that the claims are not 'sufficiently grounded' to adequately justify that Laye did not author the mentioned work.
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Laye, Camara. The Radiance of the King. London. 1956. Collins. Translated from the French by James Kirkup. 319 pages. hardcover. Translation of Le Regard du roi.
DESCRIPTION- A black writer penetrates the heart of a white man in this brilliant tragicomic parable of two Africas - a literary and symbolic masterpiece exposes as never before the mind and spirit of a white pilgrim and his black counterparts. One glimpse of the magnificent black King of Kings, and the white man Clarence realizes that only in his service will he ever find peace. Down and out but arrogant, he assumes that his color will automatically gain him an audience. But his appeal is denied, and he becomes obsessed with the desire to confront the King at any cost. And so begins Clarence's odyssey. Fleeing from gambling debts, corrupt justice, and the contempt of his fellow whites, he begins a grueling trek to the savage South, accompanied by a roguish beggar and two boys. The overwhelming jungle and its many false trails finally give way to the South, ‘provocative and cruel, lascivious and unmentionable,' where Clarence comes to the end of a bizarre hallucinatory quest for ‘soul' and redemption in THE RADIANCE OF KING. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Camara Laye (January 1, 1928 - February 4, 1980) was an African writer from Guinea. He was the author of The African Child (L'Enfant noir), a novel based loosely on his own childhood, and The Radiance of the King (Le Regard du roi). Both novels are among the earliest major works in Francophone African literature. Camara Laye later worked for the government of newly independent Guinea, but went into voluntary exile over political issues. Camara Laye was born in Kouroussa, a town in what was then the colony of French Guinea. His family were Malinke (a MandE speaking ethnicity), and he was born into a caste that traditionally worked as blacksmiths and goldsmiths. His mother was from the village of Tindican, and his immediate childhood surroundings were not predominantly influenced by French culture. He attended both Koranic and French elementary schools in Kouroussa. At age fifteen he went to Conakry, the colonial capital, to continue his education. He attended vocational studies in motor mechanics. In 1947, he travelled to Paris to continue studying mechanics. There he worked and took further courses in engineering and worked towards the baccalaurEat. Camara Laye published his first novel in 1953, the autobiographical L'Enfant noir (The African Child, also published under the title The Dark Child). It follows his own journey from childhood in Kouroussa, his education in Conakry, and eventual departure for France. The book won the Prix Charles Veillon in 1954. L'Enfant noir was followed the next year by Le Regard du roi (The Radiance of the King). The Radiance of the King was described by Kwame Anthony Appiah as 'one of the greatest of the African novels of the colonial period.' In 1956 Camara Laye returned to Africa, first to Dahomey, then the Gold Coast, and finally to newly independent Guinea, where he held several government posts. He left Guinea for Senegal in 1965 because of political issues, never returning to his home country. In 1966 Camara Laye's third novel, Dramouss (A Dream of Africa), was published. In 1978 his fourth and final work, Le Maître de la parole - Kouma Lafôlô Kouma (The Guardian of the Word), was published. The novel was based on a Malian epic told by the griot Babou Conde about Sundiata Keita, the thirteenth-century founder of the Mali Empire. Camara Laye's authorship of Le Regard du roi was questioned by literary scholar Adele King in her book Rereading Camara Laye.She claimed that he had considerable help in writing L'Enfant noir and did not write any part of Le Regard du roi. Scholar F. Abiola Irele, in an article called In Search of Camara Laye asserts that the claims are not 'sufficiently grounded' to adequately justify that Laye did not author the mentioned work.
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Sassine, Williams. Wirriyamu. London. 1980. Heinemann. 0435901990. African Writers Series. Translated from the French by John Reed and Clive Wake. 149 pages. paperback. AWS199.
DESCRIPTION- In Williams Sassine’s Wirriyamu (1976), a violent and violated rural landscape becomes emblematic of a specific traumatic event occurring within the time frame of the novel and of contemporary political reality.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Williams Sassine (1944, Kankan, Guinea - February 9, 1997, Conakry, Guinea) was a Guinean novelist who wrote in French. His father was Lebanese Christian and his mother was a Guinean of Muslim heritage. Sassine was an expatriate African writer in France after leaving Guinea when it received independence under SEkou TourE. As a novelist he wrote of marginalized characters, but he became more optimistic on TourE's death. His 1979 novel Le jeune homme de sable has been regarded as among the best 20th-century African novels. Few of his works have been translated into English, but Wirriyamu was published in an English translation in 1980. As an editor he remained critical of TourE as chief editor for the satirical paper Le Lynx. Some of Sassine's works have been translated into English, Spanish and Russian.
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Thiam, Djibi. My Sister, the Panther. New York. 1980. Dodd Mead. 0396078907. Translated from the French by Mercer Cook. 192 pages. hardcover. Jacket art by Debby Carter. Jacket design by Leslie Bauman. Translatio of Ma soeur la panthère.
DESCRIPTION- At night, in a small hamlet deep in the Guinea bush, a panther devours a hunter's dog. Nothing out of the ordinary, one would suppose. But for the inhabitants of the hamlet, the attack is devastating. From time beyond memory, when the great spirit of the hunt sent a panther to save their ancestor Momou Koungala from the fatal charges of a raging buffalo, the Koungalas have honored the panther as their totem. Until now, only peace and kinship have reigned between the tribe and the magnificent cats. It falls to the hunter, Bamou, to carry out Koungala justice: the guilty panther must die. But how can Bamou kill an animal that symbolizes his tribe's unity with nature? And how can he hope to outmaneuver a panther, herself the most cunning and powerful hunter in the bush? Bamou's deep respect for Koungala tradition and his intimate knowledge of his native bush guide him through a thrilling adventure that is also a remarkable document of rural life in western Africa. Written by a native of Guinea, My Sister, the Panther was published in France in 1978 to critical acclaim. It was a finalist in the ‘Meilleur livre 1978' competition, and was selected to compete for the Grand Prix Afrique Noire 1979.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Born in Boffa, Republic of Guinea, in 1934, THIERNO-DJIBI THIAM studied in the schools of his homeland and in Paris, where he obtained his baccalaureate with a major in mathematics. Later studies led to a licence (M.A.) in economics from the University of Paris and a master's in business administration from Atlanta University in Georgia. In Kinshasa, Zaire, he was Professor of Economics at the National School of Law and Administration and at Louvanium University. In Dakar, Senegal, he served as Administrative Director of the National Office of Cooperation and Assistance for Development. He has taught in various lycees in France, and is now studying journalism in Fribourg, Switzerland. Djibi Thiam is at work on further novels, short stories, and articles about Africa. He is married and has one daughter. MERCER COOK was born in Washington, D.C. and received his B.A. from Amherst College and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Brown University. He has taught French literature and Franco-African literature at several major universities and has translated a number of Franco-African books. He is a professor emeritus and former chairman of the French Department at Howard University, where he introduced a course on the Negro in French literature in 1934. Dr. Cook has held numerous fellowships and is decorated by the governments of Haiti, Niger, and Senegal. Under presidents Kennedy and Johnson he served as U. S. Ambassador to Niger, Senegal, and Gambia. He lives in Silver Spring, Md.
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GUINEA-BISSAU
[ GUINEA-BISSAU - History - Politics ]Cabral, Amilcar. Unity and Struggle: Speeches and Writings. New York. 1979. Monthly Review Press. 0853455104. Introduction by Basil Davidson & Biographical Notes by Mario De Andrade. Translated Michael Wolfers. 298 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Amlcar Cabral, born in 1921 in Guinea-Bissau, had his early education in Guinea and did his university studies in Portugal. Cabral found himself active in the nationalist struggle, a political context that enabled him to reflect on several aspects of the armed struggle. He developed his understanding and theories of the national liberation struggle in the political context of militant nationalism; he fought as he wrote incisively about that struggle, and passionately struggled as he wrote. This dialectical experience enriched his theoretical understanding of the aims, goals, strategies and ideologies that informed the nature of political involvement in the movement for national liberation.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Amílcar Lopes da Costa Cabral (12 September 1924 - 20 January 1973) was a Guinea-Bissauan and Cape Verdean agricultural engineer, writer, and a nationalist thinker and political leader. He was also one of Africa's foremost anti-colonial leaders. Also known by his nom de guerre Abel Djassi, Cabral led the nationalist movement of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde Islands and the ensuing war of independence in Guinea-Bissau. He was assassinated on 20 January 1973, about eight months before Guinea-Bissau's unilateral declaration of independence. He was deeply influenced by Marxism, and became an inspiration to revolutionary socialists and national liberatonalists world-wide.
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Chaliand, Gerard. Armed Struggle in Africa: With the Guerrillas in Portuguese Guinea. New York. 1969. Monthly Review Press. Introduction by Basil Davidson. Translated by David Rattray and Robert Leonhardt. 160 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Martin Stephen Moskof Assocs., Inc. Front jacket photo: Marret-Romero.
DESCRIPTION- In the summer of 1966, Gerard Chaliand visited Guinea, a Portuguese colony on the west coast of Africa where the PAIGC (African Independence Party of Guinea and the Cape Verde Islands) was waging a successful battle against forty years of repressive rule by the Salazar government. Begun in 1963 under the leadership of Amilcar Cabral, an engineer turned guerrilla who is secretary-general of the PAIGC, the resistance movement had already liberated two-thirds of the country, forcing the Portuguese into the towns and fortified garrisons. Chaliand was able to travel with Cabral throughout the liberated region and here presents a unique first-hand account of the daily life of the maquis - the leaders, cadres, guerrilla fighters, and peasants who at various levels constitute the movement - and of the political, military, and cultural organizations and work of the PAIGC. He has also given us an important anthropological document, a detailed analysis of a country of some 800,000 people of complex ethnic and tribal composition, and of varying religions, from Muslim to Animist. Chaliand's book is a study of guerrilla warfare on a little-known but increasingly important pattern, for the armed resistance which was begun in the countryside by only a small number of guerrillas is now driving the Portuguese out of their defensive camps and forcing their leaders to consider complete withdrawal.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Gerard Chaliand (born February 15, 1934, Brussels, Belgium) is a French expert in geopolitics who has published widely on irregular warfare and military strategy. Chaliand analyses of insurgencies in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, mostly based on his field experience with insurgent forces, have appeared in more than 20 books and in numerous newspaper articles. He has worked autonomously throughout his career, unconstrained by the perspectives of national governments and policy institutes. As a result, his work provides an independent perspective on many of the major conflicts characterized the 20th and 21st centuries. He is also a published poet.
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Davidson, Basil. The Liberation of Guine: Aspects of An African Revolution. Baltimore. 1969. Penguin Books. Penguin African Library. 169 pages. paperback. AP27. Cover design by Patrick McCreeth.
DESCRIPTION- The revolutionary struggle in Portuguese Guine began in earnest in September 1956, when six Africans formed the African Independence Party of Guine and the Cape Verde Islands (PAIGC). It sharpened after the Pidgiguiti massacre of August 1959, when fifty lives were lost as dock workers were forced back to work at gun-point by police. By 1963 the PAIGC had finally taken to armed resistance: five years later it had liberated two thirds of the country. This volume of the Penguin African Library is an important new field-study of guerrilla warfare in an African context. In it Basil Davidson tells the remarkable story of the liberation of Guine and discusses its wider significance. Quoting extensively from the private archives of the RAIGC and from speeches of Amilcar Cabral (who contributes a a foreword to the book), he shows the importance of this guerrilla war for the rest of Africa, and indeed for the whole of the Third World. Basil Davidson is the author THE AFRICAN PAST and of WHICH WAY AFRICA? Material for his graphic, first-hand accounts of the liberation struggle was gathered by him during a visit to guerrilla-liberated areas in Guine in 1967.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Basil Risbridger Davidson MC (9 November 1914 - 9 July 2010) was a British historian, writer and Africanist, particularly knowledgeable on the subject of Portuguese Africa prior to the 1974 Carnation Revolution. He wrote several books on the current plight of Africa. Colonialism and the rise of African emancipation movements were central themes of his work. He was an Honorary Fellow of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.
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Mendy, Peter Karibe. Amilcar Cabral: Nationalist and Pan-Africanist Revolutionary. Athens. 2019. Ohio University Press. 9780821423721. 237 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Amílcar Cabral was an agronomist who led an armed struggle that ended Portuguese colonialism in Guinea-Bissau and Cabo Verde. The uprising contributed significantly to the collapse of a fascist regime in Lisbon and the dismantlement of Portugal's empire in Africa. Assassinated by a close associate with the deep complicity of the Portuguese colonial authorities, Cabral not only led one of Africa's most successful liberation movements, but was the voice and face of the anticolonial wars against Portugal. A brilliant military strategist and astute diplomat, Cabral was an original thinker who wrote innovative and inspirational essays that still resonate today. His charismatic and visionary leadership, his active pan-Africanist solidarity and internationalist commitment to “every just cause in the world,” remain relevant to contemporary struggles for emancipation and self-determination. Peter Karibe Mendy's compact and accessible biography is an ideal introduction to his life and legacy.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Peter Karibe Mendy is professor of history and Africana studies at Rhode Island College, Providence, whose numerous publications include Colonialismo Português em África: A Tradição da Resistência na Guiné-Bissau, 1879–1959 and coauthor (with Richard A. Lobban) of the Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, Volume 4.
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Rodney, Walter. A History of The Upper Guinea Coast 1545 to 1800. Oxford. 1970. Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press. 0853455465. Oxford Studies in African Affairs. 283 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- This book deals with the section of the West African Coast between the Gambia and Cape Mount. Although arbitrarily partitioned between the British, French, and Portuguese in the nineteenth century the area has a historical, geographical, and ethnical unity. Dr. Rodney's work is based on the hitherto unexploited archives of Lisbon and Rome, as well as on a thorough survey of the secondary sources. He reconstructs a picture of African society in the mid-sixteenth century when it was largely free from European influences, and in later chapters provides valuable material concerning European activities both in the slave trade and other forms of commerce.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Walter Rodney (March 23, 1942 - June 13, 1980) was a prominent Guyanese historian and political figure. Born to a working class family, Rodney was a bright student, attending Queen's College in Guyana and then attending university on a scholarship at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, graduating in 1963. Walter Rodney earned his PhD in 1966 at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, England. His dissertation focused on the slave trade on the upper Guinea coast. The paper was published in 1970 under the name, A HISTORY OF THE UPPER GUINEA COAST, 1545-1800 and it was widely acclaimed for its originality in challenging the conventional wisdom on the area. He traveled widely and became very well known around the world as an activist and scholar. He taught for a time in Tanzania after graduating, and later in Jamaica at his alma mater - UWI Mona. Rodney was sharply critical of the middle class for its role in the post-independence Caribbean. When the Jamaican government, led by prime minister Hugh Shearer, banned him, in October 1968, from ever returning to the country, because of his advocacy for the working poor in that country, riots broke out, eventually claiming the lives of several people and causing millions of dollars in damages. These riots, which started on October 16, 1968, are now known as the Rodney Riots, and they triggered an increase in political awareness across the Caribbean, especially among the Afrocentric Rastafarian sector of Jamaica, documented in his book, THE GROUNDINGS WITH MY BROTHERS. Rodney became a prominent Pan-Africanist, and was important in the Black Power movement in the Caribbean and North America. While living in Dar es Salaam he was influential in developing a new centre of African learning and discussion. Rodney's most influential book was HOW EUROPE UNDERDEVELOPED AFRICA, published in 1972. In it he described an Africa which had been consciously exploited by European imperialists, leading directly to the modern underdevelopment of most of the continent. The book became enormously influential as well as controversial. In 1974 Rodney returned to Guyana from Tanzania. He was supposed to take a position as a professor at the University of Guyana but the government prevented his appointment. He became increasingly active in politics, forming the Working People's Alliance, against the PNC government. In 1979 he was arrested and charged with arson after two government offices were burned. In 1980, Rodney was killed by a bomb in his car while running for office in Guyanese elections. Rodney was survived by his wife, Pat, and three children. Walter's brother, Donald, who was injured in the explosion, said that a sergeant in the Guyana Defence Force named Gregory Smith had given Rodney the bomb that killed him. Smith fled to French Guiana after the killing, where he died in 2002. Rodney's death was commemorated in a poem by Martin Carter entitled ‘For Walter Rodney'. In 2004, his widow, Patricia, and children donated his papers to the Robert L. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center. Since 2004, an annual Walter Rodney Symposium has been held each 23 March (Rodney's birthday) at the Center under the sponsorship of the Library and the Political Science Department of Clark Atlanta University, and under the patronage of the Rodney family.
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Tomas, Antonio. Amilcar Cabral: The Life of a Reluctant Nationalist. New York. 2021. Oxford University Press. 9780197525579. 272 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- On 20 January 1973, the Bissau-Guinean revolutionary Amilcar Cabral was killed by militants from his own party. Cabral had founded the PAIGC in 1960 to fight for the liberation of Portuguese Guinea and Cape Verde. The insurgents were Bissau- Guineans, aiming to get rid of the Cape Verdeans who dominated the party elite. Despite Cabral's assassination, Portuguese Guinea became the independent Republic of Guinea- Bissau. The guerrilla war that Cabral had started and led precipitated a chain of events that would lead to the 1974 Carnation Revolution in Lisbon, toppling the forty-year-old authoritarian regime. This paved the way for the rest of Portugal's African colonies to achieve independence. ' Written by a native of Angola, this biography narrates Cabrals revolutionary trajectory, from his early life in Portuguese Guinea to his death at the hands of his own men. It details his quest for national sovereignty, beleaguered by the ethnic-based identity conflicts the national liberation movement struggled to overcome. Through the life of Cabral, Antonio Tomas critically reflects on existing ways of thinking and writing about the independence of Lusophone Africa.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Antonio Tomas is a senior lecturer at the University of Cape Town (South Africa). He holds a PhD in Anthropology from Columbia University, in New York. He has worked as a journalist in Angola and Portugal and has written extensively on issues related to Lusophone Africa.
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KENYA
[ KENYA - Literature ]Akare, Thomas. The Slums. London. 1981. Heinemann. 0435902415. African Writers Series. 182 pages. paperback. AWS241. Cover design by John Myers.
DESCRIPTION- While other writers have described slum life almost as visitors, Akare writes from the centre of deprivation with documentary detachment and trenchant cynicism. He does not sentimentalize the plight of his dispossessed hero, Eddy, who makes a living of a kind washing cars in Nairobi's slums and is taken up by the attractive Zakia. She and her highly placed women friends belong to the other Nairobi, where affluence and boredom take their toll. They come to the slums to encounter the real life, to find young lovers and to consult witch doctors about the medicine that will bring home their wayward husbands and restore their families to happiness. The slum dwellers are familiar with the currency of exploitation and repay the women in the same coin. The procession of days devoted to cheating, gambling, drinking, drug-taking and prostitution leads nowhere; it is nothing more than the acceptance of death. The allegory is a harsh and unyielding one. Akare's condemnation of poverty and its causes is total, and he offers no solution, cultural, philosophical or economic. His pessimism speaks for a new generation that rejects idealism and mocks the hollow rhetoric of progress.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - THOMAS AKARE was born in Kisumu, Kenya, in 1950. He was educated at St Patrick's School and at Highway Secondary School. In 1971 he joined Nation Newspapers and later worked for Stellascope before turning to full-time writing.
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Angira, Jared. Silent Voices: Poems. London. 1972. Heinemann. 0435901117. African Writers Series. 88 pages. paperback. AWS111. Cover photograph by George Hallett.
DESCRIPTION- Jared Angira says of his collection of poetry: ‘Silent Voices consists of crude voices gasping in the dark, of voices trapped in between despair and existence, of voices caught up in a maze but always seeking to get through. They are voices from rusty tincans of the slums, seeking an outlet into the gay city, they are voices corked up in empty gourds. They are the searching voices that must achieve their goals in a strange silent quietness, quietness that defeats the drums. Yet in themselves the voices are drumbeats, pulsations, heartbeats. They are the yodelling of the slum drums, they are the bugles from ancient limbos, they are the bridge from the past into the present and then into that transparent layer of the future. Some of the voices are everyday voices, even of children thrown by their mothers into latrine pits, some are of progressives caught up in competition and self promotion. Here is a conglomeration of voices.'
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jared Angira (born 21 November 1947) is a Kenyan poet. He has been called 'the country's first truly significant poet,' Jared Angira studied commerce at the University of Nairobi from 1968 until 1971. He was editor of Busara which is published by the literature department. He is Africa's representative on the International Executive Committee of the World University Service. is first collection of poems, Juices (EAPH) was published in 1970. He was a founder and is treasurer of the Writers' Association of Kenya. He turned down a scholarship to go to Canada and now works for the East African Harbours Corporation in Dar es Salaam.
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Barra, G. 1000 Kikuyu Proverbs with Translations and English Equivalents. Nairobi. 1989. Kenya Literature Bureau. 123 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- These proverbs are the quintessence of Kikuyu eloquence, and represented for centuries the code of tribal laws used for lack of written books. They are full of wisdom and embody the maxims of natural law 'written by God in the heart of all men.' The proverbs in this book provide a key to understanding the point of view and psychology of the Akikuyu. Kikuyu proverbs are endless. These were selected from collections made by several Consolata Fathers since the early years of the Mission and from lists supplied by Kikuyu teachers in response to a competition launched by the Mission's monthly magazine Wathiomo Mukinyu. For each proverb there is given first the literal translation, followed when necessary by a short explanation of its meaning and application, and finally the English equivalent where one could be found. Although it, might be found that certain proverbs are used in different ways and with different meanings, the author has made certain that the commonest use has been given.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY -
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Elkins, Caroline. Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya. New York. 2005. Henry Holt. 0805076530. 477 pages. hardcover. Jacket photograph - PopperfotolRetrofile.com. Jacket design by John Candell.
DESCRIPTION- For decades Western imperialists have waged wars and destroyed local populations in the name of civilization and democracy. From 1952 to 1960, after a violent uprising by native Kenyans, the British detained and brutalized hundreds of thousands of Kikuyu - the colony's largest ethnic group - who had demanded their independence. In the eyes of the British colonizers, the men and women who fought in the insurgency - Mau Mau as it was then called - weren't freedom fighters but rather savages of the lowest order. The British felt justified, in the name of civilization, in crushing those who challenged colonial rule, even if it meant violating their basic human rights. Later, to cover up this stain on its past, the British government ordered all documentation relating to detention and torture during its last days of rule in Kenya destroyed. In a groundbreaking debut, Harvard historian Caroline Elkins has recovered the lost history of the last days of British colonialism in Kenya. In a compelling narrative that draws upon nearly a decade of painstaking research - including hundreds of interviews with Kikuyu detention camp survivors and their captors - Elkins reveals for the first time what Britain so desperately tried to hide. In the aftermath of World War II and the triumph of liberal democracy over fascism, the British detained nearly the entire Kikuyu population - some one and a half million people - for more than eight years. Inside detention camps and barbed-wire villages, the Kikuyu lived in a world of fear, hunger, and death. Their only hope for survival was a full denunciation of their anti-British beliefs. IMPERIAL RECKONING is history of the highest order: meticulously researched, brilliantly written, and powerfully dramatic. An unforgettable act of historical re-creation, it is also a disturbing reminder of the brutal imperial precedents that continue to inform Western nations in their drive to democratize the world. ‘IMPERIAL RECKONINGS is an incredible piece of historical sleuthing. The author has reconstructed the story that British officialdom almost succeeded in suppressing. Her sources are the Mau Mau fighters and sympathizers whom the British detained in concentration camps during the 1950s. Her interviews with the survivors of this British ‘gulag' are a labor of love and courage - impressive in their frankness and deep emotional content as well as properly balanced between men and women, colonial officials, and Mau Mau detainees. Caroline Elkins tells a story that would never have made it into the historical record had she not persevered and collected information from the last generation of Mau Mau detainees alive to bear witness to what happened.' - ROBERT TIGNOR, Rosengarten Professor Of Modern And Contemporary History, Princeton University. ‘Caroline Eikins has written an important book that can change our understanding not just of Africa but of ourselves. Through exhaustive research in neglected colonial archives and intrepid reporting among long-forgotten Kikuyu elders in Kenya's Rift Valley, Eikins has documented not just the true scale of a huge and harrowing crime - Britain's ruthless suppression of the Mau Mau rebellion - but also the equally shocking concealment of that crime and the inversion of historical memory.' - BULL BERKELEY, Author Of THE GRAVES ARE NOR YET FULL: RACE, TRIBE AND POWER IN THE HEART OF AFRICA.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - CAROLINE ELKINS is an assistant professor of history at Harvard University. Her research in various aspects of the late colonial period in Africa has won numerous awards, including the Fulbright and Andrew W. Mellon fellowships, as well as a fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She and her work were the subjects of a BBC documentary entitled Kenya: White Terror. This is her first book.
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Gatheru, Mugo. Child of Two Worlds. London. 1966. Heinemann. African Writers Series. 230 pages. paperback. AWS20.
DESCRIPTION- This absorbing autobiography, by a sensitive and intelligent young man, whose quest for knowledge took him from Africa to schools in India, the United States, and England, is a major contribution to understanding the significance of the confrontation of tribalism with urbanization and Western customs and traditions. This simple, straightforward, and immensely human document reveals to us what it has meant to one individual to be a Kikuyu, a Kenyan, and an African amid the complexities of the modern world, It also discusses, with sympathetic insight, ancient tribal customs in which the author participated as a youth, while describing the process by which he gradually adopted new values and new customs. To understand what happened to Mugo Gatheru is to understand the experiences of thousands of other young Africans. - St. Clair Drake, Introduction to CHILD OF TWO WORLDS.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - R. Mugo Gatheru (born 21 August 1925) is a Kenyan writer. His autobiographical A Child of Two Worlds describes growing up in colonial Kenya. Gatheru was born to a squatter family living on a European farm. He attended medical school in Nairobi, but was forced to continue his education abroad after he protested the treatment of Africans by the colonial rulers. After a year in India, he spent eight years from 1950 in the United States before studying law in England. He returned to Kenya when it gained independence in 1963.
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Gikandi, Simon and Wachanga, Ndirangu (editors). Ngugi: Reflections on his Life of Writing. Suffolk. 2018. James Currey. 9781847012142. 242 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- This collection of essays reflects on the life and work of Ngugi wa Thiong'o, who celebrated his 80th birthday in 2018. Drawing from a wide range of contributors, including writers, critics, publishers and activists, the volume traces the emergence of Ngugi as a novelist in the early 1960s, his contribution to the African culture of letters at its moment of inception, and his global artistic life in the twenty-first century. Here we have both personal and critical reflections on the different phases of the writer's life: there are poems from friends and admirers, commentaries from his co-workers in public theatre in Kenya in the 1970s and 1980s, and from his political associates in the fight for democracy, and contributions on his role as an intellectual of decolonization, as well as his experiences in the global art world. Included also are essays on Ngugi's role outside the academy, in the world of education, community theatre, and activism. In addition to tributes from other authors who were influenced by Ngugi, the collection contains hitherto unknown materials that are appearing in English for the first time. Both a celebration of the writer, and a rethinking of his legacy, this book brings together three generations of Ngugi readers. We have memories and recollections from the people he worked with closely in the 1960s, the students that he taught at the University of Nairobi in the 1970s, his political associates during his exile in the 1980s, and the people who worked with him as he embarked on a new life and career in the United States in the 1990s. First-hand accounts reveal how Ngugi's life and work have intersected, and the multiple forces that have converged to make him one of the greatest writers to come out of Africa in the twentieth century.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Simon Gikandi is 1st Vice-President of the Modern Languages Association (MLA) and Robert Schirmer Professor of English, Princeton University. Ndirangu Wachanga is Associate Professor of Media Studies and Information Science at the University of Wisconsin. He is also the authorized documentary biographer of Professors Ali A. Mazrui, Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Micere Mugo.
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Kahiga, Samuel. The Girl From Abroad. London. 1974. Heinemann. 0435901583. African Writers Series. 90 pages. paperback. AWS158. AWS original.
DESCRIPTION- A melodramatic novel about urban life in Nairobi casting a critical spotlight on among the African middle class life.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Samuel Kahiga is a Kenyan writer and journalist, was born on 19 August 1946 to James Kibera, a civil servant, and Elizabeth Nduta in Uthiru, Kabete, near Nairobi. He attended Uthiru Primary School, Thika High School, and the University of Nairobi, where he studied fine art and design. He grew up under the Emergency, declared by the British to combat the Mau Mau uprising in the 1950s. Despite his humorous and accessible writing style and the popular format of a number of his novels, the conflicts and the emergence of nationalist resistance in Kenya's late colonial period have been a continuous preoccupation in Kahiga's work. With his older brother, Leonard Kibera, he wrote a collection of short stories, Potent Ash (1968), which became one of the most influential books of fiction in East Africa at the time.
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Kahora, Billy. The Cape Cod Bicycle War and Other Stories. Athens. 2020. Ohio University Press. 9780821424162. 5 x 8. Modern African Writing. 304 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- The Cape Cod Bicycle War and Other Stories is Kenyan writer Billy Kahora's long-awaited debut collection. The Cape Cod Bicycle War and Other Stories is Billy Kahora's long-awaited debut collection. Stories in this volume have appeared in Granta and McSweeney's and have been shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing. ”Billy Kahora is a painter with words. He makes the reader see and touch and smell and feel characters and their inner turmoil as they try to survive, against the challenges of nature and nurture.“
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Billy Kahora is a Kenyan writer and editor based in Nairobi. He was commended by the 2007 Caine Prize judges for his story Treadmill Love. His stories Urban Zoning and Gorilla’s Apprentice were shortlisted for the prize in 2012 and 2014, respectively. He has written the non-fiction novella The True Story of David Munyakei the screenplay for Soul Boy and co-wrote Nairobi Half Life. As Managing Editor of Kwani Trust, Kahora has edited seven issues of the Kwani? journal. He is a contributing editor to the Chimurenga Chronic.
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Kanogo, Tabitha. Wangari Maathai. Athens. 2020. Ohio University Press. 9780821424179. Ohio Short Histories of Africa. 4.25 x 7. 15 illustrations. 204 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Wangari Muta Maathai is one of Africa's most celebrated political and human rights activists. Originally trained as a scientist abroad, Professor Maathai returned to her home country of Kenya with a renewed political consciousness. There, she began her long career as an activist, campaigning for environmental and social justice while speaking out against government corruption. In 2004, Maathai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her leadership of the Green Belt Movement, a conservation effort that resulted in the restoration of African forests decimated during the colonial era. In this biography, Tabitha Kanogo introduces Wangari Maathai from her modest, small town Kenyan upbringing to her rise as a national figure campaigning for environmental and ecological conservation, sustainable development, democracy, human rights, gender equality, and the eradication of poverty until her death in 2011.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - TABITHA KANOGO is professor of history at the University of California at Berkeley. She is also the author of African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya, 1900–1950 and Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, both available from Ohio University Press.
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Kariuki, Josiah Mwangi. Mau Mau Detainee. London/Nairobi. 1963. Oxford University Press. 188 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Katherine Hoskyns.
DESCRIPTION- ‘This book' writes Miss her Foreword ‘must hive a disturbing effect upon those readers who believe its story. Those, especially in Kenya, who regard it as untrue or greatly exaggerated may deplore its publication. Yet I believe that it is right that it should be published. It records the experiences of a young Kikuyu who was detained from 1953 to 1960 as an activist in the Mau Mau movement in Kenya and who describes his periodical ill treatment in detention. But it also reveals what passed in his mind during this experience and there can be little doubt that, in greater or less degree, his attitude of mind is shared with thousands of other Kikuyu who, as the so-called ‘hard-core' of Mau Mau, are likely to play an authoritative part in the future of Kenya. It is also probable that his story will arouse sympathy and understanding among Africans in general and in much of the non-African world. For us British, whether in Britain or in Kenya, who were shocked by the character of the Mau Mau outbreak, to know all may not be to forgive all but it is still important to know, and few of us who read this book are likely to close it with quite the same views of Mau Mau, of Kenya or, perhaps, of Africa in general, as those with which we opened it.' The book is illustrated with a section of half-tones and there is a map showing the sites of the camps.'
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Josiah Mwangi Kariuki (21 March 1929 - 2 March 1975) was a Kenyan socialist politician during the administration of the Jomo Kenyatta government. He held different government positions from 1963, when Kenya became an independent country, to 1975, when he was assassinated. He left behind three wives and many children. He was popularly known as "JM".
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Kenyatta, Jomo. Facing Mount Kenya: The Traditional Life of the Gikuyu. London. 1979. Heinemann. 0435902199. African Writers Series. With an introduction by B. Malinowski. paperback. AWS219. AWS original. Originally published London: Secker and Warburg, 1938.
DESCRIPTION- Facing Mount Kenya, first published in 1938, is a monograph on the life and customs of the Gikuyu people of central Kenya prior to their contact with Europeans. It is unique in anthropological literature for it gives an account of the social institutions and religious rites of an African people, permeated by the emotions that give to customs and observances their meaning. It is characterised by both insight and a tinge of romanticism. The author, proud of his African blood and ways of thought, takes the reader through a thorough and clear picture of Gikuyu life and customs, painting an almost utopian picture of their social norms and the sophisticated codes by which all aspects of the society were governed. This book is one of a kind, capturing and documenting traditions fast disappearing. It is therefore a must-read for all who want to learn about African culture.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jomo Kenyatta (c. 1897 - 22 August 1978) was a Kenyan anti-colonial activist and politician who governed Kenya as its Prime Minister from 1963 to 1964 and then as its first President from 1964 to his death in 1978. He was the country's first indigenous head of government and played a significant role in the transformation of Kenya from a colony of the British Empire into an independent republic. Ideologically an African nationalist and conservative, he led the Kenya African National Union (KANU) party from 1961 until his death.
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Killam, G. D. An Introduction To the Writings of Ngugi. London. 1980. Heinemann. 0435916696. 122 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- This is a critical introduction to the fiction, short stories and plays of East Africa's best known writer, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, whose work has achieved recognition throughout the world. The book discusses Ngugi's background and the influences, both literary and other, which have shaped his writing. Through close reference to his writing, principally through the four novels, Professor Killam shows how Ngugi transforms his experience and views on the function of art into compelling works of literature. Ngugi has a strong belief in the role of the artist in the political field. He is an artist who seeks to prompt men to action through his writing. Professor Killam therefore gives particular attention to the Kenyan Independence Movement popularly called the Mau Mau, and to problems inherent in the post-Independence state.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - DOUGLAS KILLAM was Professor of Commonwealth and African Literature at the University of Guelph, Canada. He has taught in Nigeria and Tanzania, and Sierra Leone. He is the author of several books of critical studies, including "Africa in English Literature", "The Writings of Chinua Achebe", and "An Introduction to the Writings of Ngugi". He is co-editor with Ruth Lowe of "The Companion to African Literatures anthologies of African fiction".
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Lovesey, Oliver (editor). Approaches to Teaching the Works of Ngugi wa Thiong'o. New York. 2012. Modern Language Association. 9781603291132. Approaches to Teaching World Literature. 265 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Ngugi wa Thiong'o is one of the most important and celebrated authors of postindependence Africa as well as a groundbreaking postcolonial theorist. His work, written first in English, then in Gikuyu, engages with the transformations of his native Kenya after what is often termed the Mau Mau rebellion. It also gives voice to the struggles of all Africans against economic injustice and political oppression. His writing and activism have continued despite imprisonment, the threat of assassination, and exile.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Oliver Lovesey is Associate Professor of English at the University of British Columbia-Okanagan, Canada.
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Lovesey, Oliver. Ngugi wa Thiong’o. New York. 2000. Twayne. 0805716955. Twayne’s World Authors Series. 167 pages. hardcover. Jacket photograph of Ngugi wa Thiong'o by Garrin Craig. Jacket design by Wendy Bass Design.
DESCRIPTION- With Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka, Ngugi wa Thiong'o (b. 1938) is one of the best known African writers to emerge in Africa's independence climate in the late 1950s; much of his work conveys a sense of both the transcendent hope of independence and freedom, uhuru, and also the absolute despair that followed when this hope was compromised. Ngugi has inspired a generation of writers, and is celebrated for his stand on political and linguistic issues. His prize-winning Weep Not, Child was the first major novel in English by an East African, but in recent years, Ngugi has been a vocal advocate for writing in African languages and narrative forms. He has put his commitment into practice by publishing novels in Gikuyu, his mother tongue, and by exploring the possibility of collective authorship in some of his plays, and by incorporating diverse narrative techniques in his novels to make them available to a largely illiterate peasantry with access to his writing only by hearing it read aloud. A highly versatile artist, Ngugi is also a writer of plays, short stories, and children's stories, and he has published a diary some of his most evocative and powerful writing is autobiographical. While Ngugi's popular reputation rests on his six novels, the first three written in a realistic mode and the last three in an allegorical mode, his place in the academic community depends more and more on his six books of polemical essays. A close relationship exists between his theoretical and his novelistic work, and in many ways his novels work out problems expounded in his essays. Oliver Lovesey's lucid and engaging study examines all of Ngugi's major works and many of the minor ones and offers a comparative analysis of each text with Ngugi's work as a whole. Lovesey elucidates significant themes in both his critical and creative writings, and skillfully navigates the various critical responses to Ngugi's writings, noting especially the diverse reactions to his didactic allegorical fiction and his Marixist ideas on literature. Lovesey is not only a good introductory guide to Ngugi's work, but also an expert synthesizer of current critical opinion on his total output. Ngugi's long career has witnessed the production of a rich and diverse corpus of novels, stories, plays, essays, journalism, and other writing. In all of this work there is a search for a distinctively Kenyan form of aesthetic expression. However, from his earliest, almost anthropological studies of Kenyan village life to his most recent allegorical experiments, he has remained committed to the values of the rural people. Though much of his writing has been composed in exile, his focus has always been upon his homeland. Of his own oeuvre, Ngugi says 'My writing is really an attempt to understand myself and history.'
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Oliver Lovesey is professor of English at Okanagan University College in British Columbia.
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Mabura, Lily. How Shall We Kill the Bishop and other stories. Oxford. 2012. Heinemann. 9780435075415. African Writers Series. 104 pages. paperback. AWS unnumbered.
DESCRIPTION- An artist in mourning for a brother who died fighting in Bosnia, a restless young woman alerted to the possibility of life outside her tight knit community, an unemployed lawyer lingering in a Kenyan hospital - Lily Mabura's first collection of short stories deals with characters whose fates fascinate and alarm. Set in Kenya, the USA, Namibia and the Congo, these brief, evocative tales demonstrate an acute sensitivity to the globalised trajectories which increasingly distinguish our world. One of Kenya's most promising authors, Lily Mabura's story 'How Shall We Kill the Bishop?' was shortlisted for the 2010 Caine Prize for African Fiction
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Lily Mabura has pursued a transnational literary and scholarly career in countries such as Kenya, the USA, and the UAE. Mabura has degrees from the University of Nairobi, the University of Idaho (MFA in Creative Writing – Fiction), and the University of Missouri-Columbia (PhD English – Creative Writing & Africana Studies). Her literary awards include the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature; Kenya's National Book Week Literary Award; and the Ellen Meloy Desert Writers Award. Her short story "How Shall We Kill the Bishop?" was shortlisted for the 2010 Caine Prize for African Writing. Mabura’s publications include a first novel titled The Pretoria Conspiracy and four children’s books: Oma, Saleh Kanta and the Cavaliers, Seth the Silly Gorilla, and Ali the Little Sultan. Her latest book is a collection of short stories titled How Shall We Kill the Bishop and Other Stories (African Writers Series, Heinemann-Pearson, 2012). With John Mugubi, she co-edited The Warm Heart of Africa and Other Stories (KICD 2017 Edition, Longhorn Publishers - Kenya). Short fiction by Mabura has appeared in PRISM international, Wasafiri, Callaloo, the 2007 Fish Anthology, Love on the Road 2015 anthology, and Antología: Escritores africanos contemporáneos (Editorial Empatía, Argentina, 2018). Her scholarly work has appeared in various international journals, including Research in African Literatures.
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MacArthur, Julie (editor). Dedan Kimathi on Trial: Colonial Justice and Popular Memory in Kenya’s Mau Mau Rebellion. Athens. 2017. Ohio University Press. 9780896803169. Research in International Studies, Global and Comparative Studies 17. 5.5 x 8.5. 24 illustrations. Introduction by Willy Mutunga. Foreword by Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Mîcere Gîthae Mugo. 416 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- This book centers on the trial of Dedan Kimathi – a piece of the colonial archive long thought lost, hidden, or destroyed. The record of his trial, much like the fate of his body, has remained a mystery. Its discovery unsettles an already contentious history and prompts fresh examinations of its reverberations in the present. CONTRIBUTORS: Dr. John Lonsdale, Trinity College, Univ. of Cambridge; Dr. Simon Gikandi, Princeton; Dr. David Anderson, Univ. of Warwick.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Julie MacArthur is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto. She is the author of Cartography and the Political Imagination as well as numerous articles. She has also worked extensively in African cinema, both a curator and an academic.
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Macgoye, Marjorie Oludhe. Song of Nyarloka and Other Poems. Nairobi. 1977. Oxford University Press. 0195724410. 60 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye, born in England, came to Kenya as a missionary in 1954 and became a Kenyan citizen ih 1964. She is married to a Luo clinical officer. ‘Nyarloka' is the Luo term of address for a woman who has ‘crossed over' to her new home in Central Nyanza, whether from South Nyanza across the water or from further afield. In ‘Song of Nyarloka' Marjorie Oludhe, who is herself 'Nyarloka', portrays not only different aspects of Kenyan society but also some of the processes of transformation necessary to digging into a new mode of life, socially or spiritually. To do this she has integrated different verse forms into the five pert structure of the poem - Kisumu, The African City, The Arts, Living with the Dead and Crossing Over - marking progressive phases Of adaptation. ‘Song of Nyarloka' is steeped in Nilotic imagery. As the references illustrate themes of universal significance, this should not be a hindrance the reader but rather point a way to the reciprocal use of different traditions. The newcomer is not a passive agent in any community and Nyarloka gives full rein to her native wit and irony. The poems in the volume are on social and political themes and have mostly been written over the last ten years. They combine the reformer's passion to protest and to inform with the artist's compulsion to 'make it sing'.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Marjorie Phyllis Oludhe Macgoye (21 October 1928 - 1 December 2015) was an English-born Kenyan novelist, essayist and poet. Born Marjorie King in 1928 in Southampton, England, Marjorie travelled to Kenya to work as a missionary in 1954. She worked at the S.J. Moore Bookshop on Government Road, now Moi Avenue in Nairobi, for some years. There she organised readings that were attended by, among others, Okot P'Bitek, author of Song of Lawino, and Jonathan Kariara, a Kenyan poet. She met Macgoye, a medical doctor, and the two were married in 1960. In 1971, an anthology entitled Poems from East Africa included the acclaimed poem "A Freedom Song". Her 1986 novel Coming to Birth won the Sinclair Prize and has been used as a set book in Kenyan high schools.[citation needed] She has been called the "mother of Kenyan literature". Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye died on 1 December 2015, at her home in Nairobi.
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Macgoye, Marjorie Oludhe. Street Life. Nairobi. 1987. Heinemann Kenya. 9966463623. 102 pages. paperback. Cover design artwork by N. K. Mbugua.
DESCRIPTION- Street Life, Simon Oluoch, a Standard Six pupil of promise in Nyakach in West Kenya, loses his legs in a road accident in Nairobi. He is henceforth condemned to a life of penury in -a bustling city street, with a flute as his only asset. You'll meet familiar street characters with their varied, often conflicting cares, but with at least one common goal, ‘trying to live 'decently' on the pavement.' Marjorie makes an incisive visit into the minds, lives and times of the desolate of our society in their dire strife for survival in a callous world. Marjorie was born in 1928 in Southampton, England. She came to Kenya in 1954 as a missionary bookseller. In 1960, she married D. G. W. Oludhe-Macgoye. A mother of four, she is closely intergrated into her husband's extended family and the Luo community, a fact which is made manifest in her writing. Her stunning and compulsive Coming to Birth, which won the Sinclair Prize for fiction in 1986, is already a landmark in African literature. Marjorie is also the author of The Present Moment, a moving portrait of Kenyan Womanhood in the 70's and 80's, Murder in Majengo, Growing up at Lina School, and Song of Nyarloka end other Poems.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Marjorie Phyllis Oludhe Macgoye (21 October 1928 - 1 December 2015) was an English-born Kenyan novelist, essayist and poet. Born Marjorie King in 1928 in Southampton, England, Marjorie travelled to Kenya to work as a missionary in 1954. She worked at the S.J. Moore Bookshop on Government Road, now Moi Avenue in Nairobi, for some years. There she organised readings that were attended by, among others, Okot P'Bitek, author of Song of Lawino, and Jonathan Kariara, a Kenyan poet. She met Macgoye, a medical doctor, and the two were married in 1960. In 1971, an anthology entitled Poems from East Africa included the acclaimed poem "A Freedom Song". Her 1986 novel Coming to Birth won the Sinclair Prize and has been used as a set book in Kenyan high schools.[citation needed] She has been called the "mother of Kenyan literature". Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye died on 1 December 2015, at her home in Nairobi.
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Maloba, Wunyabari O. Mau Mau and Kenya: An Analysis of a Peasant Revolt. Bloomington. 1998. Indiana University Press. 9780253211668. 6.125 x 9.25. Blacks in the Diaspora. 240 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Mau Mau and Kenya traces a unique peasant revolt against British colonialism. Was Mau Mau a national effort or an ethnic outburst? What were its political aims? Maloba describes the participants and their differing ideologies; relationships between the revolt and the conventional party politics of the Kenya African Union; and the impact of Mau Mau on decolonization in Kenya.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - WUNYABARI O. MALOBA is Associate Professor of History and Coordinator of the African Studies Program at the University of Delaware. He has published a number of articles on nationalism and decolonization.
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Mazrui, Ali A. The Trial of Christopher Okigbo. London. 1971. Heinemann. 0435900978. African Writers Series. 145 pages. paperback. AWS97.
DESCRIPTION- This provocative novel of ideas centers on the tragedy of Christopher Okigbo - a real person and a great poet who was killed fighting for Biafra in the Nigerian Civil War. The 'trial' takes place in 'After-Africa', and Okigbo is tried on two counts: first, that he subordinated the vision of a unified Nigeria to the Biafran ideal; and second, that he had betrayed his art by acting as an Ibo first and as a poet last. The central theme is cunningly interwoven with the stories Of Hamisi, the Counsel for Salvation, a Kenyan Muslim in love with a Hausa woman, who is himself on trial for the sin of miscalculation in the 'Herebefore'; and Apolo- Gyamfi, the Counsel for Damnation, a brilliant Ghanaian who had died in a road accident while a student at Oxford, whose sin in the 'Herebefore' was impatience. The summing up and the final verdict on Christopher Okigbo, and the judgment on Hamisi and Apolo-Gyamfi, who themselves are symbolic of some of the protagonists in the Nigerian Civil War, is unexpected and will produce much controversy about the book itself and the ideas involved.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ali Al'amin Mazrui is an academic and political writer on African and Islamic studies and North-South relations. He is an Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities and the Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at the State University of New York at Binghamton. Mazrui obtained his B.A. with Distinction from Manchester University in Great Britain in 1960, his M.A. from Columbia University in New York in 1961, and his doctorate (DPhil) from Oxford University (Nuffield College) in 1966. Upon completing his education at Oxford University, Mazrui joined the faculty of Makerere University (Kampala, Uganda), where he served as head of the Department of Political Science and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences. He served at Makerere University until 1973, when he was forced into exile by Idi Amin. In 1974, he joined the faculty of the University of Michigan as professor and later was appointed the Director of the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies (1978-1981). In 1989, he was appointed to the faculty of Binghamton University, State University of New York as the Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities and the Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies (IGCS). Mazrui's research interests include African politics, international political culture, political Islam and North-South relations. He is author or co-author of more than twenty books. Mazrui has also published hundreds of articles in major scholastic journals and for public media. He has also served on the editorial boards of more than twenty international scholarly journals. He first rose to prominence as a critic of some of the accepted orthodoxies of African intellectuals in the 1960s and 1970s. He was critical of to African socialism and all strains of Marxism. He argued that communism was a Western import just as unsuited for the African condition as the earlier colonial attempts to install European type governments. He argued that a revised liberalism could help the continent and described himself as a proponent of a unique ideology of African liberalism. At the same time he was a prominent critic of the current world order. He believed the current capitalist system was deeply exploitative of Africa, and that the West rarely if ever lived up to their liberal ideals. He has opposed Western interventions in the developing world, such as the Iraq War. He has also long been a critic of Israel's policies, being one of the first to try and link the treatment of Palestinians with South Africa's apartheid. Especially in recent years, Mazrui has also become a well known commentator on Islam and Islamism. While utterly rejecting violence and terrorism Mazrui has praised some of the anti-imperialist sentiment that plays an important role in modern Islamic fundamentalism. He has also argued that sharia law is not incompatible with democracy. In addition to his written work, Dr. Mazrui was also the creator of the television series The Africans: A Triple Heritage, which was jointly produced by the BBC and the Public Broadcasting Service (WETA, Washington) in association with the Nigerian Television Authority. A book by the same title was jointly published by BBC Publications and Little, Brown and Company.
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Mboya, Tom. The Challenge of Nationhood: A Collection of Speeches and Writings. London. 1982. Heinemann. 0435900811. African Writers Series. Foreword by H. E. Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, and postscript by Pamela Mboya.Published by Heinemann In association with André Deutsch. 279 pages. paperback. AWS81. Cover photograph by permission of The Daily Nation. Originally published in the AWS series in 1970.
DESCRIPTION- TOM MBOYA was one of Africa's most vigorous younger statesmen. His murder at the age of thirty-eight robbed Kenya of an extremely able and articulate political leader, widely regarded as the most likely successor to Jomo Kenyatta as President. At his death he had all but finished collecting his most important speeches and occasional writings, and had written the introduction which he called The Crisis of Confidence'. As one of the chief architects of his country's independence, and as a minister in the K.A.N.U. Government since 1963, Tom Mboya played an important part in shaping the future development of Kenya. His speeches not only made clear the quality and direction of his country's leadership; they were often in themselves turning points in his country's history. His range, his impressive mastery of a wide variety of subjects, his realism, his humanity, his statesmanship are all to be found in these speeches. Moreover, The Challenge of Nationhood offers a sober warning of the hazards still to be met in reaching the goals which the first generation leaders sacrificed so much to achieve. There is no blueprint or text-book formula that can be handed over to new countries; there are no easy answers. Tom Mboya has, however, pointed out in his introduction, 'As long as there is preparedness on the part of African leaders to face these problems squarely, then there is hope.' This sensible book 'represents an attempt to study, to analyse and to answer some of the challenges and problems, the prospects and opportunities before our great continent.'
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Thomas Joseph Odhiambo Mboya (15 August 1930 - 5 July 1969) was a Kenyan trade unionist, educator, Pan-Africanist, author, independence activist, and statesman. He was one of the founding fathers of the Republic of Kenya. He led the negotiations for independence at the Lancaster House Conferences[2] and was instrumental in the formation of Kenya's independence party - the Kenya African National Union (KANU) - where he served as its first Secretary-General. He laid the foundation for Kenya's capitalist and mixed economy policies at the height of the Cold War and set up several of the country's key labour institutions. Mboya's intelligence, charm, leadership, and oratory skills won him admiration from all over the world. He gave speeches, participated in debates and interviews across the world in favour of Kenya's independence from British colonial rule. He also spoke at several rallies in the goodwill of the civil rights movement in the United States. In 1958, at the age of 28, Mboya was elected Conference Chairman at the All-African Peoples' Conference convened by Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana. He helped build to the Trade Union Movement in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, as well as across Africa. He also served as the Africa Representative to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). In 1959, Mboya called a conference in Lagos, Nigeria to form the first All-Africa ICFTU labour organization. Mboya worked with both John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. to create educational opportunities for African students, an effort that resulted in the Kennedy Airlifts of the 1960s enabling East African students to study at American colleges. Notable beneficiaries of this airlift include Wangari Maathai and Barack Obama Sr. In 1960, Mboya was the first Kenyan to be featured on the front page cover of Time magazine in a painting by Bernard Safran.
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Muhonja, Besi Brillian. Radical Utu: Critical Ideas and Ideals of Wangari Muta Maathai. Athens. 2020. Ohio University Press. 9780896803268. 170 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Wangari Muta Maathai was a scholar-activist known for founding the Green Belt Movement, an environmental campaign that earned her the Nobel Peace Prize. While many studies of Maathai highlight her activism, few examine Maathai as a scholar whose contributions to various disciplines and causes spanned more than three decades. This well-rounded portrait of Maathai's ideas offers a corrective to the one-dimensional characterization of Maathai typical of other works. “In this loving, well-researched, and beautifully written book, Besi Brillian Muhonja brings out the other side of the distinguished environmentalist and Nobel laureate, Wangari Muta Maathai - that of thinker and activist scholar. By focusing on the philosophical and theoretical legacies of Maathai's work, the book takes us beyond the controversies and headlines to provide a powerful analysis of the philosophical thinking that drove her activism. Radical Utu is a model of how to prioritize African thinkers in the production of global knowledge.” - Simon Gikandi, Robert Schirmer Professor of English, Princeton University.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - BESI BRILLIAN MUHONJA is associate professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies and African, African American, and Diaspora Studies in the Department of English at James Madison University.
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Mukoma wa Ngugi. Mrs. Shaw: A Novel. Athens. 2015. Ohio University Press. 9780821421437. Modern African Writing - Series editors: Ghirmai Negash and Laura T. Murphy. 5½ × 8½ in. 200 pages. hardcover. Cover design by Beth Pratt.
DESCRIPTION- In the fictional East African Kwatee Republic of the 1990s, the dictatorship is about to fall, and the nation's exiles are preparing to return. One of these exiles, a young man named Kalumba, is a graduate student in the United States, where he encounters Mrs. Shaw, a professor emerita and former British settler who fled Kwatee's postcolonial political and social turmoil. Kalumba's girlfriend, too, is an exile: a Puerto Rican nationalist like her imprisoned father, she is an outcast from the island. Brought together by a history of violence and betrayals, all three are seeking a way of regaining their humanity, connecting with each other, and learning to make a life in a new land. Kalumba and Mrs. Shaw, in particular, are linked by a past rooted in colonial and postcolonial violence, yet they are separated by their differing accounts of what really happened. The memory of each is subject to certain lapses, whether selective or genuine. Even when they agree on the facts - be they acts of love, of betrayal, or of violence - each narrator shapes the story in his or her own way, by what is left in and what is left out, by what is remembered and what is forgotten. ‘Mukoma wa Ngugi is a deft, poised storyteller who has mastered the art of sweeping up the reader. From the first page of Mrs. Shaw I found myself hooked, in awe, riveted. Here's a sad, gripping and highly entertaining novel.' Okey Ndibe, author of Foreign Gods, Inc. and Arrows of Rain
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mukoma wa Ngugi is an assistant professor of English at Cornell University and the author of Nairobi Heat, Black Star Nairobi, and Hurling Words at Consciousness. In 2014, Buchkultur named the German translation of Nairobi Heat the Crime Book of the Season. In 2009, Mukoma was short-listed for the Caine Prize for African Writing and in 2010 for the Penguin Prize for African Writing for his manuscript The First and Second Books of Transition, which became Mrs. Shaw.
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Mwangi, Meja. Bread of Sorrow. Nairobi. 1987. Longman Kenya. 400 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Peter Jones never did anyone deliberate harm. But at thirteen he was a pimp, at twenty-six smuggled arms for the South African Liberation Movement and thereafter he stole an aeroplane and fled South Africa. The only thing Peter Jones ever did entirely of his own will was to return to Msimbati, the Island where nightmare and reality were one. BREAD OF SORROW is certainly Meja's biggest and best thriller, a tense double action tale skillfully told. He works it to a beautiful conclusion on an island off the coast of Tanzania. MEJA MWANGI. a two-time Kenyatta Award winner, is also the recipient of the Afro-Asian Writer's Award and the Adolf Lotus Grimme Award.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Meja Mwangi (born 27 December 1948) is one of Kenya's leading novelists. Mwangi has worked in the film industry, including screenwriting, assistant directing, casting and location management. He was born David Dominic Mwangi in Nanyuki, and was educated at Nanyuki Secondary School, Kenyatta College and the University of Leeds. He then worked on odd-jobs for foreign broadcasters before he turned to full-time writing. He was Fellow in Writing at the University of Iowa (1975-6).
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Mwangi, Meja. Carcase for Hounds. London. 1973. Heinemann. 0435901451. African Writers Series. 134 pages. paperback. AWS145.
DESCRIPTION- Carcase for Hounds is a novel by Kenyan writer Meja Mwangi first published in 1974. The novel concerns the Mau Mau liberation struggle during the latter days of British colonial rule and attempts, by the actions of the main protagonists, to show how Mau Mau was organized and why it took so long for the colonial government to defeat them. Carcase for Hounds received mixed reviews. The novel was also adapted into a movie by Ola Balogun, Cry Freedom.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Meja Mwangi (born 27 December 1948) is one of Kenya's leading novelists. Mwangi has worked in the film industry, including screenwriting, assistant directing, casting and location management. He was born David Dominic Mwangi in Nanyuki, and was educated at Nanyuki Secondary School, Kenyatta College and the University of Leeds. He then worked on odd-jobs for foreign broadcasters before he turned to full-time writing. He was Fellow in Writing at the University of Iowa (1975-6).
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Mwangi, Meja. Going Down River Road. London. 1976. Heinemann. 0435901761. African Writers Series. 215 pages. paperback. AWS176. Cover design by George Hallett. Originally published in the AWS series in 1976.
DESCRIPTION- Ben is a man on the move in bars, night clubs, in the streets, in brothels down River Road in Nairobi. It is on one of these occasions that he meets Wini and her son Baby. But Wini runs off with her white boss leaving her little son with Ben, and destroying his trust in women. When Ben joins up with Ocholla at a construction site, action, humour and more people come into the picture. Mwangi's light-hearted treatment of serious situations makes an unforgettable impact. ‘. rarely has anybody put so much understanding and empathy into character portrayal in a contemporary novel about our time and place. And our time and place is what this novel is all about.' - Joe Magazine.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - MEJA MWANGl's contribution to the new wave of East African writing was recognized by the award of the Kenyatta Prize for Kill Me Quick (AWS 143), a novel which features the hardships of young down-and-outs in present day Nairobi. It was followed by a novel about the Emergency called Carcase for Hounds (AWS 145), which has been made into the film 'Cry Freedom'. He has also published The Cockroach Dance and The Bushtrackers.
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Mwangi, Meja. Kill Me Quick. London. 1973. Heinemann. 0435901435. African Writers Series. 151 pages. paperback. AWS143. Cover photograph by George Hallett. Originally published in the AWS series 1973.
DESCRIPTION- Maina is no murderer. But the law does not know this. Only his dustbin mate Meja could tell them. But they are not likely to pay any serious attention to an inmate of Cell Nine. Meja has been to a secondary school but has failed to find a decent job. He has eaten from and slept in rubbish bins and fought with others for the privilege. He has learned a good few lessons they did not teach in school. He has realized that everybody tries to cheat you. He hasn't found one policeman who speaks his language. Above all he has learned that not all gutter rats are born in the dustbin and not all gutter rats will die in the gutter.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - MEJA MWANGI is an outstanding member of the younger generation of writers in East Africa. Kill Me Quick (AWS 143) has been most popular. His novel Carcase for Hounds (AWS 145) won the Jomo Kenyatta Prize and has been made into a film Cry Freedom. Going Down River Road (AWS 176) returns to the vivid realities of the present day Nairobi in Kill Me Quick. He was born in 1948 at Nanyaki, Kenya. He was educated at Nanyaki Secondary School and Kenyatta College. He has wide experience in working in films. He won the Lotus Award in 1978.
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Mwangi, Meja. Striving For the Wind. Oxford. 1992. Heinemann. 0435909797. African Writers Series. 192 pages. paperback. AWS unnumbered.
DESCRIPTION- Set in Kenya, this novel is a hilarious, yet subtly disturbing, portrayal of post-colonial decadence. Newly wealthy black landowner, Baba Pesa, constantly boasts he is "the Father of Money." He is brutish and ruthless. He clashes with his family, friends and neighbors as he craves financial dominance in the region.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Meja Mwangi (born 27 December 1948) is one of Kenya's leading novelists. Mwangi has worked in the film industry, including screenwriting, assistant directing, casting and location management. He was born David Dominic Mwangi in Nanyuki, and was educated at Nanyuki Secondary School, Kenyatta College and the University of Leeds. He then worked on odd-jobs for foreign broadcasters before he turned to full-time writing. He was Fellow in Writing at the University of Iowa (1975-6).
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Mwangi, Meja. The Mzungu Boy. Toronto/Berkeley. 2005. House Of Anansi Press. 0888996535. 150 pages. hardcover. Cover photo-illustration by Michael Solomon.
DESCRIPTION- For Kariuki, life in a small village in Kenya is one great adventure. The best part of his day is the walk home from school, when he is free from both his bullying headmaster and his mother's long list of chores. The landscape around his village is beautifully wild, and Kariuki knows it well. One day Kariuki meets Nigel, a boy from England who has come to visit his grandfather, the fearsome Bwana Ruin, who owns the farm where the villagers work. The villagers call Nigel the mzungu boy (westerner), and view him with suspicion and fear. But not Kariuki. One day the boys decide to hunt down the meanest warthog in the forest. The hunt takes them deeper into the jungle than Kariuki has ever gone, and all at once his beloved forest becomes a frightening place. Dangerous creatures live in the jungle, including the mau-mau, the men with guns who are plotting against Bwana Ruin and the white soldiers. And when Nigel suddenly disappears, will Kariuki be able to save his friend? In this novel, the author captures a time of innocence, wild beauty, and the growing violence that eventually changed the entire structure of colonial Africa.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Meja Mwangi (born 27 December 1948) is one of Kenya's leading novelists. Mwangi has worked in the film industry, including screenwriting, assistant directing, casting and location management. He was born David Dominic Mwangi in Nanyuki, and was educated at Nanyuki Secondary School, Kenyatta College and the University of Leeds. He then worked on odd-jobs for foreign broadcasters before he turned to full-time writing. He was Fellow in Writing at the University of Iowa (1975-6).
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Ngugi wa Thiong’o. In the House of the Interpreter: A Memoir. New York. 2012. Knopf. 9780307907691. 246 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Peter Mendelsund.
DESCRIPTION- World-renowned Kenyan novelist, poet, playwright, and literary critic Ngugi wa Thiong'o gives us the second volume of his memoirs in the wake of his critically acclaimed DREAMS IN A TIME OF WAR. IN THE HOUSE OF THE INTERPRETER richly and poignantly evokes the author's life and times at boarding school - the first secondary educational institution in British-ruled Kenya - in the 1950s, against the backdrop of the tumultuous Mau Mau Uprising for independence and Kenyan sovereignty. While Ngugi has been enjoying scouting trips, chess tournaments, and reading about the fictional RAF pilot adventurer Biggies at the prestigious Alliance High School near Nairobi, things have been changing rapidly at home. Poised as he is between two worlds, Ngugi returns home for his first visit since starting school to find his house razed and the entire village moved up the road, closer to a guard checkpoint. Later, his brother Good Wallace, a member of the insurgency, is captured by the British and taken to a concentration camp. As for Ngugi himself, he falls victim to the forces of colonialism in the person of a police officer encountered on a bus journey, and he is thrown into jail for six days. In his second year at Alliance High School, the boarding school that was his haven in a heartless world is shattered by investigations, charges of disloyalty, and the politics of civil unrest. IN THE HOUSE OF THE INTERPRETER hauntingly describes the formative experiences of a young man who would become a world-class writer and, as a political dissident, a moral compass to us all. It is a winning celebration of the implacable determination of youth and the power of hope.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Minutes of Glory and Other Stories. New York. 2019. New Press. 9781620974667. 194 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Oliver Munday.
DESCRIPTION- A dazzling short story collection from the person Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie calls “one of the greatest writers of our time.” Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, although renowned for his novels, memoirs, and plays, honed his craft as a short story writer. From “The Fig Tree, ” written in 1960, his first year as an undergraduate at Makerere University College in Uganda, to the playful “The Ghost of Michael Jackson,” written as a professor at the University of California, Irvine, these collected stories reveal a master of the short form. Covering the period of British colonial rule and resistance in Kenya to the bittersweet experience of independence - and including two stories that have never before been published in the United States - Ngũgĩ's collection features women fighting for their space in a patriarchal society, big men in their Bentleys who have inherited power from the British, and rebels who still embody the fighting spirit of the downtrodden. One of Ngũgĩ's most beloved stories, “Minutes of Glory,” tells of Beatrice, a sad but ambitious waitress who fantasizes about being feted and lauded over by the middle-class clientele in the city's beer halls. Her dream leads her on a witty and heartbreaking adventure. Published for the first time in America, Minutes of Glory and Other Stories is a major literary event that celebrates the storytelling might of one of Africa's best-loved writers.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Secure the Base: Making Africa Visible in the Globe. London/New York/Calcutta. 2016. Seagull Books. 9780857423139. 134 pages. hardcover. Jacket designed by Sunandini Banerjee, Seagull Books, using a photograph by Tina Modotti (Workers Hands, 1926).
DESCRIPTION- For more than sixty years, Ngugi wa Thiong'o has been writing fearlessly the questions, challenges, histories, and futures of Africans, particularly those of his homeland, Kenya. In his work, which has included plays, novels, and essays, Ngugi narrates the injustice of colonial violence and the dictatorial betrayal of decolonization, the fight for freedom and subsequent incarceration, and the aspiration toward economic equality in the face of gross inequality. With both hope and disappointment, he questions the role of language in both the organization of power structures and the pursuit of autonomy and self-expression. Ngugi's fiction has reached wide acclaim, but his nonfictional work, while equally brilliant, is difficult to find. Secure the Base changes this by bringing together for the first time essays spanning nearly three decades. Originating as disparate lectures and texts, this complete volume will remind readers anew of Ngugi's power and importance. Written in a personal and accessible style, the book covers a range of issues, including the role of the intellectual, the place of Asia in Africa, labor and political struggles in an era of rampant capitalism, and the legacies of slavery and prospects for peace. At a time when Africa looms large in our discussions of globalization, Secure the Base is mandatory reading.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong’o. The Upright Revolution. London/New York/Calcutta. 2019. Seagull Books. 9780857426475. Translated from the original Gikuyu by the author. Digital collages by Sunandini Banerjee. unpaginated. hardcover. Jacket designed by Sunandini Banerjee, Seagull Books.
DESCRIPTION- Science has given us several explanations for how humans evolved from walking on four limbs to two feet. None, however, is as riveting as what master storyteller Ngugi wa Thiong'o offers in The Upright Revolution. Blending myth and folklore with an acute insight into the human psyche and politics, Wa Thiong'o conjures up a fantastic fable about how and why humans began to walk upright. It is a story that will appeal to children and adults alike, containing a clear and important message: "Life is connected." Originally written in Gikuyu, this short story has been translated into sixty-three languages-forty-seven of them African-making it the most translated story in the history of African literature. This new collector's edition of The Upright Revolution is richly illustrated in full color with Sunandini Banerjee's marvellous digital collages, which open up new vistas of imagination and add unique dimensions to the story.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Writers in Politics. London/Nairobi. 1981. Heinemann. 0435917528. 142 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Christie Archer.
DESCRIPTION- Ngügi's detention without trial in Kenya during most of 1978 has marked a new phase in his development as a writer. While his first collection of essays, HOMECOMING, focused on African and Caribbean politics and culture, the title of this second volume gives notice of a declared political commitment that is reflected in Ngügi's own words: ‘We writers and critics of African literature should form an essential intellectual part of the anti-imperialist cultural army of African peoples for total economic and political liberation from imperialism and foreign domination.' This firm commitment, which was first evident in Ngügi's novel PETALS OF BLOOD (AWS 188), has been elaborated in his most recent work, especially in DETAINED: A WRITER'S PRISON DIARY (AWS 240). It inspired the Kikuyu play believed to be responsible for his detention Ngaahika Ndeenda (I WILL MARRY WHEN I CHOOSE, written with Ngügi wa Mini). His latest novel, also in Gikuyu, Caitaani Mutharaba-ini, is to be published in English under the title DEVIL ON THE CROSS (AWS 200).
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Mugo, Micere Githae. The Trial of Dedan Kimathi. Oxford. 1984. Heinemann. 0435901915. African Writers Series. 85 pages. paperback. AWS191. Cover photograph by permission of Camerea Press Ltd. Originally published in the AWS series 1977.
DESCRIPTION- Ngugi and Micere Mugo have built a powerful and challenging play out of the circumstances surrounding the trial of one of the celebrated leaders of the Mau Mau revolution. They sing the praises of the deeds of this hero of the resistance, who refused to surrender to British imperialism. The play had an outstanding success in Nairobi before being taken to FESTAC in Lagos as an official Kenyan entry.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages. Micere Githae Mugo (born Madeleine Micere Githae in 1942) is a playwright, author, activist, instructor and poet from Kenya. She is a literary critic and professor of literature in the Department of African American Studies at Syracuse University. She was forced into exile in 1982 from Kenya during the Daniel Arap Moi dictatorship for activism and moved to teach in Zimbabwe, and later the United States. Mwalimu Mugo teaches Orature, Literature, and Creative Writing. Her publications include six books, a play co-authored with Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and three monographs. She has also edited journals and the Zimbabwean school curriculum. The East African Standard listed her among the 100 most influential people in Kenya in 2002. Mugo was born in 1942, in Baricho, Kirinyaga District, Kenya. The daughter of two progressive (liberal) teachers who were politically active in Kenya's fight for independence, she received a solid primary and secondary education in Kenya, attending Alliance Girls High School. She became one of the first black students to be allowed to enroll in what had previously been a segregated academy. She later attended Makerere University (where she gained her B.A. in 1966), the University of New Brunswick (gaining her M.A. in 1973) and University of Toronto (where she gained her PhD in 1978). She took up a teaching position at the University of Nairobi in 1973, and in 1978 or 1980 became Dean of the Faculty of Arts, making her the first female faculty dean in Kenya. She taught at the University of Nairobi until 1982, and has also taught at the University of Zimbabwe. Mugo was a political activist who fought against human rights abuses in Kenya. Her political activism led to her being harassed by the police and arrested. Mugo and her family (including two young daughters) were forced to depart Kenya in 1982 after the attempted coup of the Daniel Arap Moi government after which she became a target of official government harassment. She was stripped of her Kenyan citizenship but was given Zimbabwean citizenship. She has worked, written, and taught from abroad since she left Kenya. Since 1984 she has been a citizen of Zimbabwe. Mugo is the founder and President of the Pan African Community of Central New York where she initiated volunteer programs in two prisons. She has been an official speaker for Amnesty International and a consultant for the "Africa on the Horizon" series by Blackside. Currently she is a consultant for many foundations, and on the board of many journals. She also served as chairperson of the board of directors of SARIPS, the Southern Africa Regional Institute for Policy Studies in Harare. She is currently a lecturer in Pan-African Studies at Syracuse University, where she continues her activism and writing. Mugo is a distinguished poet, and the author or editor of 15 books. Her work is generally from a traditional African, Pan-African and feminist perspective, and draws heavily upon indigenous African cultural traditions. She has also collaborated with the Zimbabwean writer Shimmer Chinodya in editing plays and stories for adolescents in Shona.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Ngugi, wa Mirii. I Will Marry When I Want. Harare, Zimbabwe. 1986. Zimbabwe Publishing House. 0949225282. Translated from the Gikuyu by The Authors. 122 pages. paperback. Writers Series 30. Cover design by Kibacia Gatu.
DESCRIPTION- Writers Series 30. In I WILL MARRY WHEN I WANT. The two authors show the plight of poor peasants in a system in which only the rich and the powerful control every aspect of life. The play provides an exciting challenge for drama groups, schools and colleges which want to experiment in theatre, This renowned play was developed with actors at the Kamiriithu Cultural Centre at Limuru. It proved so powerful, especially in its use of song, that it was banned and was probably one fo the factors leading to Ngugi wa Thiong'o's detention without trial. The original Gikuyu edition went into three printings in the first three months of publication. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages. Ngugi wa Mirii (1951 - 3 May 2008) was a Kenyan playwright who lived in exile in Zimbabwe, where he died in Harare. He was known for his play, I Will Marry When I Want, which he co-authored with fellow Gikuyu writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. Born in Roromo, Limuru, Kenya, Ngugi wa Mirii was educated at Ngenia Secondary School and from 1972 to 1974 worked with the Kenya Posts and Telecommunications Corporation. He took a diploma in Adult Education at the Institute of Adult Studies, Nairobi University, and then joined the Institute of Development Studies. While working there he became involved with peasants and workers in community development at Kamiriithu, Limuru. In 1982, he went to Zimbabwe where he lived in exile. He was known as a supporter of Robert Mugabe and Zanu-PF. On 3 May 2008, Ngugi wa Mirii was killed in a car accident in Zimbabwe, at the age of 57. He drove into a stationary lorry nearby the suburb of Eastlea.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o. A Grain of Wheat. New York. 2012. Penguin Books. c. Introduction by Abdulrazak Gurnah. Penguin African Writers Series. 272 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Set in the wake of the Mau Mau rebellion and on the cusp of Kenya's independence from Britain, A Grain of Wheat follows a group of villagers whose lives have been transformed by the 1952–1960 Emergency. At the center of it all is the reticent Mugo, the village's chosen hero and a man haunted by a terrible secret. As we learn of the villagers' tangled histories in a narrative interwoven with myth and peppered with allusions to real-life leaders, including Jomo Kenyatta, a masterly story unfolds in which compromises are forced, friendships are betrayed, and loves are tested.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Birth of a Dream Weaver: A Writer’s Awakening. New York. 2016. New Press. 9781620972403. 240 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Emmanuel Polanco.
DESCRIPTION- Birth of a Dream Weaver charts the very beginnings of a writer's creative output. In this wonderful memoir, Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong o recounts the four years he spent in Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda threshold years where he found his voice as a playwright, journalist, and novelist, just as Uganda, Kenya, Congo, and other countries were in the final throes of their independence struggles. James Ngugi, as he was known then, is haunted by the emergency period of the previous decade in Kenya, when his friends and relatives were killed during the Mau Mau Rebellion. He is also haunted by the experience of his childhood in a polygamous family and the brave break his mother made from his father's home. Accompanied by these ghosts, Ngugi begins to weave stories from the fibers of memory, history, and a shockingly vibrant and turbulent present. What unfolds in this moving and thought-provoking memoir is both the birth of one of the most important living writers lauded for his epic imagination (Los Angeles Times) and the death of one of the most violent episodes in global history.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. Portsmouth. 1991. Heinemann. 0852555016. 114 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Ngugi describes this book as ‘a summary of some of the issues in which I have been passionately involved for the last twenty years of my practice in fiction, theatre, criticism and in teaching of literature. the lectures on which this book is based have given me the chance to pull together in a connected and coherent form the main issues on the language question in literature. .' Ngugl is now regarded by the younger generation as probably the most important contemporary writer from the African continent. He wrote his first novels and plays in English. WEEP NOT, CHILD, THE RIVER BETWEEN, A GRAIN OF WHEAT and PETALS OF BLOOD together with plays such as THE BLACK HERMIT and THE TRIAL OF DEDAN KIMATHI have added lustre to the great English tradition. However, even before his detention with ordinary people could understand his work. The novel which he later translated into English as DEVIL ON THE CROSS became a popular success with people reading it aloud in bars. The original Glkuyu edition of the play I WILL MARRY WHEN I WANT emerged from his work with Ngugl wa Mirii at the Kamiriithu Community Centre which was destroyed by Askaris in March 1982. He starts with a statement: ‘This book, DECOLONISING THE MIND, is my farewell to English as a vehicle for any of my writings. From now on it is Gikuyu and Kiswahili all the way.' CONTENTS: Towards the Universal Language of Struggle; The Language of African Literature; The Language of African Theatre; The Language of African Fiction; The Quest for Relevance.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Detained: A Writer's Prison Diary. London. 1981. Heinemann. 0435902407. African Writers Series. 232 pages. paperback. AWS240. Cover design by Christie Archer. Cover design based on a poster by the Ngugi Defence Committee, London.
DESCRIPTION- The international outcry over Ngugi's detention without trial by the Kenyan authorities reached him even in Kamiti Maximum Security Prison. With great accomplishment, he describes the purposeful degradation and humiliation of the political detainees, the neglect and casual cruelty that undermined their health, the debilitating blend of tension and tedium that marked each day in prison. From time to time the routine was fractured: by acute distress, when Ngugi refused to wear the chains that were a condition of family visits; by astonishment, when a warder lectured Ngugi about the tyranny of foreign languages; by an agonizing sense of loss, when Ngugi's novel, written in Gikuyu, was seized by the prison guards. (It was later returned and appeared in English under the title DEVIL ON THE CROSS). An artfully integrated series of reflections enables him to consider his own writing, the nature of imprisonment and the way forward for the people of Kenya. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Devil On the Cross. London. 1982. Heinemann. 0435902008. African Writers Series. 254 pages. paperback. AWS200. Cover photograph by Chris Yates.
DESCRIPTION- Despair drives Wariinga to leave Nairobi and to seek refuge in her home town of Ilmorog. She travels by matatu taxi with an invitation in her hand - an invitation to a feast of thieves organized by the Devil. These thieves, who used to be local businessmen and capitalists, vie with one another to boast about how they became rich. This celebration of corruption in all its forms forces Wariinga to acknowledge that her life has been nothing more than passive acceptance of corruption itself. In DEVIL ON THE CROSS, the ancient rhythms of traditional story-telling are used in counterpoint to written styles. Ngugi provokes with the force of Brecht, Bunyan, Swift, and Beckett. It went into three printings on its original Gikuyu publication.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Devil on the Cross. New York. 2017. Penguin Books. 9780143107361. Introduction by Namwali Serpell. Penguin African Writers Series. 320 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- The great Kenyan writer and Nobel Prize nominee's novel that he wrote in secret, on toilet paper, while in prison-featuring an introduction by Namwali Serpell, the author of the novel The Old Drift One of the cornerstones of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's fame, Devil on the Cross is a powerful fictional critique of capitalism. It tells the tragic story of Wariinga, a young woman who moves from a rural Kenyan town to the capital, Nairobi, only to be exploited by her boss and later by a corrupt businessman. As she struggles to survive, Wariinga begins to realize that her problems are only symptoms of a larger societal malaise and that much of the misfortune stems from the Western, capitalist influences on her country. An impassioned cry for a Kenya free of dictatorship and for African writers to work in their own local dialects, Devil on the Cross has had a profound influence on Africa and on post-colonial African literature.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir. New York. 2010. Pantheon. 9780307378835. 261 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Peter Mendelsund.
DESCRIPTION- By the world-renowned novelist, playwright, critic, and author of WIZARD OF THE CROW, an evocative and affecting memoir of childhood. Ngugi wa Thiong'o was born in 1938 in rural Kenya to a father whose four wives bore him more than a score of children. The man who would become one of Africa's leading writers was the fifth child of the third wife. Even as World War II affected the lives of Africans under British colonial rule in particularly unexpected ways, Ngugi spent his childhood as very much the apple of his mother's eye before attending school to slake what was then considered a bizarre thirst for learning. IN DREAMS IN A TIME OF WAR, Ngugi deftly etches a bygone era, capturing the landscape, the people, and their culture, the social and political vicissitudes of life under colonialism and war; and the troubled relationship between an emerging Christianized middle class and the rural poor. And he shows how the Mau Mau armed struggle for Kenya's independence against the British informed not only his own life but also the lives of those closest to him. DREAMS IN A TIME OF WAR speaks to the human right to dream even in the worst of times. It abounds in delicate and powerful subtleties and complexities that are movingly told.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing. New York. 2012. Columbia University Press. 9780231159500. 106 pages. hardcover. Jacket image: Sokey Edorh, ‘Les Gendarmes d’Afrique’, 2006. Jacket design: Milenda Nan Ok Lee.
DESCRIPTION- A masterful writer working in many genres, Ngugi wa Thiong'o entered the East African literary scene in 1962 with the performance of his first major play, THE BLACK HERMIT, at the National Theatre in Uganda. In 1977 he was imprisoned after his most controversial work, Ngaahika Ndeenda ( I WILL MARRY WHEN I WANT), produced in Nairobi, sharply criticized the injustices of Kenyan society and unequivocally championed the causes of ordinary citizens. Following his release, Ngugi decided to write only in his native Gikuyu, communicating with Kenyans in one of the many languages of their daily lives, and today he is known as one of the most outspoken intellectuals working in postcolonial theory and the global postcolonial movement. In this volume, Ngugi wa Thiong'o summarizes and develops a cross-section of the issues he has grappled with in his work, which deploys a strategy of imagery, language, folklore, and character to ‘decolonize the mind.' Ngugi confronts the politics of language in African writing; the problem of linguistic imperialism and literature's ability to resist it; the difficult balance between orality, or ‘orature,' and writing, or ‘literature'; the tension between national and world literature; and the role of the literary curriculum in both reaffirming and undermining the dominance of the Western canon. Throughout, he engages a range of philosophers and theorists writing on power and postcolonial creativity, including Hegel, Marx, LEvi-Strauss, and Aime Cesaire. Yet his explorations remain grounded in his own experiences with literature (and orature) and reworks the difficult dialectics of theory into richly evocative prose.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Homecoming. New York. 1973. Lawrence Hill and Company. 0882080350. 155 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- ‘The present collection of essays is an integral part of the fictional world of THE RIVER BETWEEN, WEEP NOT CHILD, and A GRAIN OF WHEAT. Most of them were written at about the same time as the novels; they have been products of the same moods and touch on similar questions and problems. There are differences. In a novel the writer is totally immersed in a world of imaginations which is other than his conscious self. At his most intense and creative the writer is transfigured, he is possessed, he becomes a medium. In the essay the writer can be more direct, didactic, polemical, or he can merely state his beliefs and faith: his conscious self is here more at work. Nevertheless the boundaries of his imagination are limited by the writer's beliefs, experiences in life, by where in fact he stands in the world of social relations. This must be part of the reason that readers are curious about a writer's opinion on almost everything under the sun - from politics and religion to conservation of wild life! The writer is thus forced either by the public or by the needs of his craft to define his beliefs, attitudes and outlook in the more argumentative form of the essay. Two things I might here explain: the emphasis, in this collection, is on politics and on West Indian fiction. Literature does not grow or develop in a vacuum; it is given impetus, shape, direction and even area of concern by social, political and economic forces in a particular society. The relationship between creative literature and these other forces cannot be ignored, especially in Africa, where modern literature has grown against the gory background of European imperialism and its changing manifestations: slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism. Our culture over the last hundred years has developed against the same stunting, dwarfing background.' - from the Author's note.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Matigari. London. 1989. Heinemann. 0435906542. Translated from the Gikuyu by Wangui Wa Goro. 175 pages. hardcover. Cover art by Adrian Wiszniewski.
DESCRIPTION- Lyrical and hilarious in turn, MATIGARI is a memorable satire on the betrayal of human ideals and on the bitter experience of post-independence African society. Who is Matigari? Is he young or old; a man or fate; dead or living. or even a resurrection of Jesus Christ? These are the questions asked by the people of this unnamed country, when a man who has survived the war for independence emerges from the mountains and starts making strange claims and demands. Matigari is in search of his family, to rebuild his home and start a new and peaceful future, but his search becomes a quest for truth and justice as he finds the people still dispossessed and the land he loves ruled by corruption, fear and misery. Rumours spring up that a man with superhuman qualities has risen to renew the freedom struggle. The novel races towards its climax as Matigari realises that words alone cannot defeat the enemy. He vows to use the force of arms to achieve his true liberation.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Moving the Center: The Struggle For Cultural Freedoms. London/Nairobi/Portsmouth. 1993. James Currey/East Africa Educational Publishers/Heinemann. 085255530x. 184 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Ngugi argues that 'Culture is the product of a people's history. But it also reflects that history, and embodies a whole set of values by which a people view themselves and their place in time and space.' Developments in the last four hundred years have led to a situation where world cultures have been dominated by a handful of western nations. The West came to see itself as the centre of the universe. Cultural power, just as much as political and economic power, was controlled at the centre. In this collection Ngugi is concerned with moving the centre in two senses - between nations and within nations - in order to contribute to the freeing of world cultures from the restrictive walls of nationalism, class, race and gender. Between nations the need is to move the centre from its assumed location in the West to a multiplicity of spheres in all the cultures of the world. Within nations the move should be away froth all minority class establishments to the real creative centre among working people in conditions of racial, religious and gender equality. Ngugi believes that moving the centre in these ways is a crucial step in the struggle for true cultural freedoms throughout the world, in order to correct the imbalances of the last four hundred years of Eurocentric domination. Ngugi is world-famous for his novels from WEEP NOT, CHILD to MATIGARI and for the impact of his plays, especially in Gikuyu, which led to his detention in Kenya. He has been teaching at Yale, Smith and Amherst and has recently been appointed Professor of Comparative Literature and Performance Studies at New York University. This book develops many of the concerns in DECOLONIZING THE MIND and branches out in new directions.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Penpoints, Gunpoints, & Dreams: Towards a Critical Theory of the Arts & the State of Africa. Oxford. 1997. Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press. 0198183909. 139 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- PENPOINTS, GUNPOINTS, AND DREAMS explores the relationship between art and political power in society, taking as its starting point the experience of writers in contemporary Africa, where they are often see as the enemy of the postcolonial state. This study, in turn, raises the wider issues of the relationship between the state of art and the art of state, particularly in their struggle for the control of performance space in territorial, temporal, social, and even psychic contexts. Often recalling the famous dialogues of Plato's REPUBLIC, where Plato dictates the stringent conditions under which artists could be admitted into his ideal state, Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o calls for the alliance of art and people power, freedom and dignity against the encroachments of modern states. Art, he argues, needs to be active, engaged, insistent on being what it has always been, the embodiment of dreams for a truly human world.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Petals of Blood. New York. 1978. Dutton. 0525178287. 347 pages. hardcover. Jacket art by Mark Rubin.
DESCRIPTION- Petals of blood appear on flowers sent up from land that has been paved over in the false name of progress and governed by greedy politicians and inept bureaucrats. Such a land is the Kenya of Ngugi's striking novel. In a small boom town in a rural district of this newly independent nation, three African directors of a foreign-owned brewery are killed and four suspects are taken into custody: Munira, who has come to llmorog as a schoolteacher and become the headmaster; Wanja, the lovely and wise barmaid, who has left the city, where she was forced to be a prostitute; Karega, who has turned from rebellion to organizing workers; Abdulla, the former Mau Mau guerrilla crippled in the struggle for Kenya's freedom from colonial power, who now makes a miserable living as a shopkeeper. As the investigation into the startling triple murder proceeds, the intertwined stories of the four suspects unfold and a devastating picture of modern-day Kenya emerges. it is a picture of exploitation and frustration in a land where the people feel their leaders have failed them time after time. NGUGI WA THIONG'O - Who originally came to international fame as James Ngugi and is still known simply as Ngugi - was born in Kenya in 1938. He studied at Leeds (England), taught at Makerere (Uganda) and Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, and has been chairman of the literature department at the University of Nairobi. Ngugi is married and has six children.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Petals of Blood. New York. 2005. Penguin Books. 0143039172. Introduction by Moses Isegawa. 410 pages. paperback. Cover photograph - 'Kakuma refugee camp', Kenya, by Robert Caputo.
DESCRIPTION- The puzzling murder of three African directors of a foreign-owned brewery sets the scene for this fervent, hard-hitting novel about disillusionment in independent Kenya. PETALS OF BLOOD is - on the surface - a suspenseful investigation of this spectacular triple murder. But as the intertwined stories of the four suspects unfold, a devastating picture emerges of a modern third-world nation whose frustrated people feel their leaders have failed them time after time. So explosive was the theme of this novel that when it was first published in 1977, its author was taken into custody and held without charges by the so-called liberal Kenyan government, inciting international protests on his behalf. Yet even Ngugi's blistering criticism of the legacy of colonialism burns with hope for the future.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Secret Lives. New York. 1975. Lawrence Hill & Company. 088208058x. 144 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- The thirteen stories in this book parallel Ngugi's development as a novelist. included are some of his earlier stories, which he wrote in his student days at Makerere University in the early Sixties, foreshadowing the themes more fully developed in his novels WEEP NOT CHILD and THE RIVER BETWEEN. Others draw on his childhood memories of the bitter anti- colonial struggles against the British, The last section of the book includes stories which reflect the impact of urban life in present-day Kenya after his return in 1971 from a year of teaching in the U.S. In the preface to this collection he writes, ‘. in a sense the stories in this collection form my creative autobiography over the last twelve years and touch on ideas and moods affecting me over the same period. My writing is really an attempt to understand myself and my situation in society and in history.'. Ngugi Wa Thiong'o was born in Kenya in 1938. As a youth he worked for a pittance on a white settler's farm, attended a missionary school, was educated at the University of Leeds in England and subsequently returned to Africa to become an intellectual leader of the pan-African, anti-imperialist movement. He is an editor, playwright, novelist and teacher. His play THE BLACK HERMIT was produced at the Uganda National Theatre as part of the Independence celebrations. His novels include WEEP NOT CHILD, THE RIVER BETWEEN and A GRAIN OF WHEAT. He has been a university teacher at Makerere and Northwestern in Evanston, Illinois and is now head of the department of literature at Nairobi.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Something Torn and New: An African Renaissance. New York. 2008. Basic Civitas Books. 9780465009466. 162 pages. paperback. Cover design by Keenan. Top cover photograph by Wanderlust Industries/Getty Images. Bottom cover photograph by Pete Turner/Getty Images.
DESCRIPTION- Over centuries of contact with the west, Africa has suffered the deprivations of slavery, colonialism, and globalization. An integral part of this tragic encounter has been Europhonism: the replacement of native names and language systems with European ones. Language is a communal memory bank. In losing its native languages, Africa would lose its social memory - its very identity. Acclaimed novelist and critic Ngugi wa Thiong'o traces the arc of Africa's fragmentation and restoration amidst the global history of colonialism and modernity. Seeking a revitalization of Africa, Ngugi argues that a renaissance of African languages is a necessary step in the restoration of African wholeness. Wide-ranging, erudite, and hopeful, SOMETHING TORN AND NEW is Ngugi's cri de coeur to save Africa's cultural identity in the modern world.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o. The Black Hermit. Oxford. 1968. Heinemann. 043590051x. African Writers Series. 77 pages. paperback. AWS51. Cover illustration by Shyam Varma.
DESCRIPTION- Should Remi, the first of his Kenyan tribe to go to University, return to his people from the city? Should he return to Thoni, his brother's widow, whom he has had to marry under tribal custom? Or should he continue to be a ‘black hermit' in the town, visiting the night-clubs with his friend Jane? Should he be supporting the Africanist Party when his people feel that colonial oppression has just been replaced by another form? These are the dramatic conflicts in this play which has been performed at the Uganda National Theatre.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o. The River Between. New York. 2015. Penguin Books. 9780143107491. Introduction by Uzodinma Iweala. Penguin African Writers Series. 176 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- A 50th-anniversary edition of one of the most powerful novels by the great Kenyan author and Nobel Prize nominee A legendary work of African literature, this moving and eye-opening novel lucidly captures the drama of a people and culture whose world has been overturned. The River Between explores life in the mountains of Kenya during the early days of white settlement. Faced with a choice between an alluring new religion and their own ancestral customs, the Gikuyu people are torn between those who fear the unknown and those who see beyond it.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Weep Not, Child. New York. 2012. Penguin Books. 9780143106692. Introduction by Ben Okri. Penguin African Writers Series. 176 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- The Nobel Prize-nominated Kenyan writer's powerful first novel Two brothers, Njoroge and Kamau, stand on a garbage heap and look into their futures: Njoroge is to attend school, while Kamau will train to be a carpenter. But this is Kenya, and the times are against them: In the forests, the Mau Mau is waging war against the white government, and the two brothers and their family need to decide where their loyalties lie. For the practical Kamau, the choice is simple, but for Njoroge the scholar, the dream of progress through learning is a hard one to give up. The first East African novel published in English, Weep Not, Child explores the effects of the infamous Mau Mau uprising on the lives of ordinary men and women, and on one family in particular.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Wizard of the Crow. New York. 2006. Pantheon Books. 037542248x. Translated from the Gikuyu by The Author. 771 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration & design by Peter Mendelsund.
DESCRIPTION- From the exiled Kenyan novelist, playwright, poet, and literary critic-a magisterial comic novel that is certain to take its place as a landmark of postcolonial African literature. In exile now for more than twenty years, Ngugi wa Thiong'o has become one of the most widely read African writers of our time, the power and scope of his work garnering him international attention and praise. His aim in WIZARD OF THE CROW is, in his own words, nothing less than ‘to sum up Africa of the twentieth century in the context of two thousand years of world history.' Commencing in ‘our times' and set in the ‘Free Republic of Aburlria,' the novel dramatizes with corrosive humor and keenness of observation a battle for control of the souls of the Aburlrian people. Among the contenders: His High Mighty Excellency; the eponymous Wizard, an avatar of folklore and wisdom; the corrupt Christian Ministry; and the nefarious Global Bank. Fashioning the stories of the powerful and the ordinary into a dazzling mosaic, WIZARD OF THE CROW reveals humanity in all its endlessly surprising complexity. Informed by richly enigmatic traditional African storytelling, WIZARD OF THE CROW is a masterpiece, the crowning achievement in Ngugi wa Thiong'o's career thus far.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Wrestling With the Devil: A Prison Memoir. New York. 2018. New Press. 9781620973332. 249 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Emmanuel Polanco.
DESCRIPTION- An unforgettable chronicle of the year the brilliant novelist and memoirist, long favored for the Nobel Prize, was thrown in a Kenyan jail without charge. Wrestling with the Devil, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's powerful prison memoir, begins literally half an hour before his release on December 12, 1978. In one extended flashback he recalls the night, a year earlier, when armed police pulled him from his home and jailed him in Kenya's Kamĩtĩ Maximum Security Prison, one of the largest in Africa. There, he lives in a prison block with eighteen other political prisoners, quarantined from the general prison population. In a conscious effort to fight back the humiliation and the intended degradation of the spirit, Ngũgĩ - the world-renowned author of Weep Not, Child; Petals of Blood; and Wizard of the Crow - decides to write a novel on toilet paper, the only paper to which he has access, a book that will become his classic, Devil on the Cross. Written in the early 1980s and never before published in America, Wrestling with the Devil is Ngũgĩ's account of the drama and the challenges of writing the novel under twenty-four-hour surveillance. He captures not only the excruciating pain that comes from being cut off from his wife and children, but also the spirit of defiance that defines hope. Ultimately, Wrestling with the Devil is a testimony to the power of imagination to help humans break free of confinement, which is truly the story of all art.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Writers in Politics: A Re-Engagement With Issues of Literature & Society. Oxford/Nairobi/Portsmouth. 1997. James Currey/EAEP/Heinemann. 0435089854. 167 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Ngugi has put together a new collection under an old title. One of the completely new pieces ‘Freedom of Expression' was written for the campaign to try and save Ken Saro-Wiwa and seven other writers from execution in Nigeria. He has rewritten almost all the other pieces which have been kept. Ngugi was warned not to return to Kenya in 1992 after his London launch of the original version of this book and of Detained: A Writer's Prison Diary. Many of the people from the University of Nairobi who were imprisoned for crimes of thought in the subsequent period were asked in the torture chambers whether they had read Ngugi's books. Ngugi says ‘It seemed to me then how ironic the title Writers in Politics had turned out to be. In re-issuing these essays I didn't want to lose that nexus between culture and power which had been captured by the title.' Ngugi is world famous for his novels from Weep Not Child to Matigari and the impact of his plays, especially in Gikuyu, which led to his detention in Kenya. This book reflects many of the concerns found in Decolonising the Mind and Moving the Centre.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi, James [Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o]. A Grain of Wheat. London. 1967. Heinemann. 280 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- In the days immediately preceding Kenyan independence, Mugo, a local farmer and hero of the villagers, is asked to make a speech honouring the memory of his friend Kihika, who was hanged by the colonial administrators. A GRAIN OF WHEAT is an attempt to identify, in terms of its characters, the key racial, social and moral issues which made up pre-independent Kenya. The work of Kenyan-born Ngugi is known throughout the world and has made a powerful impact at home and overseas.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi, James [Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o]. The River Between. London. 1965. Heinemann. 175 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Brian Russell.
DESCRIPTION- When Waiyaki had been born again in the manner of his people, his father, Chege, told him the legend of the founding of the tribe and about the black messiah who would one day come to reclaim the land of Kenya for its people. Chege believed in the old ways, but he knew the value of the white man's education and he sent Waiyaki to school, where he worked beside the children of Christian tribesmen from the other side of the valley. Gradually Waiyaki realized that his people could only be saved if the men from both sides of the river united to accept the best of the old and the new beliefs. Circumcision, of girls as well as boys, was an essential ritual for the purity of the tribe. The missionaries disapproved of the practice and when Muthoni, the daughter of a Christian leader, died after she had defied her father and taken part in the initiation rites, they brought the split between the people into the open by refusing to accept circumcised children at their school. Waiyaki found himself condemned both for his white man s education and for his faith in the old traditions. James Ngugi's first novel, WEEP NOT, CHILD, told of the early days of the Emergency as seen by a small child. The River Between takes us back to the problems at the root of the uprising. It represents a considerable advance in Ngugi's development as a writer, and in 1962 it was given the highest award offered by the East African Literature Bureau's Committee for Creative Writing. James Ngugi comes from the highlands of Kenya, He attended University College, Makerere and has worked as a journalist in Nairobi, He is now continuing his studies at the University of Leeds. His stories have been published in British and African journals, and his play, THE BLACK HERMIT, was performed by the Uganda National Theatre in Kampala on Independence. When his first novel, WEEP NOT, CHILD, was published in May 1964, it received considerable attention.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi, James [Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o]. Weep Not, Child. London. 1964. Heinemann. 154 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Brian Russell.
DESCRIPTION- Njoroge's only true brother was Mwangi who had died in the white man's big war in Burma, Boro, Kori, and Kamau were all sons of his father's eldest wife, but they all behaved as if they were of one mother and home was a particularly happy place. Above everything else, Njoroge, the youngest, wanted to get education and become like the eldest son of the rich farmer, Jacobo, who had finished all the learning in Kenya and would now go to England. His father, Ngotho, was employed by Mr. Howlands who had come from England to farm the land. Together the two men would go from place to place, examining a new shoot or pulling out a weed, Ngotho felt responsible for the land because he owed it to the dead, the living and the unborn of his line to guard over it until the prophecy came true; Mr. Howlands walked through the shamba with a sense of victory because he had tamed this unoccupied wilderness. At school, Njoroge was good at reading. Education was the key to the future: when Jomo was arrested and a state of emergency declared, it made very little difference at first - everyone knew that Jomo would win, But, one day, Ngotho was arrested and tortured, Boro left to join the freedom fighters in the forest, Jacobo was killed and Mwihaki, his daughter, would not see Njoroge, Gradually all the family was drawn into the struggle and the war became a day-to-day tragedy. This first novel by a young Kikuyu is a moving study of the fight for freedom and the rich red earth of Kenya. James Ngugi was born at Limuru, Kenya, in 1938 and has just finished his last term at University College, Makerere, where he has been reading English. During his time at Makerere he has written two novels, The first of these was given the highest award in the East African Literature Bureau's competition in creative writing and is planned for publication in 1965, His play, THE BLACK HERMIT, was produced at the Uganda National Theatre as part of the Independence celebrations. He has also been editor of Penpoint, the journal of the Makerere Department of English, in which several of his own short stories have appeared. He is widely known also in Kenya as a literary and political journalist through his contributions to the Sunday Nation. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu, born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages.[5] His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.
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Ngugi, Wanjiku wa. The Fall of Saints: A Novel. New York. 2014. Atria Books. 9781476714912. 277 pages. hardcover. Cover design by Alan Dingman.
DESCRIPTION- In this stunning debut novel, a Kenyan expat living the American dream with her husband and adopted son soon finds it marred by child trafficking, scandal, and a problematic past. Mugure and Zack seem to have the picture-perfect family: a young, healthy son, a beautiful home in Riverdale, New York, and a bright future. But one night, as Mugure is rummaging through an old drawer, she comes across a piece of paper with a note scrawled on it-a note that calls into question everything she's ever believed about her husband. A wandering curiosity may have gotten the best of Mugure this time as she heads down a dangerous road that takes her back to Kenya, where new discoveries threaten to undo her idyllic life. She wonders if she ever really knew the man she married and begins to piece together the signs that were there since the beginning. Who was that suspicious man who trailed Zack and Mugure on their first date at a New York nightclub? What about the closing of the agency that facilitated the adoption of their son? The Fall of Saints tackles real-life political and ethical issues through a striking, beautifully rendered story. This extraordinary novel will tug at your heart and keep it racing until the end.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Wanjiku wa Ngugi is a writer and director of the Helsinki African Film Festival (HAFF) in Finland. She is also a member of the editorial board of Matatu: Journal for African Literature and Culture and Society, and was a columnist for the Finnish development magazine Maailman Kuvalehti, writing about political and cultural issues. She has also been a jury member of the CinemAfrica Film Festival, Sweden, in 2012 & 2013. Her work has been published in The Herald (Zimbabwe), The Daily Nation, Business Daily, The East African (Kenya), Pambazuka News, Chimurenga, and The New Black Magazine among others.
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Njau, Rebeka. Ripples in the Pool. Nairobi. 1975. Transafrica Publishers. 162 pages. paperback. Originally published as Alone with the Fig Tree in 1964, and rewritten as Ripples in the Pool (1975).
DESCRIPTION- RIPPLES IN THE POOL is the first novel of an exceptionally gifted and articulate writer. Selina, the heroine, whose early upbringing is ominously clouded in mystery, becomes disillusioned with the artificial glitter and superficiality of the sick urban society in which she has-spent the prime of her life. She plans to resolve her alienation by reassimilating into the rural background of her childhood. But her attempt to find peace of mind in a new identity is foredoomed. She is fatally flawed and her machinations end in tragedy for herself and many of those with whom her life has become inextricably involved. But the unusual, exciting and readable plot is only part of the literary contribution of this book. The characters, who span the whole tapestry of rural life in Africa. are portrayed with a depth and spicy richness that illuminates with shocking clarity aspects of rural society heretofore largely unexplored by African writers. Brooding over the whole story is the pervasive symbolism of the pool and the strange old man who guards not only, one feels, its sombre secrets but also the integrity of the land and its people. Defiled by Selina and the amoral modernity that she had embraced, ultimately the pool apparently triumphs in her personal annihilation and the total rejection of all she stands for. Or does it?
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Rebeka Njau (born 1932) is a Kenyan educator, writer and textile artist. She also writes under the name Marina Gashe. Alex Wanjala has said: "Like Grace Ogot, Rebeka Njau is a very important writer in Kenya. She addresses issues that affect women directly and then demonstrates how women's issues are symptomatic of a malaise in the larger Kenyan society." According to John Mugubi of Kenyatta University, "The uniqueness and power of Rebeka's style cannot be understated. She has a penchant for subversion of literary conventions in order to drive points home." She was born in Kanyariri in the Kiambu district, attended high school in Nairobi and studied education at Makerere University College in Uganda. She was a founder of Nairobi Girls Secondary School and served as headmistress from 1965 to 1966. Her one-act play The Scar (1965), which condemns female genital mutilation, was first published in the journal Transition in 1963 and is considered to be the first play written by a Kenyan woman. Her play In the Round was performed in 1964 and was banned by the Ugandan government. Her debut novel Alone with the Fig Tree East African Writing Committee Prize in 1964, and was subsequently rewritten as Ripples in the Pool (1975). It tells the story of Selina, an urban woman who falls in love with her boyfriend's sister, and is notable, according to Gay Wilentz, "as the first sustained portrait of a lesbian within the context of post-colonial African literature" Njau's second novel, The Sacred Seed, was published in 2003. In the words of The Daily Nation, the author "delves into the minds of her characters to reveal the psychological wounds they have suffered under patriarchy and dictatorship and their determination to heal the society. The narrator presents the destruction of the resourcefulness of women in the traditional African societies by modern regimes and points to ways women's power can be restored through the demolition of class hierarchies." She is also the author of The Hypocrite and other Stories (1977), a reworking of traditional oral narratives, and of Kenyan Women Heroes and their Mystical Power (1984), which records the overlooked historical contribution of women. Njau is included in the anthology Daughters of Africa (ed. Margaret Busby, 1992). She married the Tanzanian artist Elimo Njau but the couple later separated. Her son, Morille Njau, is an artist and a consultant based in the UK and her daughter Hana works in Atlanta, Georgia.
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Oginga Odinga. Not Yet Uhuru: The Autobiography of Oginga Odinga. London. 1967. Heinemann. African Writers Series. With a foreword by Kwame Nkrumah. 340 pages. paperback. AWS38.
DESCRIPTION- 'Not Yet Uhuru', the title of Oginga Odinga's autobiography, was written in the 1980s during his time under house arrest. 'Uhuru' means freedom in Swahili and he was referencing his belief that even after independence from British colonialism, the brutal oppression of opposition in political affairs in Kenya, meant that the country had still not attained real freedom.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jaramogi Ajuma Oginga Odinga (October 1911 - 20 January 1994) was a Luo chieftain who became a prominent figure in Kenya's struggle for independence. He later served as Kenya's first Vice-President, and thereafter as opposition leader. Odinga's son Raila Odinga is the former Prime Minister, and another son, Oburu Odinga, is a former Assistant Minister in the Ministry of Finance. Jaramogi is credited for the phrase 'Not Yet Uhuru' which is the title of his autobiography written in the 1980s during his time under house arrest. 'Uhuru' means freedom in Swahili and he was referencing his belief that even after independence from British colonialism, the brutal oppression of opposition in political affairs in Kenya, meant that the country had still not attained real freedom. Jaramogi's son Raila was also in detention for a period of eight years.
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Ogot, Grace. Land Without Thunder. Nairobi. 1968. East African Publishing House. 204 pages. paperback. Cover illustration by Elisabet Chritensson.
DESCRIPTION- The first collection of short stories from Kenya's foremost woman novelist. Twelve stories bring alive the author's feeling for the macabre and fantastic - reminiscent of the tragedy in The Promised Land. Grace Ogot is one of the really disturbing writers in Africa today. LAND WITHOUT THUNDER is her first collection of short stories. In it she gives full rein to her profound feeling for the macabre and the fantastic. The sheer variety of scene and the sustained drama of the plots make these stories a superb introduction to the exciting work of this most African of writers.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Grace Emily Ogot (nee Akinyi; 15 May 1930 - 18 March 2015) was a Kenyan author, nurse, journalist, politician and diplomat. Together with Charity Waciuma she was the first Anglophone female Kenyan writer to be published. She was one of the first Kenyan members of parliament and she became an assistant minister. Ogot was born Grace Emily Akinyi to a Christian family on 15 May 1930 in Asembo, in the district of Nyanza, Kenya - a village highly populated by the predominantly Christian Luo ethnic group. Her father, Joseph Nyanduga, was one of the first men in the village of Asembo to obtain a Western education. He converted early on to the Anglican Church, and taught at the Church Missionary Society's Ng'iya Girls' School. From her father, she learned the stories of the Old Testament and it was from her grandmother that Ogot learned the traditional folk tales of the area from which she would later draw inspiration. Ogot attended the Ng'iya Girls' School and Butere High School throughout her youth. From 1949 to 1953, she trained as a nurse at the Nursing Training Hospital in Uganda. She later worked in London, England, at St. Thomas Hospital for Mothers and Babies. She returned to the African nursing profession in 1958, working at Maseno Hospital, run by the Church Missionary Society in Kisumu County, Kenya. Following this, Ogot worked at Makerere University College in Student Health Services. In addition to her experience in healthcare, Ogot gained experience in multiple different areas, working for the BBC Overseas Service as a script-writer and announcer on the programme London Calling East and Central Africa, operating a prominent radio programme in the Luo language, working as an officer of community development in Kisumu County and as a public relations officer for the Air India Corporation of East Africa. In 1975, Ogot worked as a Kenyan delegate to the general assembly of the United Nations. Subsequently, in 1976, she became a member of the Kenyan delegation to UNESCO. That year, she chaired and helped found the Writers' Association of Kenya. In 1983 she became one of only a handful of women to serve as a member of parliament and the only woman assistant minister in the cabinet of then President Daniel arap Moi. In 1959, Grace Ogot married the professor and historian Professor Bethwell Allan Ogot, a Luo from Gem Location, and later became the mother of four children. Her proclivity for storytelling and her husband's interest in the oral tradition and history of the Luo peoples would later be combined in her writing career. Ogot died on 18 March 2015. In 1962, Grace Ogot read her short story "A Year of Sacrifice" at a conference on African Literature at Makerere University in Uganda. After discovering that there was no other work presented or displayed from East African writers, Ogot became motivated to publish her works, which she subsequently did both in the Luo language and in English. "A Year of Sacrifice" appeared in print as Ogot's first published work in the African journal Black Orpheus in 1963. In 1964, her short story "The Rain Came" was published as part of the collection Modern African Stories, co-edited by Es'kia Mphahlele, who had organised the earlier mentioned conference on African Literature at Makerere University in Uganda in 1962. "The Rain Came" was a reworked version of "A Year of Sacrifice" but considerably shortened and with a different beginning and ending. Also in 1964, the short story "Ward Nine" was published in the journal Transition. Ogot's first novel The Promised Land, set in the 1930s, was published in 1966 and focused on Luo emigration and the problems that arise through migration. Her main protagonists emigrate from Nyanza to northern Tanzania, in search of fertile land and wealth. The story also focused on themes of tribal hatred, materialism, and traditional notions of femininity and wifely duties. 1968 saw the publishing of Land Without Thunder, a collection of short stories set in ancient Luoland. Ogot's DESCRIPTIONs, literary tools, and storylines in Land Without Thunder offer a valuable insight into Luo culture in pre-colonial East Africa. Her other works include The Strange Bride, The Graduate, The Other Woman and The Island of Tears. Many of her stories are set against the scenic background of Lake Victoria and the traditions of the Luo people. One theme that features prominently within Ogot's work is the importance of traditional Luo folklore, mythologies, and oral traditions. This theme is at the forefront in "The Rain Came", a tale that was related to Ogot in her youth by her grandmother, whereby a chief's daughter must be sacrificed to bring rain. Furthermore, Ogot's short stories juxtapose traditional and modern themes and notions, demonstrating the conflicts and convergences that exist between the old ways of thought and the new. In The Promised Land, the main character, Ochola, falls under a mysterious illness which cannot be cured through medical intervention. Eventually, he turns to a medicine man to be healed. Ogot explains such thought processes as exemplary of the blending of traditional and modern understandings, "Many of the stories I have told are based on day-to-day life… And in the final analysis, when the Church fails and the hospital fails, these people will always slip into something they trust, something within their own cultural background. It may appear to us mere superstition, but those who do believe in it do get healed. In day-to-day life in some communities in Kenya, both the modern and the traditional cures coexist." Another theme that often appears throughout Ogot's works is that of womanhood and the female role. Throughout her stories, Ogot demonstrates an interest in family matters, revealing both traditional and modern female gender roles followed by women, especially within the context of marriage and Christian traditions. Such an emphasis can be seen in The Promised Land, in which the notions both of mothers as the ultimate protectors of their children and of dominant patriarchal husband-wife relationships feature heavily. Critics such as Maryse Conde have suggested that Ogot's emphasis on the importance of the female marital role, as well as her portrayal of women in traditional roles, creates an overwhelmingly patriarchal tone in her stories. However, others have suggested that women in Ogot's works also demonstrate strength and integrity, as in "The Empty Basket", where the bravery of the main female character, Aloo, is contrasted by the failings of the male characters. Though her wits and self-assertion, Aloo overcomes a perilous situation with a snake, while the men are stricken by panic. It is only after she rebukes and shames the men that they are roused to destroy the snake. In Ogot's short stories, the women portrayed often have a strong sense of duty, as demonstrated in "The Rain Came", and her works regularly emphasise the need for understanding in relationships between men and women. Prior to Kenyan Independence, while Kenya was still under a colonial regime, Ogot experienced difficulties in her initial attempts to have her stories published: "I remember taking some of my short stories to the manager [of the East African Literature Bureau], including the one which was later published in Black Orpheus. They really couldn't understand how a Christian woman could write such stories, involved with sacrifices, traditional medicines and all, instead of writing about Salvation and Christianity. Thus, quite a few writers received no encouragement from colonial publishers who were perhaps afraid of turning out radical writers critical of the colonial regime." She was interviewed in 1974 by Lee Nichols for a Voice of America radio broadcast that was aired between 1975 and 1979 (Voice of America radio series Conversations with African Writers, no. 23). The Library of Congress has a copy of the broadcast tape and the unedited original interview. The broadcast transcript appears in the 1981 book Conversations with African Writers. Three novels by her were posthumously published, launched by her husband in 2018.
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Owuor, Yvonne Adhiambo. Dust. New York. 2014. Knopf. 9780307961204. 371 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Linda Huang.
DESCRIPTION- From a breathtaking new voice, a novel about a splintered family in Kenya - a story of power and deceit, unrequited love, survival and sacrifice. Odidi Oganda, running for his life, is gunned down in the streets of Nairobi. His grief-stricken sister, Ajany, just returned from Brazil, and their father bring his body back to their crumbling home in the Kenyan drylands, seeking some comfort and peace. But the murder has stirred memories long left untouched and unleashed a series of unexpected events: Odidi and Ajany's mercurial mother flees in a fit of rage; a young Englishman arrives at the Ogandas' house, seeking his missing father; a hardened policeman who has borne witness to unspeakable acts reopens a cold case; and an all-seeing Trader with a murky identity plots an overdue revenge. In scenes stretching from the violent upheaval of contemporary Kenya back through a shocking political assassination in 1969 and the Mau Mau uprisings against British colonial rule in the 1950s, we come to learn the secrets held by this parched landscape, buried deep within the shared past of the family and of a conflicted nation. Here is a spellbinding novel about a brother and sister who have lost their way; about how myths come to pass, history is written, and war stains us forever.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor was born in Kenya. Winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing, she has also received an Iowa Writers' Fellowship. Her work has appeared in McSweeney's and other publications, and she has been a TEDx Nairobi speaker and a Lannan Foundation resident. She lives in Brisbane, Australia.
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Owuor, Yvonne Adhiambo. The Dragonfly Sea. New York. 2019. Knopf. 9780451494047. 491 pages. hardcover. Jacket image: Seaside by Ben Bonart. Jacket design by Linda Huang.
DESCRIPTION- From the award-winning author of Dust comes a vibrant, stunning coming-of-age novel about a young woman struggling to find her place in a vast world–a poignant exploration of fate, mortality, love, and loss. On the island of Pate, off the coast of Kenya, lives solitary, stubborn Ayaana and her mother, Munira. When a sailor named Muhidin, also an outsider, enters their lives, Ayaana finds something she has never had before: a father. But as Ayaana grows into adulthood, forces of nature and history begin to reshape her life and the island itself–from a taciturn visitor with a murky past to a sanctuary-seeking religious extremist, from dragonflies to a tsunami, from black-clad kidnappers to cultural emissaries from China. Ayaana ends up embarking on a dramatic ship's journey to the Far East, where she will discover friends and enemies; be seduced by the charming but unreliable scion of a powerful Turkish business family; reclaim her devotion to the sea; and come to find her own tenuous place amid a landscape of beauty and violence and surprising joy. Told with a glorious lyricism and an unerring sense of compassion, The Dragonfly Sea is a transcendent story of adventure, fraught choices, and of the inexorable need for shelter in a dangerous world.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor was born in Kenya. Winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing, she has also received an Iowa Writers' Fellowship. Her work has appeared in McSweeney's and other publications, and she has been a TEDx Nairobi speaker and a Lannan Foundation resident. She lives in Brisbane, Australia.
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Ruheni, Mwangi. The Future Leaders. London. 1973. Heinemann. 0435901397. African Writers Series. 214 pages. paperback. AWS139.
DESCRIPTION- Reuben Ruoro leaves Makerere convinced that he is bound to be a leader. But somehow life is not so straightforward. He gets tangled up in awkward situations, fails in his first job - partly through colonial prejudice, and although he becomes a teacher, he somehow unwittingly ends up as a bank robber! But life teaches lessons the hard way, and Reuben comes through in the end.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mwangi Ruheni is the pseudonym of Kenyan novelist Nicholas Muraguri (b. 1934) best known for his novels The Minister's Daughter (1975) and The Future Leaders (1973) which were published as part of the African Writers Series. Muraguri was trained as a chemist, and spent 22 years as the Chief Government Chemist of Kenya.
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Ruheni, Mwangi. The Minister's Daughter. 1975. Heinemann. 0435901567. African Writers Series. 186 pages. paperback. AWS156.
DESCRIPTION- When the parents/father is busy shepherding the congregation, feared, even revered by the flock, their children are rotting outside there; living a life (of crime, immorality, carelessness) to shame their parents.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mwangi Ruheni is the pseudonym of Kenyan novelist Nicholas Muraguri (b. 1934) best known for his novels The Minister's Daughter (1975) and The Future Leaders (1973) which were published as part of the African Writers Series. Muraguri was trained as a chemist, and spent 22 years as the Chief Government Chemist of Kenya.
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Ruheni, Mwangi. What a Husband!. Nairobi. 1974. Longman. 0582608996. 208 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- The problems of a young and educated but underpaid executive so humorously narrated in What a Life! make way for the adventures of a cunning husband and gem smuggler in What Husband!, Mwangi Ruheni's latest novel. This exciting new work is a pleasant change from the cultural, racial and political conflicts that form the bulk of the writing in Black Africa. Yet the author does not altogether ignore the reference to the historical struggle for freedom. The 'mining' village, an imaginary and idealised camp way up on the dry and barren shores of Lake Rudolf. It is indirectly included as a reminder. It is small but well organised 'kingdom' set up by exiled freedom fighters.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mwangi Ruheni is the pseudonym of Kenyan novelist Nicholas Muraguri (born 1934) best known for his novels The Minister's Daughter (1975) and The Future Leaders (1973) which were published as part of the African Writers Series. Muraguri was trained as a chemist, and spent 22 years as the Chief Government Chemist of Kenya. Muragari attended Mang'u High School. He then when on to Makerere University in Uganda, where he studie Botany Zoology and Chemistry and became editor of the schools' creative writing journal, the St. Augustine's Newsletter. He then received a Master's degree in Chemistry between 1957-1959, a MSc in forensic Science at the University of Strathclyde. Before becoming a novelist, Ruheni trained as a scientist and had no literary background. Despite this his novels did very well with both academics and non academics alike.Ruheni is not very forthcoming about his literary career. He worked as a scientist in the civil service eventually becoming Chief Government Chemist, staying largely out of the public eye through most of his career, only publicly connecting himself to his pseudonym in a 1995 interview. His book Random Thoughts is largely a commentary on the literary and publishing industries.
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Wa Ngugi, Mukoma. Logotherapy. Lincoln. 2016. University of Nebraska Press. 9780803290679. African Poetry Book Series. The African Poetry Series has been made possible through the generosity of philanthropists Laura and Robert F. X. Sillerman, whose contributions have facilitated the establishment and operation of the African Poetry Book Fund. 78 pages. paperback. Cover painting by Paul Onditi.
DESCRIPTION- Written as a tribute to family, place, and bodily awareness, Mukoma Wa Ngugi's poems speak of love, war, violence, language, immigration, and exile. From a baby girl's penchant for her parents' keys to a warrior's hunt for words, Wa Ngugi's poems move back and forth between the personal and the political. In the frozen tundra of Wisconsin, the biting winds of Boston, and the heat of Nairobi, Wa Ngugi is always mindful of his physical experience of the environment. Ultimately it is among multiple homes, nations, and identities that he finds an uneasy peace.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mukoma Wa Ngugi is an assistant professor of English at Cornell University. His books include the novel Black Star Nairobi and the poetry collection Hurling Words at Consciousness.
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Ward, Leila. I Am Eyes - Ni Macho. New York. 1978. Scholastic. 0590448544. Pictures by Nonny Hogrogian. 28 pages. Cover art by Nonny Hogrogian.
DESCRIPTION- A little girl celebrates morning in her Kenyan home by naming all the bright and beautiful things she sees, all the wonderful animals great and small.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Leila Ward is an English painter who has traveled extensively in the Far East, North Africa, and Europe. She lives on the island of Mallorca in Spain. Her paintings are dramatically influenced by her travels and French Impressionists. Illustrator and author Nonny Hogrogian was born in New York City on May 7, 1932. She received a Bachelors degree in fine arts from Hunter College in 1953 and studied woodcutting at the New School of Social Research in 1957. Since illustrating her first book in 1960, she has split her time between freelance illustration and working as a designer for the children's books at Holt, Rinehart and Winston and then Charles Scribner's Sons. She received a Caldecott medal for Always Room for One More in 1966 and One Fine Day in 1972. Her book, The Contest, was named a Caldecott Honor Book. She married poet David Kherdian in 1971 and she occasionally illustrates some of his works.
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KISWAHILI
[ KISWAHILI - Poetry - Anthology ]Feidel, Jan and Shariff, Ibrahim Noor (translators). Searching For My Brother: Poems From the Kiswahili. New York. 1973. Grossman. 0670626945. Illustrated by Ibrahim Noor Shariff. 91 pages. hardcover. Cover illustration by Ibrahim Noor Shariff.
DESCRIPTION- Poetry is as pervasive for the Waswahili as television is for Americans. No newspaper of notable circulation is published without at least one full page devoted to arguments, criticism and ideas in poetry - none could survive without such a section. Radio stations, similarly, devote some time every week to poetry. people gather around their radios and delight in the poetry which is at once the vehicle for any and all ideas, and the main idea itself. The people have a prodigious memory for poetry; their oral tradition is deep-rooted. Many of these poems were collected orally, and the names of some of the poets have been forgotten over the years. In Amu, it is said, nine out of ten people can speak in poetry, and regularly do break into it. Kiswahili, the official language of Kenya and Tanzania, belongs to the Bantu group. From a small coastal region containing half a million speakers it has spread through East and Central Africa and is now spoken by some 50 million. Within the Bantu linguistic structure, it has shown great flexibility in absorbing foreign ideas, borrowing freely from Arabic, Hindi, Persian, Turkish, German, Portuguese, and English. At any rate, in this predominantly Muslim area, where one would expect a relatively minor role for the visual arts, the Waswahili boast one of the wealthiest languages south of the Sahara in both quality and quantity Of literature. The three major forms of Kiswahili verse are represented in this anthology, the shairi, the nymbo, and the utenzi. The selection ranges in time from the present to about 1770. The object of the translations, according to the translators, is to capture what is most forceful in the poems for the Waswahili, and, hopefully, in some measure to enrich English poetry through its contact with the Kiswahili.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY -
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LESOTHO
[ LESOTHO - Literature ]Mofolo, Thomas. Chaka. Oxford. 1989. Heinemann. 0435902296. African Writers Series. A New translation by Daniel P. Kunene. 168 pages. paperback. AWS229. Cover photograph by George Hallett. Originally published in the AWS series 1981. Translated from the Sesuto by F. H. Dutton, London & New York: OUP, 1967.
DESCRIPTION- This novel is the first of many works of literature that takes the great Zulu leader, king, and emperor as its subject. The story is well-known, partly due to Mofolo but also to the works of literature by Badian, Senghor, and Mazisi Kunene. O.R. Dathorne has said, 'The historical Chaka is only the impetus for Mofolo's psychological study of the nature of repudiation.' Mofolo presents it as a study of human passion, of an uncontrolled and then uncontrollable ambition leading to the moral destruction of the character and the inevitable punishment.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Thomas Mokopu Mofolo (22 December 1876 - 8 September 1948) is considered the greatest Basotho author. He wrote mostly in the Sesotho language, but his most popular book, Chaka, has been translated into English and other languages. Thomas Mofolo was born in Khojane, Lesotho, on 22 December 1876. He was educated in the local schools of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society and obtained a teacher's certificate in 1898. While he was working at the book depot in Morija, some of the missionaries encouraged him to write what was to become the first novel in Southern Sotho, Moeti oa bochabela (1907; The Traveler of the East). The edifying story of a young Sotho chieftain's conversion to Christianity, it is cleverly interwoven with traditional myths and praise poems. Its success prompted other young teachers to try their hand at fiction writing, thus launching one of the earliest literary movements in sub-Saharan Africa. Mofolo's next book, Pitseng (1910), is built on a rather clumsy love plot in imitation of European fiction. It contains perceptive DESCRIPTIONs of native mores in Lesotho and in South Africa and a thoughtful, by no means encomiastic, appraisal of the influence of Christianity on traditional marriage customs. Mofolo then composed Chaka (1925), a fictionalized account of the Zulu conqueror who built a mighty empire during the first quarter of the 19th century. Under Mofolo's pen, the eventful career of Chaka (Shaka) becomes the epic tragedy of a heroic figure whose overweening ambition drives him to insane cruelty and ultimate ruin. The earliest major contribution of black Africa to the corpus of modern world literature, Chaka is a genuine masterpiece; the narrative follows the austere curve of growth and decline which controls the structure of classic tragedy at its best; psychological motivation is sharply clarified at all points; and the author has cleverly manipulated the supernatural element, which is endowed with true symbolic value. Although the missionaries were sensitive to the high literary quality of Chaka, the pictures of pre-Christian life that the book contains made them reluctant to publish it. In his disappointment, Mofolo left for South Africa in 1910 and gave up writing. For several years he was a labour agent, recruiting workers for the gold mines of Transvaal and the plantations of Natal. After 1927 he bought a store in Lesotho; in 1937 he acquired a farm in South Africa but was evicted under the Bantu Land Act. In 1940, a broken and sick man, he returned to Lesotho, where he died on 8 September 1948.
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LIBERIA
[ LIBERIA - Literature ]Moore, Bai T. Murder in the Cassava Patch. Netherlands. 1968. Drukkerrij Bosch. 64 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Murder in the Cassava Patch (1968) is a novella by Liberian Bai T. Moore. It is required reading for every Liberian high school student, and is widely regarded as a Liberian literary classic in what is a developing literary tradition. It is based on an historic murder. This novella deals with the relationship between Gortokai, a young Liberian man, and Tene, the girl he hopes to marry. Tene has been murdered and Gortokai is jailed as a suspect. The story promises "to piece together all the circumstances leading to the violent storm which nearly tore off the roofs from many houses in the Dewoin country one bright Sunday morning in the year 1957." It is set in the fictional village of Bendabli, off the Monrovia-Bomi Hills road. The action ranges from Gbarpolu County in the west as far as Gbarnga and Sanniquellie in the north.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bai Tamia Johnson Moore (October 12, 1916 - January 10, 1988), commonly known by his pen name Bai T. Moore, was a Liberian poet, novelist, folklorist and essayist. He held various cultural, educational and tourism posts both for the Liberian government and for UNESCO. He was the founder of Liberia's National Cultural Center. He is best known for his novella Murder in the Cassava Patch (1968), the tale of a crime passionnel in a traditional Liberian setting. It became such a classic in Liberian literature that it is still taught in high schools.
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Moore, Bai T. The Money Doubler. Lagos. 1976. Unicom Books. 105 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- ‘To read Bai T. Moore is to understand better the common people, what they feel, what they wear, what they eat, how they speak, and how they think. The Money Doubler unfolds a humorous rather than a gloomy picture of people, on a relatively subsistence level, trying to improve their lot.' - Vivian Edwards, Professor of English University of Liberia. The author was ushered onto the African literary scene, when Echoes from the Valley, an anthology of Liberian verse made its debut on the Liberian literary horizon, in 1947, to mark the 100th anniversary of the independence of Liberia. Bai has remained on the literary scene ever since. Many of his poems, short stories and folktales have appeared in anthologies of African literature in German, Italian, Hebrew, Russian and English. Two of his books, Ebony Dust, a collection of poems (1963) and Murder in the Cassava Patch, a novel (1968), have been widely read in Liberia and abroad. Currently, Mr. Moore is serving as his country's Assistant Minister for Culture, in the Ministry of information, Cultural Affairs and Tourism.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bai Tamia Johnson Moore (October 12, 1916 - January 10, 1988), commonly known by his pen name Bai T. Moore, was a Liberian poet, novelist, folklorist and essayist. He held various cultural, educational and tourism posts both for the Liberian government and for UNESCO. He was the founder of Liberia's National Cultural Center. He is best known for his novella Murder in the Cassava Patch (1968), the tale of a crime passionnel in a traditional Liberian setting. It became such a classic in Liberian literature that it is still taught in high schools.
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Schuyler, George S. Slaves Today: A Story of Liberia. New York. 1931. Brewer Warren & Putnam. 290 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- From the Forward: ‘The material for this narrative was gathered during a three-month sojourn on the West Coast of Africa in the early part of 1931. If this novel can help arouse enlightened public opinion against this brutalization of the native population in a Negro republic, perhaps the conscience of civilized people will stop similar atrocities in native lands ruled by proud white nations that boast of their superior culture.'
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - George Samuel Schuyler (born February 25, 1895, Providence, RI; died August 31, 1977, in New York, NY), an African American writer known for his conservative views. George Samuel Schuyler was born in Providence, Rhode Island to George (a chef) and Eliza Jane (Fischer) Schuyler. His father died when he was young. He spent his early years in Syracuse where his mother moved their family after she remarried. In 1912 Schuyler, at seventeen years of age, enlisted in the US Army and was promoted to the rank of 1st Lieutenant. He served in Seattle and Hawaii before going AWOL after a Greek immigrant who was supposed to shine his shoes refused to do so because of his skin color. After turning himself in, Schuyler was convicted by a military court and sentenced to five years in prison. He was released after nine months as a model prisoner. After his discharge, Schuyler moved to New York City where he worked as a handyman, doing odd jobs. During this time he was able to read many books which led to his interest in socialism. He lived for a period in the Phyllis Wheatley hotel which was run by Marcus Garvey's UNIA and attended a few UNIA meetings. Schuyler found he did not agree with Garvey's philosophy and began to write on the subject. Although not entirely engrossed by socialism, Schuyler engaged himself in a circle of socialist friends, including the black socialist group Friends of Negro Freedom. This connection led to Schuyler being employed by A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen's magazine, The Messenger, which was the journal of the group. Schuyler's column Shafts and Darts: A Page of Calumny and Satire caught the eye of Ira F. Lewis, manager of the Pittsburgh Courier. In 1924, Schuyler took up a job at the Courier, where he was required to write a weekly column. By the mid-1920s, Schuyler had come to disdain socialism. Schuyler believed that socialists were frauds who actually cared very little about negroes. Schuyler's writing caught the eye of H. L. Mencken who wrote ‘I am more and more convinced that he [Schuyler] is the most competent editorial writer now in practice in this great free republic.' In 1926, the Courier sent him on an editorial assignment to the South where Schuyler developed his journalist's routine, first a ride with a cab driver, then a chat with a local barber, bellboy, landlord, and policeman. All that would come before he would interview local town officials. In 1926, Schuyler became the Chief Editorial Writer at the Courier. Also that year, he published an article entitled ‘The Negro-Art Hokum'; Langston Hughes's ‘The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain' is a response to Schuyler's piece. In 1931 Schuyler published Black No More, which tells the story of a scientist who makes a machine that turns black people to white, a book that has since been reprinted twice. Between 1936 and 1938 he published a weekly serial in the Pittsburgh Courier which he would later collect as a novel he titled Black Empire. Schuyler also published the highly controversial book Slaves Today: A Story of Liberia, a novel about the slave trade created by freed American slaves who settled Liberia in the 1920's. During the McCarthy Era Schuyler moved sharply to the political right and contributed to American Opinion, the journal of the John Birch Society. In 1947 he published The Communist Conspiracy against the Negroes. His autobiography, Black and Conservative, was published in 1966. George Schuyler died in 1977. In 1927, George Schuyler married a liberal white Texan heiress named Josephine Cogdell. Their daughter Philippa Schuyler (1931-1967) became a noted child prodigy and concert pianist.
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Scully, Pamela. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Athens. 2016. Ohio University Press. 9780821422212. Ohio Short Histories of Africa. 4.25 x 7. 136 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- In this timely addition to the Ohio Short Histories of Africa series, Pamela Scully takes us from the 1938 birth of Nobel Peace Prize winner and two-time Liberian president Ellen Johnson through the Ebola epidemic of 2014–2015. Charting her childhood and adolescence, the book covers Sirleaf's relationship with her indigenous grandmother and urban parents, her early marriage, her years studying in the United States, and her career in international development and finance, where she developed her skill as a technocrat. The later chapters cover her years in and out of formal Liberian politics, her support for women's rights, and the Ebola outbreak. Sirleaf's story speaks to many of the key themes of the twenty-first century. Among these are the growing power of women in the arenas of international politics and human rights; the ravaging civil wars in which sexual violence is used as a weapon; and the challenges of transitional justice in building post-conflict societies. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is an astute examination of the life of a pioneering feminist politician.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Pamela Scully is professor of women's, gender, and sexuality studies and of African studies at Emory University. Her most recent book is the coauthored biography Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus: A Ghost Story and a Biography.
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Wesley, Patricia Jabbeh. When the Wanderers Come Home. Lincoln. 2016. University of Nebraska Press. 9780803288577. African Poetry Book Series. The African Poetry Series has been made possible through the generosity of philanthropists Laura and Robert F. X. Sillerman, whose contributions have facilitated the establishment and operation of the African Poetry Book Fund. 126 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Described by African scholar and literary critic Chielozona Eze as “one of the most prolific African poets of the twenty-first century,” Patricia Jabbeh Wesley composed When the Wanderers Come Home during a four-month visit to her homeland of Liberia in 2013. She gives powerful voice to the pain and inner turmoil of a homeland still reconciling itself in the aftermath of multiple wars and destruction. Wesley, a native Liberian, calls on deeply rooted African motifs and proverbs, utilizing the poetics of both the West and Africa to convey her grief. Autobiographical in nature, the poems highlight the hardships of a diaspora African and the devastation of a country and continent struggling to recover. When the Wanderers Come Home is a woman's story about being an exile, a survivor, an outsider in her own country, and is her cry for the Africa that is being lost in wars across the continent, creating more wanderers and world citizens.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Patricia Jabbeh Wesley is an associate professor of English and creative writing at Pennsylvania State University-Altoona. She has four other books of poetry, including Where the Road Turns and Becoming Ebony, part of the Crab Orchard Award Series in Poetry.
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LIBYA
[ LIBYA - Literature ]Abushwesha, Redwan. The King of the Dead and Other Libyan Tales. London. 1977. Martin Brian & O'Keeffe. 0856160313. Translated by The Author. Orla Woods Abushwesha & Macdara Woods. 64 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- In a Foreword, Pearse Hutchinson notes that the ‘only writer whose work these tales remind me at all strongly of is Tayeb Salih.' Salih's stories, according to Mr. Hutchinson, ‘reveal, as no travel-book, even by the most articulate and understanding of English travellers (even, for example, by Wilfred Thesiger), can ever quite reveal, an Arab world so unimaginably different from our own North-West European world that at least one corner of our imagination can never be the same again.' Redwan Abushwesha's tales, unlike Salih's, are miniature in scope but they draw strength from comparable sources. He writes with passion and sees to the heart of things. When he writes of a blinded man in a London pub, the effect is stunning. Through his knowledge of the West and of his Libyan background, the author fuses together innocence and experience.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Redwan Abushwesha was born in al-Aziziya, Libya, in 1945. He is a writer and a painter. He has published one collection of short stories, a novel, several texts on Libyan history. He has one collection in English translation, The King of the Dead and other Libyan Tales (Martin Brien and O'Keefe, London, 1977). Several of his stories have been translated into Serbian, Russian, Polish and English. He has had many solo exhibitions of his paintings. His daughter, the award-winning film-maker Farah Abushwesha, adapted one of his short stories for the film Chicken Soup, produced by the British Council in 2006 and starring Nadim Sawalha.
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MADAGASCAR
[ MADAGASCAR - History ]Graeber, David. Lost People: Magic and the Legacy of Slavery in Madagascar. Bloomington. 2007. Indiana University Press. 9780253219152. 6.125 x 9.25. 9 figures, 7 maps. 488 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Betafo, a rural community in central Madagascar, is divided between the descendants of nobles and descendants of slaves. Anthropologist David Graeber arrived for fieldwork at the height of tensions attributed to a disastrous communal ordeal two years earlier. As Graeber uncovers the layers of historical, social, and cultural knowledge required to understand this event, he elaborates a new view of power, inequality, and the political role of narrative. Combining theoretical subtlety, a compelling narrative line, and vividly drawn characters, Lost People is a singular contribution to the anthropology of politics and the literature on ethnographic writing.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - David Graeber was Reader in Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London. His books include Debt: The First 5000 Years; Direct Action: An Ethnography; and Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams.
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Lanting, Frans. A World Out of Time: Madagascar. New York. 1990. Aperture. 0893814229. Introduction by Gerald Durrell. Essays by Alison Jolly and John Mack. 144 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- This unprecedented work by Frans Lanting, one of the world's leading wildlife and environmental photographers, reveals the astonishing beauty as well as the wrenching conflicts of a paradise in peril. ‘May I announce to you that Madagascar is the naturalists' promised land?' wrote the Frenchman Philippe de Commerson in 1771. ‘Nature seems to have retreated there into a private sanctuary, where she could work on different models from any she used elsewhere. There you meet bizarre and marvelous forms at every step.' More than two centuries later this little known Indian Ocean island has gained world scientific attention as a unique laboratory of evolution. Home to Madagascar's spiny desert, baobab forests, and humid jungles are 8,000 species of plants found nowhere else on earth, 400 species of reptiles and amphibians, half of the world's chameleons, hundreds of exotic birds and mammals, and two dozen kinds of lemurs which constitute a separate branch of primate evolution. Frans Lanting's extensive work in Madagascar has produced a treasure trove of spectacular images - IOO color photographs that illuminate an enormous dark area in our knowledge of history and evolution. Most importantly, they give vivid testimony to the need for conservation at a time when the Malagasy practice of tavy, slash-and-burn agriculture, threatens Madagascar as never before. Lanting's photographs and text are accompanied by highly informative essays: Dr. Alison Jolly, world authority on lemurs and Madagascar's natural history, discusses environmental perils and conservation efforts; Dr. John Mack, author and anthropologist with the British Museum of Mankind, contributes an essay on the exotic Malagasy culture. Gerald Durrell, renowned naturalist, says in his introduction to Madagascar: A World Out of Time: ‘It is essential that the rest of the world realize the biological importance of the island. and hurries to the rescue of this extraordinary corner of the planet. I know this book will help achieve that result.'
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - FRANS LANTING was born in 1951 in the Netherlands, where he earned a master's degree in Environmental Economics. In 1978 he moved to California and began taking photographs. In a few short years he became one of the most published magazine photographers working today. His work appears regularly in National Geographic and other leading publications, such as Geo, Stem, and International Wildlife. Among the numerous international awards he has been given are top honors from World Press Photo, which selected his work in Madagascar and Antarctica as the best nature stories of 1988 and 1989. Although primarily known for his innovative wildlife photography, Mr. Lanting sees the relationship between man and nature as the central theme in his work, DR. ALISON JOLLY first visited Madagascar in 1962 to study ringtailed lemurs and white sifaka. Since then she has written books and articles on lemur behavior, on the evolution of human behavior, and on the conservation of Madgascar's wild treasures. Dr. Jolly currently teaches at Princeton University. DR. JOHN MACK is a cultural anthropologist at the British Museum's Museum of Mankind. He has undertaken extensive field work in Madagascar and is the author of two books on the subject. GERRALD DURRELL, O.B.E., is one of the world's most respected conservationists. Born in India in 1925, he has lived for the past 30 years on the island of Jersey, where he founded and still oversees the renowned Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust.
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Rabearivelo, Jean-Joseph. Translations from the Night: selected poems of Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo. London. 1975. Heinemann. 0435901672. African Writers Series. Edited with English translations by Clive Wake and John Reed. 72 pages. paperback. AWS167. Translation of Traduit de la nuit.
DESCRIPTION- A selection of poetry from a Malagasy writer and one of the most important of African poets writing in French. Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo is considered to be the father of modern literature in his native land.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo (4 March 1901 or 1903 - 22 June 1937), born Joseph-Casimir Rabearivelo, is widely considered to be Africa's first modern poet and the greatest literary artist of Madagascar. Part of the first generation raised under French colonization, Rabearivelo grew up impoverished and failed to complete secondary education. His passion for French literature and traditional Malagasy poetry (ohabolana) prompted him to read extensively and educate himself on a variety of subjects, including the French language and its poetic and prose traditions. He published his first poems as an adolescent in local literary reviews, soon obtaining employment at a publishing house where he worked as a proofreader and editor of its literary journals. He published numerous poetry anthologies in French and Malagasy as well as literary critiques, an opera, and two novels. Rabearivelo's early period of modernist-inspired poetry showed skill and attracted critical attention but adhered strictly to traditional genre conventions. The surrealist poetry he composed beginning in 1931 displayed greater originality, garnering him strong praise and acclaim. Despite increasing critical attention in international poetry reviews, Rabearivelo was never afforded access to the elite social circles of colonial Madagascar. He suffered a series of personal and professional disappointments, including the death of his daughter, the French authorities' decision to exclude him from the list of exhibitors at the Universal Exposition in Paris, and growing debt worsened by his philandering and opium addiction. Following Rabearivelo's suicide by cyanide poisoning in 1937, he became viewed as a colonial martyr. The death of Rabearivelo occurred just prior to the emergence of the NEgritude movement, by which time the Malagasy poet had established an international reputation among literary figures such as LEopold SEdar Senghor as Africa's first modern poet. The Government of Madagascar declared Rabearivelo its national poet upon independence in 1960. The legacy and influence of his works continue to be felt and his works are a focus of ongoing academic study. Modern Malagasy poets and literary figures including Elie Rajaonarison have cited him as a major inspiration. A street and a high school in Antananarivo have been named after him, as has a dedicated room in the National Library of Madagascar.
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MALAWI
[ MALAWI - Literature ]Chimombo, Steve. Napolo and the Python. Portsmouth. 1994. Heinemann. 0435911996. African Writers Series. 182 pages. paperback. Cover illustration by Michaela Blunden.
DESCRIPTION- Chimombo explores ancient myth and legend to create poetry which speaks to a modern audience. This selection of his poetry brings together two of his previously published collections, NAPOLO POEMS and PYTHON! PYTHON! The Napolo of the first collection is the ‘mythical subterranean serpent' which resides under mountains and is responsible for natural disasters; the python of the second collection is the legendary guardian spirit of the Mang'anja of southern Malawi. The poems can be read as a commentary on aspects of African public life which are no less violent or uncertain than the ancient legends. Steve Chimombo is Professor of English at the University of Malawi
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Steve Bernard Miles Chimombo (born 4 September 1945 Zomba) is a Malawian writer, poet, editor and teacher. He was educated at Zomba Catholic Secondary School, then at the University of Malawi where he earned a B.A. At the University of Wales, he took a teaching diploma in English as a Second Language. At Columbia University in the United States, he was awarded his M.A. and Ph.D. in teaching. After studying at Leeds, England, Chimombo returned to Malawi to edit the literary bulletin Outlook-lookout. He is a professor of English at Chancellor College in Malawi and is considered one of the nation's leading writers. In 1988 his Napolo Poems gained him honorable mention for the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa. He is married to Moira Chimombo.
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Chipasula, Frank M. Whispers in the Wings: Poems. Oxford. 1991. Heinemann. 0435911929. African Writers Series. 111 pages. paperback. Cover design by Vinston Bair.
DESCRIPTION- Marked by a simplicity bordering on song, and drawing on elements of Malawian folklore, these poems are at once articulate and forceful. Arranged in four movements and a finale, they confront tyranny in Frank Chipasula's homeland, Malawi, and then travel outwards through East, Central, and Southern Africa, dealing with the themes of colonial and post-colonial oppression, exile, and the nature of good and evil.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Frank Mkalawile Chipasula (born 16 October 1949) is a Malawian writer, editor and university professor, "easily one of the best of the known writers in the discourse of Malawian letters". Born in Luanshya, Zambia, Frank Chipasula attended St. Peter's Primary School on Likoma Island, Soche Hill Day Secondary School, Malosa Secondary School, Chancellor College, University of Malawi, and, finally, the Great East Road Campus of the University of Zambia, Lusaka, where he graduated B.A., in exile, in 1976. Before leaving Malawi, Chipasula had worked as a freelance broadcaster for the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation while studying English and French at the university. In Lusaka, he served as English Editor for the National Education Company of Zambia, his first publishers, following his graduation from the University of Zambia. In 1978 Chipasula went into exile in the United States as a result of the Hastings Banda government, studying for his M.A. in Creative Writing at Brown University, a second M.A. in African American Studies at Yale University and gaining a Ph.D in English literature from Brown University in 1987. Previously a professor of Black Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and Howard University, Chipasula has also worked as the education attache at the Malawian embassy in Washington, D.C. His first book,Visions and Reflections (1972), is also the first published poetry volume in English by a Malawian writer. As well as poetry, which has been widely anthologised, he has written radio plays and fiction. Since January 10, 1976, Chipasula has been married to Stella, a former school teacher, whom he met in Mulanje, Malawi, in 1972. They have two grown children, James Masauko Mgeni Akuzike and Helen Chipo.
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Kachingwe, Aubrey. No Easy Task. London. 1966. Heinemann. African Writers Series. 233 pages. paperback. AWS24. Cover drawing by Albert Adams. AWS original.
DESCRIPTION- Jo Jozeni, the son of a village pastor, is offered a job on a newspaper in Kawacha, the capital of a British colony in Central Africa. Although his roots are in the country, Jo gradually takes to life in the city and through his colleagues becomes involved in politics, though always remaining a little outside the 'inner circle'. Suddenly his attitude changes: at a political rally it is his own gentle, retiring father who emerges as a hard and determined political fighter. Jo is faced with a difficult choice: should he identify himself with his father? or take the line of least resistance, marry his girl, and settle down on the newspaper? or look for something else out of life? 'A modest but moving novel about the political scenery in a British colony in Central Africa. The book has the bite of a good television documentary and the unflamboyant dialogue is exactly suited to the occasion. The mood is tense with riot squads and the uneasy manoeuvres leading up to independence.' - John Moynihan in the Sunday Telegraph
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - AUBREY KACHINGWE was born in 1926 in Malawi and educated there and in Tanganyika. In 1950 he joined the East African Standard group in Nairobi and in 1955 left to study journalism in London, where he worked on attachment on the foreign desk of the then Daily Herald. Later he worked in the Department of Information in Malawi (then Nyasaland). He returned to London in 1963 where he worked in the African Service and News Department of the BBC. Later he was attached to the Ghana Broadcasting Service in Accra, and then returned home to join the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation, where he is now Head of News.
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Kayira, Legson. Jingala. Garden City. 1969. Doubleday. 160 pages. hardcover. Jacket by Paul Bacon.
DESCRIPTION- Jingala, an elderly widower and retired tax collector of Chimaliro, a remote village in the African bush country, has sacrificed comfort and luxury to provide his only son with a European education in a nearby mission school. Jingala, who describes his son with tender affection as ‘made after my own heart', arrives unexpectedly at the school at term's end to bring the boy home. He is greeted with startling news which foretells the doom of all his hopes, underlining the universality of the aching lack of communication between the generations, as well as the winds of change that blow through Africa.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Legson Didimu Kayira (c.?1942 - 14 October 2012) was a Malawian novelist. Kayira, an ethnic Tumbuka, received an education at Skagit Valley College, University of Washington and St Catharine's College, Cambridge. His early works focused on Malawi's rural life, while his later writings satirised the Hastings Banda regime. Kayira was born in Mpale, a village in Nyasaland (now Malawi); the precise date was not recorded. Soon after his birth, his mother threw him into the Didimu River as she could not afford to feed him. He was rescued and acquired the name "Didimu". He himself added the English-sounding name "Legson" when he was in school. At the age of sixteen, he decided that the only away to achieve a college degree was to go to the US, and he set out on foot to do so. When he reached Kampala in Uganda he saw the name of Skagit Valley College, Washington State, in a US Information service directory, so he applied and was awarded a place and a scholarship. Kayira then embarked on a journey of over 3000 kilometres and walked to Khartoum, where he obtained a visa, and people from Skagit Valley raised the money to bring him over to Washington. He arrived at Skagit Valley two years after setting out. He went on to become a graduate student at Cambridge University, and subsequently a probation officer and the author of several novels. His autobiography, I Will Try, was on the New York Times bestseller list for 16 weeks after its publication in 1965. He made his home in England, and died in London on 14 October 2012. In October, 2014, an American charitable organization called "Youth of Malawi" built a primary school in the rural Malawian village of Chimphamba and named it after Legson Kayira. The Legson Kayira Primary School and Community Center is solar-powered, rainwater harvesting, and boasts an outdoor movie projecter.
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Kayira, Legson. The Detainee. London. 1974. Heinemann. 0435901621. African Writers Series. 172 pages. paperback. AWS162. Cover photograph by George Hallett. AWS original.
DESCRIPTION- 'The only remarkable thing about Napolo was his simplicity - the naive and trusting simplicity of a villager. ' The old man Napolo sets off from his village to go to see a white doctor in a distant town. On the way he falls among young thugs of the Youth Brigade who terrorize the land under the dictatorship of Sir Zaddock. He is taken away to a detention camp. It takes him a little time to realize that this is not just a rest camp. This remarkable and stylish novel shows an ordinary man mystified by the ways of people who have power over other men. It happens to be set in Africa and it happens to be in a dictatorship, but the bafflement of the old man in the face of changing circumstances could be anywhere in the world.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - LEGSON KAYIRA, who was born in Malawi, is the author of four books: I Will Try (1965), The Looming Shadow (1967), Jingala (1969) and The Civil Servant (1971). He studied political science at the University of Washington and then read history for two years at Cambridge. He worked in London as a Probation Officer for two years. He is working on a historical novel on the renowned 1915 Chilembwe Rising.
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Mapanje, Jack. Of Chameleons and Gods: Poems. Oxford. 1991. Heinemann. 0435911945. African Writers Series. 80 pages. paperback. AWS236. Cover design by Vinston Bair. Originally published in AWS series 1981.
DESCRIPTION- A volume of poetry written by a Malawi prisoner of conscience during his ten-year imprisonment. In the words of Jack Mapanje (1981): 'The verse in this volume spans some ten turbulent years in which I have been attempting to find a voice (or voices) as a way of hanging on to some sanity. Obviously here voices are too easily muffled, this is a difficult task to set oneself. This explains why the product of these energies sometimes seems to be too cryptic to be decoded.' 'full of fine physical imagery, acute observation and a strong sense of his own roots and values. Mapanje is fresh, lively, and inventively aggressive.' Peter Bland, London Magazine. Jack Mapanje, poet and theoretical linguist was imprisoned in Malawi from September 1987 to May 1991. He was detained without charge or trial.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jack Mapanje is a poet, linguist, editor and human rights activist. He received the 1988 Rotterdam Poetry International Award for his first book of poems, Of Chameleons and Gods (1981) and the USA's Fonlon-Nichols Award for his contribution to poetry and human rights. He was head of the Department of English at the University of Malawi where the Malawi authorities arrested him in 1987 after his first book of poems had been banned, and he was released in 1991 after spending three years, seven months and sixteen days in prison, following an international outcry against his incarceration. He has since published five poetry books, The Chattering Wagtails of Mikuyu Prison (1993) from Heinemann, and Skipping Without Ropes (1998), The Last of the Sweet Bananas: New & Selected Poems (2004), Beasts of Nalunga (2007) and Greetings from Grandpa (2016) from Bloodaxe, as well as his prison memoir And Crocodiles Are Hungry at Night (Ayebia Clarke Publishing, 2011); he co-edited three anthologies, Oral Poetry from Africa (1983), Summer Fires: New Poetry of Africa (1983) and The African Writers' Handbook (1999); and edited the acclaimed Gathering Seaweed: African Prison Writing (2002). Beasts of Nalunga was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2007. Mapanje has held residences in the Netherlands, the Republic of Ireland and throughout Britain, including two years with the Wordsworth Trust at Dove Cottage in Cumbria. He lives in exile in York with his family, and is a visiting professor in the faculty of art at York St John University. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Bedfordshire in 2015.
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Mapanje, Jack. The Chattering Wagtails of Mikuyu Prison. Portsmouth. 1993. Heinemann. 0435911988. African Writers Series. 99 pages. paperback. Cover illustration by Janie Coath.
DESCRIPTION- Only now, with freedom, can Jack Mapanje speak of his harrowing ordeal in Mikuyu Prison, where ‘desperate voices of fractured souls' clamour to be heard. In poems of uncommon power and unflinching
DESCRIPTIONMapanje condemns a Yet in these poems Mapanje also affirms the enduring love of family and friends and the spirit of his fellow detainees. Today, living in England, he celebrates the hope kept alive by those who fight for human rights. `Protest can take many forms, and in Jack Mapanje's pen it can even take on the form of beauty.' - KUNAPIPI.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jack Mapanje is a poet, linguist, editor and human rights activist. He received the 1988 Rotterdam Poetry International Award for his first book of poems, Of Chameleons and Gods (1981) and the USA's Fonlon-Nichols Award for his contribution to poetry and human rights. He was head of the Department of English at the University of Malawi where the Malawi authorities arrested him in 1987 after his first book of poems had been banned, and he was released in 1991 after spending three years, seven months and sixteen days in prison, following an international outcry against his incarceration. He has since published five poetry books, The Chattering Wagtails of Mikuyu Prison (1993) from Heinemann, and Skipping Without Ropes (1998), The Last of the Sweet Bananas: New & Selected Poems (2004), Beasts of Nalunga (2007) and Greetings from Grandpa (2016) from Bloodaxe, as well as his prison memoir And Crocodiles Are Hungry at Night (Ayebia Clarke Publishing, 2011); he co-edited three anthologies, Oral Poetry from Africa (1983), Summer Fires: New Poetry of Africa (1983) and The African Writers' Handbook (1999); and edited the acclaimed Gathering Seaweed: African Prison Writing (2002). Beasts of Nalunga was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2007. Mapanje has held residences in the Netherlands, the Republic of Ireland and throughout Britain, including two years with the Wordsworth Trust at Dove Cottage in Cumbria. He lives in exile in York with his family, and is a visiting professor in the faculty of art at York St John University. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Bedfordshire in 2015.
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Mwasi, George Simeon. Strike a Blow and Die: The Classic Story of the Chilembwe Rising. London. 1975. Heinemann. 0435901605. African Writers Series. Edited and introduced by Robert I. Rotberg. paperback. AWS160.
DESCRIPTION- Strike A Blow and Die is an account of the Chilembwe Rising of 1915 in colonial Nyasaland (now Malawi). The book was written in 1932, but published in 1967 in the United States by Harvard University Press, and tells the story of John Chilembwe’s realization that he needed to strike a blow for freedom against the injustices of the plantation owners and European rulers in Nyasaland. The book was banned by the Malawi government during its one-party state under Gazette Notice No: 152 of 3 October 1975.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - George Simeon Mwase (c. 1880–1962) was a government clerk and later businessman and politician in colonial Nyasaland. He became politically active in the 1920s under the influence of the ideas of Marcus Garvey and his 'Africa for the Africans' movement, and was instrumental in founding the Central Province Native Association in 1927. Mwase joined the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) in 1944, soon after its formation, and later participated in its executive. By the late 1950s, the gradualism of Mwase and many of his contemporaries was rejected by a younger generation of more radical NAC members. He was marginalised and left the NAC and became a supporter of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Today, Mwase is probably best remembered as the author of a document later edited and published by Robert I. Rotberg in 1967 as 'Strike a Blow and Die'. This was an English translation of his 1932 essay comparing race relations in Nyasaland at the time of the Chilembwe uprising and the early 1930s, but it is most noteworthy for its second-hand account of that uprising and the motivation of John Chilembwe. Its authenticity and conclusions have been questioned by other scholars.
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Rubadiri, David. No Bride Price. Nairobi. 1967. East African Publishing House. Illustrated by Terry Hirst. 180 pages. paperback. Cover Illustration by Terry Hirs.
DESCRIPTION- NO BRIDE PRICE is a swift-moving novel of action set In a new African nation. Its tragic hero, Lombe, is a young and ambitious civil servant. He moves uncertainly about the slippery corridors of power, quickly falling foul of his Minister. The tensions build up within the capital until a cathartic coup bursts open the corruption. Underlying the main theme is the strange and tenacious relationship between Lombe and Miria, his town mistress.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - James David Rubadiri (19 July 1930 - 15 September 2018) was a Malawian diplomat, academic and poet, playwright and novelist. Rubadiri is ranked as one of Africa's most widely anthologized and celebrated poets to emerge after independence. Rubadiri attended King's College, Budo in Uganda from 1941 to 1950 then Makerere University in Kampala (1952-56), where he graduated from with a bachelor's degree in English literature and History. He later studied Literature at King's College, Cambridge. He went on to receive a Diploma in Education from the University of Bristol. At Malawi's independence in 1964, Rubadiri was appointed Malawi's first ambassador to the United States and the United Nations. When he presented his credentials to President Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House on 18 August 1964, he expressed the hope that his newly independent country would get more aid from the USA; he said that Malawi needed help to build its democratic institutions and noted that Malawi was already receiving US economic and technical help. That same year Rubadiri appeared on the National Educational Television (New York City) series African Writers of Today. Rubadiri left the Malawian government in 1965 when he broke with President Hastings Banda. As an exile, he taught at Makerere University (1968–75), but he was again exiled during the Idi Amin years. Rubadiri subsequently taught at the University of Nairobi, Kenya (1976–84), and was also briefly, along with Okot p'Bitek, at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, at the invitation of Wole Soyinka. Between 1975 and 1980 he was a member of the Executive Committee of the National Theater of Kenya. From 1984 to 1997 he taught at the University of Botswana (1984–97), where he was dean of the Language and Social Sciences Education Department. In 1997, after Banda's death, Rubadiri was reappointed Malawi's ambassador to the United Nations, and he was named vice-chancellor of the University of Malawi in 2000. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Strathclyde in 2005. On September 15 2018, David Rubadiri died at age 88. Rubadiri's poetry has been praised as being among "the richest of contemporary Africa". His work was published in the 1963 anthology Modern Poetry of Africa (East African Publishers, 1996), and appeared in international publications including Transition, Black Orpheus and PrEsence Africaine. His only novel, No Bride Price, was published in 1967. It criticized the Banda regime and was, along with Legson Kayira's The Looming Shadow, among the earliest published fiction by Malawians.
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MALI
[ MALI - Literature ]Bâ, Amadou Hampaté. The Fortunes of Wangrin. Bloomington. 2000. Indiana University Press. 9780253212269. 6 x 9. Translated by Aina Pavolini Taylor with an Introduction by F. Abiola Irele. 296 pages. paperback. Translation of L'étrange Destin de Wangrin.
DESCRIPTION- Winner of the Grand Prix Litteraire de l’Afrique Noire. Wangrin is a rogue and an operator, hustling both the colonial French and his own people. He is funny, outrageous, corrupt, traditional, and memorable. Bâ’s book bridges the chasm between oral and written literature. The stories about Wangrin are drawn from oral sources, but in the hands of this gifted writer these materials become transformed through the power of artistic imagination and license. "I think this is perhaps the best African novel on colonialism and it draws very richly on various modes of oral literature." —Ralph Austen, University of Chicago. "It is a wonderful introduction to colonial rule as experienced by Africans, and in particular, to the rule of African middlemen." —Martin A. Klein, University of Toronto. "The Fortunes of Wangrin is not only a wonderful novel by one of Africa’s most renowned intellectuals, it is also literally filled with information about French colonization and its impact on traditional African societies, African resistance and collaboration to colonization, the impact of French education in Africa, and a host of other subjects of interest." —Francois Manchuelle, New York University.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Amadou Hampaté Ba was a distinguished Malian poet and scholar of African oral tradition and precolonial history. Aina Pavolini Taylor is an independent translator with wide experience of Africa, now living and working in Italy. F. Abiola Irele is a professor in the Department of Black Studies at Ohio State University.
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Diawara, Manthia. In Search of Africa. Cambridge. 1998. Harvard University Press. 0674446119. 294 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Lisa Clark.
DESCRIPTION- 'There I was, standing alone, unable to cry as I said goodbye to SidimE Laye, my best friend, and to the revolution that had opened the door of modernity for me - the revolution that had invented me.' This book gives us the story of a quest for a childhood friend, for the past and present, and above all for an Africa that is struggling to find its future. In 1996 Manthia Diawara, a distinguished professor of film and literature in New York City, returns to Guinea, thirty-two years after he and his family were expelled from the newly liberated country. He is beginning work on a documentary about SEkou TourE, the dictator who was Guinea's first post-independence leader. Despite the years that have gone by, Diawara expects to be welcomed as an insider, and is shocked to discover that he is not. The Africa that Diawara finds is not the one on the verge of barbarism, as described in the Western press. Yet neither is it the Africa of his childhood, when the excitement of independence made everything seem possible for young Africans. His search for SidimE Laye leads Diawara to profound meditations on Africa's culture. He suggests solutions that might overcome the stultifying legacy of colonialism and age-old social practices, yet that will mobilize indigenous strengths and energies. In the face of Africa's dilemmas, Diawara accords an important role to the culture of the diaspora as well as to traditional music and literature - to James Brown, Miles Davis, and Salif KEita, to Richard Wright, Spike Lee, and the ancient epics of the griots. And Diawara's journey enlightens us in the most disarming way with humor, conversations, and well-told tales.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Manthia Diawara (born December 19, 1953) is a Malian writer, filmmaker, cultural theorist, scholar, and art historian. He holds the title of University Professor at New York University (NYU), where he is Director of the Institute of Afro-American Affairs. Diawara was born in Bamako, Mali, and received his early education in France. He later received a PhD from Indiana University in 1985. Prior to teaching at NYU, Diawara taught at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California at Santa Barbara. Much of his research has been in the field of black cultural studies, though his work has differed from the traditional approach to such study formulated in Britain in the early 1980s. Along with other notable recent scholars, Diawara has sought to incorporate consideration of the material conditions of African Americans to provide a broader context for the study of African diasopric culture. An aspect of this formulation has been the privileging of "Blackness" in all its possible forms rather than as relevant to a single, perhaps monolithic definition of black culture. Diawara has contributed significantly to the study of black film. In 1992, Indiana University Press published his African Cinema: Politics & Culture and in 1993, Routledge published a volume he edited entitled Black-American Cinema. A filmmaker himself, Diawara has written and directed a number of films. His 1998 book In Search of Africa is an account of his return to his childhood home of Guinea and was published by Harvard University Press. Diawara is the editor-in-chief of Renaissance Noire, a journal of arts, culture, and politics dedicated to work that engages contemporary Black concerns. He serves on the advisory board of October, and is also on the editorial collective of Public Culture. In 2003, Diawara released We Won't Budge: A Malaria Memoir, the title a tribute to Salif Keita's anthemic protest song "Nou Pas Bouger". The book was described by The Village Voice as "by turns elegiac, unsentimental, angry, and wise. .his story unfolds in the triumphant days post-1960 (when Mali gained independence from France), trips into reverie for a youth spent in thrall to rock and roll, and evokes his awakenings to art and racism in the West." Diawara serves on the board of TransAfrica Forum, alongside Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover, and Walter Mosely, which supported Barack Obama's successful candidacy for President in 2008. In 2015, he was featured in the documentary Sembene! on the life and career of legendary Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembene, a filmmaker Diawara himself profiled in his own documentary on the filmmaker, Sembene: the Making of African Cinema.
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Malio, Nouhou (narrator) . The Epic of Askia Mohammed. Bloomington. 1996. Indiana University Press. 9780253209900. Edited and translated by Thomas A. Hale. 6.125 x 9.25. African Epic. . 104 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Askia Mohammed is the most famous leader in the history of the Songhay Empire, which reached its apogee during his reign in 1493-1528. Songhay, approximately halfway between the present-day cities of Timbuktu in Mali and Niamey in Niger, became a political force beginning in 1463, under the leadership of Sonni Ali Ber. By the time of his death in 1492, the foundation had been laid for the development under Askia Mohammed of a complex system of administration, a well-equipped army and navy, and a network of large government-owned farms. The present rendition of the epic was narrated by the griot (or jeseré) Nouhou Malio over two evenings in Saga, a small town on the Niger River, two miles downstream from Niamey. The text is a word-for-word translation from Nouhou Malio’s oral performance.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Nouhou Malio was a griot — a “historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, or musician” — from the nation of Niger. In 1981, he sat down with Thomas Hale and recounted The Epic of Askia Mohammed, which Hale then recorded, translated, edited and annotated. Thomas A. Hale is Professor of African, French, and Comparative Literature at The Pennsylvania State University.
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Ouologuem, Yambo. Bound To Violence. London. 1971. Secker & Warburg. Translated from the French by Ralph Manheim. 181 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Marty Stein. Prix Renaudot (1968). Translation of Le devoir de violence.
DESCRIPTION- This brutal and disturbing novel by a young African examines violence as an integral natural part of human activity. Set in an African empire called Nakem. it is the story of exploitation by native lords, Arab colonists. white explorers, slaves and European colonialism. It tells of sorcery. unnatural deaths, cannibalism. black magic and eroticism. But this horrifying saga of violence and degradation is interspersed with little incidents of poetic and lyrical beauty which glitter like jewels against their sombre background and explain how the hero survives and why the author is not quite without hope for the future of the former slave territories. When Bound to Violence was published in Paris and awarded the Prix Renaudot the critics were struck by the difficulty of describing or categorising the novel. It is not merely an African view of the recent history of Africa. but one which, though originally written in French. is entirely African in its style and imagery. A first novel of quite remarkable originality and power. It has been alledged that Ouologuem lifted and africanised parts of Graham Greene's It's A Battlefield in this novel.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Yambo Ouologuem (born August 22, 1940) is a Malian writer. His first novel, Le Devoir de Violence (English: Bound to Violence, 1968), won the Prix Renaudot. He later published Lettre à la France nègre (1969), and Les mille et une bibles du sexe (1969) under the pseudonym Utto Rodolph. Le Devoir de Violence was initially well-received, but critics later charged that Ouologuem had plagiarized passages from Graham Greene and other established authors. Ouologuem turned away from the Western press as a result of the matter, and even today remains reclusive. Yambo Ouloguem was born an only son in an aristocratic Malian family in 1940 in Bandiagara, the main city in the Dogon region of Mali (then a part of French Soudan). His father was a prominent landowner and school inspector. He learned several African languages and gained fluency in French, English, and Spanish. After matriculating at a LycEe in the capital city of Bamako, he went to Paris in 1960, where he studied sociology, philosophy and English at LycEe Henry IV and from 1964 to 1966 he taught at the LycEe de Clarenton in suburban Paris, while studying for a doctorate in sociology at the Ecole Normale SupErieure. His major work, Le devoir de violence (1968), resulted controversy and a continuing academic debate over charges of plagiarism. In 1969, he published out a volume of biting essays, Lettre à la France nègre as well as an erotic novel, Les Milles et un bibles du sexe, published under the pseudonym of Utto Rodolph. After the plagiarism controversy over Le Devoir de violence, Ouloguem returned to Mali in the late seventies. Until 1984, he was the director of a Youth centre near Mopti in central Mali, where he wrote and edited a series of children's textbooks. He is reputed to have been leading a secluded Islamic life as a Marabout since then. His major work, Le Devoir de violence (published in English as Bound to Violence) was published in 1968 by Editions du Seuil. It was met with wide critical acclaim, winning the Prix Renaudot that very year, the first African author to do so. Ouloguem became a celebrity, and Le Monde called him one of 'the rare intellectuals of international stature presented to the world by Black Africa', comparing him to Leopold Sedar Senghor. It was translated into English (Bound to Violence) by Ralph Manheim in 1971. Ouloguem's novel is harshly critical of African nationalism, and 'reserves its greatest hostility for the violence Africans committed against other Africans'. Some critics felt that the praise and initial response of 'authenticity' for the novel, which is often historically inaccurate, was a Western response. These critics viewed it as a rejection of a glorified view of African history: a review in The Nation says that Ouologuem has 'shattered the. myth of a glorious African past'. However, it was soon mired in controversy, as some of the passages appear to have been plagiarized from Graham Greene's It's a Battlefield and the French novel The Last of the Just (Le Dernier des justes, 1959) by Andre Schwartz-Bart. After a lawsuit by Greene, the book was banned in France, and has only recently been re-published. At the time, Ouloguem claimed that he had originally used quotations on some of the controversial passages, but his original manuscript is not available to verify this. He also claimed that in some early interviews, he had openly spoken of excerpting these passages, which is why it was not as controversial in France. Since 1977, the English edition carries the note: 'The Publishers acknowledge the use of certain passages on pages 54-56 from It's a Battlefield by Graham Greene.' Le devoir de violence delineates the seven-and-a-half centuries of history of central Mali (the Dogon region), from 1202 to 1947, when a fictitious nation, Nakem-Zuiko, is on the threshold of independence. The first part of the book deals with several powerful Malian empires, particularly the pre-colonial Toucouleur Empire which had Bandiagara as its capital, and the pre-Islamic Bambara Empire it replaced. It points out how African rulers collaborated with the slave traders, selling a hundred million citizens to be carried off into slavery. The narrative is marked by violence and eroticism, depicting sorcery and black magic as natural human activity. In the second, colonial part of the story, the protagonist, Raymond Spartacus Kassoumi, descended from slaves, is sent to France to be groomed for a political career. The story also highlights the process by which servility or 'negraille' (a word coined by Ouologuem) is ingrained in the black population. The book is notable for its 'cultural sweep: legends, myths, chronicles, religious matter woven into an opulent narrative; for eloquence: the cadence and music of the prose'. The book has been defended by a number of critics including Kwame Anthony Appiah, who views it as a rejection of the 'first generation of modern African novels - the generation of Achebe's Things Fall Apart and Laye's L'Enfant noir'. Despite the controversy, the book remains one of the landmarks of postcolonial African literature. Ouologuem's best-known works were republished English in The Yambo Ouologuem Reader: The Duty of Violence, A Black Ghostwriter's Letter to France and The Thousand and One Bibles of Sex, by Africa World Press, 2008. His legacy is explored in a contemporary light in Yambo Ouologuem: Postcolonial Writer, Islamic Militant, a recent anthology edited by Christopher Wise that includes an account of Wise's own attempt to find Ouologuem in Africa. Wise has called 'Ouologuem's decision to return to Mali and wash his hands of writing in French. an incalculable loss to world literature.' Ouloguem has also written notable poetry, some of which has appeared in Nouvelle Somme. He is anthologized in Poems of Black Africa (ed. Wole Soyinka, 1975) and the Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry (1984).
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Wisniewski, David. Sundiata: Lion King of Mali. New York. 1992. Clarion Books. 0395613027. Illustrated by David Wisniewski. 32 pages. hardcover. Cover art by David Wisniewski.
DESCRIPTION- In the thirteenth century, Sundiata overcame physical handicaps, social disgrace, and strong opposition to rule the West African trading empire of Mali.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - David R. Wisniewski (March 21, 1953 in England - September 11, 2002 in Alexandria, Virginia at age 49), was an American writer and illustrator best known for children's books. He attended the University of Maryland, College Park but quit after one semester to join the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College, graduating in 1973. He worked for several years as a clown before moving to Maryland and joining the Prince George's Country Puppet Theatre where he met his wife Donna Harris. In 1980, they started the Clarion Puppet Theatre (later known as the Clarion Shadow Theatre) which toured in schools, theaters and at the Smithsonian. After his children were born, he became a full-time author/ illustrator, using layers of cut paper to illustrate children's books. His book Golem, won the 1997 Caldecott Medal. In his acceptance speech, he said of himself: "I am a self-taught artist and writer who depends on instincts developed through years of circus and puppet performance to guide a story's structure and look."
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MAURITANIA
[ MAURITANIA - Literature ]Slahi, Mohamedou Ould (with Larry Siems). The Actual True Story of Ahmed and Zarga. Athens. 2021. Ohio University Press. 9780821424384. Modern African Writing Series. 176 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Ahmed is a camel herder, as his father was before him and as his young son Abdullahi will be after him. The days of Ahmed and the other families in their nomadic freeg are ruled by the rhythms of changing seasons, the needs of his beloved camel herd, and the rich legends and stories that link his life to centuries of tradition. But Ahmed's world is threatened--by the French colonizers just beyond the horizon, the urbanization of the modern world, and a drought more deadly than any his people have known. At first, Ahmed attempts to ignore these forces by concentrating on the ancient routines of herding life. But these routines are broken when a precious camel named Zarga goes missing. Saddling his trusted Laamesh, praying at the appointed hours, and singing the songs of his fathers for strength, Ahmed sets off to recover Zarga on a perilous journey that will bring him face to face with the best and the worst of humanity and test every facet of his Bedouin desert survival skills.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mohamedou Ould Slahi is the son of a Mauritanian camel herder. Known internationally for his bestselling Guantanamo Diary, a searing memoir of the neocolonial hell of the United States's War on Terror, he returns to the world of his childhood in this poetic, intimate tale woven from the life and the stories of a culture on the brink of disappearing. Larry Siems is the chief of staff for the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and a previous director of Freedom to Write and International Programs at PEN. His articles and books address immigration, human rights, and free expression. He edited, annotated, and introduced Mohamedou Ould Slahi's memoir, Guantánamo Diary.
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MAURITIUS
[ MAURITIUS - Literature ]Beeharry, Deepchand. That Others Might Live. Delhi. 1976. Orient Paperback. 304 pages. paperback. E-228.
DESCRIPTION- Manish is one of the 300 Indians gone to Mauritius to escape the painful aftermath of the 1857 War of Independence of India. While most others have been lured in by the tall promises of the recruiting agents, Manish is there to search for his father, a freedom-fighter on the run. In Mauritius, the humiliating conditions suffered by all Indian labourers, strike a spark of sympathy and solidarity in Manish and his friends and a new consciousness begins to take shape A surging saga of Indian migrants fighting for freedom and equality in Mauritius.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Deepchand Beeharry (born in 1927) was well-known as a pioneer from the pre-independence generation of writers who have marked Mauritian Literature with novels, short stories and radio plays not only in English but also in French and Hindi. Among his novels, some famous titles are That others may Live, Never Good Bye, Three Women and a President and The Heart and Soul. He was conversant with many languages in Mauritius and had acted as the President of the Hindi Speaking Union. After secondary education at the Royal College Curepipe and a short stint as teacher, he left the country to pursue further studies in India at the Benares Hindu University where he passed his BA in Hindi. He obtained an MA in English Literature at the famous Rabindranath Tagore-founded Vishwa Bharati University in Shantiniketan, Calcutta. He worked for a time as an Education Officer at the Royal College Curepipe, but later he decided to pursue law studies at Middle Temple in Great Britain. In the political field, he was active within the Labour Party, and stood as the Party’s candidate in Montagne Longue in 1963 and in Port-Louis Nord/Montagne Longue in 1976. In between he served as Road Transport Commissioner at the Road Traffic Licensing Authority and chaired the Wages Council. Readers of Mauritius Times will remember him particularly as a regular columnist of this paper. True to his objectives, the issues he covered in this paper spanned the whole range of concerns, the political and social developments in those critical years before and after Independence, covering them in great depth. Everything was there: from the basic needs of people such as decent wages and regular employment, to the provision of facilities for housing loans, population control, land tenancy, budgetary and other resource allocations, transparency and accountability, the prices of essential foodstuffs, health issues and the cost and availability of medical treatments and the quality of medical care, law and order — an endless list of concerns to many of which he came back again and again.
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Collen, Lindsey. The Rape of Sita. Portsmouth. 1995. Heinemann. 0435909584. African Writers Series. 208 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Sita is a strong woman, champion of the repressed, inspiration to the weak, a living legend in Mauritian society. She has also buried a secret that threatens to overwhelm her very self. Told in lyrical tones by Iqbal the Umpire, Sita's story echoes ancient myths, folk tales and religious prophesies. Yet in the modern landscape of the 1980s, Sita must struggle to remember her own history and her own rape which comes to symbolise all rapes, all violations, all colonisations.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Lindsey Collen, Mauritian writer and political activist, faced censure and threats of death, public rape, and acid attacks -- all in response to the publication of The Rape of Sita. Born in 1948 in the Transkei in South Africa, she has lived in Mauritius since 1974 and is the author of four other novels.
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Devi, Ananda. Eve Out of Her Ruins. Dallas. 2016. Deep Vellum Publishing. 9781941920404. Translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman. Introduction by J.M.G. Le Clézio. 160 pages. paperback. Translation of Eve de ses décombres.
DESCRIPTION- "Devi writes about terrible and bitter events with a soft, delicate voice."—Le Figaro. With brutal honesty and poetic urgency, Ananda Devi relates the tale of four young Mauritians trapped in their country's endless cycle of fear and violence: Eve, whose body is her only weapon and source of power; Savita, Eve's best friend, the only one who loves Eve without self-interest, who has plans to leave but will not go alone; Saadiq, gifted would-be poet, inspired by Rimbaud, in love with Eve; Clélio, belligerent rebel, waiting without hope for his brother to send for him from France. Eve out of Her Ruins is a heartbreaking look at the dark corners of the island nation of Mauritius that tourists never see, and a poignant exploration of the construction of personhood at the margins of society. Awarded the prestigious Prix des cinq continents upon publication as the best book written in French outside of France, Eve Out of her Ruins is a harrowing account of the violent reality of life in her native country by the figurehead of Mauritian literature. The book featurues an original introduction by Nobel Prize winner J.M.G. Le Clézio, who declares Devi "a truly great writer."
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ananda Devi (b. 1957, Trois-Boutiques, Mauritius) is a novelist and scholar. She has published eight novels as well as short stories and poetry, and was featured at the PEN World Voices Festival in New York in 2015. She was made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government in 2010.
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MOROCCO
[ MOROCCO - Literature ]Adnan, Yassin. Hot Maroc: A Novel. Syracuse. 2021. Syracuse University Press. 9780815611356. Middle East Literature In Translation, Translated by Alexander E. Elinson. 424 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- With an infectious blend of humor, satire, and biting social commentary, Yassin Adnan gives readers a portrait of contemporary Morocco-and the city of Marrakech-told through the eyes of the hapless Rahhal Laâouina, a.k.a. the Squirrel. Painfully shy, not that bright, and not all that popular, Rahhal somehow imagines himself a hero. With a useless degree in ancient Arabic poetry, he finds his calling in the online world, where he discovers email, YouTube, Facebook, and the news site Hot Maroc. Enamored of the internet and the thrill of anonymity it allows, Rahhal opens the Atlas Cubs Cyber Cafe, where patrons mingle virtually with politicians, journalists, hackers, and trolls. However, Rahhal soon finds himself mired in the dark side of the online world-one of corruption, scandal, and deception. Longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2017, Hot Maroc is a vital portrait of the challenges Moroccans, young and old, face today. Where press freedoms are tightly controlled by government authorities, where the police spy on, intimidate, and detain citizens with impunity, and where adherence to traditional cultural icons both anchors and stifles creative production, the online world provides an alternative for the young and voiceless. In this revolutionary novel that recalls Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and Dave Eggers's The Circle, Adnan fixes his lens on young Rahhal and his contemporaries as they navigate the perilous and changing landscape of the real and virtual worlds they inhabit.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Yassin Adnan is a Moroccan writer, editor, and journalist. He is the editor of Marrakech Noir and the author of four books of poetry and three short story collections. Since 2006, he has researched and presented his weekly cultural TV program Masharef (Thresholds) on Morocco's Channel One, and currently hosts Bayt Yassin (Yassin's House) on Egypt's Al-Ghad TV. Hot Maroc is his first novel. Alexander E. Elinson is associate professor of Arabic language and literature, and head of the Arabic program at Hunter College, CUNY. He is the author of Looking Back at al-Andalus: The Poetics of Loss and Nostalgia in Medieval Arabic and Hebrew Literature. His translations include two novels by Youssef Fadel: A Beautiful White Cat Walks with Me and A Shimmering Red Fish Swims with Me.
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Ben Jelloun, Tahar. By Fire. Evanston. 2016. Northwestern University Press. 9780810133396. Translated by Rita Nezami. 120 pages. paperback. Translation of Par le feu.
DESCRIPTION- Tahar Ben Jelloun's By Fire, the first fictional account published on the Arab Spring, reimagines the true-life self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia, an event that has been credited with setting off the Tunisian revolt. The novella depicts the days leading up to Bouazizi's self-immolation. Ben Jelloun's deliberate ambiguity about the location of the story, set in an unnamed Islamic country, allows the reader to imagine the experiences and frustrations of other young men who have endured physical violence and persecution in places beyond Tunisia. The tale begins and ends in fire, and the imagery of burning frames the political accounts in The Spark, Ben Jelloun's nonfiction writings on the Tunisian events that provide insight into the despotic regimes that drove Bouazizi to such despair. Rita S. Nezami's elegant translations and critical introduction provide the reader with multiple strategies for approaching these potent texts.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - TAHAR BEN JELLOUN is a well-known Moroccan intellectual who writes almost exclusively in French. As a teenager, Ben Jelloun spent time in a Moroccan army camp after his arrest for demonstrating. He sought exile in Paris in the 1960s and has since become one of France's most celebrated authors. He was awarded the Prix Goncourt in 1987 for The Sacred Night and the Impac Award in 2004 for This Blinding Absence of Light. Ben Jelloun has written two educational books for children: Racism Explained to My Daughter (1998) and Islam Explained to the Children and Their Parents (2002). His latest book, The Islam That Scares, has been published in several countries. RITA S. NEZAMI teaches in the Writing and Rhetoric Program at SUNY-Stony Brook, where she focuses on global issues, visual rhetoric, the personal essay, and postcolonial Anglophone and Francophone literatures.
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Ben Jelloun, Tahar. Corruption. New York. 1995. New Press. 1565842952. Translated from the French by Carol Volk. 144 pages. hardcover. Prix Méditerranée (1994). Translation of L'Homme rompu.
DESCRIPTION- Casablanca and Tangier provide the backdrops for Corruption, an exotic and erotic tale of modern-day morality, reminiscent of Camus's The Stranger. Mourad is the last honest man in Morocco. Much to the chagrin of his boss, his colleagues, and his materialistic wife, he adamantly refuses to accept 'commissions' for his work. But his honesty goes unappreciated. Criticized for condemning his family to a life of poverty, encouraged by his boss to be more 'flexible,' Mourad finally gives in: just one envelope stuffed with cash, then another. Ben Jelloun's compelling novel evokes the universal dangers of succumbing to the daily temptations of modern life, as Mourad lives the consequences of betraying his own conscience after a lifetime of honesty and resistance.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Tahar ben Jelloun (born in Fes, French Morocco, 1 December 1944) is a Moroccan writer. The entirety of his work is written in French, although his first language is Arabic. After attending a bilingual (Arabic-French) elementary school, Ben Jelloun studied French in Tangier, Morocco, until he was 18 years old. He continued his studies in philosophy at Mohammed V University in Rabat, where he composed his first poems (collected in Hommes sous linceul de silence (1971). After that point, Ben Jelloun worked as a professor in Morocco, teaching philosophy first in TEtouan and then in Casablanca. However, he left Morocco in 1971, after the Arabization of the philosophy department, unable or unwilling to teach in Arabic. He moved to Paris to continue his studies in psychology, and began to write more extensively. Starting in 1972, Ben Jelloun began to write articles and reviews for the French newspaper Le Monde, and in 1975 he received his doctorate in social psychiatry. Using his experience with psychotherapy as both a reference and an inspiration, he wrote the book La REclusion solitaire in 1976. In 1985, Ben Jelloun published the novel L'Enfant de sable, which was widely celebrated. He won the Prix Goncourt in 1987 for his novel La Nuit SacrEe. In 1997, he saw his novel Le Racisme expliquE à ma fille published, wherein he ‘explains racism to his daughter', using his family as inspiration for his novels. He is regularly asked to give speeches and lectures at universities worldwide - both in Morocco, and all over Europe. In 2004, Ben Jelloun was awarded the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for This Blinding Absence of Light (translated from the French by Linda Coverdale). He was rewarded the Prix Ulysse in 2005 for the entirety of his work. In September 2006, Ben Jelloun was awarded a special prize for ‘peace and friendship between people' at Lazio between Europe and the Mediterranean Festival. On 1 February 2008, Nicolas Sarkozy awarded him the Cross of Grand Officer of the LEgion d'honneur. Ben Jelloun is married and father of four children. He lives in Paris. In his novel Leaving Tangier, Ben Jelloun writes about a Moroccan brother and sister who leave their impoverished home in search of better lives in Spain. This novel sheds a cold light on a side of North African life that is often overlooked and at times unimaginable; he is unflinching in his commitment to expose the sacrifice and pain inherent in the struggle to rise above poverty and move within the Western world. Leaving Tangier centres on the paths of Azel and his sister, Kenza, as they seek to reinvent their lives, in Barcelona, and how their paths diverge once they get there. Each sibling's ambition rests in the hands of Miguel, a mysterious wealthy older Spaniard, and a man generous and loving one moment, demanding and cruel the next. Miguel's power lies in what he can offer the siblings - and in what he can take away. His novels L'Enfant de sable and La Nuit sacrEe are translated into 43 languages. Le racisme expliquE à ma fille has been translated into 33 languages. He has participated in translating many of his works.
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Ben Jelloun, Tahar. The Sacred Night. Baltimore. 2000. Johns Hopkins University Press. 9780801864414. Translated by Alan Sheridan. 192 pages. paperback. Prix Goncourt (1987). Translation of La Nuit sacrée.
DESCRIPTION- The Sacred Night continues the remarkable story Tahar Ben Jelloun began in The Sand Child. Mohammed Ahmed, a Moroccan girl raised as a boy in order to circumvent Islamic inheritance laws regarding female children, remains deeply conflicted about her identity. In a narrative that shifts in and out of reality moving between a mysterious present and a painful past, Ben Jelloun relates the events of Ahmed's adult life. Now calling herself Zahra, she renounces her role as only son and heir after her father's death and journeys through a dreamlike Moroccan landscape. A searing allegorical portrait of North African society, The Sacred Night uses Arabic fairy tales and surrealist elements to craft a stunning and disturbing vision of protest and rebellion against the strictures of hidebound traditions governing gender roles and sexuality.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Tahar Ben Jelloun was born in Fez, Morocco, in 1944 and has lived in France since 1971. An internationally recognized novelist, poet, playwright, and essayist, Ben Jelloun has received numerous awards for his works, including the Prix Maghreb, the Prix des Hemispheres and the Legion of Honor. His books include Solitaire, Silent Day in Tangier, With Downcast Eyes, Corruption, and Racism Explained to My Daughter. He is also a regular contributor to Le Monde. His novel The Sand Child is also available in paperback from Johns Hopkins.
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Binebine, Mahi. Welcome To Paradise. London. 2003. Granta Books. 1862075174. Translated from the French by Lulu Norman. 181 pages. hardcover. Cover photography - Getty Images. (original title: Cannibales, 1999 - Librairie Artheme Fayard).
DESCRIPTION- The Strait of Gibraltar - the shortest distance between Europe and Africa. It is ten miles of water across which, when the sun shines, Moroccan and Spanish towns can see each other as clear as day. But when night falls on the Strait, and the surfers and tourists have gone home, immigrant traffickers undertake the furious journey across and pit themselves - and their boats laden with human cargo - against two sets of coast guards and the unpredictability of the sea.' ‘Then there are traffickers like Morad, who has opted for a less hazardous role in the proceedings after being repeatedly deported by French authorities. Holding court at a back table in the Cafe France in Tangier, Morad assigns passengers to boatmen, collects fares and regales prospective clients with dazzling stories of life in the West.' His passengers are a disparate group: Kacem Judi, who has escaped from the civil war in Algeria; Nuara, with her newborn child, whose husband hasn't been in touch for months since moving to France; Pafadnam and Yarce, who have survived the brutal journey from Mali; Aziz, the young narrator, and his cousin Reda, who are both severed from their families in southernmost Morocco. Their pasts differ, but they all share a longing to escape and a readiness to risk everything - and they must trust Morad to complete their dangerous journey. (original title: Cannibales, 1999 - Librairie Artheme Fayard).
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mahi Binebine is a Moroccan painter and novelist born in Marrakech in 1959. Binebine has written six novels which have been translated into various languages. Born in 1959 in Marrakech, Mahi Binebine moved in Paris in 1980 to continue his studies in mathematics, which he taught for eight years. He then devoted himself to writing and painting. He wrote several novels, which have been translated into a dozen languages. He emigrated to New York from 1994 to 1999. His paintings are part of the permanent collection at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. He returned to Marrakech in 2002 where he currently lives and works.
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Bowles, Paul (editor and translator). Five Eyes. Santa Barbara. 1979. Black Sparrow Press. 0876854102. 147 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Stories by: Abdeslam Boulaich, Mohamed Choukri, Larbi Layachi, Mohammed Mrabet, & Ahmed Yacoubi. The stories were told aloud, recorded, and translated. The two storytellers who did not sign any copies of this edition were unable to as they were illiterate.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Paul Frederic Bowles (December 30, 1910 - November 18, 1999) was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator. Following a cultured middle-class upbringing in New York City, during which he displayed a talent for music and writing, Bowles pursued his education at the University of Virginia before making various trips to Paris in the 1930s. He studied music with Aaron Copland, and in New York wrote music for various theatrical productions, as well as other compositions. He achieved critical and popular success with the publication in 1949 of his first novel The Sheltering Sky, set in what was known as French North Africa, which he had visited in 1931. In 1947 Bowles settled in Tangier, Morocco, and his wife, Jane Bowles followed in 1948. Except for winters spent in Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) during the early 1950s, Tangier was his home for the remaining 52 years of his life. Paul Bowles died in 1999 at the age of 88. His ashes are buried in Lakemont Cemetery in upstate New York.
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Bowles, Paul (introduction). The Hakima: A Tragedy in Fez. New York. 1991. Aperture. 0893812870. Introduction by Paul Bowles. Photos by William Betsch. 144 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- True-to-Life mystery, The Hakima: A Tragedy in Fez is a wholly unprecedented form of novelistic photojournalism. Investigating the apparent suicide of a Moroccan bride whose virginity is suspect, prize-winning photographer William Betsch interviews Hakima's intimates and captures on film her sensual and terrifying world.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Paul Frederic Bowles (December 30, 1910 - November 18, 1999) was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator. He became associated with Tangier, Morocco, where he settled in 1947 and lived for 52 years to the end of his life. Following a cultured middle-class upbringing in New York City, during which he displayed a talent for music and writing, Bowles pursued his education at the University of Virginia before making several trips to Paris in the 1930s. He studied music with Aaron Copland, and in New York wrote music for theatrical productions, as well as other compositions. He achieved critical and popular success with his first novel The Sheltering Sky (1949), set in what was known as French North Africa, which he had visited in 1931. In 1947 Bowles settled in Tangier, Morocco, and his wife Jane Bowles followed in 1948. Except for winters spent in Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) during the early 1950s, Tangier was Bowles' home for the remainder of his life. He came to symbolize American immigrants in the city. Paul Bowles died in 1999 at the age of 88.
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Bowles, Paul and Mrabet, Mohammed. The Boy Who Set the Fire. Los Angeles. 1974. Black Sparrow Press. 0876851758. Taped and Translated from the Moghrebi by Paul Bowles. 126 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Stories taped and translated from the Moghrebi by Paul Bowles.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mohammed Mrabet (real name Mohammed ben Chaib el Hajjem), born on March 8, 1936, is a Moroccan author artist and storyteller of Berber heritage from the Beni Ouraaghil tribe in the Rifian Mountains. Mrabet is mostly known in the West through his association with Paul Bowles, William Burroughs and Tennessee Williams. Mrabet is an artist of intricate, yet colorful, felt tip and ink drawings in the style of Paul Masson or a more depressive, horror-show Jean Miro, which have been shown at various galleries in Europe and America. Mrabet's art work is his own: very loud and intricate, yet comparable with that of his contemporary, Jillali Gharbaoui (1930-1971). Mrabet is increasingly being recognized as an important member of a small group of Moroccan Master Painters who emerged in the immediate post Colonial period and his works have become highly sought after, mostly by European collectors. Paul Frederic Bowles (December 30, 1910 - November 18, 1999) was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator. Following a cultured middle-class upbringing in New York City, during which he displayed a talent for music and writing, Bowles pursued his education at the University of Virginia before making various trips to Paris in the 1930s. He studied music with Aaron Copland, and in New York wrote music for various theatrical productions, as well as other compositions. He achieved critical and popular success with the publication in 1949 of his first novel The Sheltering Sky, set in what was known as French North Africa, which he had visited in 1931. In 1947 Bowles settled in Tangier, Morocco, and his wife, Jane Bowles followed in 1948. Except for winters spent in Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) during the early 1950s, Tangier was his home for the remaining 52 years of his life. Paul Bowles died in 1999 at the age of 88. His ashes are buried in Lakemont Cemetery in upstate New York.
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Charhadi, Driss Ben Hamed (pseudonym of Larbi Layachi). A Life Full of Holes. New York. 1964. Grove Press. Novel tape-recorded and translated by Paul Bowles. 310 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- The first book ever published in Moghrebi, a North African Arabic dialect. A semi-autobiographical novel spoken by an illiterate Moroccan storyteller, recorded by American expat author and composer Paul Bowles. One of the most unusual literary innovations ever produced, A Life Full of Holes is the result of a singular collaboration between two remarkable individuals: Driss ben Hamed Charhadi, an illiterate North African servant and street vendor, and legendary American novelist and essayist Paul Bowles. The powerful story of a shepherd and petty trafficker struggling to maintain hope as he wrestles with the grim realities of daily life, it is the first novel ever written in the Arabic dialect Moghrebi, faithfully recorded and translated into English by Bowles. Straightforward yet rich in complex emotions, it is a fascinating inside look at an unfamiliar culture—harsh and startling, yet interwoven with a poignant, poetic beauty.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Driss ben Hamed Charhadi (1937–1986) is the pseudonym for Larbi Layachi, a Moroccan story-teller, some of whose stories have been translated by Paul Bowles from Moroccan Arabic to English. His Life Full of Holes was first tape-recorded and translated by Bowles over the course of several visits to his home by Charhadi.
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Chraibi, Driss. Flutes of Death. New York. 1985. Three Continents Press. 0894103261. Translated by Robin Roosevelt. 146 pages. hardcover. Cover art and drawings by Max K. Winkler. A translation of Une enquete au pays.
DESCRIPTION- The first book in a trilogy that continues with Mother Spring and Birth at Dawn, this naturalistic allegory is about two Arabic-speaking police officers who set out in the Atlas Mountains in search of a revolutionary. Once in this mysterious region, the officers, with their postcolonial, Westernized manners, are challenged by the ferociously suspicious and independent-minded Berber peoples. Chraïbi illustrates the clash between the modern and the traditional, between those who are willing to make cultural accommodation and those who are assertive of ancient traditions. At the same time, in language that is sometimes acerbic and sometimes lyrical, he illustrates the predicaments common to all ordinary people, whether urban or peasant. First published in French in 1981.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Driss Chraïbi (July 15, 1926 – April 1, 2007) was a Moroccan author whose novels deal with colonialism, culture clashes, generational conflict and the treatment of women and are often perceived as semi-autobiographical. Born in El Jadida and educated in Casablanca, Chraïbi went to Paris in 1945 to study chemistry before turning to literature and journalism. Driss Chraïbi was born to a merchant family in French Morocco but was later raised in Casablanca. He attended the Koranic school before joining the M'hammed Guessous School in Rabat, followed by the Lycée Lyautey in Casablanca. In 1945 he went to university in Paris, where, in 1950, he earned a degree in chemical engineering. After obtaining his degree, he abandoned science before the doctorate. Instead, he earned his living from a string of odd jobs, before turning to literature and journalism. He produced programmes for France Culture, frequented poets, taught Maghrebian literature at Laval University in Quebec and devoted himself to writing. In 1955, he married Catherine Birckel, with whom he had five children. In 1978, he remarried with Sheena McCallion, a Scotswoman, with whom he also had five children. He became known through his first two novels, Le passé simple (1954), whose depiction of a young man's revolt against traditional society generated controversy in Morocco during its struggle for independence, and its counterpoint Les boucs (1955) a ferocious attack on the treatment of North African immigrants in France. A page turns with the death of his father in 1957. The writer, in exile in France, went beyond the revolt against his father and established a new dialogue with him beyond the grave in Succession ouverte ( 1962), translated as Heirs to the Past. Ten years later, La Civilisation, ma Mère!. (1972) gave a more lighthearted, fictionalised account of a Moroccan father's changing relationship with his wife and, more broadly, questioned the place of women in Moroccan society, offering renewed hope through the mother's evolution. He died in Drôme, France, where he had lived since 1988, and was buried in the Shuhada Cemetery, Casablanca, Morocco, near his father's grave, thus fulfilling his last wishes. He took with him to the hereafter the secret of the last book he was working on. He was awarded the Prix de l’Afrique Méditerranéenne in 1973, the Franco-Arab Friendship Award in 1981. and the Mondello prize for the translation of Naissance à l'aube in Italy. His first novel, Le passé simple was published in 1954. Its English translation by Hugh Harter The Simple Past, was reissued in 2020 by NYRB Classics, with an introduction by Adam Shatz.
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Chraibi, Driss. Heirs To the Past. London. 1972. Heinemann. 043590079x. African Writers Series. Translated from the French by Len Ortzen. 128 pages. paperback. AWS79. Succession ouverte originally published Paris: Denoël, 1962.).
DESCRIPTION- Seigneur Haj Ferdi is a very wealthy and powerful aristocratic property-owner in the Moroccan capital city of Casablanca. The aristocrat has grown his family inheritance into a very big fortune. He is a generous benefactor. The entire household fears and obeys the Seigneur. Haj Ferdi is diagnosed to be suffering from the terminal disease cirrhosis of the liver. He leaves his family and stays away on an island in his tomato plantation for five years. After the five years, he returns home; and is found dead two days later in Drissʹs room. All the sons come around for Hajʹs funeral ceremony. Driss, the narrator of the story, returns after sixteen years from France, leaving his French wife, his mother-in-law and son behind. The mourning lasts for ten days in Haj Ferdiʹs family, during which all the sons stay and sparsely feed together with their loneliest mother. Then, it comes to sharing Haj Ferdiʹs inheritance.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Driss Chraïbi (July 15, 1926, El Jadida - April 1, 2007, Drôme, France) was a Moroccan author whose novels deal with colonialism, culture clashes, generational conflict and the treatment of women and are often semi-autobiographical. Born in El Jadida and educated in Casablanca, Chraïbi went to Paris in 1946 to study chemistry before turning to literature and journalism. His first novel, The Simple Past, was published in 1954.
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Dunn, Ross E. The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the Fourteenth Century, Revised Edition, with a New Preface. Berkeley. 2004. University of California Press. 9780520243859. 359 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Known as the greatest traveler of premodern times, Abu Abdallah ibn Battuta was born in Morocco in 1304 and educated in Islamic law. At the age of twenty-one, he left home to make the holy pilgrimage to Mecca. This was only the first of a series of extraordinary journeys that spanned nearly three decades and took him not only eastward to India and China but also north to the Volga River valley and south to Tanzania. The narrative of these travels has been known to specialists in Islamic and medieval history for years. Ross E. Dunn's 1986 retelling of these tales, however, was the first work of scholarship to make the legendary traveler's story accessible to a general audience. Now updated with revisions, a new preface, and an updated bibliography, Dunn's classic interprets Ibn Battuta's adventures and places them within the rich, trans-hemispheric cultural setting of medieval Islam.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ross E. Dunn is Professor of History, San Diego State University, and the editor of The New World History: A Teacher's Companion (2000).
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El Koudia, Jilali. Moroccan Folktales. Syracuse. 2018. Syracuse University Press. 9780815611011. 6 x 9. 200 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Drawing on stories he heard as a boy from female relatives, Jilali El Koudia presents a cross section of utterly bewitching narratives. Filled with ghouls and fools, kind magic and wicked, eternal bonds and earthly wishes, these are mesmerizing stories to be savored, studied, or simply treasured. Varied genres include anecdotes, legends, and animal fables, and some tales bear strong resemblance to European counterparts, for example Aamar and his Sister (Hansel and Gretel) and Nunja and the White Dove (Cinderella). All capture the heart of Morroco and the soul of its people. In an enlightening introduction, El Koudia mourns the loss of the teller of tales in the marketplace, and he makes it clear that storytelling, born of memory and oral tradition, could vanish in the face of mass and electronic media.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jilali El Koudia is an acclaimed Moroccan literary critic, writer, and translator. He is the author of Moroccan Short Stories and the translator of many Moroccan literary works.
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Fadel, Youssef. A Beautiful White Cat Walks with Me: A Novel. Cairo. 2016. American University in Cairo Press. 9789774167768. Translated by Alexander Elinson. 272 pages. paperback. Translation of قط أبيض جميل يسي.
DESCRIPTION- Hassan ekes out a living in his native Marrakesh as a comic writer and performer, through satirical sketches critical of Morocco's rulers. Yet, when he is suddenly conscripted into a losing war in the Sahara, and drafted to a far-flung desert outpost, it seems that all is lost. Could his estranged father, close to power as the King's private jester, have something to do with his sudden removal? And will he ever see his beloved wife Zinab again? With flowing prose and black humor, Youssef Fadel subtly tells the story of 1980s Morocco. He evokes a system whose brutality emanates from the top, and is felt and reproduced in the countless uneven power relations of the people living underneath.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Award-winning Moroccan novelist and screenwriter Youssef Fadel was born in Casablanca in 1949. During Morocco's 'Years of Lead' he was imprisoned in the notorious Moulay Cherif prison (1974-75). He is the author of A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me. He lives in Casablanca, Morocco. Alexander Elinson is an associate professor of Arabic at Hunter College of the City University of New York.
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Hamdouchi, Abdelilah. The Butcher of Casablanca: A Detective Hanash Crimem Novel. Cairo. 2020. The American University in Cairo Press. 9789774169687. Translated by Peter Daniel. A Hoopoe Book. 238 pages. paperback. Translation of سفاح كازابل.
DESCRIPTION- A serial killer taunts Casablanca's most famous detective, Hanash, in this nail-biting Moroccan noir, a follow-up to Bled Dry. A series of gruesome murders shakes the city of Casablanca. The killer knows exactly how the police will pursue him and how to obliterate evidence that could lead them to identify his victims. Fear spreads throughout the city as rumors abound that a serial killer is on the loose. Detective Hanash, despite his reputation, has hit a dead end. But he knows the killer will make a mistake, and it is up to him and his team to hunt down and capture this brutal criminal. Then comes the most audacious homicide yet: the victim is found on the first day of the Eid holiday, directly outside the police headquarters in the center of town. Is the killer taunting the police and its famous detective? And could this be the crime that contains the clue that Hanash has been waiting for?
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Born in Mekne s, Morocco in 1958, Abdelilah Hamdouchi is one of the first writers of police fiction in Arabic and a prolific, award-winning screenwriter of police thrillers, including Whitefly and The Final Bet. He lives in Rabat, Morocco. Benjamin Smith holds a PhD from Harvard University, and is currently assistant professor of Arabic at Swarthmore College, in the US.
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Hamdouchi, Abdelilah. The Final Bet. Cairo and New York. 2008. American University in Cairo Press. 9789774161506. Translated from the Arabic by Jonathan Smolin. 148 pages. hardcover. Jacket photograph by Maryam Hassan. Jacket design by Andrea El-Akshar. Translation of الرهان الأخي.
DESCRIPTION- Casablanca. Othman, a handsome young Moroccan man, returns home to discover his elderly French wife, Sofia, brutally murdered in their bedroom. Highly educated but chronically unemployed Othman had been in desperate straits before meeting Sofia, who pampered him with fancy cars, expensive clothes, and access to her mansion in the most exclusive neighborhood in Casablanca. But living with a woman more than forty years his senior was too much for Othman - before his wife's murder he sought relief in a steamy affair with an attractive young aerobics instructor, Naeema. The Moroccan Police quickly zero in on Othman as the prime suspect in his wife's murder. But is he guilty? Did he kill his wife for the money and his lover? Or is he an innocent man, framed by circumstance - and an overzealous and brutal police force? Abdelilah Hamdouchi's THE FINAL BET is the first Arabic detective novel to be translated into English. With it, Hamdouchi joins the ranks of Yasmina Khadra and Henning Mankell, finally bringing the modern Arabic novel to the global stage of detective fiction.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - ABDELILAH HAMDOUCHI is one of the first writers of Arabic-language detective fiction. The author of eight novels, Hamdouchi is also an award-winning screenwriter for Moroccan television and cinema. All of his police novels, including THE FINAL BET, have been produced for Moroccan television. He lives in Rabat, Morocco. JONATHAN SMOLIN is an assistant professor of Arabic language and literature at Dartmouth College, U.S.
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Jelloun, Tahar Ben. Silent Day in Tangier. San Diego. 1991. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 0151826315. Translated by David Lobdell. 109 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Greg Shed. Translation of Jour de silence à Tanger.
DESCRIPTION- In Tangier, an old man lies ill in bed, alone and bitter. He remembers his life, and the lives of those who died before him. Moulay Ali, who loved cards so much he wanted touti to be played at his coffin. Touizi, who preferred women to cards and may have been strangled by an angry husband. Or Bachir, who died suddenly during prayer. The old man reflects on his youth in Melilla, where he wooed Spanish women. On the decline of morals and traditions in modern times, what with husbands now taking orders from their wives. On the East Wind, which enters through the gap separating the southern tip of Andalusia and the northern tip of Africa. On the evil of misers and the perfidy of handymen, especially plumbers. On time, the approach of death, his weed-filled garden, the troubles of his country, the medina of Fez, the water-stained, cracked walls of his room, the Koran, and the dresser piled high with medicine he refuses to take. With great sensitivity, Tahar ben Jelloun draws a memorable portrait of a proud man dying in a silent corner of the Arab world.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Tahar ben Jelloun (born in Fes, French Morocco, 1 December 1944) is a Moroccan writer. The entirety of his work is written in French, although his first language is Arabic. After attending a bilingual (Arabic-French) elementary school, Ben Jelloun studied French in Tangier, Morocco, until he was 18 years old. He continued his studies in philosophy at Mohammed V University in Rabat, where he composed his first poems (collected in Hommes sous linceul de silence (1971). After that point, Ben Jelloun worked as a professor in Morocco, teaching philosophy first in TEtouan and then in Casablanca. However, he left Morocco in 1971, after the Arabization of the philosophy department, unable or unwilling to teach in Arabic. He moved to Paris to continue his studies in psychology, and began to write more extensively. Starting in 1972, Ben Jelloun began to write articles and reviews for the French newspaper Le Monde, and in 1975 he received his doctorate in social psychiatry. Using his experience with psychotherapy as both a reference and an inspiration, he wrote the book La REclusion solitaire in 1976. In 1985, Ben Jelloun published the novel L'Enfant de sable, which was widely celebrated. He won the Prix Goncourt in 1987 for his novel La Nuit SacrEe. In 1997, he saw his novel Le Racisme expliquE à ma fille published, wherein he ‘explains racism to his daughter', using his family as inspiration for his novels. He is regularly asked to give speeches and lectures at universities worldwide - both in Morocco, and all over Europe. In 2004, Ben Jelloun was awarded the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for This Blinding Absence of Light (translated from the French by Linda Coverdale). He was rewarded the Prix Ulysse in 2005 for the entirety of his work. In September 2006, Ben Jelloun was awarded a special prize for ‘peace and friendship between people' at Lazio between Europe and the Mediterranean Festival. On 1 February 2008, Nicolas Sarkozy awarded him the Cross of Grand Officer of the LEgion d'honneur. Ben Jelloun is married and father of four children. He lives in Paris. In his novel Leaving Tangier, Ben Jelloun writes about a Moroccan brother and sister who leave their impoverished home in search of better lives in Spain. This novel sheds a cold light on a side of North African life that is often overlooked and at times unimaginable; he is unflinching in his commitment to expose the sacrifice and pain inherent in the struggle to rise above poverty and move within the Western world. Leaving Tangier centres on the paths of Azel and his sister, Kenza, as they seek to reinvent their lives, in Barcelona, and how their paths diverge once they get there. Each sibling's ambition rests in the hands of Miguel, a mysterious wealthy older Spaniard, and a man generous and loving one moment, demanding and cruel the next. Miguel's power lies in what he can offer the siblings - and in what he can take away. His novels L'Enfant de sable and La Nuit sacrEe are translated into 43 languages. Le racisme expliquE à ma fille has been translated into 33 languages. He has participated in translating many of his works.
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Jelloun, Tahar Ben. The Sacred Night. San Diego. 1989. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 0151791503. Translated from the French by Alan Sheridan. 160 pages. hardcover. Jacket photo courtesy of Denis Stock/Magnum. Prix Goncourt (1987). Translation of La Nuit sacrée.
DESCRIPTION- The Sacred Night continues the remarkable story Tahar Ben Jelloun began in The Sand Child. Mohammed Ahmed, a Moroccan girl raised as a boy in order to circumvent Islamic inheritance laws regarding female children, remains deeply conflicted about her identity. In a narrative that shifts in and out of reality moving between a mysterious present and a painful past, Ben Jelloun relates the events of Ahmed's adult life. Now calling herself Zahra, she renounces her role as only son and heir after her father's death and journeys through a dreamlike Moroccan landscape. A searing allegorical portrait of North African society, The Sacred Night uses Arabic fairy tales and surrealist elements to craft a stunning and disturbing vision of protest and rebellion against the strictures of hidebound traditions governing gender roles and sexuality.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Tahar ben Jelloun (born in Fes, French Morocco, 1 December 1944) is a Moroccan writer. The entirety of his work is written in French, although his first language is Arabic. After attending a bilingual (Arabic-French) elementary school, Ben Jelloun studied French in Tangier, Morocco, until he was 18 years old. He continued his studies in philosophy at Mohammed V University in Rabat, where he composed his first poems (collected in Hommes sous linceul de silence (1971). After that point, Ben Jelloun worked as a professor in Morocco, teaching philosophy first in TEtouan and then in Casablanca. However, he left Morocco in 1971, after the Arabization of the philosophy department, unable or unwilling to teach in Arabic. He moved to Paris to continue his studies in psychology, and began to write more extensively. Starting in 1972, Ben Jelloun began to write articles and reviews for the French newspaper Le Monde, and in 1975 he received his doctorate in social psychiatry. Using his experience with psychotherapy as both a reference and an inspiration, he wrote the book La REclusion solitaire in 1976. In 1985, Ben Jelloun published the novel L'Enfant de sable, which was widely celebrated. He won the Prix Goncourt in 1987 for his novel La Nuit SacrEe. In 1997, he saw his novel Le Racisme expliquE à ma fille published, wherein he ‘explains racism to his daughter', using his family as inspiration for his novels. He is regularly asked to give speeches and lectures at universities worldwide - both in Morocco, and all over Europe. In 2004, Ben Jelloun was awarded the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for This Blinding Absence of Light (translated from the French by Linda Coverdale). He was rewarded the Prix Ulysse in 2005 for the entirety of his work. In September 2006, Ben Jelloun was awarded a special prize for ‘peace and friendship between people' at Lazio between Europe and the Mediterranean Festival. On 1 February 2008, Nicolas Sarkozy awarded him the Cross of Grand Officer of the LEgion d'honneur. Ben Jelloun is married and father of four children. He lives in Paris. In his novel Leaving Tangier, Ben Jelloun writes about a Moroccan brother and sister who leave their impoverished home in search of better lives in Spain. This novel sheds a cold light on a side of North African life that is often overlooked and at times unimaginable; he is unflinching in his commitment to expose the sacrifice and pain inherent in the struggle to rise above poverty and move within the Western world. Leaving Tangier centres on the paths of Azel and his sister, Kenza, as they seek to reinvent their lives, in Barcelona, and how their paths diverge once they get there. Each sibling's ambition rests in the hands of Miguel, a mysterious wealthy older Spaniard, and a man generous and loving one moment, demanding and cruel the next. Miguel's power lies in what he can offer the siblings - and in what he can take away. His novels L'Enfant de sable and La Nuit sacrEe are translated into 43 languages. Le racisme expliquE à ma fille has been translated into 33 languages. He has participated in translating many of his works.
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Jelloun, Tahar Ben. The Sand Child. San Diego. 1987. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 0151792879. Translated by Alan Sheridan. 165 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Victor Hugo Zayas. Jacket design by Vaughn Andrews. Translation of L'Enfant de sable.
DESCRIPTION- In this lyrical, hallucinatory novel set in Morocco, Tahar Ben Jelloun offers an imaginative and radical critique of contemporary Arab social customs and Islamic law. The Sand Child tells the story of a Moroccan father's effort to thwart the consequences of Islam's inheritance laws regarding female offspring. Already the father of seven daughters, Hajji Ahmed determines that his eighth child will be a male. Accordingly, the infant, a girl, is named Mohammed Ahmed and raised as a young man with all the privileges granted exclusively to men in traditional Arab-Islamic societies. As she matures, however, Ahmed's desire to have children marks the beginning of her sexual evolution, and as a woman named Zahra, Ahmed begins to explore her true sexual identity. Drawing on the rich Arabic oral tradition, Ben Jelloun relates the extraordinary events of Ahmed's life through a professional storyteller and the listeners who have gathered in a Marrakesh market square in the 1950s to hear his tale. A poetic vision of power, colonialism, and gender in North Africa, The Sand Child has been justifiably celebrated around the world as a daring and significant work of international fiction.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Tahar ben Jelloun (born in Fes, French Morocco, 1 December 1944) is a Moroccan writer. The entirety of his work is written in French, although his first language is Arabic. After attending a bilingual (Arabic-French) elementary school, Ben Jelloun studied French in Tangier, Morocco, until he was 18 years old. He continued his studies in philosophy at Mohammed V University in Rabat, where he composed his first poems (collected in Hommes sous linceul de silence (1971). After that point, Ben Jelloun worked as a professor in Morocco, teaching philosophy first in TEtouan and then in Casablanca. However, he left Morocco in 1971, after the Arabization of the philosophy department, unable or unwilling to teach in Arabic. He moved to Paris to continue his studies in psychology, and began to write more extensively. Starting in 1972, Ben Jelloun began to write articles and reviews for the French newspaper Le Monde, and in 1975 he received his doctorate in social psychiatry. Using his experience with psychotherapy as both a reference and an inspiration, he wrote the book La REclusion solitaire in 1976. In 1985, Ben Jelloun published the novel L'Enfant de sable, which was widely celebrated. He won the Prix Goncourt in 1987 for his novel La Nuit SacrEe. In 1997, he saw his novel Le Racisme expliquE à ma fille published, wherein he ‘explains racism to his daughter', using his family as inspiration for his novels. He is regularly asked to give speeches and lectures at universities worldwide - both in Morocco, and all over Europe. In 2004, Ben Jelloun was awarded the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for This Blinding Absence of Light (translated from the French by Linda Coverdale). He was rewarded the Prix Ulysse in 2005 for the entirety of his work. In September 2006, Ben Jelloun was awarded a special prize for ‘peace and friendship between people' at Lazio between Europe and the Mediterranean Festival. On 1 February 2008, Nicolas Sarkozy awarded him the Cross of Grand Officer of the LEgion d'honneur. Ben Jelloun is married and father of four children. He lives in Paris. In his novel Leaving Tangier, Ben Jelloun writes about a Moroccan brother and sister who leave their impoverished home in search of better lives in Spain. This novel sheds a cold light on a side of North African life that is often overlooked and at times unimaginable; he is unflinching in his commitment to expose the sacrifice and pain inherent in the struggle to rise above poverty and move within the Western world. Leaving Tangier centres on the paths of Azel and his sister, Kenza, as they seek to reinvent their lives, in Barcelona, and how their paths diverge once they get there. Each sibling's ambition rests in the hands of Miguel, a mysterious wealthy older Spaniard, and a man generous and loving one moment, demanding and cruel the next. Miguel's power lies in what he can offer the siblings - and in what he can take away. His novels L'Enfant de sable and La Nuit sacrEe are translated into 43 languages. Le racisme expliquE à ma fille has been translated into 33 languages. He has participated in translating many of his works.
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Jelloun, Tahar Ben. With Downcast Eyes. Boston. 1993. Little Brown. 0316460591. Translated by Joachim Neugroschel. 249 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Steve Snider. French-American Foundation Translation Prize for Fiction (1994). Translation of Les Yeux baissés.
DESCRIPTION- Hailed internationally as the acclaimed North African novelist Tahar Ben Jelloun's finest work to date, With Downcast Eyes recounts the powerful story of a young Moroccan girl's confrontation with the twin challenges of exile and immigration. Jelloun's young heroine, who with her family has fled from an impoverished Berber village to the extravagant city of Paris, finds herself disoriented, torn between the sophistication of an unfamiliar society and the vibrant, mystical culture that is her true spiritual inheritance. Born under the weight of a great and chilling prophecy - that the salvation of her Berber community depends on her alone - and raised in a credulous, intransigent world of responsibility and honor, she decides to leave Paris at last and return to North Africa to fulfill her destiny. Tahar Ben Jelloun's tale, written in fluid, lyrical prose and set against the majestic backdrop of North Africa and Europe, is at once an unforgettable account of the trials of deracination and a stirring tribute to the meaning of heritage and home.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Tahar ben Jelloun (born in Fes, French Morocco, 1 December 1944) is a Moroccan writer. The entirety of his work is written in French, although his first language is Arabic. After attending a bilingual (Arabic-French) elementary school, Ben Jelloun studied French in Tangier, Morocco, until he was 18 years old. He continued his studies in philosophy at Mohammed V University in Rabat, where he composed his first poems (collected in Hommes sous linceul de silence (1971). After that point, Ben Jelloun worked as a professor in Morocco, teaching philosophy first in TEtouan and then in Casablanca. However, he left Morocco in 1971, after the Arabization of the philosophy department, unable or unwilling to teach in Arabic. He moved to Paris to continue his studies in psychology, and began to write more extensively. Starting in 1972, Ben Jelloun began to write articles and reviews for the French newspaper Le Monde, and in 1975 he received his doctorate in social psychiatry. Using his experience with psychotherapy as both a reference and an inspiration, he wrote the book La REclusion solitaire in 1976. In 1985, Ben Jelloun published the novel L'Enfant de sable, which was widely celebrated. He won the Prix Goncourt in 1987 for his novel La Nuit SacrEe. In 1997, he saw his novel Le Racisme expliquE à ma fille published, wherein he ‘explains racism to his daughter', using his family as inspiration for his novels. He is regularly asked to give speeches and lectures at universities worldwide - both in Morocco, and all over Europe. In 2004, Ben Jelloun was awarded the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for This Blinding Absence of Light (translated from the French by Linda Coverdale). He was rewarded the Prix Ulysse in 2005 for the entirety of his work. In September 2006, Ben Jelloun was awarded a special prize for ‘peace and friendship between people' at Lazio between Europe and the Mediterranean Festival. On 1 February 2008, Nicolas Sarkozy awarded him the Cross of Grand Officer of the LEgion d'honneur. Ben Jelloun is married and father of four children. He lives in Paris. In his novel Leaving Tangier, Ben Jelloun writes about a Moroccan brother and sister who leave their impoverished home in search of better lives in Spain. This novel sheds a cold light on a side of North African life that is often overlooked and at times unimaginable; he is unflinching in his commitment to expose the sacrifice and pain inherent in the struggle to rise above poverty and move within the Western world. Leaving Tangier centres on the paths of Azel and his sister, Kenza, as they seek to reinvent their lives, in Barcelona, and how their paths diverge once they get there. Each sibling's ambition rests in the hands of Miguel, a mysterious wealthy older Spaniard, and a man generous and loving one moment, demanding and cruel the next. Miguel's power lies in what he can offer the siblings - and in what he can take away. His novels L'Enfant de sable and La Nuit sacrEe are translated into 43 languages. Le racisme expliquE à ma fille has been translated into 33 languages. He has participated in translating many of his works.
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Khatibi, Abdelkéir. Class Warrior—Taoist Style. Middletown. 2017. Wesleyan University Press. 9780819577528. Wesleyan Poetry Series. Translated by Matt Reeck. 6 x 8. 72 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Abdelkébir Khatibi (1938-2009) is one of the most important writers and thinkers to emerge from North Africa in the second half of the twentieth century. Though not widely known beyond the Francophone world, Khatibi's critical and creative works speak to the central concerns of postcolonial and postmodern life. Offered here in English for the first time, his long poem from 1976, Le lutteur de classe à la manière taoïste is a wildly inventive, transgressive, and important text. Class Warrior delivers a kind of free-verse Marxist handbook, written with the energy, movement, and style of a highly idiosyncratic Taoism. Matt Reeck's compelling translation captures the stylistic and thematic beats of Khatibi's verse, rendering the deceptively simple language of the original without losing its extraordinary layers and complexities. The introduction provides biographical context and an overview of Khatibi's poetics of the orphan, a subject position that seeks to avoid authenticating notions of origins and that is also constantly restless and forever questing. This is a rich text for contemporary readers of poetry, as well as scholars of postcolonial theory.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Abdelkébir Khatibi (1938–2009) is considered one of the most prominent writers of postcolonial Francophone literature from North Africa. As a translator, Matt Reeck has published Mirages of the Mind from the Urdu of Mushtaq Ahmed Yousufi and won grants from the Fulbright Foundation, the NEA, and the PEN/Heim Fund.
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Laabi, Abdellatif. Rue Du Retour. Columbia. 1989. Readers International. 0930523644. Translated from the French by Jacqueline Kaye. 200 pages. hardcover. Translation of Rue Du Retour.
DESCRIPTION- RUE DU RETOUR is about a poet's return - to home and family, to himself, and to the eternal values of love and hope. Abdellatif Laabi spent eight years in a Moroccan prison for "crimes of opinion". This poetic and lyrical memoir is a record of the comradeship he found there, but also much more. It is the writer's contemplation on solitude itself as well as his rediscovery of passion on his unexpected return to family and friends. Rue du Retour is about a poet's return -- to home and family, to himself, and to the eternal values of love and hope. These human values are at the core of his moving and poignant story -- the testimony of a remarkable man of conscience speaking to "those who can still hear the cry of man".
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Poet, novelist, playwright, and essayist Abdellatif Laabi is one of the most prolific and critically acclaimed of contemporary North African writers. He was born in 1942 in Fes (Morocco). In 1966 he founded the magazine Souffles which would play an important role in the renewal of Moroccan cultural life. He created the publishing house Atlantes and also the Association de Recherche Culturelle - the activities of which did not please the Moroccan government of the time. Abdellatif Laabi was arrested and spent eight years in jail from 1972 to 1980. He settled in France in 1985. He has published Le Soleil se Meurt in 1992, L'Etreinte du Monde in 1993 and Le Spleen de Casablanca in 1996. His novel, RUE DU RETOUR, has been translated into English and published by Readers International. In 1999 he was awarded the Fonlon Nichols Prize by the African Literature Association and the Wallonie-Bruxelles poetry prize. THE WORLD'S EMBRACE: THE SELECTED POEMS OF ABDELLATIF LAABI (City Lights Books, 2003) consists of poems selected by Laabi from three books published in French over the past ten years. A novel, Le Fond de la Jarre, was published by Gallimard in 2002. THE WORLD'S EMBRACE from City Lights, is his latest book in English.
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Laabi, Abdellatif. The Bottom of the Jar. 2013. Archipelago Books. 9781935744603. Translated by André Naffis-Sahely. 220 pages. paperback. Translation of Le fond de la jarre.
DESCRIPTION- The Bottom of the Jar is the journey of a boy finding his footing in the heart of Fez during the 1950s, as Morocco began freeing itself from the grip of the French colonial occupation. The narrator vividly recalls his first encounters with the ebullient city, family dramas, and the joys and turbulence of his childhood. He recalls a renegade, hashish-loving uncle, who at nightfall transforms into a beloved Homer, his salt-of-the-earth mother's impassioned pleas to a Divine ear, and his father's enduring generosity. Told in the spirit of a late-night ramble among friends where hilarious anecdotes and poignant recollections flow in equal parts, Laâbi's autobiographical novel offers us a generous glimpse into the formative experiences of a great poet, whose integrity and commitment to social justice earned him an eight-and-a-half year prison sentence during Morocco's "year of lead" in The 1970s.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Abdellatif Laâbi (born 1942) is a Moroccan poet, journalist, novelist, playwright, translator and political activist. Laâbi, then teaching French, founded with other poets the artistic journal Souffles, an important literary review in 1966. It was considered as a meeting point of some poets who felt the emergency of a poetic stand and revival, but which, very quickly, crystallized all Moroccan creative energies: painters, film-makers, men of theatre, researchers and thinkers. It was banned in 1972, but throughout its short life, it opened up to cultures from other countries of the Maghreb and those of the Third World. Abdellatif Laâbi was imprisoned, tortured and sentenced to ten years in prison for "crimes of opinion" (for his political beliefs and his writings) and served a sentence from 1972 to 1980. He was, in 1985, forced into exile in France. The political beliefs that were judged criminal are reflected in the following comment, for example: "Everything which the Arab reality offers that is generous, open and creative is crushed by regimes whose only anxiety is to perpetuate their own power and self-serving interest. And what is often worse is to see that the West remains insensitive to the daily tragedy while at the same time accommodating, not to say supporting, the ruling classes who strangle the free will and aspirations of their people."
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Laroui, Fouad. The Curious Case of DassoukineÕs Trousers. Dallas. 2016. Deep Vellum Publishing. 9781941920268. Translated by Emma Ramadan. Introduction by Laila Lalami. 120 pages. paperback. Translation of L'étrange affaire du pantalon de Dassoukine.
DESCRIPTION- This long-awaited English-language debut from Morocco's most prominent contemporary writer won the Prix Gouncourt de Nouvelles, France's most prestigious literary award, for best story collection. Laroui uses surrealism, laugh-out-loud humor, and profound compassion across a variety of literary styles to highlight the absurdity of the human condition, exploring the realities of life in a world where everything is foreign.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Fouad Laroui has published over twenty novels and collections of short stories, poetry, and essays. Laroui teaches econometrics and environmental science at the University of Amsterdam, and lives between Amsterdam, Paris, and Casablanca.
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Layid, Moha. The Sacrifice of Black Cows: A Novel from Morocco. Modern Language Association. 9781603296656. MLA Texts and Translations. Edited and translated by Paul A. Silverstein. 308 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- An oasis community in Morocco hopes to stop a devastating drought by sacrificing black cows to satisfy the spirits. But the wise elder Bassou secretly plans a different solution: to sabotage the motorized pumps that have lowered the water table and nearly destroyed the subsistence farming and herding that support the local way of life. The young newlywed Yidir agrees to help him and eventually becomes a part of the broader fight for Moroccan independence from French colonial rule. Portraying an indigenous community undergoing radical change, The Sacrifice of Black Cows reflects on notions of modernity and tradition, science and spirituality, free will and fate, and considers the moral obligations of individuals and community. First published in French in 1992, the novel received international acclaim and is regarded as the single best work about Amazigh culture in southeastern Morocco. It was adapted into the award-winning film Atash (Thirst) by the Moroccan director Saâd Chraïbi in 2000. Here, it is presented in a riveting new translation by Paul A. Silverstein.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Moha Layid (1945–96) was a novelist, military officer, and legal scholar. Born in the Gardmit qsar near Tinejdad in southeastern Morocco, Layid left home at seventeen and became a schoolteacher in Tetouan. Later he became a decorated military officer in the Moroccan Royal Guard and Royal Moroccan Gendarmerie, and he served in the cabinet of King Mohammed VI when he was crown prince. Layid received advanced degrees in military law from the Université Mohammed V de Rabat and the Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas and was named a chevalier of the Order of the Throne by King Hassan II in 1989.
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Martin, Florence. Screens and Veils: Maghrebi Women's Cinema. Bloomington. 2011. Indiana University Press. 9780253223418. 6 x 9. 25 b&w illus. New Directions in National Cinemas. 288 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Examined within their economic, cultural, and political context, the work of women Maghrebi filmmakers forms a cohesive body of work. Florence Martin examines the intersections of nation and gender in seven films, showing how directors turn around the politics of the gaze as they play with the various meanings of the Arabic term hijab (veil, curtain, screen). Martin analyzes these films on their own theoretical terms, developing the notion of “transvergence” to examine how Maghrebi women’s cinema is flexible, playful, and transgressive in its themes, aesthetics, narratives, and modes of address. These are distinctive films that traverse multiple cultures, both borrowing from and resisting the discourses these cultures propose.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Florence Martin is Professor of French and Francophone Literature and Cinema at Goucher College and Associate Editor of Studies in French Cinema. She is author of Bessie Smith, of De la Guyane à la diaspora africaine (with Isabelle Favre), and of A vous de voir! (with Maryse Fauvel and Stéphanie Martin).
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Mernissi, Fatima. Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood. Reading. 1994. Addison Wesley. 0201626497. Photography by Ruth V. Ward. 242 pages. paperback. Cover: Ruth V. Ward.
DESCRIPTION- 'I was born in a harem in 1940 in Fez, Morocco. ' So begins Fatima Mernissi in this exotic and rich narrative. With a magical tale-spinner's words, this world-renowned scholar, one of the most eloquent voices of feminism in the Muslim world, weaves her own memories with dreams and fantasies of the women who surrounded her in the courtyard of her childhood. It is the magic of recreating a world of one's own, navigating beyond the frontiers, that Mernissi describes with great wit and color. In a book as evocative as anything found in A Thousand and One Nights, she writes of the politics of seduction and the harem as metaphor. Peopled with marvelous, wise, and funny women-all individualists-Dreams of Trespass is a provocative book whose rewards go far. In a book as evocative as anything found in A Thousand and One Nights, Mernissi, who was born in a harem in 1940 in Morocco, writes with great wit and color of the politics of seductions, of the harem as a metaphor, and of the world beyond--every woman's inaccessible obsession.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Fatema Mernissi (27 September 1940 - 30 November 2015) was a Moroccan feminist writer and sociologist. Fatema Mernissi was born in Fez, Morocco. She grew up in the harem of her affluent paternal grandmother along with various female kin and servants. She received her primary education in a school established by the nationalist movement, and secondary level education in an all-girls school funded by the French protectorate. In 1957, she studied political science at the Sorbonne and at Brandeis University, gaining her doctorate there. She returned to work at the Mohammed V University and taught at the FacultE des Lettres between 1974 and 1981 on subjects such as methodology, family sociology and psychosociology. She became known internationally mainly as an Islamic feminist. Mernissi was a lecturer at the Mohammed V University of Rabat and a research scholar at the University Institute for Scientific Research, in the same city. She died in Rabat on 30 November 2015. As an Islamic feminist, Mernissi was largely concerned with Islam and women's roles in it, analyzing the historical development of Islamic thought and its modern manifestation. Through a detailed investigation of the nature of the succession to Muhammad, she cast doubt on the validity of some of the hadith (sayings and traditions attributed to him), and therefore the subordination of women that she sees in Islam, but not necessarily in the Qur'an. She wrote extensively about life within harems, gender, and public and private spheres. As a sociologist, Mernissi mainly did field work in Morocco. On several occasions in the late 1970s and early 1980s, she conducted interviews in order to map prevailing attitudes to women and work. She did sociological research for UNESCO and ILO as well as for the Moroccan authorities. In the same period, Mernissi contributed articles to periodicals and other publications on women in Morocco and women and Islam from a contemporary as well as from a historical perspective. Her work has been cited as an inspiration by other Muslim feminists, such as those who founded Musawah. In 2003, Mernissi was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award along with Susan Sontag. In 2004 she was awarded the Erasmus Prize, alongside Sadik Al-Asm and Abdolkarim Soroush. Mernissi's first monograph, Beyond the Veil, was published in 1975. A revised edition was published in Britain in 1985 and in the US in 1987. Beyond the Veil has become a classic, especially in the fields of anthropology and sociology on women in the Arab World, the Mediterranean area or Muslim societies in general. Her most famous book, as an Islamic feminist, The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Islam, is a quasi-historical study of role of the wives of Muhammad. It was first published in French in 1987, and translated into English in 1991. The book was banned in Morocco, Iran, and Arab states of the Persian Gulf. For Doing Daily Battle: Interviews with Moroccan Women (1991), she interviewed peasant women, women labourers, clairvoyants and maidservants. In 1994, Mernissi published a memoir, Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood (in the US, the book was originally titled The Harem Within: Tales of a Moroccan Girlhood, and is still known by that title in the UK). She contributed the piece "The merchant's daughter and the son of the sultan" to the anthology Sisterhood Is Global: The International Women's Movement Anthology (1984), edited by Robin Morgan.
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Mrabet, Mohammed (Taped & Translated From The Moghrebi by Paul Bowles). Sparrow 37: Hadidan Aharam. Los Angeles. 1975. Black Sparrow Press. Taped & Translated from the Moghrebi by Paul Bowles. unpaginated. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Sparrow appeared monthly. It printed poetry, fiction, essays, criticism, commentaries and reviews. Each issue presents the work of a single author.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mohammed Mrabet (real name Mohammed ben Chaib el Hajjem), born on March 8, 1936, is a Moroccan author artist and storyteller of Berber heritage from the Beni Ouraaghil tribe in the Rifian Mountains. Mrabet is mostly known in the West through his association with Paul Bowles, William Burroughs and Tennessee Williams. Mrabet is an artist of intricate, yet colorful, felt tip and ink drawings in the style of Paul Masson or a more depressive, horror-show Jean Miro, which have been shown at various galleries in Europe and America. Mrabet's art work is his own: very loud and intricate, yet comparable with that of his contemporary, Jillali Gharbaoui (1930-1971). Mrabet is increasingly being recognized as an important member of a small group of Moroccan Master Painters who emerged in the immediate post Colonial period and his works have become highly sought after, mostly by European collectors.
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Mrabet, Mohammed. Beach Cafe and the Voice. Santa Barbara. 1980. Black Sparrow Press. 0876854072. Taped and Translated from the Moghrebi by Paul Bowles. 91 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Two short works of fiction by Mrabet translated from the Moghrebi by Paul Bowles. In the first story, Fuad learns from Driss what real friendship is; in the second, Mseud hears a voice that guides him through life.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mohammed Mrabet (real name Mohammed ben Chaib el Hajjem), born on March 8, 1936, is a Moroccan author artist and storyteller of Berber heritage from the Beni Ouraaghil tribe in the Rifian Mountains. Mrabet is mostly known in the West through his association with Paul Bowles, William Burroughs and Tennessee Williams. Mrabet is an artist of intricate, yet colorful, felt tip and ink drawings in the style of Paul Masson or a more depressive, horror-show Jean Miro, which have been shown at various galleries in Europe and America. Mrabet's art work is his own: very loud and intricate, yet comparable with that of his contemporary, Jillali Gharbaoui (1930-1971). Mrabet is increasingly being recognized as an important member of a small group of Moroccan Master Painters who emerged in the immediate post Colonial period and his works have become highly sought after, mostly by European collectors.
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Mrabet, Mohammed. Chocolate Creams and Dollars. New York. 1992. Inanout Press. 096251196x. Illustrated by Philip Taaffe. Translated from the Arabic by Paul Bowles. 186 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- In 1965 Mrabet, a Moroccan, met Bowles in Tangier; the American writer and composer began taping Mrabet's stories and translating them from Moghrebi into English. This loosely autobiographical and dreamlike work, written in the mid-'70s, centers on a young Moroccan named Driss who uses his position as houseboy to an affluent Englishman to amass a small fortune. Driss cheats his employer and the houseguests at every turn; a prudent money manager and born entrepreneur, he buys a fleet of fishing boats and gradually rises to village prominence despite the townfolks' suspicions that his wealth comes from prostitution. Drug-inspired sexual acts abound, but the narrative is deliberately bloodless and melancholic. At once beautifully atmospheric and disturbingly flat, this arresting, almost hallucinatory novel gains additional power through Taaffe's haunting prints and photographs. - PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mohammed Mrabet (real name Mohammed ben Chaib el Hajjem), born on March 8, 1936, is a Moroccan author artist and storyteller of Berber heritage from the Beni Ouraaghil tribe in the Rifian Mountains. Mrabet is mostly known in the West through his association with Paul Bowles, William Burroughs and Tennessee Williams. Mrabet is an artist of intricate, yet colorful, felt tip and ink drawings in the style of Paul Masson or a more depressive, horror-show Jean Miro, which have been shown at various galleries in Europe and America. Mrabet's art work is his own: very loud and intricate, yet comparable with that of his contemporary, Jillali Gharbaoui (1930-1971). Mrabet is increasingly being recognized as an important member of a small group of Moroccan Master Painters who emerged in the immediate post Colonial period and his works have become highly sought after, mostly by European collectors.
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Mrabet, Mohammed. Harmless Poisons, Blameless Sins. Santa Barbara. 1976. Black Sparrow Press. 0876852746. Taped and Translated from the Moghrebi by Paul Bowles. 105 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- During his childhood Mrabet listened to traditional story tellers in Tangier´s cafes - a world that fascinated him. Later on he would invent his own stories, and Paul Bowles taped and transcribed his stories. Mrabet´s first novel Love with a Few Hairs was published 1967 in London by Peter Owen, followed two years later with The Lemon. Since then, seventeen books written by Mohammed Mrabet have been published and his works have been translated into twelve languages. Henry Miller wrote: ‘Mrabet sees what it means to work simply and tellingly. His writing is quite unique and an inspiration not only to young writers but to veterans too. He has found the secret of communicating on all levels.' The language of Mrabet is a maze like the thousand alleys of the Medina - seductive, but dangerous - without a guide one is lost in suggestions and allusions. His culture does not lend itself to our limited rational thought - the only way is by feeling into it, not thinking.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mohammed Mrabet (real name Mohammed ben Chaib el Hajjem), born on March 8, 1936, is a Moroccan author artist and storyteller of Berber heritage from the Beni Ouraaghil tribe in the Rifian Mountains. Mrabet is mostly known in the West through his association with Paul Bowles, William Burroughs and Tennessee Williams. Mrabet is an artist of intricate, yet colorful, felt tip and ink drawings in the style of Paul Masson or a more depressive, horror-show Jean Miro, which have been shown at various galleries in Europe and America. Mrabet's art work is his own: very loud and intricate, yet comparable with that of his contemporary, Jillali Gharbaoui (1930-1971). Mrabet is increasingly being recognized as an important member of a small group of Moroccan Master Painters who emerged in the immediate post Colonial period and his works have become highly sought after, mostly by European collectors.
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Mrabet, Mohammed. Look and Move On. Santa Barbara. 1976. Black Sparrow Press. 0876852568. Translated by Paul Bowles. 129 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Taped and translated from the Moghrebi by Paul Bowles. Recounts incidents from Mrabet's youth on the streets of Tangier. Starting with the author's adventures as a poor Moroccan boy later taken to the USA by a besotted couple, this culminates in an account of Mrabet's life in the household of Jane and Paul Bowles. With Paul, who is himself one of America's most important contemporary writers, he meets such writers as Tennessee Williams and Christopher Isherwood. As well as being a talented artist, Mrabet has written a number of books with Bowles, which have been published in the U.K., the U.S., and elsewhere.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mohammed Mrabet (real name Mohammed ben Chaib el Hajjem), born on March 8, 1936, is a Moroccan author artist and storyteller of Berber heritage from the Beni Ouraaghil tribe in the Rifian Mountains. Mrabet is mostly known in the West through his association with Paul Bowles, William Burroughs and Tennessee Williams. Mrabet is an artist of intricate, yet colorful, felt tip and ink drawings in the style of Paul Masson or a more depressive, horror-show Jean Miro, which have been shown at various galleries in Europe and America. Mrabet's art work is his own: very loud and intricate, yet comparable with that of his contemporary, Jillali Gharbaoui (1930-1971). Mrabet is increasingly being recognized as an important member of a small group of Moroccan Master Painters who emerged in the immediate post Colonial period and his works have become highly sought after, mostly by European collectors.
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Mrabet, Mohammed. Love With a Few Hairs. New York. 1968. George Braziller. Translated from the Arabic by Paul Bowles. 198 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Keith Cunningham.
DESCRIPTION- A story recounted by Mohammed Mrabet of Tangier to Paul Bowles, The novel tells the story of a young Moroccan who has been having a homosexual affair with a European, Mr. David. However, he suddently starts to make frequent visits to his home again, after noticing that a neighbor's beautiful daughter watches him from her window. He succeeds in seducing the girl with the aid of herbs, and is then forced into marriage by her family. Eventually realizing that she has been tricked, the girl deserts him, and leaves Tangier.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mohammed Mrabet (real name Mohammed ben Chaib el Hajjem), born on March 8, 1936, is a Moroccan author artist and storyteller of Berber heritage from the Beni Ouraaghil tribe in the Rifian Mountains. Mrabet is mostly known in the West through his association with Paul Bowles, William Burroughs and Tennessee Williams. Mrabet is an artist of intricate, yet colorful, felt tip and ink drawings in the style of Paul Masson or a more depressive, horror-show Jean Miro, which have been shown at various galleries in Europe and America. Mrabet's art work is his own: very loud and intricate, yet comparable with that of his contemporary, Jillali Gharbaoui (1930-1971). Mrabet is increasingly being recognized as an important member of a small group of Moroccan Master Painters who emerged in the immediate post Colonial period and his works have become highly sought after, mostly by European collectors.
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Mrabet, Mohammed. Marriage With Papers. Bolinas. 1986. Tombouctou Books. 0939180324. Translated by Paul Bowles. 79 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Two stories translated by Paul Bowles. Love and the love of money do battle on the page in Mohammed Mrabet's new book, MARRIAGE WITH PAPERS. In the title novella, sanity and a marriage are at stake. In the companion story, CHICO, friendship leads to treachery and bloodshed. The settings are contemporary, urban and Moroccan. What happens might take place on any street.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mohammed Mrabet (real name Mohammed ben Chaib el Hajjem), born on March 8, 1936, is a Moroccan author artist and storyteller of Berber heritage from the Beni Ouraaghil tribe in the Rifian Mountains. Mrabet is mostly known in the West through his association with Paul Bowles, William Burroughs and Tennessee Williams. Mrabet is an artist of intricate, yet colorful, felt tip and ink drawings in the style of Paul Masson or a more depressive, horror-show Jean Miro, which have been shown at various galleries in Europe and America. Mrabet's art work is his own: very loud and intricate, yet comparable with that of his contemporary, Jillali Gharbaoui (1930-1971). Mrabet is increasingly being recognized as an important member of a small group of Moroccan Master Painters who emerged in the immediate post Colonial period and his works have become highly sought after, mostly by European collectors.
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Mrabet, Mohammed. M'Hashish. San Francisco. 1969. City Lights Books. Translated from the Moghrebi by Paul Bowles. 56 pages. paperback. The portrait of Mohammed Mrabet on the cover is from a photograph by Terence Spencer.
DESCRIPTION- ‘Ah, said Hassan, I don't believe in the world. There's another world where life is different.' These are stories of that world. The word m'hashish (equivalent in Moghrebi of ‘behashished' or ‘full of hashish') is used not only in a literal sense, but also figuratively, to describe a person whose behaviour seems irrational or unexpected. The tales here deal with some of the possible results, desirable and questionable, of being in that state. Other stories by Mohammed Mrabet have appeared in The Transatlantic Review and The Great Society; he has published two novels, LOVE WITH A FEW HAIRS and THE LEMON, both taped and translated by Paul Bowles.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mohammed Mrabet (real name Mohammed ben Chaib el Hajjem), born on March 8, 1936, is a Moroccan author artist and storyteller of Berber heritage from the Beni Ouraaghil tribe in the Rifian Mountains. Mrabet is mostly known in the West through his association with Paul Bowles, William Burroughs and Tennessee Williams. Mrabet is an artist of intricate, yet colorful, felt tip and ink drawings in the style of Paul Masson or a more depressive, horror-show Jean Miro, which have been shown at various galleries in Europe and America. Mrabet's art work is his own: very loud and intricate, yet comparable with that of his contemporary, Jillali Gharbaoui (1930-1971). Mrabet is increasingly being recognized as an important member of a small group of Moroccan Master Painters who emerged in the immediate post Colonial period and his works have become highly sought after, mostly by European collectors.
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Mrabet, Mohammed. The Big Mirror. Santa Barbara. 1977. Black Sparrow Press. 0876853696. Taped and Translated from the Moghrebi by Paul Bowles. 81 pages. hardcover. Translation of The Big Mirror (المرآة الكبيرة).
DESCRIPTION- A collaboration between Paul Bowles, who taped and then translated these stories of Tangier from the Moghrebi, and Moroccan author Mohammed Mrabet.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mohammed Mrabet (real name Mohammed ben Chaib el Hajjem), born on March 8, 1936, is a Moroccan author artist and storyteller of Berber heritage from the Beni Ouraaghil tribe in the Rifian Mountains. Mrabet is mostly known in the West through his association with Paul Bowles, William Burroughs and Tennessee Williams. Mrabet is an artist of intricate, yet colorful, felt tip and ink drawings in the style of Paul Masson or a more depressive, horror-show Jean Miro, which have been shown at various galleries in Europe and America. Mrabet's art work is his own: very loud and intricate, yet comparable with that of his contemporary, Jillali Gharbaoui (1930-1971). Mrabet is increasingly being recognized as an important member of a small group of Moroccan Master Painters who emerged in the immediate post Colonial period and his works have become highly sought after, mostly by European collectors.
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Mrabet, Mohammed. The Chest. Bolinas. 1983. Tombouctou Books. 0939180219. Translated from the Arabic by Paul Bowles. 98 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- This book of stories takes us into the heart of a timeless Islam. Each story presupposes the existence of a world where magic is a part of daily life. Much of Mrabet's work has been translated by his friend and fellow resident of Tangiers, the noted writer Paul Bowles.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mohammed Mrabet (real name Mohammed ben Chaib el Hajjem), born on March 8, 1936, is a Moroccan author artist and storyteller of Berber heritage from the Beni Ouraaghil tribe in the Rifian Mountains. Mrabet is mostly known in the West through his association with Paul Bowles, William Burroughs and Tennessee Williams. Mrabet is an artist of intricate, yet colorful, felt tip and ink drawings in the style of Paul Masson or a more depressive, horror-show Jean Miro, which have been shown at various galleries in Europe and America. Mrabet's art work is his own: very loud and intricate, yet comparable with that of his contemporary, Jillali Gharbaoui (1930-1971). Mrabet is increasingly being recognized as an important member of a small group of Moroccan Master Painters who emerged in the immediate post Colonial period and his works have become highly sought after, mostly by European collectors.
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Mrabet, Mohammed. The Lemon. New York. 1972. McGraw Hill. 0070737436. Translated from the Arabic by Paul Bowles. 181 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- This powerful and shocking narrative recounts the adventures of Abdeslam, a precocious twelve-year-old Moroccan boy who runs away from his home in the Rif Mountains to Tangier. There he struggles to retain his childlike innocence and native pride while striving to support himself in the corrupt and decadent international port. He takes up with a longshoreman and soon meets a rogue's gallery of friends, mostly hustlers and down-and-outers. With his characteristic brilliance and streetwise charm, Mrabet develops the novel's ambiguous theme of the necessity of violence to retain one's innocence.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mohammed Mrabet (real name Mohammed ben Chaib el Hajjem), born on March 8, 1936, is a Moroccan author artist and storyteller of Berber heritage from the Beni Ouraaghil tribe in the Rifian Mountains. Mrabet is mostly known in the West through his association with Paul Bowles, William Burroughs and Tennessee Williams. Mrabet is an artist of intricate, yet colorful, felt tip and ink drawings in the style of Paul Masson or a more depressive, horror-show Jean Miro, which have been shown at various galleries in Europe and America. Mrabet's art work is his own: very loud and intricate, yet comparable with that of his contemporary, Jillali Gharbaoui (1930-1971). Mrabet is increasingly being recognized as an important member of a small group of Moroccan Master Painters who emerged in the immediate post Colonial period and his works have become highly sought after, mostly by European collectors.
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Najmi, Hassan. The Blueness of the Evening: Selected Poems of Hassan Najmi. Fayetteville. 2018. University of Arkansas Press. 9781682260500. Translated by Mbarek Sryfi and Eric Sellin. 70 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- This selection of Hassan Najmi's poems, translated by Mbarek Sryfi and Eric Sellin, provides an excellent introduction to the work of one of Morocco's foremost poets and to a school of modern verse emerging in the Arab World. Scenes of late night cityscapes, lonely interiors, awe-inspiring desert wastes, and seaside vistas are found within the exquisitely subtle lyric moods and nuances of Najmi's ars poetica, providing insight into the geographical, political, and linguistic ferment that have made Morocco an exciting hub of creative activity in the twenty-first century.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Hassan Najmi, born in Ben Ahmed in 1960, now resides in Rabat. He is the author of two novels and ten poetry collections. His poetry has been translated into more than ten languages and he has himself translated many poets into Arabic, including Giuseppe Ungaretti, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, Philippe Jaccottet, Yannis Ritsos, and Anna Akhmatova. Mbarek Sryfi, a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania, has translated fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, including three books, two from Arabic and one from French. Eric Sellin, professor emeritus at Tulane University, is the author or editor of nine books of poetry written in English and French and many translations published in anthologies and journals. Since his retirement from teaching in 2001, Sellin has been translating poetry and writing essays on the art and theory of translation.
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Orlando, Valerie K. Screening Morocco: Contemporary Film in a Changing Society. Athens. Ohio University Press. 9780896802810. 208 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Since 1999 and the death of King Hassan II, Morocco has experienced a dramatic social transformation. Encouraged by the more openly democratic climate fostered by young King Mohammed VI, filmmakers have begun to explore the sociocultural and political debates of their country while also seeking to document the untold stories of a dark past. Screening Morocco: Contemporary Film in a Changing Society focuses on Moroccan films produced and distributed from 1999 to the present. Moroccan cinema serves as an all-inclusive medium that provides a sounding board for a society that is remaking itself. Male and female directors present the face of an engaged, multiethnic and multilingual society. Their cinematography promotes a country that is dynamic and connected to the global sociocultural economy of the twenty-first century. At the same time, they seek to represent the closed, obscure past of a nation's history that has rarely been told, drawing on themes such as human rights abuse, the former incarceration of thousands during the Lead Years, women's emancipation, poverty, and claims for social justice. Screening Morocco will introduce American readers to the richness in theme and scope of the cinematic production of Morocco.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Valérie K. Orlando is professor of French and Francophone Literatures in the Department of French and Italian at the University of Maryland, College Park.
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Rose, Martin (editor). A Morocco Anthology: Travel Writing through the Centuries. Cairo. 2018. The American University in Cairo Press. 9789774168468. Edited by Martin Rose. 20 b/w illustrations. 160 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Morocco is a country that has been much invaded, much traveled though, and much written about in many languages. Positioned at the entrance to Africa-or the entrance to Europe-it has seen deep cultural cross-fertilization and the emergence of a very distinct culture at the threshold of two worlds. Its history is exciting and colorful; its ancient cities extraordinary in their preservation; and its people magnetic. It has drawn travelers and writers for many centuries, and continues to do so today, with the result that there exists a rich seam of
DESCRIPTIONand sometimes quizzical (but generally very fond) appreciation, which Martin Rose, a long-time resident of the country, has been able to mine for this fascinating anthology. Contributors: Ali Bey el-Abassi, E. Ashmead-Bartlett, Robert Cunninghame Graham, Walter Harris, Budgett Meakin, Louis Mercier, Charles Payton, Samuel Pepys, James Richardson, Mrs. Routh, Edvard Westermarck, Edith Wharton.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Martin Rose was director of the British Council in Morocco until 2014, traveled widely, and wrote regularly about the country in his blog Mercurius Maghrebensis. His British Council career also took him to Baghdad, Rome, Brussels, and Ottawa, and he is now retired to Saffron Walden in Essex. He is a visiting fellow at the Alwaleed bin Talal Centre for Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge.
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Serhane, Abdelhak. Messaouda. Manchester. 1986. Carcanet. 085635550x. Translated Frim The French by Mark Thompson. 155 pages. hardcover. Translation of Messaouda.
DESCRIPTION- A boy's unflinching account of growing up in the middle Atlas mountains in the 1950's.The book gives a convincing picture of life inside a Muslim family.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Abdelhak Serhane (b. 1950) is a Moroccan Berber recorder of the bleakness of life in Azrou under French colonialism and after independence. In two outstanding novels, Messaouda (1983) and Les Enfants des rues Etroites (1986), Serhane traces the brutal, illiterate reality of rural life while satirizing its transcription into an alien idiom via the Moroccan francophone novel developed for a foreign audience. A highly intelligent and principled writer, Serhane trained as a psychologist and obtained a teaching post at the University of Vemtra.
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Westermarck, Edward. Wit and Wisdom of Morocco. London. 1931. Horace Liveright. 449 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Dr. Edward Westermarck, the eminent anthropologist and one of the greatest living authorities on the marital customs of the human, has written a new book based on nine years research into the customs and ideas of the Moors. This fascinating book of proverbs, which are grouped under the special topics to which they are related, is prefaced by an essay which provides an excellent discussion of proverbs in general.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Edvard Alexander Westermarck (20 November 1862 - 3 September 1939) was a Finnish philosopher and sociologist. Among other subjects, he studied exogamy and the incest taboo. The phenomenon of reverse sexual imprinting (when two people live in close domestic proximity during the first few years in the life of either one, both are desensitized to sexual attraction), now known as the Westermarck effect, was first formally described by him in his book The History of Human Marriage (1891). He has been described as "first Darwinian sociologist" or "the first sociobiologist". He helped found academic sociology in the United Kingdom, becoming the first professor of sociology (with Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse) in 1907 in the University of London.
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Zafzaf, Muhammad. Monarch of the Square: An Anthology of Muhammad Zafzaf’s Short Stories . Syracuse. 2014. Syracuse University Press. 9780815633693. Middle East Literature in Translation. Translated by Roger Allen and Mbarek Sryfi. 296 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Concentration camps are a relatively new invention, a recurring feature of twentieth century warfare, and one that is important to the modern global consciousness and identity. Although the most famous concentration camps are those under the Nazis, the use of concentration camps originated several decades before the Third Reich, in the Philippines and in the Boer War, and they have been used again in numerous locations, not least during the genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda. They have become defining symbols of humankind's lowest point and basest acts. In this book, Dan Stone gives a global history of concentration camps, and shows that it is not only 'mad dictators' who have set up camps, but instead all varieties of states, including liberal democracies, that have made use of them. Setting concentration camps against the longer history of incarceration, he explains how the ability of the modern state to control populations led to the creation of this extreme institution. Looking at their emergence and spread around the world, Stone argues that concentration camps serve the purpose, from the point of view of the state in crisis, of removing a section of the population that is perceived to be threatening, traitorous, or diseased. Drawing on contemporary accounts of camps, as well as the philosophical literature surrounding them, Stone considers the story camps tell us about the nature of the modern world as well as about specific regimes.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mohamed Zafzaf (1945 – 13 July 2001) was one of the best known Moroccan novelists and poets (born in Souk El Arbaa) writing in Arabic. Zafzaf was born in Souk Larbaa El Gharb, and lived in Casablanca, where he wrote his stories and articles and translated books from Spanish and French. He studied philosophy at the faculté des lettres et sciences humaines in Rabat, and worked first as a junior high school teacher and librarian. His first poem was published in 1962, and his first short story in 1963.
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Zafzaf, Muhammad. The Elusive Fox . Syracuse. 2016. Syracuse University Press. 9780815610779. Translated from the Arabic by Mbarek Sryfi and Roger Allen. Middle East Literature in Translation. 120 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Considered one of Morocco s most important contemporary writers, Muhammad Zafzaf created stories of alterity, compassionate tales inhabited by prostitutes, thieves, and addicts living in the margins of society. In "The Elusive Fox," Zafzaf s first novel to be translated into English, a young teacher visits the coastal city of Essaouira in the 1960s. There he meets a group of European bohemians and local Moroccans and is exposed to the grittier side of society. More than a novel, "The Elusive Fox" is a portrait of a city during a time of fluid cultural and political mores in Morocco."
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mohamed Zafzaf (1945 – 13 July 2001) was one of the best known Moroccan novelists and poets (born in Souk El Arbaa) writing in Arabic. Zafzaf was born in Souk Larbaa El Gharb, and lived in Casablanca, where he wrote his stories and articles and translated books from Spanish and French. He studied philosophy at the faculté des lettres et sciences humaines in Rabat, and worked first as a junior high school teacher and librarian. His first poem was published in 1962, and his first short story in 1963.
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MOZAMBIQUE
[ MOZAMBIQUE - Literature ]Chiziane, Paulina. The First Wife. 2016. Archipelago Books. 9780914671480. Translated by David Brookshaw. 494 pages. paperback. Cover art by Merikokeb Berhanu. Translation of Niketche: uma História de Poligamia.
DESCRIPTION- After twenty years of marriage, Rami discovers that her husband has been living a double–or rather, a quintuple–life. Tony, a senior police officer in Maputo, has apparently been supporting four other families for many years. Rami remains calm in the face of her husband's duplicity and plots to make an honest man out of him. After Tony is forced to marry the four other women–as well as an additional lover–according to polygamist custom, the rival lovers join together to declare their voices and demand their rights. In this brilliantly funny and feverishly scathing critique, a major work from Mozambique's first published female novelist, Paulina Chiziane explores her country's traditional culture, its values and hypocrisy, and the subjection of women the world over.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Paulina "Poulli" Chiziane (born 4 June 1955, Manjacaze, southern province of Gaza, Mozambique) is an author of novels and short stories in the Portuguese language. She was awarded the 2021 Camões Prize for literature, awarded to writers from Portuguese-speaking countries.
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Chiziane, Paulina. The Joyful Song of the Partridge. 2024. Archipelago Books. 9781953861689. Translated by David Brookshaw. 496 pages. paperback. Translation of O Alegre Canto da Perdiz.
DESCRIPTION- A roiling chronicle of motherhood and colonization from a writer who "alternates between a dramatic, high-octane style and a terse and humorous frankness" (Sheila Heti). Recipient of the 2021 Camões Prize, the most important award for literature in the Portuguese language. A potent whirl of history, mythology, and grapevine chatter, The Joyful Song of the Partridge absorbs readers into its many hiding places and along the wandering paths of its principal characters, whose stark words will stay with you long after the journey is done. No one knows where Maria des Dores came from. Did she ride in on the armored spines of crocodiles, was she carried many miles in the jaws of fish? The only clear fact is that she is here, sitting naked in the river bordering a town where nothing ever happens. The townspeople murmur restlessly that she is possessed by perverse impulses. They interpret her arrival as an omen of crop failure or, in more hopeful tones, a sign that womankind will soon seize power from the greedy hands of men. As The Joyful Song of the Partridge unfolds, Paulina Chiziane spirals back in time to Maria's true origins: the days of Maria's mother and father when the pressure to assimilate in Portuguese-controlled Mozambique formed a distorting bond on the lives of black Mozambicans.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Paulina "Poulli" Chiziane (born 4 June 1955, Manjacaze, southern province of Gaza, Mozambique) is an author of novels and short stories in the Portuguese language. She was awarded the 2021 Camões Prize for literature, awarded to writers from Portuguese-speaking countries.
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Couto, Mia. Confession of the Lioness. New York. 2015. Farrar Straus Giroux. 9780374129231. Translated from the Portuguese by David Brookshaw. 193 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Alex Merto. Jacket photograph by Michael Hanson/Getty Images. Translation of A confissão da Leoa.
DESCRIPTION- A dark, poetic mystery about the tribal women of Kulumani and the lionesses that hunt them Told through two haunting interwoven diaries, Mia Couto's Confession of the Lioness reveals the enigmatic world of Kulumani, an isolated village in Mozambique whose traditions and beliefs are threatened when ghostlike lionesses begin hunting and killing the women who live there. Mariamar, a young woman from the village, finds her life thrown into chaos just as the marksman hired to kill the lionesses, the outsider Archangel Bullseye, arrives in town. Mariamar's sister was recently killed in one of the attacks, and her father has imprisoned her in his home, where she relives painful memories of past abuse and hopes to be rescued by Archangel. Meanwhile, Archangel attempts to track the lionesses out in the wilderness, but when he begins to suspect there is more to these predators than meets the eye, he slowly starts to lose control of his hands. The hunt grows more and more dangerous, until it's no safer inside Kulumani than outside it. As the men of Kulumani feel increasingly threatened by the outsider, the forces of modernity upon their culture, and the animal predators closing in, it becomes clear that the lionesses might not be real lionesses at all, but rather spirits conjured by the ancient witchcraft of the women themselves. Both a riveting mystery and a poignant examination of women's oppression, Confession of the Lioness combines reality, superstition, and magic realism in an atmospheric, gripping novel.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Antonio Emílio Leite Couto (born July 5, 1955), better known as Mia Couto, is a world-renowned Mozambican writer. Couto was born in the city of Beira, Mozambique's second largest city, where he was also raised and schooled. He is the son of Portuguese emigrants who moved to the former Portuguese colony in the 1950s. At the age of fourteen, some of his poetry was published in a local newspaper, Notícias da Beira. Three years later, in 1971, he moved to the capital Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) and began to study medicine at the University of Lourenço Marques. During this time, the anti-colonial guerrilla and political movement FRELIMO was struggling to overthrow the Portuguese colonial rule in Mozambique. In April 1974, after the Carnation Revolution in Lisbon and the overthrow of the Estado Novo regime, Mozambique was about to become an independent republic. In 1974, FRELIMO asked Couto to suspend his studies for a year to work as a journalist for Tribuna until September 1975 and then as the director of the newly-created Mozambique Information Agency (AIM). Later, he ran the Tempo magazine until 1981. His first book of poems, Raiz de Orvalho, was published in 1983; it included texts aimed against the dominance of Marxist militant propaganda. Couto continued working for the newspaper Notícias until 1985 when he resigned to finish his course of study in biology. Not only is Mia Couto considered one of the most important writers in Mozambique, but many of his works have been published in more than 20 countries and in various languages, including Portuguese, English, French, German, Italian, Serbian and Catalan. In many of his texts, he undertakes to recreate the Portuguese language by infusing it with regional vocabulary and structures from Mozambique, thus producing a new model for the African narrative. Stylistically, his writing is influenced by magical realism, a style popular in modern Latin American literatures, and his use of language is reminiscent of the Brazilian writer Guimarães Rosa, but also deeply influenced by the baiano writer Jorge Amado. He has been noted for creating proverbs, sometimes known as ‘improverbs', in his fiction, as well as riddles, legends, metaphors, giving his work a poetical dimension. An international jury at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair named his first novel, Terra Sonâmbula (Sleepwalking Land), one of the best 12 African books of the 20th century. In 2007, he became the first African author to win the prestigious Latin Union literary prize, which has been awarded annually in Italy since 1990. Mia Couto became only the fourth writer in the Portuguese language to take home this prestigious award, having competed against authors from Portugal, France, Colombia, Spain, Italy, and Senegal. Currently, he is a biologist employed by the Limpopo Transfrontier Park while continuing his work on other writing projects.
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Couto, Mia. Under the Frangipani. London. 2001. Serpent's Tail. 1852427299. Translated from the Portuguese by David Brookshaw. 160 pages. paperback. Cover photography by Carmen Aleman. Translation of A Varanda do Frangipani.
DESCRIPTION- The first line of Under the Frangipani - 'I am the dead man' - pitches us straight into an African world where people can walk through the door separating reality from the spirit world. Coming back from the dead, the narrator inhabits a Mozambican police inspector who is investigating a murder. A murder where all the suspects are eager to claim they alone have killed the victim. The story is set in a former Portuguese fort that used to store slaves and ivory, but now offers a refuge to old people such as Little Miss No, who describes how she turns into water as a means of escape, and Navaia, an old man-child cursed by an evil spirit, who grew old the moment he was born. They are all looked after by Marta, a young woman who sleeps naked on the ground so that she can absorb the secret energies of the earth.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Antonio Emílio Leite Couto (born July 5, 1955), better known as Mia Couto, is a world-renowned Mozambican writer. Couto was born in the city of Beira, Mozambique's second largest city, where he was also raised and schooled. He is the son of Portuguese emigrants who moved to the former Portuguese colony in the 1950s. At the age of fourteen, some of his poetry was published in a local newspaper, Notícias da Beira. Three years later, in 1971, he moved to the capital Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) and began to study medicine at the University of Lourenço Marques. During this time, the anti-colonial guerrilla and political movement FRELIMO was struggling to overthrow the Portuguese colonial rule in Mozambique. In April 1974, after the Carnation Revolution in Lisbon and the overthrow of the Estado Novo regime, Mozambique was about to become an independent republic. In 1974, FRELIMO asked Couto to suspend his studies for a year to work as a journalist for Tribuna until September 1975 and then as the director of the newly-created Mozambique Information Agency (AIM). Later, he ran the Tempo magazine until 1981. His first book of poems, Raiz de Orvalho, was published in 1983; it included texts aimed against the dominance of Marxist militant propaganda. Couto continued working for the newspaper Notícias until 1985 when he resigned to finish his course of study in biology. Not only is Mia Couto considered one of the most important writers in Mozambique, but many of his works have been published in more than 20 countries and in various languages, including Portuguese, English, French, German, Italian, Serbian and Catalan. In many of his texts, he undertakes to recreate the Portuguese language by infusing it with regional vocabulary and structures from Mozambique, thus producing a new model for the African narrative. Stylistically, his writing is influenced by magical realism, a style popular in modern Latin American literatures, and his use of language is reminiscent of the Brazilian writer Guimarães Rosa, but also deeply influenced by the baiano writer Jorge Amado. He has been noted for creating proverbs, sometimes known as ‘improverbs', in his fiction, as well as riddles, legends, metaphors, giving his work a poetical dimension. An international jury at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair named his first novel, Terra Sonâmbula (Sleepwalking Land), one of the best 12 African books of the 20th century. In 2007, he became the first African author to win the prestigious Latin Union literary prize, which has been awarded annually in Italy since 1990. Mia Couto became only the fourth writer in the Portuguese language to take home this prestigious award, having competed against authors from Portugal, France, Colombia, Spain, Italy, and Senegal. Currently, he is a biologist employed by the Limpopo Transfrontier Park while continuing his work on other writing projects.
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Couto, Mia. Voices Made Night. Oxford. 1990. Heinemann. 0435905708. Translated from the Mozambican Portuguese by David Brookshaw. African Writers Series. 115 pages. paperback. Cover design by Keith Pointing. Cover illustration by Celeste Henney. Translation of Vozes anoitecidas.
DESCRIPTION- FIRST ENGLISH LANGUAGE PUBLICATION. 'There exists in nothingness that illusion of plentitude which causes life to stop and voices to become night.' In this collection of stories, the Mozambican poet, Mia Couto, expresses, through striking poetic metaphors, the emptiness and absurdity of lives bound by poverty and subject to arbitrary incursions of extreme violence. The frustrated longing of the lipless snake catcher who surrounds his lady's house with snakes; or the man who fears his wife is a witch and scalds her with boiling water, are caught in dual tension. In Voices Made Night, an African cosmology portrays a surreal world defined by its contradictions, set against a background of political instability. 'A book full of poetic moments and strange happenings, a landmark in Mozambican prose fiction.' - Jornal de Letras. 'The great merit of this book. is the courage with which it reveals the voices of a people struggling to conquer an identity.' - Diario Popular. 'One wants to read it at one go, avidly, smitten by Africa and its images, full of beauty, strength and magic.' - Diario de Lisboa.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Antonio Emílio Leite Couto (born July 5, 1955), better known as Mia Couto, is a world-renowned Mozambican writer. Couto was born in the city of Beira, Mozambique's second largest city, where he was also raised and schooled. He is the son of Portuguese emigrants who moved to the former Portuguese colony in the 1950s. At the age of fourteen, some of his poetry was published in a local newspaper, Notícias da Beira. Three years later, in 1971, he moved to the capital Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) and began to study medicine at the University of Lourenço Marques. During this time, the anti-colonial guerrilla and political movement FRELIMO was struggling to overthrow the Portuguese colonial rule in Mozambique. In April 1974, after the Carnation Revolution in Lisbon and the overthrow of the Estado Novo regime, Mozambique was about to become an independent republic. In 1974, FRELIMO asked Couto to suspend his studies for a year to work as a journalist for Tribuna until September 1975 and then as the director of the newly-created Mozambique Information Agency (AIM). Later, he ran the Tempo magazine until 1981. His first book of poems, Raiz de Orvalho, was published in 1983; it included texts aimed against the dominance of Marxist militant propaganda. Couto continued working for the newspaper Notícias until 1985 when he resigned to finish his course of study in biology. Not only is Mia Couto considered one of the most important writers in Mozambique, but many of his works have been published in more than 20 countries and in various languages, including Portuguese, English, French, German, Italian, Serbian and Catalan. In many of his texts, he undertakes to recreate the Portuguese language by infusing it with regional vocabulary and structures from Mozambique, thus producing a new model for the African narrative. Stylistically, his writing is influenced by magical realism, a style popular in modern Latin American literatures, and his use of language is reminiscent of the Brazilian writer Guimarães Rosa, but also deeply influenced by the baiano writer Jorge Amado. He has been noted for creating proverbs, sometimes known as ‘improverbs', in his fiction, as well as riddles, legends, metaphors, giving his work a poetical dimension. An international jury at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair named his first novel, Terra Sonâmbula (Sleepwalking Land), one of the best 12 African books of the 20th century. In 2007, he became the first African author to win the prestigious Latin Union literary prize, which has been awarded annually in Italy since 1990. Mia Couto became only the fourth writer in the Portuguese language to take home this prestigious award, having competed against authors from Portugal, France, Colombia, Spain, Italy, and Senegal. Currently, he is a biologist employed by the Limpopo Transfrontier Park while continuing his work on other writing projects.
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Honwana, Luis Bernardo. We Killed the Mangy-Dog and Other Mozambican Stories. Harare, Zimbabwe. 1987. Zimbabwe Publishing House. 0949225622. Translated from the Portuguese by Dorothy Guedes. 117 pages. paperback. Cover illustration by Pedro Guedes. Typography by Maviyane-Project. Translation of Nós Matámos o Cão-Tinhoso.
DESCRIPTION- ‘A deft and individual talent is at work in these stones set m a small village in Mozambique.' Lewis Nkosi says (South Africa: Information and Analysis) of the longest story: '. a hauntingly beautiful story, whose simplicity of narrative conceals an extraordinarily sharp poetic insight into the theme of life and death, the impulse of love and violence. ‘We killed Mangy-Dog' is a story which skillfully uses symbols in a manner which brings into artistic unity emotions of fear and hatred, protective love and cruel victimization - a paradigm of a society in which brutality is equated with masculinity, love and protectiveness with weakness and cowardice. And yet, not once does Honwana speak directly of these things; not once does he raise his voice to harangue us.'
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - LUIS BERNARDO HONWANA was born in Maputo in 1942. He grew up in Moamba where his father was an Interpreter for the Administration. He completed his high school education n Lourenco Marques where, although hampered by economic difficulties, he threw himself into literary and artistic activities. In November 1967 he was released from a political prison sentence, and lived in Portugal, Switzerland, Algeria and Tanzania before returning to Mozambique to work in the office of then Prime Minister Chissano during the transitional government leading to Mozambique's independence from Portugal in 1975. He was Chef de Cabinete of the late President Samora Machel, and is now Minister of Culture. Honwana has made several documentary films and in 1978 was awarded a prize at the Leipzig Film Festival. He is also an accomplished photographer.
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Momplé, Lilia. Neighbours: The Story of a Murder. Portsmouth. 2001. Heinemann. 0435912097. African Writers Series. 134 pages. paperback. Originally published in AWS series 1962.
DESCRIPTION- On the eve of the festival of Eid, Narguiss, who 'never wanted anything to do with politics', is more preoccupied with family problems than with the radio news of kidnappings and killings. But before dawn she and other innocent people seeking to lead peaceful lives are caught up in a vicious South African conspiracy to infiltrate and destabilize Mozambique. Skillfully weaving together present events and past memories, Lília Momplé gives us, in the drama of a few short hours, an insight into the consequences of Mozambique's complex history.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - LILIA MOMPLE was born in 1935 on the Island of Mozambique and obtained a BA in Social Work in Portugal. She was Secretary General of the Mozambique Writers' Association from 1995 to 2001 and President from 1997 to 1999. She has also represented her country at a number of international cultural assemblies, and has recently been appointed to the UNESCO Executive Council. Her publications include No One Killed Suhara (1988), The Eyes of the Green Cobra (1997) and the script for the award-winning Mozambican video drama Muhupitit Alima (1988). Her novel Neighbours was first published in Portuguese in 1995. Lilia Momple lives with her husband in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique.
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Mondlane, Eduardo. The Struggle for Mozambique. Baltimore. 1970. Penguin Books. Penguin African Library. Edited by Ronald Segal. 224 pages. paperback. AP28. Cover design by Patrick McCreeth.
DESCRIPTION- Despite the ignorance of the rest of the world (connived at by the Portuguese authorities) the war of liberation in Mozambique is now being fought with increasing success on several fronts. Its importance transcends Mozambique's national boundaries: its success could revolutionize sanctions against the white supremacists in neighbouring Rhodesia; and it is also a paradigm case for the unshackling of Portuguese' Africa. The author of this book, until his assassination early in 1969, was President of FRELIMO, the Mozambique Liberation Front, which has already freed large areas of the country. As a Negro intellectual Mondlane himself experienced the racial discrimination which is the basis of Portuguese institutions in Africa. Here he analyses the origins of the war in the economics of exploitation, in education for submission and in general cultural deprivation; and he shows how his people's liberation struggle implies a radical transformation of society at all levels - social and cultural, as well as economic, administrative and political.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Eduardo Mondlane was born in the Gaza district of Southern Mozambique in 1920. The first of his family to receive formal education, he went to a mission primary school but, as an African, entry to secondary school was barred to him. However he taught himself English and obtained a scholarship to a high school in the Northern Transvaal from where he went on to study social science at Witwatersrand University. Because of his political activities as an organizer of a Mozambican students' association he was deported back to Mozambique and then arrested and questioned by the police. He was eventually sent to continue his studies at Lisbon University but on an American scholarship. The police continued to harass him, however, and study became impossible. He managed to transfer his scholarship to the U.S.A. where he finished his B.A. in 1953 and went on to take M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in sociology at Northwestern University, Illinois. Research at Harvard followed and then a job in the United Nations Department of Trusteeship as a research officer. During these years he continued to study the political problems of his own country and in 1961 he revisited Mozambique to find that nothing had changed. He then left the U.N. and made open contact with existing political movements in exile. Convinced that unity was essential from the beginning, he was among those who helped bring the various embryo parties together and in 1962, in newly independent Tanganyika, a joint Congress was held. The Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) was formed and Dr Mondlane was elected President. Two years later the armed struggle was launched and since then areas of Northern Mozambique have been freed from Portuguese control. He made frequent visits to the liberated areas and in 1968, at the party's second Congress held in Northern Mozambique, he was re-elected President. Eduardo Mondlane was assassinated in Dar es Salaam on 3 February 1969. He left a wife and three children.
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Newitt, Malyn. A History of Mozambique. Bloomington. 1995. Indiana University Press. 9780253340061. 5.5 x 8.25. 704 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- This book summarizes five hundred years of the history of the societies that exist within the area that became Mozambique in 1891. It also takes the story up to the present, including the War of Liberation and Mozambique after independence. It is work of major scholarship that will appeal to experts and students alike.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - MALYN NEWITT is a senior lecturer in the Department of History at Exeter University and author of numerous articles and book, including Portuguese Settlement on the Zambezi and Portugal in Africa.
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Saul, John S. (editor). A Difficult Road: The Transition To Socialism in Mozambique. New York. 1985. Monthly Review Press. 0853455929. 420 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- A Difficult Road explores Mozambique's journey towards socialism following its independence from Portuguese colonial rule in 1975. It discusses the radicalization of the FRELIMO movement during the liberation struggle, the challenges faced in implementing socialist policies, and the impact of regional conflicts, particularly with South Africa. The book aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of Mozambique's revolutionary efforts and the complexities involved in its socio-economic transformation.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - John S. Saul (born 1938) is a Canadian political economist and activist whose work has focused on the liberation struggles of southern Africa, from the 1960s to the present. In 2004, he was elected fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, in 2010 was granted an honorary doctorate by Victoria University within the University of Toronto, and, in 2011, a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Canadian Association of African Studies. He is the author of more than twenty books.
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Verwey, Len. In a Language That You Know. Lincoln. 2017. University of Nebraska Press. 9780803290983. African Poetry Book. 66 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- South Africa is a complicated, contradictory, and haunted place. Len Verwey captures the trajectory of life in such a place, dealing with childhood, war, marriage, divorce, and death. He explores the challenges posed by place and history, shared identities, deep embeddedness in the continent, and the legacies of violence and exclusion, as well as beauty. Verwey offers poems that speak of uncertainty, ask questions, and challenge simplistic and scapegoating narratives that become so tempting when living in a society undergoing intense social and economic pressure. Dealing less with factual or political explanations of war and more with the compulsion of war, in particular, "maleness" and violence, Verwey pulls the reader into another world, opening eyes to the "crisis of men," the violence against women, children, and the foreign in a country where conflicts are again escalating. In a Language That You Know strives to understand the complexity of one of the most unequal, violent, yet most vibrant societies in the world.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Len Verwey was born in Mozambique and now lives in South Africa. He works as a development economist. His chapbook Otherwise Everything Goes is included in the boxed set Seven New Generation African Poets, and his poems have been published in various journals including New Coin and New Contrast.
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NAMIBIA
[ NAMIBIA - Literature ]Andreas, Neshani. The Purple Violet of Oshaantu. Portsmouth. 2001. Heinemann. 0435912089. African Writers Series. 150 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- This compelling novel, set in the village community of Oshaantu in rural Namibia, draws on several interconnected stories to offer a compelling picture of the plight of African women. For Kauna, marriage is nothing more than loveless entrapment, and she defies convention by making no secret of her suffering. When her abusive husband is found dead, the villagers are quick to suspect her. Related from the point of view of her best friend, Kauna's story reveals the value of friendship between women of all kinds.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Neshani Andreas was born in Walvis Bay, Namibia, in 1964. She trained as a teacher at the Ongwediva Teachers' College. The Purple Violet of Oshaantu is her first novel.
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Diescho, Joseph (with Celeste Wallin). Born of the Sun. New York. 1988. Friendship Press. 0377001880. 200 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by E. Paul Landsdale.
DESCRIPTION- This is the story of Muronga, a young man who has grown up in a Namibian village where his only contacts with the outside world have come from the local German Catholic missionaries. He accepts their teaching and Baptism with courtesy but he is uneasy about their preaching about the ‘wrongs' of the African culture. The quiet, peaceful life changes dramatically when South African rulers of his country send their ‘Commissioner for Native Affairs' to the village. Everybody must now pay taxes they are told. The solution: send their young men to work in the diamond and gold mines of the White man. Muronga and his friend, Kaye volunteer on behalf of their village. Muronga is lonely in his strange new world. He and Kaye have been sent to different mines. Muronga comes to know the evils of apartheid. Gradually as the miners become acquainted with other black workers through conversations at mealtime and secret meetings at night, they organize a people's front to fight for their rights. Confrontations with the authorities result in imprisonments. Muronga and other friends from their village are reunited. In Botswana where the government is in the hands of Africans, the men are offered the opportunity to escape from prison. They have two choices: go back to their villages or join the struggle for freedom and liberation of their country and their people. The second choice would mean giving up their families and former way of life for a totally unknown future. The final choice which Muronga and his friends make is the climax of this story
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Joseph Diescho (born 10 April 1955) is a Namibian writer and political analyst. In 1988, he wrote Born of the Sun, the first novel by a native-born Namibian author. Born in Andara, Kavango Region, Diescho attended Fort Hare University in South Africa where he studied law and political science. During his student days he worked against the apartheid system and was imprisoned in Peddie and East London. Whilst working for a diamond mine company he helped found a worker's union. In 1984, he became a Fulbright scholar at Columbia University in New York City, where he completed his PhD in Political Science in 1992. His dissertation, entitled, "The Role of Education in the Politics of Control in Namibia: 1948–1988," explored the relationship between politics and education in Namibia. He was an award winning television announcer for the programme South Africa Now on American public television. In 1997-8, he was the founder and presenter of The Big Picture, a weekly economic and political analysis programme on SABC 2. His novel Born of the Sun was published in the US in 1988 and his second novel Troubled Waters was published in 1993. He is one of Namibia's very few native born novelists. Diescho was the Executive Director of the Namibian Institute of Public Administration and Management (NIPAM) from 1 July 2013 until December 2015 when he was dismissed.
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Ya-Otto, John (with Ole Gjerstad and Michael Mercer). Battlefront Namibia: an autobiography. London. 1982. Heinemann. 043590244x. African Writers Series. 151 pages. paperback. AWS244.
DESCRIPTION- The author tells the stirring story of his development from a school teacher to a leader deeply involved in the Namibian fight for independence from South Africa.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - John Ya-Otto (10 February 1938 - 25 May 1994) was a Namibian trade unionist, politician, author and diplomat. Ya-Otto began a career in politics following the 1959 Old Location Massacre in Windhoek's Old Location black township. Eventually, Ya-Otto fled into exile and worked as SWAPO's labor minister. He established relationships with trade unionists around the world. In 1981, he published his only book Battlefront Namibia, detailing SWAPO's and his own struggle for independence. He was arrested in 1966 following the Battle of Ongulumbashe, which was the opening attack by SWAPO on South African military and police in northern Namibia. He and 38 other SWAPO activists were arrested, with most receiving 10-year prison sentences. However, due to a lack of case against him, Ya-Otto received a five-year suspended sentence and was released a month later. Following independence, he returned to Namibia and was elected to the National Assembly of Namibia with SWAPO. Later, he was assigned the position of Ambassador to Angola due to failing health. He died in Luanda on 25 May 1994.
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NIGERIA
[ NIGERIA - AMERICA - Poetry ]Abani, Chris. Feed Me the Sun. Leeds. 2010. Peepal Tree Books. 9781845231569. 193 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- This collection of Chris Abani’s longer poems, some previously published, the majority new, displays his astonishing energy, beauty of expression and range of reference to contemporary life, history, art and literature. Having this work together in one volume enables us to see the dialogue between a sense of the personal and an engagement with the public and historical, from Daphne’s Lot which explores the life of an Englishwoman (his mother) caught up in the madness of the Biafran civil war, or Buffalo Women, an epistolary sequence of poems between lovers caught up in the American civil war. The focus of Abani’s poems is frequently on extreme situations where the unspeakable becomes too readily the doable, but where against the odds compassion and love remain and the individual determination to resist public madness. In Sanctificum there is a profound meditation on the sacred, whether reached through religious ritual or through art, and the narrow dividing line between the urge to reach for mastery and transcendence and the abuses of power whether personal, contemporary or historical.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Chris Abani is the author of 11 books, the recipient of numerous awards for his writing, and is currently holds the position of Professor at the University of California, Riverside.
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Abani, Chris. GraceLand. New York. 2004. Farrar Straus Giroux. 0374165890. 323 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Kwasi Osei.
DESCRIPTION- In this dazzling debut by a singular new talent, the sprawling, swampy, cacophonous city of Lagos, Nigeria, provides the backdrop to the story of Elvis, a teenage Elvis impersonator hoping to make his way out of the ghetto. Broke, beset by floods, and beatings by his alcoholic father, and with no job opportunities in sight, Elvis is tempted by a life of crime. Thus begins his odyssey into the dangerous underworld of Lagos, guided by his friend Redemption and accompanied by a restless hybrid of voices including The King of Beggars, Sunday, Innocent and Comfort. Ultimately, young Elvis, drenched in reggae and jazz, and besotted with American film heroes and images, must find his way to a GraceLand of his own. Nuanced, lyrical, and pitch perfect, Abani has created a remarkable story of a son and his father, and an examination of postcolonial Nigeria where the trappings of American culture reign supreme.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Chris Abani was born in Nigeria on December 27, 1966 and published his first novel at sixteen. He was imprisoned for his writings, and after his release he eventually moved to the United States. He is the author of ten books of poetry and fiction, including the best-selling novel GraceLand. He teaches at the University of California-Riverside and lives in Los Angeles.
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Abani, Chris. Sanctificum. Port Townsend. 2010. Copper Canyon Press. 9781556593161. 105 pages. paperback. Cover art: Victor Ekpuk, ‘Good Morning Sunrise’ (detail).
DESCRIPTION- A self-described ‘zealot of optimism,' poet and novelist Chris Abani bravely travels into the charged intersections of atrocity and love, politics and religion, loss and renewal. In poems of devastating beauty, he investigates complex personal history, family, and romantic love. Sanctificum, Abani's fifth collection of poetry, is his most personal and ambitious book. Utilizing religious ritual, the Nigerian Igbo language, and reggae rhythms, Abani creates a post-racial, liturgical love song that covers the globe from Abuja to Los Angeles. ‘Abani. explores place and humor, exile and freedom with poems of experience and imagination. [he] enters the wound with a boldness that avoids nothing. Highly recommended.' - Library Journal. ‘Stunning poems.' - New Humanist.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Chris Abani (December 27, 1966, Afikpo, Nigeria) was born in Nigeria in 1966 and published his first novel at sixteen. He was imprisoned for his writings, and after his release he eventually moved to the United States. He is the author of ten books of poetry and fiction, including the best-selling novel GraceLand. He teaches at the University of California-Riverside and lives in Los Angeles.
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Achebe, Chinua. A Man of the People. New York. 1966. John Day. 167 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Carl Smith.
DESCRIPTION- In Chinua Achebe's novel, A Man of the People, two contrasting groups of people from a political and social aspect based in West Africa. The groups are the old and the new generations of politics and two characters represent them. Odili, the narrator, represents the new intellectual generation, while Chief Nanga, Odili's former teacher, represents the old style of bush politicians. The conflict between the old and new ways is portrayed through the two characters as they not only disagree and quarrel over political views but also women. The story ends with a military coup that foreshadows the Nigerian Revolution of 1966. ‘Chinua Achebe proved to be a better prophet than any of the political scientists'(K.W.J. Post, xiii). Achebe captures the inside reality of the lives of the contrasting characters as he demonstrates energy and brightness as well as violence and corruption. Chinua Achebe, a strong voice for African literature, was born in 1930 in Ogidi. His father was a Christian evangelist and teacher. Achebe's full name is Albert Chinualumogu Achebe. He studied broadcasting with the BBC and received a BA in 1953. Over the course of his life he has written nearly 300 books and has become a powerful influence in the Nigerian politics. His writings are aimed toward a select group of people in Africa, not only those who can read, but those educated above the basic level, who have enough money to purchase the book. ‘Paradoxically enough, his writings are probably better known outside his own country than in it.' (K.W.J. Post, v) This idea of an ‘aimed audience'implies that Achebe wants countries with power and a say in the world to understand the lives of the people from his part of the world, West Africa.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - CHINUA ACHEBE published THINGS FALL APART in 1958. It was followed by NO LONGER AT EASE (AWS 3) and ARROW OF GOD (AWS 16). A MAN OF THE PEOPLE (AWS 31) aroused widespread interest on publication at the time of the January 1966 coup because of its prophetic ending. The effects of his novels, and of his editorship of the African Writers Series has had a dramatic impact on the development of the literature of Africa. Some of the stories in GIRLS AT WAR (AWS 100) and some of the poems in BEWARE SOUL BROTHER (AWS 120) are set in the war. His essays were published in 1975 under the title MORNING YET ON CREATION DAY (Heinemann). He was educated at Government College, Umuahia and University College, Ibadan. By the time he left the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1966 he had become Director of External Broadcasting. Since the war he has been at the Universities of Nigeria, Massachusetts and Connecticut. He has now returned to Nsukka. Among many recent honours has been the award of a Fellowship of the Modern Languages Association of America and of Doctorates at the Universities of Stirling and Southampton. He has recently followed Heinrich Boll, the Nobel prizewinner, as the recipient of the Scottish Arts Council's Neil Gunn Fellowship. Chinua Achebe is best known as a novelist. But the years of the Nigerian crisis and the civil war were not, for both practical and psychological reasons, a time for work on full-length novels. He found poetry a means of expressing his distress, even though few of the poems speak directly of the war. He has added some new poems to this collection which has already been published in Nigeria.
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Achebe, Chinua. Anthills of the Savannah. London. 1987. Heinemann. 0434006041. 233 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Siobhan Keaney.
DESCRIPTION- Chinua Achebe's THINGS FALL APART, published Nearly thirty years ago, was hailed as a classic and in millions and in aver forty languages found the world, His 4th novel A Man of the People published in 1966 was in Anthony Burgess' 1984 selections of the 99 best novels in English since 1939. Now comes this fine novel full of savage irony, set in a country where power has corrupted ideals, terror has silenced all but the bravest, and only fools and flatterers survive. Two years after the military coup that swept a brilliant young Sandhurst-trained army officer to power, an uneasy calm reigns in the backward West African state of Kangan. The failure of referendum to make him President-for-Life has left His Excellency nervous and embittered, and more and mare he looks to his bullish head of state security for reassurance and a firm hand with those he suspects of disloyalty. For the men who helped put him in power, his oldest friends, the future is suddenly dangerous and uncertain. Chris Oriko, Commissioner for Information, whom His Excellency blames for the referendum defeat, knows his days are numbered as his former classmate grows into the role of ruthless dictator. Ikem Osodi, poet and editor of the National Gazette, is lust as uneasy but believes his crusading editorials may yet have influence on his childhood friend, In the blood-letting that follows peaceful demonstration from the drought-stricken, north, both men are in danger of their lives, Together with their friend Beatrice Okoh, who is strong, beautiful and wise, they are players in a drama of love and friendship, betrayal and death, that mirrors the history of their troubled land. ANTHILLS OF THE SAVANNAH is an outstanding novel of contemporary Africa, bleak, angry, disenchanted and yet, ultimately, full of hope. Chinua Achebe, one of six children, was brought up in Ogidi, Eastern Nigeria. In 1953 he graduated from University College, Ibadan, After a brief career in broadcasting, Achebe became Senior Research Fellow at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in 1967, and then became Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the University of Connecticut, Storrs, In 1981 he retired from the University of Nigeria and was made Emeritus Professor in 1985. Achebe has published various novels, short stories, essays and children's books. His volume of poetry was joint-winner of the first Commonwealth Poetry Prize in 1972. He has received eleven honorary doctorates from universities in Britain, USA, Canada and Nigeria as well as Nigeria's highest award for intellectual achievement, the Nigerian National Merit Award. His wife Christie Chinwe teaches in the Department of Education at Nsukka and they have four children. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - CHINUA ACHEBE published THINGS FALL APART in 1958. It was followed by NO LONGER AT EASE (AWS 3) and ARROW OF GOD (AWS 16). A MAN OF THE PEOPLE (AWS 31) aroused widespread interest on publication at the time of the January 1966 coup because of its prophetic ending. The effects of his novels, and of his editorship of the African Writers Series has had a dramatic impact on the development of the literature of Africa. Some of the stories in GIRLS AT WAR (AWS 100) and some of the poems in BEWARE SOUL BROTHER (AWS 120) are set in the war. His essays were published in 1975 under the title MORNING YET ON CREATION DAY (Heinemann). He was educated at Government College, Umuahia and University College, Ibadan. By the time he left the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1966 he had become Director of External Broadcasting. Since the war he has been at the Universities of Nigeria, Massachusetts and Connecticut. He has now returned to Nsukka. Among many recent honours has been the award of a Fellowship of the Modern Languages Association of America and of Doctorates at the Universities of Stirling and Southampton. He has recently followed Heinrich Boll, the Nobel prizewinner, as the recipient of the Scottish Arts Council's Neil Gunn Fellowship. Chinua Achebe is best known as a novelist. But the years of the Nigerian crisis and the civil war were not, for both practical and psychological reasons, a time for work on full-length novels. He found poetry a means of expressing his distress, even though few of the poems speak directly of the war. He has added some new poems to this collection which has already been published in Nigeria.
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Achebe, Chinua. Arrow of God. New York. 1967. John Day. 287 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Carl Smith.
DESCRIPTION- ARROW OF GOD is set in the Ibo villages of Umuaro in Eastern Nigeria in 1921. Ezeulu, old and dignified Chief Priest of Ulu, god of the six Ibo villages, finds that his authority as spiritual leader is strengthened when a war which he has tried to prevent between Umuaro and a neighboring community is stopped by the British District Officer, Captain Winter-bottom. Ezeulu is compelled to respect the knowledge and power of the white man and sends one of his young sons to learn Christianity so that he will know the secret of such strength. But this brings the conflict between old ways and new to its height as the boy, in an excess of freshly-inspired Christian enthusiasm, tries to kill a royal python, a creature most sacred in the religious traditions of Umuaro. After this, Ezeulu's opposition to the authority of the white man becomes more pronounced, but his noble obstinacy, although it achieves a temporary victory over Captain Winterbottom, brings tragedy in the end. In this moving story Chinua Achebe catches perfectly the atmosphere of African village life, the beautiful proverb-laden language of the Ibo and their touching, strangely formal customs of worship and hospitality. Chinua Achebe, a Nigerian, was appointed First Director of External Broadcasting in Nigeria in 1961, at the age of thirty-one.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - CHINUA ACHEBE published THINGS FALL APART in 1958. It was followed by NO LONGER AT EASE (AWS 3) and ARROW OF GOD (AWS 16). A MAN OF THE PEOPLE (AWS 31) aroused widespread interest on publication at the time of the January 1966 coup because of its prophetic ending. The effects of his novels, and of his editorship of the African Writers Series has had a dramatic impact on the development of the literature of Africa. Some of the stories in GIRLS AT WAR (AWS 100) and some of the poems in BEWARE SOUL BROTHER (AWS 120) are set in the war. His essays were published in 1975 under the title MORNING YET ON CREATION DAY (Heinemann). He was educated at Government College, Umuahia and University College, Ibadan. By the time he left the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1966 he had become Director of External Broadcasting. Since the war he has been at the Universities of Nigeria, Massachusetts and Connecticut. He has now returned to Nsukka. Among many recent honours has been the award of a Fellowship of the Modern Languages Association of America and of Doctorates at the Universities of Stirling and Southampton. He has recently followed Heinrich Boll, the Nobel prizewinner, as the recipient of the Scottish Arts Council's Neil Gunn Fellowship. Chinua Achebe is best known as a novelist. But the years of the Nigerian crisis and the civil war were not, for both practical and psychological reasons, a time for work on full-length novels. He found poetry a means of expressing his distress, even though few of the poems speak directly of the war. He has added some new poems to this collection which has already been published in Nigeria.
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Achebe, Chinua. Beware Soul Brother: Poems. London. 1972. Heinemann. 0435901206. African Writers Series. 68 pages. paperback. AWS120. Cover design by Shyam Varma.
DESCRIPTION- Written during the Nigerian Civil War, this collection of poetry won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize in 1972. Most of the poems in BEWARE SOUL BROTHER were first published in Nigeria in 1971. They were written after the publication of his novel, A MAN OF THE PEOPLE (1966), and during a period of four years of military coups, massacres of Igbos, and the secession of Biafra in 1967. Achebe was forced to leave Lagos during the Nigerian Civil War of 1967-70. BEWARE SOUL BROTHER represents Achebe's literary response to the war.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - CHINUA ACHEBE published THINGS FALL APART in 1958. It was followed by NO LONGER AT EASE (AWS 3) and ARROW OF GOD (AWS 16). A MAN OF THE PEOPLE (AWS 31) aroused widespread interest on publication at the time of the January 1966 coup because of its prophetic ending. The effects of his novels, and of his editorship of the African Writers Series has had a dramatic impact on the development of the literature of Africa. Some of the stories in GIRLS AT WAR (AWS 100) and some of the poems in BEWARE SOUL BROTHER (AWS 120) are set in the war. His essays were published in 1975 under the title MORNING YET ON CREATION DAY (Heinemann). He was educated at Government College, Umuahia and University College, Ibadan. By the time he left the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1966 he had become Director of External Broadcasting. Since the war he has been at the Universities of Nigeria, Massachusetts and Connecticut. He has now returned to Nsukka. Among many recent honours has been the award of a Fellowship of the Modern Languages Association of America and of Doctorates at the Universities of Stirling and Southampton. He has recently followed Heinrich Boll, the Nobel prizewinner, as the recipient of the Scottish Arts Council's Neil Gunn Fellowship. Chinua Achebe is best known as a novelist. But the years of the Nigerian crisis and the civil war were not, for both practical and psychological reasons, a time for work on full-length novels. He found poetry a means of expressing his distress, even though few of the poems speak directly of the war. He has added some new poems to this collection which has already been published in Nigeria.
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Achebe, Chinua. Chike and the River. Cambridge. 1981. Cambridge University Press. 0521040035. Drawings by Prue Theobalds. 64 pages. paperback. Cover drawing by Prue Theobalds.
DESCRIPTION- ‘The more Chike saw the ferry-boats the more he wanted to make the trip to Asaba. But where would he get the money? He did not know. Still, he hoped.' Eleven-year-old Chike longs to cross the Niger River to the city of Asaba, but he doesn't have the sixpence he needs to pay for the ferry ride. With the help of his friend S.M.O.G., he embarks on a series of adventures to help him get there. Along the way, he is exposed to a range of new experiences that are both thrilling and terrifying, from eating his first skewer of suya under the shade of a mango tree, to visiting the village magician who promises to double the money in his pocket. Once he finally makes it across the river, Chike realizes that life on the other side is far different from his expectations, and he must find the courage within him to make it home. CHIKE AND THE RIVER is a magical tale of boundaries, bravery, and growth, by Chinua Achebe, one of the world's most beloved and admired storytellers.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - CHINUA ACHEBE published THINGS FALL APART in 1958. It was followed by NO LONGER AT EASE (AWS 3) and ARROW OF GOD (AWS 16). A MAN OF THE PEOPLE (AWS 31) aroused widespread interest on publication at the time of the January 1966 coup because of its prophetic ending. The effects of his novels, and of his editorship of the African Writers Series has had a dramatic impact on the development of the literature of Africa. Some of the stories in GIRLS AT WAR (AWS 100) and some of the poems in BEWARE SOUL BROTHER (AWS 120) are set in the war. His essays were published in 1975 under the title MORNING YET ON CREATION DAY (Heinemann). He was educated at Government College, Umuahia and University College, Ibadan. By the time he left the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1966 he had become Director of External Broadcasting. Since the war he has been at the Universities of Nigeria, Massachusetts and Connecticut. He has now returned to Nsukka. Among many recent honours has been the award of a Fellowship of the Modern Languages Association of America and of Doctorates at the Universities of Stirling and Southampton. He has recently followed Heinrich Boll, the Nobel prizewinner, as the recipient of the Scottish Arts Council's Neil Gunn Fellowship. Chinua Achebe is best known as a novelist. But the years of the Nigerian crisis and the civil war were not, for both practical and psychological reasons, a time for work on full-length novels. He found poetry a means of expressing his distress, even though few of the poems speak directly of the war. He has added some new poems to this collection which has already been published in Nigeria.
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Achebe, Chinua. Christmas in Biafra and Other Poems. Garden City. 1973. Anchor/Doubleday. 0385016417. 92 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Poems written by the noted Nigerian novelist. 'The ironic undercutting and offhand sorrow in many of these works seem much influenced by Auden.' - Kirkus Reviews.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - CHINUA ACHEBE published THINGS FALL APART in 1958. It was followed by NO LONGER AT EASE (AWS 3) and ARROW OF GOD (AWS 16). A MAN OF THE PEOPLE (AWS 31) aroused widespread interest on publication at the time of the January 1966 coup because of its prophetic ending. The effects of his novels, and of his editorship of the African Writers Series has had a dramatic impact on the development of the literature of Africa. Some of the stories in GIRLS AT WAR (AWS 100) and some of the poems in BEWARE SOUL BROTHER (AWS 120) are set in the war. His essays were published in 1975 under the title MORNING YET ON CREATION DAY (Heinemann). He was educated at Government College, Umuahia and University College, Ibadan. By the time he left the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1966 he had become Director of External Broadcasting. Since the war he has been at the Universities of Nigeria, Massachusetts and Connecticut. He has now returned to Nsukka. Among many recent honours has been the award of a Fellowship of the Modern Languages Association of America and of Doctorates at the Universities of Stirling and Southampton. He has recently followed Heinrich Boll, the Nobel prizewinner, as the recipient of the Scottish Arts Council's Neil Gunn Fellowship. Chinua Achebe is best known as a novelist. But the years of the Nigerian crisis and the civil war were not, for both practical and psychological reasons, a time for work on full-length novels. He found poetry a means of expressing his distress, even though few of the poems speak directly of the war. He has added some new poems to this collection which has already been published in Nigeria.
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Achebe, Chinua. Girls at War and Other Stories. Garden City. 1973. Doubleday. 038500852x. 129 pages. hardcover. Jacket painting by R. Andrew Parker. Jacket designed by Fred Troller.
DESCRIPTION- GIRLS AT WAR, the title story, is about the tragic effects of war on the civilian population and, in particular, about the effect on one girl, who starts with high ideals which vanish as the war drags on and the need for food replaces the need for ideals. The other eleven stories range from short pieces Achebe wrote as a student at Ibadan, right through to stories of the war, and trace Achebe's literary developments over a span of twenty years. They all touch upon Achebe's varied areas of experience which depict a delicately ironic observation of Nigerian life. These stories give one a sharp sense of not only what it is like, sociologically, to be an African but also what it is like to think and feel as an African.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - CHINUA ACHEBE published THINGS FALL APART in 1958. It was followed by NO LONGER AT EASE (AWS 3) and ARROW OF GOD (AWS 16). A MAN OF THE PEOPLE (AWS 31) aroused widespread interest on publication at the time of the January 1966 coup because of its prophetic ending. The effects of his novels, and of his editorship of the African Writers Series has had a dramatic impact on the development of the literature of Africa. Some of the stories in GIRLS AT WAR (AWS 100) and some of the poems in BEWARE SOUL BROTHER (AWS 120) are set in the war. His essays were published in 1975 under the title MORNING YET ON CREATION DAY (Heinemann). He was educated at Government College, Umuahia and University College, Ibadan. By the time he left the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1966 he had become Director of External Broadcasting. Since the war he has been at the Universities of Nigeria, Massachusetts and Connecticut. He has now returned to Nsukka. Among many recent honours has been the award of a Fellowship of the Modern Languages Association of America and of Doctorates at the Universities of Stirling and Southampton. He has recently followed Heinrich Boll, the Nobel prizewinner, as the recipient of the Scottish Arts Council's Neil Gunn Fellowship. Chinua Achebe is best known as a novelist. But the years of the Nigerian crisis and the civil war were not, for both practical and psychological reasons, a time for work on full-length novels. He found poetry a means of expressing his distress, even though few of the poems speak directly of the war. He has added some new poems to this collection which has already been published in Nigeria.
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Achebe, Chinua. Home and Exile. New York. 2000. Oxford University Press. 0195135067. 128 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Kathleen M. Lynch.
DESCRIPTION- Chinua Achebe is Africa's most prominent writer, the author of Things Fall Apart, the best known - and best selling - novel ever to come out of Africa. His fiction and poetry burn with a passionate commitment to political justice, bringing to life not only Africa's troubled encounters with Europe but also the dark side of contemporary African political life. Now, in Home and Exile, Achebe reveals the man behind his powerful work. Here is an extended exploration of the European impact on African culture, viewed through the most vivid experience available to the author - his own life. It is an extended snapshot of a major writer's childhood, illuminating his roots as an artist. Achebe discusses his English education and the relationship between colonial writers and the European literary tradition. He argues that if colonial writers try to imitate and, indeed, go one better than the Empire, they run the danger of undervaluing their homeland and their own people. Achebe contends that to redress the inequities of global oppression, writers must focus on where they come from, insisting that their value systems are as legitimate as any other. Stories are a real source of power in the world, he concludes, and to imitate the literature of another culture is to give that power away. Home and Exile is a moving account of an exceptional life. Achebe reveals the inner workings of the human conscience through the predicament of Africa and his own intellectual life. It is a story of the triumph of mind, told in the words of one of this century's most gifted writers.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - CHINUA ACHEBE published THINGS FALL APART in 1958. It was followed by NO LONGER AT EASE (AWS 3) and ARROW OF GOD (AWS 16). A MAN OF THE PEOPLE (AWS 31) aroused widespread interest on publication at the time of the January 1966 coup because of its prophetic ending. The effects of his novels, and of his editorship of the African Writers Series has had a dramatic impact on the development of the literature of Africa. Some of the stories in GIRLS AT WAR (AWS 100) and some of the poems in BEWARE SOUL BROTHER (AWS 120) are set in the war. His essays were published in 1975 under the title MORNING YET ON CREATION DAY (Heinemann). He was educated at Government College, Umuahia and University College, Ibadan. By the time he left the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1966 he had become Director of External Broadcasting. Since the war he has been at the Universities of Nigeria, Massachusetts and Connecticut. He has now returned to Nsukka. Among many recent honours has been the award of a Fellowship of the Modern Languages Association of America and of Doctorates at the Universities of Stirling and Southampton. He has recently followed Heinrich Boll, the Nobel prizewinner, as the recipient of the Scottish Arts Council's Neil Gunn Fellowship. Chinua Achebe is best known as a novelist. But the years of the Nigerian crisis and the civil war were not, for both practical and psychological reasons, a time for work on full-length novels. He found poetry a means of expressing his distress, even though few of the poems speak directly of the war. He has added some new poems to this collection which has already been published in Nigeria.
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Achebe, Chinua. Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays. New York. 1989. Doubleday. 0385247303. 188 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Sally Sturman.
DESCRIPTION- One of the most provocative and original voices in contemporary literature, Chinua Achebe here considers the place of literature and art in our society in a collection of essays spanning his best writing and lectures from the last twenty-three years. For Achebe, overcoming goes hand in hand with eradicating the destructive effects of racism and injustice in Western society. He reveals the impediments that still stand in the way of open, equal dialogue between Africans and Europeans, between blacks and whites, but also instills us with hope that they will soon be overcome.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - CHINUA ACHEBE published THINGS FALL APART in 1958. It was followed by NO LONGER AT EASE (AWS 3) and ARROW OF GOD (AWS 16). A MAN OF THE PEOPLE (AWS 31) aroused widespread interest on publication at the time of the January 1966 coup because of its prophetic ending. The effects of his novels, and of his editorship of the African Writers Series has had a dramatic impact on the development of the literature of Africa. Some of the stories in GIRLS AT WAR (AWS 100) and some of the poems in BEWARE SOUL BROTHER (AWS 120) are set in the war. His essays were published in 1975 under the title MORNING YET ON CREATION DAY (Heinemann). He was educated at Government College, Umuahia and University College, Ibadan. By the time he left the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1966 he had become Director of External Broadcasting. Since the war he has been at the Universities of Nigeria, Massachusetts and Connecticut. He has now returned to Nsukka. Among many recent honours has been the award of a Fellowship of the Modern Languages Association of America and of Doctorates at the Universities of Stirling and Southampton. He has recently followed Heinrich Boll, the Nobel prizewinner, as the recipient of the Scottish Arts Council's Neil Gunn Fellowship. Chinua Achebe is best known as a novelist. But the years of the Nigerian crisis and the civil war were not, for both practical and psychological reasons, a time for work on full-length novels. He found poetry a means of expressing his distress, even though few of the poems speak directly of the war. He has added some new poems to this collection which has already been published in Nigeria.
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Achebe, Chinua. Morning Yet On Creation Day: Essays. Garden City. 1975. Anchor/Doubleday. 0385017030. 175 pages. hardcover. Cover - Maiden Spirit Mask, Nigeria: Ibo, Collection of Museum of Primitive Art; Photographed by Charles Uht; Jacket design by David November.
DESCRIPTION- Chinua Achebe's major contribution to African literature has been firmly established by his four novels, his collection of short stories, GIRLS AT WAR, and his volume of poetry, CHRISTMAS IN BIAFRA. These essays add a new dimension to his firmly established reputation, each providing an illuminating background to his works of fiction. MORNING YET ON CREATION DAY covers a variety of subjects: aesthetics, Biafra, African literary criticism; the role of the artist in society; and the problems of writing in a second language. Recently the Modern Language Association (MLA) elected him a fellow; thus, Achebe joins a pantheon of forty distinguished writers who make up the body of fellows. These essays further enhance his reputation as Africa's most eminent author.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - CHINUA ACHEBE published THINGS FALL APART in 1958. It was followed by NO LONGER AT EASE (AWS 3) and ARROW OF GOD (AWS 16). A MAN OF THE PEOPLE (AWS 31) aroused widespread interest on publication at the time of the January 1966 coup because of its prophetic ending. The effects of his novels, and of his editorship of the African Writers Series has had a dramatic impact on the development of the literature of Africa. Some of the stories in GIRLS AT WAR (AWS 100) and some of the poems in BEWARE SOUL BROTHER (AWS 120) are set in the war. His essays were published in 1975 under the title MORNING YET ON CREATION DAY (Heinemann). He was educated at Government College, Umuahia and University College, Ibadan. By the time he left the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1966 he had become Director of External Broadcasting. Since the war he has been at the Universities of Nigeria, Massachusetts and Connecticut. He has now returned to Nsukka. Among many recent honours has been the award of a Fellowship of the Modern Languages Association of America and of Doctorates at the Universities of Stirling and Southampton. He has recently followed Heinrich Boll, the Nobel prizewinner, as the recipient of the Scottish Arts Council's Neil Gunn Fellowship. Chinua Achebe is best known as a novelist. But the years of the Nigerian crisis and the civil war were not, for both practical and psychological reasons, a time for work on full-length novels. He found poetry a means of expressing his distress, even though few of the poems speak directly of the war. He has added some new poems to this collection which has already been published in Nigeria.
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Achebe, Chinua. No Longer at Ease. New York. 1961. Ivan Obolensky. 170 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Ben Feder, Inc.
DESCRIPTION- Chinua Achebe is a young Nigerian whose first book, THINGS FALL APART, which portrayed the break-up of tribal life at the end of the last century under the impact of the white man's civilization, made a considerable impression on critics both in England and the United States. This new hovel, which is marked by the same strong narrative and honesty of approach, is set in present-day Nigeria. Obi Okonkwo is an Ibo from Eastern Nigeria, a promising representative of his generation, the bright boy of. his village who returns from his studies in England to try and live up to the expectations of his family and his tribe and at the same time to breathe the heady atmosphere of Lagos, a city whose tempo and temptations are heady fare for the boy from the country. As a civil servant Obi holds a respected job; as the fiance of Clara, the girl he met on the boat, he has much to look forward to; yet nevertheless Obi falls victim to the corruption of the capital. Like its predecessor, THINGS FALL APART (whose hero was Obi's powerful grandfather), NO LONGER AT EASE tells the story of an African tragically under pressure from a changing world, a story as old as Africa and as new as today's headlines.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Chinua Achebe is the son of a Christian missionary teacher in his native Nigeria. After abortive attempts at studying medicine, Achebe switched to the liberal arts curriculum and eventually to his career as a writer and spokesman for his people.
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Achebe, Chinua. The Education of a British-Protected Child. New York. 2009. Knopf. 9780307272553. 192 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Barbara de Wilde.
DESCRIPTION- From the celebrated author of Things Fall Apart and winner of the Man Booker International Prize comes a new collection of autobiographical essays-his first new book in more than twenty years. Chinua Achebe's characteristically measured and nuanced voice is everywhere present in these seventeen beautifully written pieces. In a preface, he discusses his historic visit to his Nigerian homeland on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Things Fall Apart, the story of his tragic car accident nearly twenty years ago, and the potent symbolism of President Obama's election. In 'The Education of a British-Protected Child,' Achebe gives us a vivid portrait of growing up in colonial Nigeria and inhabiting its 'middle ground,' recalling both his happy memories of reading novels in secondary school and the harsher truths of colonial rule. In 'Spelling Our Proper Name,' Achebe considers the African-American diaspora, meeting and reading Langston Hughes and James Baldwin, and learning what it means not to know 'from whence he came.' The complex politics and history of Africa figure in 'What Is Nigeria to Me?,' 'Africa's Tarnished Name,' and 'Politics and Politicians of Language in African Literature.' And Achebe's extraordinary family life comes into view in 'My Dad and Me' and 'My Daughters,' where we observe the effect of Christian missionaries on his father and witness the culture shock of raising 'brown' children in America. Charmingly personal, intellectually disciplined, and steadfastly wise,The Education of a British-Protected Child is an indispensable addition to the remarkable Achebe oeuvre.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - CHINUA ACHEBE published THINGS FALL APART in 1958. It was followed by NO LONGER AT EASE (AWS 3) and ARROW OF GOD (AWS 16). A MAN OF THE PEOPLE (AWS 31) aroused widespread interest on publication at the time of the January 1966 coup because of its prophetic ending. The effects of his novels, and of his editorship of the African Writers Series has had a dramatic impact on the development of the literature of Africa. Some of the stories in GIRLS AT WAR (AWS 100) and some of the poems in BEWARE SOUL BROTHER (AWS 120) are set in the war. His essays were published in 1975 under the title MORNING YET ON CREATION DAY (Heinemann). He was educated at Government College, Umuahia and University College, Ibadan. By the time he left the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1966 he had become Director of External Broadcasting. Since the war he has been at the Universities of Nigeria, Massachusetts and Connecticut. He has now returned to Nsukka. Among many recent honours has been the award of a Fellowship of the Modern Languages Association of America and of Doctorates at the Universities of Stirling and Southampton. He has recently followed Heinrich Boll, the Nobel prizewinner, as the recipient of the Scottish Arts Council's Neil Gunn Fellowship. Chinua Achebe is best known as a novelist. But the years of the Nigerian crisis and the civil war were not, for both practical and psychological reasons, a time for work on full-length novels. He found poetry a means of expressing his distress, even though few of the poems speak directly of the war. He has added some new poems to this collection which has already been published in Nigeria.
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Achebe, Chinua. The Flute. Nairobi. 1988. Heinemann Kenya. 9966463879. Elementary Readers 2. 27 pages. paperback. Text illustrations and cover design: Boniface O. Ager.
DESCRIPTION- When a little boy runs back to retrieve his lost flute, he encounters spirits who reward him for his unselfish behavior. But when his mother demands that he return to the spirits and ask for more, the outcome is quite different.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Chinua Achebe (16 November 1930 - 21 March 2013) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic. His first novel Things Fall Apart (1958), often considered his masterpiece, is the most widely read book in modern African literature. Chinua Achebe published THINGS FALL APART in 1958. It was followed by NO LONGER AT EASE (AWS 3) and ARROW OF GOD (AWS 16). A MAN OF THE PEOPLE (AWS 31) aroused widespread interest on publication at the time of the January 1966 coup because of its prophetic ending. The effects of his novels, and of his editorship of the African Writers Series has had a dramatic impact on the development of the literature of Africa. Some of the stories in GIRLS AT WAR (AWS 100) and some of the poems in BEWARE SOUL BROTHER (AWS 120) are set in the war. His essays were published in 1975 under the title MORNING YET ON CREATION DAY (Heinemann). He was educated at Government College, Umuahia and University College, Ibadan. By the time he left the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1966 he had become Director of External Broadcasting. Since the war he has been at the Universities of Nigeria, Massachusetts and Connecticut. He has now returned to Nsukka. Among many recent honours has been the award of a Fellowship of the Modern Languages Association of America and of Doctorates at the Universities of Stirling and Southampton. He has recently followed Heinrich Boll, the Nobel prizewinner, as the recipient of the Scottish Arts Council's Neil Gunn Fellowship. Chinua Achebe is best known as a novelist. But the years of the Nigerian crisis and the civil war were not, for both practical and psychological reasons, a time for work on full-length novels. He found poetry a means of expressing his distress, even though few of the poems speak directly of the war. He has added some new poems to this collection which has already been published in Nigeria.
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Achebe, Chinua. There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra. New York. 2012. Penguin Press. 9781594204821. 333 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Tal Goretsky. Jacket photograph by Manoj Shah.
DESCRIPTION- From the legendary author of THINGS FALL APART comes a long-awaited memoir of coming of age with a fragile new nation only to watch it torn asunder in a tragic civil war. The defining experience of Chinua Achebe's life was the Nigerian civil war, also known as the Biafran War, of 1967 - 1970. The conflict was infamous for its savage impact on the Biafran people, Chinua Achebe's people, many of whom were starved to death after the Nigerian government blockaded their borders. By then, Achebe was already a world-renowned novelist, with a young family to protect. He took the Biafran side in the conflict and served his government as a roving cultural ambassador, from which vantage he absorbed the war's full horror. Immediately after the war, Achebe took refuge in an academic post in the United States, and for more than forty years he has maintained a considered silence on the events of those terrible years, addressing them only obliquely through his poetry. Now, decades in the making, comes a towering reckoning with one of modern Africa's most fateful events, from a writer whose words and courage have left an enduring stamp on world literature. Achebe begins his story with Nigeria's birth pangs and the story of his own upbringing as a man and as a writer, so that we may understand both the young country's keen sense of promise, which too quickly turned to horror, and Achebe's view of the particular obligation of the artist, especially in a time of war. For Chinua Achebe, to be a serious writer is to be a committed writer - to speak for one's history, one's beliefs, and one's people, especially when others cannot. A marriage of history and memoir, vivid firsthand observation and decades of further research and reflection, THERE WAS A COUNTRY is a work whose wisdom and compassion remind us of Chinua Achebe's place as one of the great literary and moral voices of our age.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - CHINUA ACHEBE published THINGS FALL APART in 1958. It was followed by NO LONGER AT EASE (AWS 3) and ARROW OF GOD (AWS 16). A MAN OF THE PEOPLE (AWS 31) aroused widespread interest on publication at the time of the January 1966 coup because of its prophetic ending. The effects of his novels, and of his editorship of the African Writers Series has had a dramatic impact on the development of the literature of Africa. Some of the stories in GIRLS AT WAR (AWS 100) and some of the poems in BEWARE SOUL BROTHER (AWS 120) are set in the war. His essays were published in 1975 under the title MORNING YET ON CREATION DAY (Heinemann). He was educated at Government College, Umuahia and University College, Ibadan. By the time he left the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1966 he had become Director of External Broadcasting. Since the war he has been at the Universities of Nigeria, Massachusetts and Connecticut. He has now returned to Nsukka. Among many recent honours has been the award of a Fellowship of the Modern Languages Association of America and of Doctorates at the Universities of Stirling and Southampton. He has recently followed Heinrich Boll, the Nobel prizewinner, as the recipient of the Scottish Arts Council's Neil Gunn Fellowship. Chinua Achebe is best known as a novelist. But the years of the Nigerian crisis and the civil war were not, for both practical and psychological reasons, a time for work on full-length novels. He found poetry a means of expressing his distress, even though few of the poems speak directly of the war. He has added some new poems to this collection which has already been published in Nigeria.
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Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. London. 1962. Heinemann. African Writers Series. Illustrated by Dennis Carabine. 185 pages. paperback. AWS1.
DESCRIPTION- THINGS FALL APART centers on Okonkwo, a self-made and successful man striving for an ascendant position in his village. The story takes place in a Nigerian village in the late 19th Century, and in it, Chinua Achebe, a young Nigerian writing in English, has dramatized the coherent, patterned past of his people and the effects of Western civilization upon it. Through Okonkwo's menage of three wives and many children, his ambitions and especially his honor and fierce prowess in battle, we are made to share the African's experience with his gods, his superstitions and customs, even his weather. Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of his novel is that it succeeds in presenting a way of life, unknown and alien to us, from the inside. It is a story simultaneously absorbing in its strangeness and compelling in its compassionate observation of human nature. The background of the story is the life of the village - its feasts, wrestling matches, betrothal celebrations, and also its shrouded oracles and masked gods and the net of fear that can separate a mother from her child, a man from his heir. The story culminates with the arrival of the emissaries (of both races) of the Western world, who bring their religion, government, and skill in fragmentary form to be dispersed and dismembered once more among an uncomprehending people - half hostile, half curious. Achebe writes clear, level, almost understated prose, and it is partly through his tautly controlled style that the power of the book is achieved. Chinua Achebe was born twenty-eight years ago in Nigeria. His father had been one of the earliest converts to Christianity in his village and was then a missionary teacher. Achebe attended the mission school in his village and after six years won a scholarship to a government secondary school. He says, ‘Even in the village school I had developed an interest in English - a very elementary and stilted kind of English. I was hopeless at games, and I once had a report to the effect that I hardly existed outside the classrooms. My indifference to cricket has grown with the years.' Achebe then won a scholarship to study Medicine at the University College at Iba-dan, but he soon realized that he had very little interest in science. After a year he switched to the Liberal Arts curriculum and edited the student magazine. He writes ‘In the university I was definitely certain that I would write novels, and the story of THINGS FALL APART began to form vaguely in my mind. When in the end I settled down to write it I did not need any kind of draft. My main interest is in the life of the communities in the past. I have chosen a hinterland community far from the coastal peoples who have been debased by their participation in the cruelties of the slave trade. I am also interested in the problems of present day Nigeria and intend in my next novel to bring the story of Okonkwo's family up to date.'
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Chinua Achebe (16 November 1930 - 21 March 2013) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic. His first novel Things Fall Apart (1958), often considered his masterpiece, is the most widely read book in modern African literature. Chinua Achebe published THINGS FALL APART in 1958. It was followed by NO LONGER AT EASE (AWS 3) and ARROW OF GOD (AWS 16). A MAN OF THE PEOPLE (AWS 31) aroused widespread interest on publication at the time of the January 1966 coup because of its prophetic ending. The effects of his novels, and of his editorship of the African Writers Series has had a dramatic impact on the development of the literature of Africa. Some of the stories in GIRLS AT WAR (AWS 100) and some of the poems in BEWARE SOUL BROTHER (AWS 120) are set in the war. His essays were published in 1975 under the title MORNING YET ON CREATION DAY (Heinemann). He was educated at Government College, Umuahia and University College, Ibadan. By the time he left the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1966 he had become Director of External Broadcasting. Since the war he has been at the Universities of Nigeria, Massachusetts and Connecticut. He has now returned to Nsukka. Among many recent honours has been the award of a Fellowship of the Modern Languages Association of America and of Doctorates at the Universities of Stirling and Southampton. He has recently followed Heinrich Boll, the Nobel prizewinner, as the recipient of the Scottish Arts Council's Neil Gunn Fellowship. Chinua Achebe is best known as a novelist. But the years of the Nigerian crisis and the civil war were not, for both practical and psychological reasons, a time for work on full-length novels. He found poetry a means of expressing his distress, even though few of the poems speak directly of the war. He has added some new poems to this collection which has already been published in Nigeria.
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Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York. 1959. McDowell Obolensky. 217 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Ronald Clyne.
DESCRIPTION- THINGS FALL APART centers on Okonkwo, a self-made and successful man striving for an ascendant position in his village. The story takes place in a Nigerian village in the late 19th Century, and in it, Chinua Achebe, a young Nigerian writing in English, has dramatized the coherent, patterned past of his people and the effects of Western civilization upon it. Through Okonkwo's menage of three wives and many children, his ambitions and especially his honor and fierce prowess in battle, we are made to share the African's experience with his gods, his superstitions and customs, even his weather. Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of his novel is that it succeeds in presenting a way of life, unknown and alien to us, from the inside. It is a story simultaneously absorbing in its strangeness and compelling in its compassionate observation of human nature. The background of the story is the life of the village - its feasts, wrestling matches, betrothal celebrations, and also its shrouded oracles and masked gods and the net of fear that can separate a mother from her child, a man from his heir. The story culminates with the arrival of the emissaries (of both races) of the Western world, who bring their religion, government, and skill in fragmentary form to be dispersed and dismembered once more among an uncomprehending people - half hostile, half curious. Achebe writes clear, level, almost understated prose, and it is partly through his tautly controlled style that the power of the book is achieved. Chinua Achebe was born twenty-eight years ago in Nigeria. His father had been one of the earliest converts to Christianity in his village and was then a missionary teacher. Achebe attended the mission school in his village and after six years won a scholarship to a government secondary school. He says, ‘Even in the village school I had developed an interest in English - a very elementary and stilted kind of English. I was hopeless at games, and I once had a report to the effect that I hardly existed outside the classrooms. My indifference to cricket has grown with the years.' Achebe then won a scholarship to study Medicine at the University College at Iba-dan, but he soon realized that he had very little interest in science. After a year he switched to the Liberal Arts curriculum and edited the student magazine. He writes ‘In the university I was definitely certain that I would write novels, and the story of THINGS FALL APART began to form vaguely in my mind. When in the end I settled down to write it I did not need any kind of draft. My main interest is in the life of the communities in the past. I have chosen a hinterland community far from the coastal peoples who have been debased by their participation in the cruelties of the slave trade. I am also interested in the problems of present day Nigeria and intend in my next novel to bring the story of Okonkwo's family up to date.'
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - CHINUA ACHEBE published THINGS FALL APART in 1958. It was followed by NO LONGER AT EASE (AWS 3) and ARROW OF GOD (AWS 16). A MAN OF THE PEOPLE (AWS 31) aroused widespread interest on publication at the time of the January 1966 coup because of its prophetic ending. The effects of his novels, and of his editorship of the African Writers Series has had a dramatic impact on the development of the literature of Africa. Some of the stories in GIRLS AT WAR (AWS 100) and some of the poems in BEWARE SOUL BROTHER (AWS 120) are set in the war. His essays were published in 1975 under the title MORNING YET ON CREATION DAY (Heinemann). He was educated at Government College, Umuahia and University College, Ibadan. By the time he left the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1966 he had become Director of External Broadcasting. Since the war he has been at the Universities of Nigeria, Massachusetts and Connecticut. He has now returned to Nsukka. Among many recent honours has been the award of a Fellowship of the Modern Languages Association of America and of Doctorates at the Universities of Stirling and Southampton. He has recently followed Heinrich Boll, the Nobel prizewinner, as the recipient of the Scottish Arts Council's Neil Gunn Fellowship. Chinua Achebe is best known as a novelist. But the years of the Nigerian crisis and the civil war were not, for both practical and psychological reasons, a time for work on full-length novels. He found poetry a means of expressing his distress, even though few of the poems speak directly of the war. He has added some new poems to this collection which has already been published in Nigeria.
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Achebe, Nwando. The Female King of Colonial Nigeria: Ahebi Ugbabe. Bloomington. 2011. Indiana University Press. 9780253222480. 6 x 9. 29 b&w illus., 12 maps, 9 music exx., 5 tables. 322 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Nwando Achebe presents the fascinating history of an Igbo woman, Ahebi Ugbabe, who became king in colonial Nigeria. Ugbabe was exiled from Igboland, became a prostitute, traveled widely, and learned to speak many languages. She became a close companion of Nigerian Igala kings and the British officers who supported her claim to the office of headman, warrant chief, and later, king. In this unique biography, Achebe traces the roots of Ugbabe's rise to fame and fortune. While providing critical perspectives on women, gender, sex and sexuality, and the colonial encounter, she also considers how it was possible for this woman to take on the office and responsibilities of a traditionally male role.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Nwando Achebe is Professor of History at Michigan State University. She is author of Farmers, Traders, Warriors, and Kings: Female Power and Authority in Northern Igboland, 1900–1960.
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Ademola, Frances (editor). Reflections: Nigerian Prose and Verse. Lagos. 1962. African Universities Press. 123 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- An anthology from African Universities Press, the first indigenous publishing house in independent Africa. Contributors - Chinua Achebe, J. P. Clark, Cyprian Ekwenski, John Ekwere, Onuora NZekwu, Nkem Nwankwo, Gabriel Okara, Christopher Okigbo, David Owoyele, Ralph Opara, Wole Soyinka, Mabel Segun, and Amos Tutuola.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Frances Ademola has been an ardent champion of Ghanaian artists for over 40 years.
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Adenle, Leye. Easy Motion Tourist. Maitama, Abuj. 2016. Cassava Republic Press. 9781911115069. 327 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- "Fast and furious, told from a kaleidoscope of different points of view, it's a rollercoaster ride through a world of extremes, where everything is up for grabs." --The Guardian "Gritty, gripping, and hard to put down, Easy Motion Tourist delves into the dark side of Lagos, with a narrative structure that feels fresh and an incredibly immersive atmosphere. A welcome twist on the contemporary thriller." --The Crime Review Easy Motion Tourist is a compelling crime novel set in contemporary Lagos, featuring Guy Collins, a British hack who stumbles into the murky underworld of the city. A woman's mutilated body is discarded outside a club near one of the main hotels in Victoria Island. The police pick up Collins, a bystander, as a potential suspect. After experiencing the unpleasant realities of a Nigerian police cell, he is rescued by Amaka, a guardian angel of Lagos working girls. As Collins discovers more of the darker aspects of what makes Lagos tick--including the clandestine trade in organs--he also slowly falls for Amaka. Easy Motion Tourist pulsates with the rhythms of Lagos and entertains from beginning to end. Leye Adenle has written a number of short stories and flash fiction pieces. He has appeared on stage in London in plays including Ola Rotimi's Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again. Leye comes from a family of writers, the most famous of whom was his grandfather, Oba Adeleye Adenle I, a former king of Oshogbo in South West Nigeria.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Leye Adenle is a Nigerian writer. He has written a number of short stories and flash fiction pieces. Leye has appeared on stage in London in plays including Ola Rotimi’s Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again. He comes from a family of writers, the most famous of whom was his grandfather, Oba Adeleye Adenle I, a former king of Oshogbo in South West Nigeria. He lives in London.
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Adenle, Leye. When Trouble Sleeps. Maitama, Abuj. 2019. Cassava Republic Press. 9781911115632. 336 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- "Amaka Mbadiwe returns in this gripping sequel to the award-winning Easy Motion Tourist, and trouble isn't far behind her. The self-appointed saviour of Lagos' sex workers, Amaka may have bitten off more than she can chew this time as she finds herself embroiled in a political scandal. When a plane crash kills the state gubernatorial candidate, the party picks a replacement who is assured of winning the election: Chief Ojo. But Amaka knows the skeletons that lurk in Chief Ojo's closet, including what took place at the Harem, the secret sex club on the outskirts of Lagos that he frequents. Amaka is the only person standing between Chief Ojo and election victory, and he sends hired guns Malik and Shehu after her. Caught in a game of survival, against a backdrop of corruption, violence, sex and sleaze, Amaka must find a way to outwit her bloodthirsty adversaries. Leye Adenle pulls back the curtain on the seedy underbelly of Lagos once again in this gritty and compelling thriller."-Back cover.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Leye Adenle is a Nigerian writer. He has written a number of short stories and flash fiction pieces. Leye has appeared on stage in London in plays including Ola Rotimi’s Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again. He comes from a family of writers, the most famous of whom was his grandfather, Oba Adeleye Adenle I, a former king of Oshogbo in South West Nigeria. He lives in London.
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Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Americanah. New York. 2013. Knopf. 9780307271082. 481 pages. hardcover. Cover design by Abby Weintraub.
DESCRIPTION- From the award-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun, a dazzling new novel: a story of love and race centered around a young man and woman from Nigeria who face difficult choices and challenges in the countries they come to call home. As teenagers in a Lagos secondary school, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. Their Nigeria is under military dictatorship, and people are leaving the country if they can. Ifemelu - beautiful, self-assured - departs for America to study. She suffers defeats and triumphs, finds and loses relationships and friendships, all the while feeling the weight of something she never thought of back home: race. Obinze - the quiet, thoughtful son of a professor - had hoped to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Years later, Obinze is a wealthy man in a newly democratic Nigeria, while Ifemelu has achieved success as a writer of an eye-opening blog about race in America. But when Ifemelu returns to Nigeria, and she and Obinze reignite their shared passion - for their homeland and for each other - they will face the toughest decisions of their lives. Fearless, gripping, at once darkly funny and tender, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story set in today's globalized world: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's most powerful and astonishing novel yet. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie grew up in Nigeria. Her work has been translated into thirty languages and has appeared in various publications, including The New Yorker, Granta, The O. Henry Prize Stories, the Financial Times, and Zoetrope: All-Story. She is the author of the novels Purple Hibiscus, which won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and Half of a Yellow Sun, which won the Orange Prize and was a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, a New York Times Notable Book, and a People and Black Issues Book Review Best Book of the Year; and, most recently, the story collection The Thing Around Your Neck. A recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, she divides her time between the United States and Nigeria.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (born 15 September 1977) is a Nigerian writer. She is Igbo. She has been called ‘the most prominent' of a ‘procession of critically acclaimed young anglophone authors [that] is succeeding in attracting a new generation of readers to African literature'.
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Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Purple Hibiscus. Chapel Hill. 2003. Algonquin Books. 1565123875. Adichie was shortlisted for the 2002 Caine Prize for African Writing. 309 pages. hardcover. Jacket design and imaging: Honi Werner.
DESCRIPTION- In the city of Enugu, Nigeria, fifteen-year-old Kambili and her older brother, Jaja, lead a privileged life. Their Papa is a wealthy and respected businessman; they live in a beautiful house; and they attend an exclusive missionary school. But, as Kambili reveals in her tender-voiced account, their home life is anything but harmonious. Her father, a fanatically religious man, has impossible expectations of his children and wife, and severely punishes them if they're less than perfect. Home is silent and suffocating. When Kambili's loving and outspoken Aunty Ifeoma persuades her brother that the children should visit her in Nsukka, Kambili and Jaja take their first trip away from home. Once inside their Aunty Ifeoma's flat, they discover a whole new world. Books cram the shelves, curry and nutmeg permeate the air, and their cousins' laughter rings throughout the house. Jaja learns to garden and work with his hands, and Kambili secretly falls in love with a young charismatic priest. When a military coup threatens to destroy the country and Kambili and Jaja return home changed by their newfound freedom, tension within the family escalates. And Kambili must find the strength to keep her loved ones together after her mother commits a desperate act. Purple Hibiscus is an exquisite and heartrending story about the emotional turmoil of adolescence, the powerful bonds of family, and the cultural influences that shape our lives. It heralds the debut of a remarkable and talented new writer. CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE grew up in Nigeria, where she attended medical school for two years at the University of Nigeria before coming to the United States. A 2003 0. Henry Prize winner, Adichie was shortlisted for the 2002 Caine Prize for African Writing. Her work has been selected by the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association and the BBC Short Story Awards, and has appeared in various literary publications, including Zoetrope and the Iowa Review. She now divides her time between the U.S. and Nigeria.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (born 15 September 1977) is a Nigerian writer. She is Igbo. She has been called ‘the most prominent' of a ‘procession of critically acclaimed young anglophone authors [that] is succeeding in attracting a new generation of readers to African literature'.
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Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. The Thing Around Your Neck. New York. 2009. Knopf. 9780307271075. 227 pages. hardcover. Cover design by Abby Weintraub.
DESCRIPTION- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie burst onto the literary scene with her remarkable debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, which critics hailed as “one of the best novels to come out of Africa in years” (Baltimore Sun), with “prose as lush as the Nigerian landscape that it powerfully evokes” (The Boston Globe); The Washington Post called her “the twenty-first-century daughter of Chinua Achebe.” Her award-winning Half of a Yellow Sun became an instant classic upon its publication three years later, once again putting her tremendous gifts - graceful storytelling, knowing compassion, and fierce insight into her characters' hearts - on display. Now, in her most intimate and seamlessly crafted work to date, Adichie turns her penetrating eye on not only Nigeria but America, in twelve dazzling stories that explore the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Africa and the United States. In “A Private Experience,” a medical student hides from a violent riot with a poor Muslim woman whose dignity and faith force her to confront the realities and fears she's been pushing away. In “Tomorrow is Too Far,” a woman unlocks the devastating secret that surrounds her brother's death. The young mother at the center of “Imitation” finds her comfortable life in Philadelphia threatened when she learns that her husband has moved his mistress into their Lagos home. And the title story depicts the choking loneliness of a Nigerian girl who moves to an America that turns out to be nothing like the country she expected; though falling in love brings her desires nearly within reach, a death in her homeland forces her to reexamine them. Searing and profound, suffused with beauty, sorrow, and longing, these stories map, with Adichie's signature emotional wisdom, the collision of two cultures and the deeply human struggle to reconcile them. The Thing Around Your Neck is a resounding confirmation of the prodigious literary powers of one of our most essential writers.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (born 15 September 1977) is a Nigerian writer. She is Igbo. She has been called ‘the most prominent' of a ‘procession of critically acclaimed young anglophone authors [that] is succeeding in attracting a new generation of readers to African literature'.
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Adigun, Bisi and Doyle, Roddy. The Playboy of the Western World—A New Version: A Critical Edition. Syracuse. Syracuse University Press. 9780815638346. Edited by Jason King and Matthew Spangler. Irish Studies. 242 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Bisi Adigun and Roddy Doyle’s centenary adaption of J. M. Synge’s classic The Playboy of the Western World had a sold-out run when it was produced at Dublin’s Abbey Theater in 2007 and was brought back by popular demand in 2009. The new version is set in a contemporary Dublin pub and features the character of a Nigerian asylum-seeker in the lead role. Under the coauthorship of Bisi Adigun, artistic director of Arambe Productions—Ireland’s first African theater company—and best-selling, Booker Prize–winning novelist Roddy Doyle, the play engages with issues of race and immigration in modern Ireland and aims to be a model for intercultural collaboration. This critical edition features the full text of the play, published for the first time, along with a collection of essays exploring the play’s themes, cultural significance, critical reception, and the legal case that cut short its successful production run. Though the play was first produced over a decade ago, the topic of migration has only increased in its global importance over that time, and this adaptation of Playboy remains a popular touchstone among scholars of Irish theater and immigration.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bisi Adigun is a Nigerian playwright who lived and worked in Ireland from 1996 to 2019, Roderick Doyle (born 8 May 1958) is an Irish novelist, dramatist and screenwriter. He is the author of eleven novels for adults, eight books for children, seven plays and screenplays, and dozens of short stories. Several of his books have been made into films, beginning with The Commitments in 1991. Doyle's work is set primarily in Ireland, especially working-class Dublin, and is notable for its heavy use of dialogue written in slang and Irish English dialect. Doyle was awarded the Booker Prize in 1993 for his novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. Jason King is academic coordinator of the Irish Heritage Trust in Dublin. He has coedited several books on Irish culture and history, including Interculturalism and Performance Now: New Directions? and a special issue of Irish Studies Review. Matthew Spangler is professor of performance studies at San José State University and writer in residence for the Hinterland Festival of Literature and Arts in Kells, Ireland. He is the author or coauthor of many plays, including The Beekeeper of Aleppo, Albatross, and The Kite Runner, which was recently produced on Broadway. He is also coeditor of the volume Staging Intercultural Ireland: New Plays and Practitioner Perspectives.
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Akpan, Uwen. Say You’re One of Them. Boston. 2008. Little Brown. 9780316113786. 359 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Keith Hayes.
DESCRIPTION- Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence so piercingly that few readers will feel they've ever encountered Africa so immediately. The eight-year-old narrator of ‘An Ex-Mas Feast' needs only enough money to buy books and pay fees in order to attend school. Even when his twelve-year-old sister takes to the streets to raise these meager funds, his dream can't be granted. Food comes first. His family lives in a street shanty in Nairobi, Kenya, but their way of both loving and taking advantage of each other strikes a universal chord. In the second of his stories published in a New Yorker special fiction issue, Akpan takes us far beyond what we thought we knew about the tribal conflict in Rwanda. The story is told by a young girl, who, with her little brother, witnesses the worst possible scenario between parents. They are asked to do the previously unimaginable in order to protect their children. This singular collection will also take the reader inside Nigeria, Benin, and Ethiopia, revealing in beautiful prose the harsh consequences for children of life in Africa. Akpan's voice is a literary miracle, rendering lives of almost unimaginable deprivation and terror into stories that are nothing short of transcendent.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Uwem Akpan was born in Ikot Akpan Eda in southern Nigeria. After studying philosophy and English at Creighton and Gonzaga universities, he studied theology for three years at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa. He was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 2003 and received his MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan in 2006. ‘My Parents' Bedroom,' a story from his short story collection, SAY YOU'RE ONE OF THEM, was one of five short stories by African writers chosen as finalists for The Caine Prize for African Writing 2007. Say You're One of Them won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book (Africa Region) 2009 and PEN/Beyond Margins Award 2009, and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. In 2007, Akpan taught at a Jesuit college in Harare, Zimbabwe. Now he serves at Christ the King Church, Ilasamaja-Lagos, Nigeria.
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Akwanya, Amechi. Orimili. Portsmouth. 1991. Heinemann. 0435906704. Paperback Original. African Writers Series. 186 pages. paperback. Cover illustration by Sam Piyasena. Cover design by Keith Pointing.
DESCRIPTION- ORIMILI takes his name from the great river that flows through his hometown of Kokocha - but while the river flows on to the wider world beyond, Orimili is anchored to his home, and yearns to strengthen those ties further. His ambition is to be accepted in the company of elders, to wear the thick white thread of office around his ankle. In this first novel, Amechi Akwanya has created a complex community at the point of irrevocable change. With masterly precision and acute insight he delineates the forces that animate human relationships - that bind them and destroy them, and define society.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Amechi Nicholas Akwanya MA, PhD, was born in 1952 in Awkuzu, near Onitsha, Nigeria. He attended primary school in Awkuzu, and secondary school at All Hallows Seminary, Onitsha. At third level, Akwanya studied philosophy and theology (1972-1980), at Bigard Memorial Seminary, Enugu, Nigeria. He was ordained priest in July 1980, and travelled to Ireland two years later where he studied at Maynooth College, National University of Ireland, between 1982 and 1989. Akwanya gained a BA in English and Geography (1985), an MA in English (1986) and returned to Nigeria in 1989 having achieved a PhD in English. The theme of his doctoral dissertation was 'Structuring and Meaning in the Nigerian Novel.'Akwanya is a member of the International Association for the study of Anglo-Irish literature. He has had work on 'Echewa's Narrative Strategy' published in Nigeria Today (1989), and has produced work on 'The Nigerian, Chinua Achebe's Writing: An Investment in Speech' for The Irish Review. Orimili is Akwanya's first novel.
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Alkali, Zaynab. The Stillborn. Harlow. 1984. Longman. 0582026571. 128 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- A novel by one of the earliest Nigerian women writers. Considered a milestone in African literature: this is the first novel from a woman writer with a Muslim background. It tells of a young woman's experiences in the recurring conflict between traditional and modern values in Africa today, reflecting the author's belief that women should strive to fulfil their potential.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Zaynab Alkali (born 1950 Tura-Wazila, Borno State) is a Nigerian novelist, poet, short story writer. She is regarded as the first woman novelist from Northern Nigeria. Alkali was born in Tura-Wazila in Borno State in 1950. She graduated from Bayero University Kano with a BA in 1973. She obtained a doctorate in African Studies in the same university and became the principal of Sakera Girls' boarding school. She went on to be a lecturer in English at two universities in Nigeria. She rose to be a dean in the Faculty of arts at Nasarawa State University in Keffi where she taught creative writing.
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Aluko, T. M. Chief the Honourable Minister. London. 1970. Heinemann. 0435900706. African Writers Series. 214 pages. paperback. AWS70. Cover design by Peter Edwards.
DESCRIPTION- This satirical novel takes place in an imaginary African state - Afromacoland - two years after British colonial rule has come to an end and the first national ‘democratic' government is in power. The ‘Chief the Honourable Minister' of the title is Alade Moses, B.A., Dip Ed. (University of London), Headmaster of the Grammar School in his home town of Newtown. While he is in London on a visit organized by the British Council, he is suddenly informed thai he has been appointed a Minister in the Government of his country. He returns to become, unwillingly, Minister of Works, and the innocent catalyst who sparks off a train of events which ends in corruption, bloodshed, and tragedy for himself and his country.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - T. M. ALUKO was born in 1918 at Ilesha in western Nigeria and educated at Ilesh and Government College, Ibadan. He studied civil engineering and town planning in Lagos and London, and in 1960 was appointed Director of Public Works for Western Nigeria. His three other equally amusing novels are all available in African Writers Series; ONE MAN, ONE MATCHET (AWS 11), ONE MAN, ONE WIFE (AWS 30) and KINSMAN AND FOREMAN (AWS 32).
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Aluko, T. M. His Worshipful Majesty. London. 1973. Heinemann. 0435901303. African Writers Series. 174 pages. paperback. AWS130. Cover design by Peter Edwards. incorrect ISBN on copyright page.
DESCRIPTION- Since time immemorial the Alaiye, Oba Olayiwola Adegoke, King of Aiye, had held unquestioned supremacy over his small kingdom. More recently, the British had also come to hold some of the reins of power, but the King had continued in the old ways with his authority largely unquestioned. Unquestioned, that is, until the formation of the Local Government Law - with the Aiye Divisional Council under the Chairmanship of Barrister Morrison - to modernize the land and to make sure that public funds are fairly spent for the public good : education, hospitals, new roads and town planning. Initially all goes well, the fine aims and objects are welcomed by the Oba until he realizes that the new schemes cost money and that he cannot continue to spend public money in the old time-honoured ways.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - T. M. ALUKO was born in 1918 at Ilesha and educated at Government College, Ibadan. He studied civil engineering and town planning in Lagos and London, and in 1960 was appointed Director of Public Works for Western Nigeria. He has now joined the staff of the University of Lagos. He first attracted notice through short stories which won prizes in contests organized by the British Council in Nigeria. A number of his stories and articles were then published In West Africa Review and broadcast by the BBC African Service. One Man One Wife was first published in 1959 by the Nigerian Printing and Publishing Company in Lagos. Since then he has published two other novels, ONE MAN ONE MATCHET (1964) and KINSMAN AND FOREMAN (1966).
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Aluko, T. M. Kinsman and Foreman. London. 1967. Heinemann. African Writers Series. 203 pages. paperback. AWS32.
DESCRIPTION- A chorus of wailing greets Titus Oti on his return to his family home in a small town in Western Nigeria. While he was away in England studying engineering his father died and now as his guardian and mentor, his family appoint his kinsman, Simeon. Titus is to take up a post in the Public Works Department in his home town: as Simeon is already a foreman in the PWD and a leading figure in Ibala society, who better to show him the ropes? Tutus soon finds that life is not so simple as it appears. He cannot afford the donations expected of him and his attempts to combat Simeon's corrupt practices bring him into conflict with his family and friends. Furthermore, Titus has to cope with a religious sect which causes havoc among his labourers. He sees no way of escaping the bonds of family and local society until religious hysteria mercifully takes a hand.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - T. M. ALUKO was born in 1918 at Ilesha and educated at Government College, Ibadan. He studied civil engineering and town planning in Lagos and London, and in 1960 was appointed Director of Public Works for Western Nigeria. He has now joined the staff of the University of Lagos. He first attracted notice through short stories which won prizes in contests organized by the British Council in Nigeria. A number of his stories and articles were then published In West Africa Review and broadcast by the BBC African Service. One Man One Wife was first published in 1959 by the Nigerian Printing and Publishing Company in Lagos. Since then he has published two other novels, ONE MAN ONE MATCHET (1964) and KINSMAN AND FOREMAN (1966).
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Aluko, T. M. One Man, One Matchet. London. 1966. Heinemann. African Writers Series. 197 pages. paperback. AWS11. Cover drawing by J. Yunge-Bateman. Originally published in AWS series 1965.
DESCRIPTION- This a novel about Yorubaland - the Western Region of Nigeria, where coca trees and cocoa trees and cocoa beans spell wealth. When a young Agricultural Officer, newly arrived from England, advises that every diseased tree in the District be cut down before the whole crop is infected, every farmer's reaction is to defend his trees, by force if necessary. Support for the Agricultural Officer comes from the ‘black white man', the new Nigerian District Officer, and the clash between him and a rabble-rousing politician and journalist, Benjamin Benjamin, involves the whole village in a situation which culminates in violence, death and imprisonment before calm is restored.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - T. M. ALUKO was born in 1918 at Ilesha and educated at Government College, Ibadan. He studied civil engineering and town planning in Lagos and London, and in 1960 was appointed Director of Public Works for Western Nigeria. He has now joined the staff of the University of Lagos. He first attracted notice through short stories which won prizes in contests organized by the British Council in Nigeria. A number of his stories and articles were then published In West Africa Review and broadcast by the BBC African Service. One Man One Wife was first published in 1959 by the Nigerian Printing and Publishing Company in Lagos. Since then he has published two other novels, ONE MAN ONE MATCHET (1964) and KINSMAN AND FOREMAN (1966).
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Aluko, T. M. One Man, One Wife. London/Nairobi. 1967. Heinemann. African Writers Series. 201 pages. paperback. AWS30. Cover drawing by A. Adenuga.
DESCRIPTION- The village of Isolo has great difficulty in accepting the missionary concept of ‘one man, one wife': this is the story of how a large portion of the village populace becomes disillusioned with mission Christianity and returns to the worship of the old gods. This is companied by intrigue against the Christians, resulting in Teacher Royasin, the village catechist, being hounded from Isolo on suspicion of having an affair with another man's young wife. The various sub-plots introduce a number of colourful characters: Elder Joshua, a respected member of the community; Dele, a village boy who becomes a smart young man-about-town; his beautiful young sister Toro; and Bible Jeremiah, loyal pillar of the church in Isolo. An ingenious tale is woven round such characters, capturing extremely well the atmosphere of the village community.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - T. M. ALUKO was born in 1918 at Ilesha and educated at Government College, Ibadan. He studied civil engineering and town planning in Lagos and London, and in 1960 was appointed Director of Public Works for Western Nigeria. He has now joined the staff of the University of Lagos. He first attracted notice through short stories which won prizes in contests organized by the British Council in Nigeria. A number of his stories and articles were then published In West Africa Review and broadcast by the BBC African Service. One Man One Wife was first published in 1959 by the Nigerian Printing and Publishing Company in Lagos. Since then he has published two other novels, ONE MAN ONE MATCHET (1964) and KINSMAN AND FOREMAN (1966).
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Aluko, T. M. Wrong Ones in the Dock. London. 1982. Heinemann. African Writers Series. 186 pages. paperback. AWS242.
DESCRIPTION- The plot of Wrong Ones in the Dock is based on an incident early 1980s in which forty-three of the sixty-two suspects standing trial in some courts in Lagos were suffocated in the enclosed lorry conveying them to and from the courts. The lorry with its passengers was left under the scorching heat with very little air space. The result is that forty- three suspects died. The novel is centred on two of the remaining survivors- a man and his son (Jonathan and Paul Egbor respectively). The crisis arises at No 22 Fasanya Street in Lagos. A quarrel occurs among some neighbours- the families of Gilbert Bassey and Jonathan Egbor. This fracas results in a fight Gilbert in a attempt to hit Jonathan with a club inadvertently clubs his own mother to death and passes the guilt over to the opponent. This warrants police arrest and detention of Jonathan and his son Paul.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - T. M. ALUKO was born in 1918 at Ilesha and educated at Government College, Ibadan. He studied civil engineering and town planning in Lagos and London, and in 1960 was appointed Director of Public Works for Western Nigeria. He has now joined the staff of the University of Lagos. He first attracted notice through short stories which won prizes in contests organized by the British Council in Nigeria. A number of his stories and articles were then published In West Africa Review and broadcast by the BBC African Service. One Man One Wife was first published in 1959 by the Nigerian Printing and Publishing Company in Lagos. Since then he has published two other novels, ONE MAN ONE MATCHET (1964) and KINSMAN AND FOREMAN (1966).
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Amadi, Elechi. Estrangement. London. 1986. Heinemann. 0435905643. African Writers Series. 244 pages. paperback. Cover design by Keith Pointing. Cover illustration by Danny Holliday.
DESCRIPTION- As the refugees return, filling bars and greeting the friends they thought were dead, it seems as if normality has returned. For Alekiri, Ibekwe, Major Dansuku and Christie however, the end of war does not bring healing. Isolated and confused, they have to face the legacy of their own broken and disturbed lives. ESTRANGEMENT is a portrait of the aftermath of the Biafran War, a shattering period brought to life through the very different experiences of ordinary people. Long recognized as one of Nigeria's leading novelists, Amadi weaves together his tale with an assured sensitivity that is rarely paralleled, and a deep affection for his country in a time of great change.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Elechi Amadi (born 12 May 1934) is a Nigerian author of plays and novels that are generally about African village life, customs, beliefs and religious practices, as they were before contact with the Western world. Amadi is best regarded for his 1966 first novel, The Concubine, which has been called ‘an outstanding work of pure fiction'. Born in 1934, in Aluu in the Ikwerre local government area of Rivers State, Nigeria, Elechi Amadi attended Government College, Umuahia (1948-1952), Survey School, Oyo (1953-1954), and the University of Ibadan (1955-1959), where he obtained a degree in Physics and Mathematics. He worked for a time as a land surveyor and later was a teacher at several schools, including the Nigerian Military School, Zaria (1963-1966). Amadi did military service in the Nigerian army and was on the Nigerian side during the Nigeria-Biafra War, retiring in the rank of Captain. After the war Amadi left the army to work for the Rivers State government. Positions he held include Permanent Secretary (1973-1983), Commissioner for Education (1987-1988) and Commissioner for Lands and Housing (1989-1990). He has been writer-in-residence and lecturer at Rivers State College of Education, where he has also been Dean of Arts, head of the Literature Department and Director of General Studies. On 13 May 1989 a symposium was held at the University of Port Harcourt to celebrate Amadi's 55th birthday. In May 2004, a conference was organized by the Association of Nigerian Authors, Rivers State Branch, to mark Elechi Amadi's 70th birthday. On 5 January 2009 Amadi was kidnapped at his home in Aluu town, Port Harcourt, by unknown gunmen. He was released 23 hours later, on the evening of 6 January. Elechi Amadi has said that his first publication was in 1957, a poem entitled ‘Penitence' in a University of Ibadan campus magazine called The Horn, edited by John Pepper Clark. Amadi's first novel, The Concubine, was published in London in 1966 and was hailed as a ‘most accomplished first performance'. Alastair Niven in his critical study of the novel wrote: ‘Rooted firmly among the hunting and fishing villages of the Niger delta, The Concubine nevertheless possesses the timelessness and universality of a major novel.' The Concubine was made into a film, written by Elechi Amadi and directed by accomplished Nollywood film director Andy Amenechi, which premiered in Abuja in March 2007. The setting of Amachi's second novel, The Great Ponds, published in 1969, is pre-colonial Eastern Nigeria, and is about the battle between two village communities over possession of a pond. In 1973 Amadi autobiographical non-fiction, Sunset in Biafra, was published. It records his personal experiences in the Nigeria-Biafra war, and according to Niven ‘is written in a compelling narrative form as though it were a novel'.
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Amadi, Elechi. Sunset in Biafra: A Civil War Diary. London. 1973. Heinemann. 0435901400. African Writers Series. 184 pages. paperback. AWS140.
DESCRIPTION- During the Nigerian civil war Amadi opposed the Biafran cause. His unpleasant encounters with the Biafran authorities are recorded in the memoir Sunset in Biafra.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Elechi Amadi (born 12 May 1934) is a Nigerian author of plays and novels that are generally about African village life, customs, beliefs and religious practices, as they were before contact with the Western world. Amadi is best regarded for his 1966 first novel, The Concubine, which has been called ‘an outstanding work of pure fiction'. Born in 1934, in Aluu in the Ikwerre local government area of Rivers State, Nigeria, Elechi Amadi attended Government College, Umuahia (1948-1952), Survey School, Oyo (1953-1954), and the University of Ibadan (1955-1959), where he obtained a degree in Physics and Mathematics. He worked for a time as a land surveyor and later was a teacher at several schools, including the Nigerian Military School, Zaria (1963-1966). Amadi did military service in the Nigerian army and was on the Nigerian side during the Nigeria-Biafra War, retiring in the rank of Captain. After the war Amadi left the army to work for the Rivers State government. Positions he held include Permanent Secretary (1973-1983), Commissioner for Education (1987-1988) and Commissioner for Lands and Housing (1989-1990). He has been writer-in-residence and lecturer at Rivers State College of Education, where he has also been Dean of Arts, head of the Literature Department and Director of General Studies. On 13 May 1989 a symposium was held at the University of Port Harcourt to celebrate Amadi's 55th birthday. In May 2004, a conference was organized by the Association of Nigerian Authors, Rivers State Branch, to mark Elechi Amadi's 70th birthday. On 5 January 2009 Amadi was kidnapped at his home in Aluu town, Port Harcourt, by unknown gunmen. He was released 23 hours later, on the evening of 6 January. Elechi Amadi has said that his first publication was in 1957, a poem entitled ‘Penitence' in a University of Ibadan campus magazine called The Horn, edited by John Pepper Clark. Amadi's first novel, The Concubine, was published in London in 1966 and was hailed as a ‘most accomplished first performance'. Alastair Niven in his critical study of the novel wrote: ‘Rooted firmly among the hunting and fishing villages of the Niger delta, The Concubine nevertheless possesses the timelessness and universality of a major novel.' The Concubine was made into a film, written by Elechi Amadi and directed by accomplished Nollywood film director Andy Amenechi, which premiered in Abuja in March 2007. The setting of Amachi's second novel, The Great Ponds, published in 1969, is pre-colonial Eastern Nigeria, and is about the battle between two village communities over possession of a pond. In 1973 Amadi autobiographical non-fiction, Sunset in Biafra, was published. It records his personal experiences in the Nigeria-Biafra war, and according to Niven ‘is written in a compelling narrative form as though it were a novel'.
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Amadi, Elechi. The Concubine. London. 1966. Heinemann. African Writers Series. 279 pages. paperback. AWS25. Cover drawing by Shyam Varma.
DESCRIPTION- With moving simplicity this first novel tells the story of Ihuoma, good, respected. of great beauty and dignity, who brings suffering and death to all her lovers. There are no white men, no European values. to disturb the old truths. Human society is orderly and predictable except when the gods are wronged. ‘A highly sophisticated, measured treatment of. the fatal loves of a woman in an Eastern Nigerian village. Written in a grave and simple style, it. reveals its author as a fine writer ruminating on a past already turning into legend.' - Richard Mayne in the New Statesman. 'Mr Amadi writes with speed and shapeliness and exhilaration. a lovely and dignified picture of a society not only still ruled by gods. but governed by a great delicacy in human relationships.' - Anne Duchene in the Guardian.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Elechi Amadi (born 12 May 1934) is a Nigerian author of plays and novels that are generally about African village life, customs, beliefs and religious practices, as they were before contact with the Western world. Amadi is best regarded for his 1966 first novel, The Concubine, which has been called ‘an outstanding work of pure fiction'. Born in 1934, in Aluu in the Ikwerre local government area of Rivers State, Nigeria, Elechi Amadi attended Government College, Umuahia (1948-1952), Survey School, Oyo (1953-1954), and the University of Ibadan (1955-1959), where he obtained a degree in Physics and Mathematics. He worked for a time as a land surveyor and later was a teacher at several schools, including the Nigerian Military School, Zaria (1963-1966). Amadi did military service in the Nigerian army and was on the Nigerian side during the Nigeria-Biafra War, retiring in the rank of Captain. After the war Amadi left the army to work for the Rivers State government. Positions he held include Permanent Secretary (1973-1983), Commissioner for Education (1987-1988) and Commissioner for Lands and Housing (1989-1990). He has been writer-in-residence and lecturer at Rivers State College of Education, where he has also been Dean of Arts, head of the Literature Department and Director of General Studies. On 13 May 1989 a symposium was held at the University of Port Harcourt to celebrate Amadi's 55th birthday. In May 2004, a conference was organized by the Association of Nigerian Authors, Rivers State Branch, to mark Elechi Amadi's 70th birthday. On 5 January 2009 Amadi was kidnapped at his home in Aluu town, Port Harcourt, by unknown gunmen. He was released 23 hours later, on the evening of 6 January. Elechi Amadi has said that his first publication was in 1957, a poem entitled ‘Penitence' in a University of Ibadan campus magazine called The Horn, edited by John Pepper Clark. Amadi's first novel, The Concubine, was published in London in 1966 and was hailed as a ‘most accomplished first performance'. Alastair Niven in his critical study of the novel wrote: ‘Rooted firmly among the hunting and fishing villages of the Niger delta, The Concubine nevertheless possesses the timelessness and universality of a major novel.' The Concubine was made into a film, written by Elechi Amadi and directed by accomplished Nollywood film director Andy Amenechi, which premiered in Abuja in March 2007. The setting of Amachi's second novel, The Great Ponds, published in 1969, is pre-colonial Eastern Nigeria, and is about the battle between two village communities over possession of a pond. In 1973 Amadi autobiographical non-fiction, Sunset in Biafra, was published. It records his personal experiences in the Nigeria-Biafra war, and according to Niven ‘is written in a compelling narrative form as though it were a novel'.
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Amadi, Elechi. The Great Ponds. New York. 1973. John Day. 0381982351. 217 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Joseph del Gaudio/O.G.
DESCRIPTION- THE GREAT PONDS tells of the battle of two villages over the pond of Wagaba in Eastern Nigeria, at a time when Europeans have yet to arrive. Thus it takes an outsider into a world where all his preconceptions are turned upside down. The great ponds have been fished by a village which will lose them if Olumba, the village champion, dies within the six months before the agreed upon battle. Olumba undertakes the task of staying alive with casual pride. Only then does he come to realize that hostile forces surround him on every side. The rival villagers will not shoot him with arrows or stab him with spears even though they would dearly like to. More dangerously, however, they may try to influence the gods improperly against him. In such circumstances ordinary work is full of threats to life. The village elders forbid him, their valuable hostage to fate, to go to his farms. Boredom makes Olumba reckless. Every time he walks up the village street people anxiously inquire after his health, so he remains unoccupied day after day in the darkness of his homestead. After only a month he slips out to work on his palm wine trees and an attack by wasps almost leads to his death. In fact, the rival villagers, led by Wago the leopard-killer, hear that he has died and smugly arrive to claim the great ponds. When the six months have almost passed, the greatest danger of all enters the village mysteriously killing, among others, members of Olumba's own family. At this crucial moment it looks as though the rival village and the hostile gods will win.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - ELECHI AMADI was born near Port Harcourt in Eastern Nigeria in 1934, and educated at Government College, Umuahia, and University College, Ibadan, where he took a degree in mathematics and physics. After a spell of land surveying and teaching, he was commissioned in the Nigerian army and attached to the Military School in Zaria. He later left the Army and returned to teaching. His first novel, The Concubine, was widely recognized as introducing a writer of great promise.
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Amadi, Elechi. The Slave. London. 1978. Heinemann. 0435902105. African Writers Series. 151 pages. paperback. AWS210.
DESCRIPTION- One of the author's trilogy of Nigerian novels dealing with the conflicts of modernity and ancestral Africa.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Elechi Amadi (born 12 May 1934) is a Nigerian author of plays and novels that are generally about African village life, customs, beliefs and religious practices, as they were before contact with the Western world. Amadi is best regarded for his 1966 first novel, The Concubine, which has been called ‘an outstanding work of pure fiction'. Born in 1934, in Aluu in the Ikwerre local government area of Rivers State, Nigeria, Elechi Amadi attended Government College, Umuahia (1948-1952), Survey School, Oyo (1953-1954), and the University of Ibadan (1955-1959), where he obtained a degree in Physics and Mathematics. He worked for a time as a land surveyor and later was a teacher at several schools, including the Nigerian Military School, Zaria (1963-1966). Amadi did military service in the Nigerian army and was on the Nigerian side during the Nigeria-Biafra War, retiring in the rank of Captain. After the war Amadi left the army to work for the Rivers State government. Positions he held include Permanent Secretary (1973-1983), Commissioner for Education (1987-1988) and Commissioner for Lands and Housing (1989-1990). He has been writer-in-residence and lecturer at Rivers State College of Education, where he has also been Dean of Arts, head of the Literature Department and Director of General Studies. On 13 May 1989 a symposium was held at the University of Port Harcourt to celebrate Amadi's 55th birthday. In May 2004, a conference was organized by the Association of Nigerian Authors, Rivers State Branch, to mark Elechi Amadi's 70th birthday. On 5 January 2009 Amadi was kidnapped at his home in Aluu town, Port Harcourt, by unknown gunmen. He was released 23 hours later, on the evening of 6 January. Elechi Amadi has said that his first publication was in 1957, a poem entitled ‘Penitence' in a University of Ibadan campus magazine called The Horn, edited by John Pepper Clark. Amadi's first novel, The Concubine, was published in London in 1966 and was hailed as a ‘most accomplished first performance'. Alastair Niven in his critical study of the novel wrote: ‘Rooted firmly among the hunting and fishing villages of the Niger delta, The Concubine nevertheless possesses the timelessness and universality of a major novel.' The Concubine was made into a film, written by Elechi Amadi and directed by accomplished Nollywood film director Andy Amenechi, which premiered in Abuja in March 2007. The setting of Amachi's second novel, The Great Ponds, published in 1969, is pre-colonial Eastern Nigeria, and is about the battle between two village communities over possession of a pond. In 1973 Amadi autobiographical non-fiction, Sunset in Biafra, was published. It records his personal experiences in the Nigeria-Biafra war, and according to Niven ‘is written in a compelling narrative form as though it were a novel'.
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Aniebo, I. N. C. The Anonymity of Sacrifice. London. 1974. Heinemann. 0435901486. African Writers Series. 115 pages. paperback. AWS148. Cover design by Bill Heyes.
DESCRIPTION- This novel is the story of three days during the Nigerian civil war. It tells of a bitter confrontation between two Biafrans: Captain Benjamin Onwura is elitist, a career army officer, trained in cadet school in Britain; Sergeant Cyril Agumo, also a career soldier, is a non-commissioned officer who served under British non-commissioned officers. Whenever new order is being created through violent revolution the contemplative man and the man of action will clash. Even when men are fighting together for causes they believe in, their differences of temperament, class and upbringing frequently bring them into conflict with one another.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ifeanyichukwu Ndubuisi Chikezie Aniebo, commonly known as I. N. C. Aniebo (born 31 March 1939), is a Nigerian novelist and short story writer, who has been called ‘the master craftsman of the Nigerian short story'. Aniebo trained as an artillery officer; his first stories were written under a pseudonym to avoid censorship. He fought for Biafra in the Nigerian Civil War, and The Anonymity of Sacrifice (1974) gives a sense of the horrors and personal conflicts of that war. Aniebo subsequently studied at the University of California, Los Angeles, before returning to Nigeria in 1979 to teach Creative Writing and Literature at the English Department of the University of Port Harcourt.
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Aniebo, I. N. C. The Journey Within. London. 1978. Heinemann. 0435902067. African Writers Series. 242 pages. paperback. AWS206. Cover photograph by George Hallett.
DESCRIPTION- In this novel of singular thoughtfulness l. N. C. Aniebo chronicles the progress of two Igbo marriages, one traditional and the other Christian. We are taken back to Port Harcourt in 1939 where Nelson is a fitter in an engine-shed. His marriage to Ejiaka was originally close and warm but, following the birth of their son Okechukwu, it turns sour as he takes up with a local barkeeper. On the other hand, the marriage of Janet and Christian, the shopkeeper, was hardly ever a marriage at all. The author's vivid portrayal of their parallel year's journey through life shows an almost inevitable progress from misfortune to disaster and beyond. First Christian is beaten up by thugs hired by a rich man with whose wife he has started having an affair, and then there is the almost casual accident of Janet's rape by soldiers as she travels back on a train after visiting her parents in Zaria, where she consulted a dibia about her inability to conceive again And finally, there is her welcome legacy from that rape.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ifeanyichukwu Ndubuisi Chikezie Aniebo, commonly known as I. N. C. Aniebo (born 31 March 1939), is a Nigerian novelist and short story writer, who has been called ‘the master craftsman of the Nigerian short story'. Aniebo trained as an artillery officer; his first stories were written under a pseudonym to avoid censorship. He fought for Biafra in the Nigerian Civil War, and The Anonymity of Sacrifice (1974) gives a sense of the horrors and personal conflicts of that war. Aniebo subsequently studied at the University of California, Los Angeles, before returning to Nigeria in 1979 to teach Creative Writing and Literature at the English Department of the University of Port Harcourt.
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Ayobade, Dotun. Queens of Afrobeat: Women, Play, and Fela Kuti's Music Rebellion. Bloomington. Indiana University Press. 9780253068644. 380 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Dotun Ayobade's wide-ranging research pulls from interviews with surviving queens, ethnographic narratives, the exploration of newspaper archives, and close readings of album covers, photographs, and promotional materials to help us see and understand the women who surrounded Fela Kuti on stage and in everyday life. Not only were these artists crucial performers and backup singers for Kuti's most important compositions, they also played key roles in his activism and campaigns of social protest against the Nigerian government in the 1970s. Drawing on previously untapped material, Queens of Afrobeat weaves together an intricate narrative of women's participation in popular music. The stories of these remarkable women transform and uniquely personalize our understanding of the politics and performance of one of the major modern musical traditions in Africa.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Dotun Ayobade is Assistant Professor of Performance Studies and African American Studies at Northwestern University. He studies how embodied forms of popular culture shape the meanings of community, justice, and activism in postcolonial West Africa. His writing covers late twentieth century dance, performance, and popular music in Anglophone West Africa, with an interest in the impact and trajectories of Afrobeat music.
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Bandele-Thomas, Biyi. The Man Who Came in From the Back of Beyond. Oxford. 1992. Heinemann. 0435905872. African Writers Series. 140 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- The relationship between a student and a literary teacher provides the framework for this clever novel-within-a-novel. A teacher, Maude, is enamored of a girl in a bar. He writes the story of her former boyfriend, and Maude's student is the first person to read the novel. Capturing modern Nigeria with its decaying standards, militarism, and poverty, Bandele Thomas's prose also yearns on every page for something good and worth holding onto in society.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Biyi Bandele-Thomas (born October 13, 1967, Kafanchan, Nigeria) is a Nigerian novelist and playwright generally known as Biyi Bandele. Bandele is one of the most versatile and prolific of the U.K.-based Nigerian writers, having turned his hand to theater, journalism, television, film, and radio, as well as the fiction with which he made his name. Acclaimed as both a prolific playwright and a versatile novelist, his 1997 adaptation of fellow Nigerian Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart for the British stage confirmed his place as an important voice on the post-colonial stage. He currently resides in London. Biyi Bandele was born to Yoruba parents in Kafanchan, northern Nigeria, in 1967. His father was a veteran of the Burma Campaign while Nigeria was still part of the British Empire. Bandele spent the first eighteen years of his life in the northern part of the country being most at home in the Hausa cultural tradition. Later on, he moved to Lagos then studied drama at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, and finally left for London in 1990. A precocious and intuitive playwright, his talent was recognised early on and he won the International Student Playscript competition of 1989 with an unpublished play, before claiming the 1990 British Council Lagos Award for an unpublished collection of poems. As a playwright, Bandele has worked with the Royal Court Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, as well as writing radio drama and screenplays for television. His plays are: Rain; Marching for Fausa (1993); Resurrections in the Season of the Longest Drought (1994); Two Horsemen (1994), selected as Best New Play at the 1994 London New Plays Festival; Death Catches the Hunter and Me and the Boys (published in one volume, 1995); and Oroonoko, an adaptation of Aphra Behn's seventeenth-century novel of the same name. Brixton Stories, Bandele's stage adaptation of his own novel The Street (1999), premiered in 2001 and was published in one volume with his play, Happy Birthday Mister Deka, which premiered in 1999. He was the Judith E. Wilson Fellow at Churchill College, University of Cambridge, in 2000-2001. He also acted as Royal Literary Fund Resident Playwright at the Bush Theatre from 2002 to 2003. Biyi Bandele's novels, which include The Man Who Came in from the Back of Beyond (1991) and The Street (1999), are rewarding reading, capable of wild surrealism and wit as well as political engagement. His 2007 novel, Burma Boy, has been described as ‘a fine achievement' and is lauded for providing a voice for previously unheard Africans.
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Bandele-Thomas, Biyi. The Sympathetic Undertaker and Other Dreams. Portsmouth. 1993. Heinemann. 0435905929. African Writers Series. 200 pages. paperback. Cover design by Touchpaper. Cover illustration by Colin Williams. Author photograph by Paul Freestone.
DESCRIPTION- When his brilliant younger brother is discovered wandering naked in the market, stark, raving mad, the nameless storyteller looks back on Rayo's life - a life of questioning and absurdity. Wilfully impetuous and with the resourcefulness of his youth, Rayo challenges the corrupt systems that control the lives of his fellow countrymen. He starts with a grotesque school bully and works his way up to an eventual headlong collision with the centre of political power. ‘A deft mixture of satire and poetic fantasy' - TIME OUT. ‘Writes like fury' - THE OBSERVER. ‘Biyi Bandele-Thomas is the Nigerian author of THE MAN WHO CAME IN FROM THE BACK OF BEYOND.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Biyi Bandele-Thomas (born 1967) is a Nigerian novelist and playwright generally known as Biyi Bandele. Bandele is one of the most versatile and prolific of the U.K.-based Nigerian writers, having turned his hand to theater, journalism, television, film, and radio, as well as the fiction with which he made his name. Acclaimed as both a prolific playwright and a versatile novelist, his 1997 adaptation of fellow Nigerian Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart for the British stage confirmed his place as an important voice on the post-colonial stage. He currently resides in London. Biyi Bandele was born to Yoruba parents in Kafanchan, northern Nigeria, in 1967. His father was a veteran of the Burma Campaign while Nigeria was still part of the British Empire. Bandele spent the first eighteen years of his life in the northern part of the country being most at home in the Hausa cultural tradition. Later on, he moved to Lagos then studied drama at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, and finally left for London in 1990. A precocious and intuitive playwright, his talent was recognised early on and he won the International Student Playscript competition of 1989 with an unpublished play, before claiming the 1990 British Council Lagos Award for an unpublished collection of poems. As a playwright, Bandele has worked with the Royal Court Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, as well as writing radio drama and screenplays for television. His plays are: Rain; Marching for Fausa (1993); Resurrections in the Season of the Longest Drought (1994); Two Horsemen (1994), selected as Best New Play at the 1994 London New Plays Festival; Death Catches the Hunter and Me and the Boys (published in one volume, 1995); and Oroonoko, an adaptation of Aphra Behn's seventeenth-century novel of the same name. Brixton Stories, Bandele's stage adaptation of his own novel The Street (1999), premiered in 2001 and was published in one volume with his play, Happy Birthday Mister Deka, which premiered in 1999. He was the Judith E. Wilson Fellow at Churchill College, University of Cambridge, in 2000-2001. He also acted as Royal Literary Fund Resident Playwright at the Bush Theatre from 2002 to 2003. Biyi Bandele's novels, which include The Man Who Came in from the Back of Beyond (1991) and The Street (1999), are rewarding reading, capable of wild surrealism and wit as well as political engagement. His 2007 novel, Burma Boy, has been described as ‘a fine achievement' and is lauded for providing a voice for previously unheard Africans.
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Bedford, Simi. Yoruba Girl Dancing. New York. 1992. Viking Press. 0670840459. 192 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Paul Buckley. Jacket illustration by Tom Olivieri/Mendoa Ltd.
DESCRIPTION- Lively colors, big gatherings, tribal festivals, parents, grandparents, servants. for Remi, growing up in Nigeria is a celebration of love and family, eccentricity and old ritual. She feels confident in her privilege and grounded in the heart of her culture. But when she turns six, as if by some awful spell, she is sent to faraway England, to a posh all-girls' boarding school where she will stay for what seems like a desolate, lonely eternity. There, like the heroine of The Little Princess, she's left to find her own way - the only black in a school full of upper-class English girls whose rituals are as foreign to Remi as hers are to them. Through sheer inner exuberance, Remi triumphs over the dismal climate, social anomalies, and glaring affronts that are her English experience. She endures foreign holidays celebrated with strangers, and navigates the labyrinth of race, caste, and culture, taking nothing lying down, and emerges victorious - if changed forever. Yoruba Girl Dancing is the story of a girl's exile from her homeland and her metamorphosis into someone that even she at times hardly recognizes. Simi Bedford, who herself survived leaving Africa behind for England, tells of her young heroine's passage with a knowing wit that is simultaneously sharp and gracious, in a coming-of-age story with a brilliant edge.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Simi Bedford is a Nigerian novelist based in Britain. Her best-known work is Yoruba Girl Dancing (1991), an autobiographical novel about a young Nigerian girl who is sent to England to receive a private school education. Bedford was born in Lagos, Nigeria, to parents who had come there from Sierra Leone. Her great-grandparents were from Nigeria and were rescued from a slave ship. Bedford spent her early years in Lagos, before being sent for her education to Britain, where she attended boarding-school from the age of six. She read Law at Durham University, and subsequently worked in the media, including as a radio presenter and a television researcher. Living in London, she married and raised three children. She is now divorced from her artist husband, Martin Bedford, but they still maintain a friendly relationship, even sharing space together in a house in Devon. Bedford's debut novel Yoruba Girl Dancing is semi-autobiographical, recounting the experience of a Nigerian girl's education in Britain. A five-part abridgement of Yoruba Girl Dancing (by Margaret Busby, read by Adjoa Andoh and produced by David Hunter) was broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Book at Bedtime in October 1991. Bedford's second novel, Not With Silver (2007), is historical fiction, focusing on mid-18th-century West Africa, slavery and court intrigue. Drawing on its author's own ancestral history, Not With Silver is unique among books about slavery in depicting the lives of people in Africa before they were enslaved.
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Braithwaite, Oyinkan. My Sister, the Serial Killer: A Novel. New York. 2018. Doubleday. 9780385544238. 240 pages. hardcover. Jackete design by Michael J. Windsor.
DESCRIPTION- A short, darkly funny, hand grenade of a novel about a Nigerian woman whose younger sister has a very inconvenient habit of killing her boyfriends. “Femi makes three, you know. Three and they label you a serial killer.” Korede is bitter. How could she not be? Her sister, Ayoola, is many things: the favorite child, the beautiful one, possibly sociopathic. And now Ayoola's third boyfriend in a row is dead. Korede's practicality is the sisters' saving grace. She knows the best solutions for cleaning blood, the trunk of her car is big enough for a body, and she keeps Ayoola from posting pictures of her dinner to Instagram when she should be mourning her “missing” boyfriend. Not that she gets any credit. Korede has long been in love with a kind, handsome doctor at the hospital where she works. She dreams of the day when he will realize that she's exactly what he needs. But when he asks Korede for Ayoola's phone number, she must reckon with what her sister has become and how far she's willing to go to protect her. Sharp as nails and full of deadpan wit, Oyinkan Braithwaite's deliciously deadly debut is as fun as it is frightening. “Pulpy, peppery and sinister, served up in a comic deadpan…This scorpion-tailed little thriller leaves a response, and a sting, you will remember.”–NEW YORK TIMES. “The wittiest and most fun murder party you've ever been invited to.”–MARIE CLAIRE.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Oyinkan Braithwaite is a graduate of Creative Writing and Law from Kingston University. Following her degree, she worked as an assistant editor at Kachifo, a Nigerian publishing house, and as a production manager at Ajapaworld, a children's educational and entertainment company. She now works as a freelance writer and editor. In 2014, she was shortlisted as a top-ten spoken-word artist in the Eko Poetry Slam, and in 2016 she was a finalist for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She lives in Lagos, Nigeria.
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Chinweizu. Energy Crisis and Other Poems. New York. 1978. Nok Publishers. 0883570629. 68 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Why publish a book of poems? asks the author, who, as you will soon discover from the poems themselves, seems to have dedicated himself to wasting his youth rather than have it wasted on him. ‘Not for cash,' he says, or vanity, or posterity, or any of the other standard blame takers, just for the pleasure of sharing them with you, whoever you are, now holding this book in your hands. With that he invites you to a harvest of poems of varied themes, attitudes and tones. The offering includes mildly spiced satires on love, war, and other 'serious' shenanigans; bemused commentaries and epigrams on status pedestals and other fashionable ego props; ironic boasts, praise songs and poems of abuse; laments for lost loves and frustrated lusts; elegies to victims of political brutalities; and, for the more technically minded, some parodies, imitations and other intrinsic disclaimers to originality. Should you ‘find any one or two of these poems engaging, titillating or pleasing,' or even displeasing, for that matter, the author says he would be most glad, and would be grateful to you for allowing yourself to be touched.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Chinweizu (born 26 March 1943) is a Nigerian critic, essayist, poet, and journalist. Though he has identified himself and is known simply as Chinweizu, he was born Chinweizu Ibekwe. While studying in the United States during the Black Power movement, Chinweizu became influenced by the philosophy of the Black Arts Movement. He is commonly associated with Black orientalism and emerged as one of the leading figures in contemporary Nigerian journalism, writing a highly influential column in The Guardian of Lagos. Chinweizu was born in 1943 in the town of Eluoma, in Isuikwuato in the part of Eastern Region of Nigeria that is known today as Abia State. He was educated at Government Secondary School, Afikpo, and later attended college at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he studied philosophy and mathematics, earning a bachelor of science degree in 1967, the year of the outbreak of civil war in Nigeria, which lasted two and a half years. At the time living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Chinweizu founded and edited the Biafra Review (1969–70). He enrolled for a Ph.D. at the State University of New York (SUNY), Buffalo, under the supervision of political scientist Claude E. Welch Jr. Chinweizu apparently had a disagreement with his dissertation committee and walked away with his manuscript, which he got published as The West and the Rest of Us: White Predators, Black Slavers, and the African Elite by Random House in 1975. He took the book to SUNY, Buffalo, where he demanded, and was promptly awarded, his Ph.D. in 1976, one year after he had published the dissertation. Thus, the publication settled his disagreement with his advisers in his favour. Chinweizu started teaching overseas, at MIT and San Jose State University. He had returned to Nigeria by the early 1980s, working over the years as a columnist for various newspapers in the country and also working to promote Black orientalism in Pan-Africanism. In Nigeria, he became a literary critic, attacking what he saw as the elitism of some Nigerian authors, particularly Wole Soyinka and he was editor of the Nigerian literary magazine, Okike. Chinweizu's notable intervention on this theme came in the essay "The Decolonization of African Literature" (later expanded into the 1983 book Toward the Decolonization of African Literature), to which Soyinka responded in an essay entitled "Neo-Tarzanism: The Poetics of Pseudo-Transition". Chinweizu's other works is Anatomy of Female Power, in which he discusses gender relations. Chinweizu has argued that the Arab colonization and Islamization of Africa is no different from European imperialism. The violent conquests, forced conversions and slavery perpetrated by European Christians were also perpetrated by Arab Muslims. In fact, the colonization and enslavement of Africa by Arabs began before the Europeans and continues to this day in Sudan, Mauritania and other countries in the Sahel region. Recently he published a comparative digest that shows the parallel history of European and Arab atrocities against indigenous Africans. He has been critical of the popular illusion that Islam is free of slavery and racism. Islam and Arabian culture are just as much foreign invasive forces as Christianity and European culture.
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Clark, J. P. America Their America. London. 1968. Heinemann. 0435900501. African Writers Series. 224 pages. paperback. AWS50. Published by HEB in association with Andre Deutsch. Originally published London: Deutsch, 1964.
DESCRIPTION- The Nigerian poet and playwright's criticism of American society. This book arose from the author's experiences as a Parvin scholar at Princeton. 'His account of God's Own Country spares nobody. It does not spare himself. America their America deserves to be read for its difference. It is a vivid, prickly book.' - The Times. ‘A vehement and colourful picture of that other America their America.' - Times Literary Supplement. 'Mr Clark's brilliant tour de force.' - Daily Times. 'Mr Clark has turned a poet's angry eye on America and his work is not so much a sociological analysis as an authentic and rather harrowing slice of his own life. what his attitude emphasizes. is the terrifying gap between complacent, middle-class America and emergent, revolutionary Africa.' - Sydney Morning Herald. 'He reports their [his American hosts'] dialogue with witty accuracy and dismisses their pretensions with arrogant ease. He finds America old and nervous.' - New Statesman. Published in association with Andre Deutsch.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo (6 April 1935 - 13 October 2020) was a Nigerian poet and playwright, who also published as J. P. Clark and John Pepper Clark. Born in Kiagbodo, Nigeria, to an Ijaw father and Urhobo mother, Clark received his early education at the Native Authority School, Okrika (Ofinibenya-Ama), in Burutu LGA (then Western Ijaw) and the prestigious Government College in Ughelli, and his BA degree in English at the University of Ibadan, where he edited various magazines, including the Beacon and The Horn. Upon graduation from Ibadan in 1960, he worked as an information officer in the Ministry of Information, in the old Western Region of Nigeria, as features editor of the Daily Express, and as a research fellow at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan. He served for several years as a professor of English at the University of Lagos, a position from which he retired in 1980. While at the University of Lagos he was co-editor of the literary magazine Black Orpheus. In 1982, along with his wife Ebun Odutola (a professor and former director of the Centre for Cultural Studies at the University of Lagos), he founded the PEC Repertory Theatre in Lagos. A widely travelled man, Clark held visiting professorial appointments at several institutions of higher learning, including Yale and Wesleyan University in the United States.
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Collins, John. Fela: Kalakuta Notes - second edition. Middletown. 2015. Wesleyan University Press. 9780819575395. Foreword by Banning Eyre. Music / Interview. 42 illus., 6 x 8’. 344 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Fela: Kalakuta Notes is an evocative account of Fela Kuti— the Afrobeat superstar who took African music into the arena of direct action. With his antiestablishment songs, he dedicated himself to Pan-Africanism and the downtrodden Nigerian masses, or ‘sufferheads. ’ In the 1970s, the British/Ghanaian musician and author John Collins met and worked with Fela in Ghana and Nigeria. Kalakuta Notes includes a diary that Collins kept in 1977 when he acted in Fela’s autobiographical film, Black President. The book offers revealing interviews with Fela by the author, as well as with band members, friends, and colleagues. For this second edition, Collins has expanded the original introduction by providing needed context for popular music in Africa in the 1960s and the influences on the artist’s music and politics. In a new concluding chapter, Collins reflects on the legacy of Fela: the spread of Afrobeat, Fela’s musical children, Fela’s Shrine and Kalakuta House, and the annual Felabration. Features a new foreword by Banning Eyre, an up-to-date discography by Ronnie Graham, a timeline, historical photographs, and snapshots by the author. ‘John Collins has given us a vibrant and multifaceted portrait of Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, told by Collins himself along with many others who knew and worked with Fela. This is a wonderful addition to the literature on Fela that reveals the complexity of the man and his role as a giant of modern African music, told by someone who was on the scene with Fela in the 1970s and who knew just the right angles to pursue. ’ - Michael E. Veal, author of Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - John Collins has been actively involved in the wider West African music scene since 1969, as a musician, bandleader, record producer and engineer, music union executive, writer, and archivist. He is a professor of popular music at the University of Ghana in Legon. Banning Eyre is the author of In Griot Time and a forthcoming book on the Zimbabwean musician Thomas Mapfumo. He is senior editor for Afropop.org.
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Echewa, T. Obinkaram. I Saw the Sky Catch Fire. New York. 1992. Dutton. 0525933980. 336 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Michael Ian Kaye. Jacket illustration by Sara Schwartz.
DESCRIPTION- ‘A woman endures. A man is like the froth on top of the soup, foam on top of the pot of palm wine. A woman, though, is the soup, the ugara wine that lies coiled up like a snake at the bottom of the pot. Like palm wine, a woman gets stronger with age. So, my son, do not worry about me. Whatever has not got the best of me up till this point has no chance at all of getting me now.' It is Nne-nne's last chance to share the old stories with her grandson, for soon Ajuzia will leave his past behind for a new life in America. And so the elderly woman spins him a skein of tales, weaving a colorful, bawdy, powerfully evocative tapestry of Nigerian life. At its heart lie her recollections of the 1929 ‘Women's War,' a dramatic and passionate uprising in which Nne-nne herself played a crucial role. Five years will pass before Ajuzia sees his village again. By then Nne-nne is dead, but Women's Wars still smolder. Ajuzia must confront not just the wife he left behind, now pregnant by another man, but his own uncertainties as well. For he is torn between America and Africa, between his years spent alone and Nne-nne's legacy of whole-hearted commitment to Ndom, the universal community of women. As this entertaining and provocative novel gathers its full force, Ajuzia learns that the issues of gender, tradition, and personal dignity have no seasons and no age - and that the incandescent spirit of Nne-nne's tales has not died with her. The past several decades have seen a brilliant outpouring of fiction from Africa, and T. Obinkaram Echewa is one of its premier talents. Now this remarkable writer has produced his most impressive work to date in a revelatory novel of grief and joy, conflict and love in a Nigerian village. It is a novel that lets us broaden the boundaries of our experience - and deepen our vision of the ties that connect us all. T. OBINKARAM ECHEWA was born in Nigeria. He holds degrees from Notre Dame, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania, and teaches English at West Chester University. His books include The Land's Lord, winner of the 1976 English-Speaking Union Prize, and The Crippled Dancer, regional finalist for the 1986 Commonwealth Book Prize.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - T OBINKARAM ECHEWA is a Nigerian native, who currently resides in the United States and teaches English at West Chester University, in Pennsylvania. His books include The Land's Lord, winner of the 1976 English-Speaking Union Prize, and The Crippled Dancer, regional finalist for the 1986 Commonwealth Book Prize. Echewa is also the author of two children's books, The Ancestor Tree andThe Magic Tree, as well as the political satire How Tables Came to Umu Madu.
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Echewa, T. Obinkaram. The Crippled Dancer. London. 1986. Heinemann. 0435906666. African Writers Series. 238 pages. paperback. Cover design by Keith Pointing. Cover illustration by Maggie Smith.
DESCRIPTION- Powerless to resist his grandfather's bitter, lifelong struggle with the village chief, Ajuzia is drawn into a world of feuding and intrigue. Even his childhood rivalry with the notorious 'Bush Radio' turns sour and Ajuzia soon finds himself up against a disturbing conspiracy - one that seeks to destroy his family's fortune by re-writing its past.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - T OBINKARAM ECHEWA is a Nigerian native, who currently resides in the United States and teaches English at West Chester University, in Pennsylvania. His books include The Land's Lord, winner of the 1976 English-Speaking Union Prize, and The Crippled Dancer, regional finalist for the 1986 Commonwealth Book Prize. Echewa is also the author of two children's books, The Ancestor Tree andThe Magic Tree, as well as the political satire How Tables Came to Umu Madu.
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Echewa, T. Obinkaram. The Land's Lord. Westport. 1976. Lawrence Hill & Company. 0882080695. 160 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- ‘Few men ever find the truth and survive it. It is a dangerous secret. The trick is to take as much truth as we can bear and go on living.' Ahamba, the Nigerian village elder, is speaking to Father Anton Higler, a French army deserter become Christian missionary - 'Chosen but not marked. Sent but not armed' - in the African jungle. Higler, driven by guilt and the lure of redemption, is inextricably bound to his servant Philip by their common cowardice; fatalist Ahamba serves other gods. He is fearless, having twice destroyed his family idols, knowing that all finally serve the Land which begets and recalls life. Ahamba and Higler compete for souls in this richly philosophical novel, which reaches an astounding climax when incest - the ultimate taboo - becomes an act of salvation, defiance justifying death when faith fails. THE LAND'S LORD provides an intriguing picture of conflicting cultures and the missionary's ambiguous role in tribal Africa. Like Conrad's LORD JIM, this book powerfully documents the search for peace and expiation through sacrifice and is an unusual comment on the nature of faith.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - T OBINKARAM ECHEWA (born December 16, 1940) is a Nigerian native, who currently resides in the United States and teaches English at West Chester University, in Pennsylvania. His books include The Land's Lord, winner of the 1976 English-Speaking Union Prize, and The Crippled Dancer, regional finalist for the 1986 Commonwealth Book Prize. Echewa is also the author of two children's books, The Ancestor Tree andThe Magic Tree, as well as the political satire How Tables Came to Umu Madu.
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Egbuna, Obi B. Elina. London. 1982. Fontana Library. 0006151515. Originally published as WIND VERSUS POLYGAMY. 126 pages. paperback. Cover photograph by Philip Webb.
DESCRIPTION- Elina is poor but startlingly beautiful - even when dressed in a patched gown and clumsy Okirika wrapper. When her father dies, leaving her mother penniless, there are plenty of sugar-daddies ready to pay the bride-price. Okosisi Ojukwu - an uncouth and battle-scarred. hunter claims Elina in settlement of a debt. Councillor Ogidi - rich and lecherous, offers double to buy him off. Then, as the case is being settled by the great Chief Ozuornba, his son falls in love with Elina.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Obi Benue Egbuna (18 July 1938 - 18 January 2014) was a Nigerian-born novelist, playwright and political activist, most famous for leading the United Coloured People's Association (UCPA) and being a member of the British Black Panther Movement (1968–72). Egbuna also published several texts on Marxist–Black Power, including Destroy This Temple: The Voice of Black Power in Britain (1971) and The ABC of Black Power Thought (1973). Egbuna was born in Ozubulu, Anambra State, Nigeria. He studied at the University of Iowa and Howard University, Washington, DC, moving to England in 1961 where he lived until 1973. Here he participated in the Antiuniversity of London and became a pioneer of the Black Power movement in Britain. Being heavily influenced by Marxism, Egbuna stressed the importance of an international struggle against capitalism, as a part of the global struggle against racial oppression. In a speech from 1967 at Trafalgar Square, London, Egbuna stated: “Black Power means simply that the black of this world are to liquidate capitalist oppression of black people wherever it exists by any means necessary”. On 10 November 1967 Egbuna launched the Black Power Manifesto, published by the Universal Coloured People's Association. As spokesperson for the group, he claimed they had recruited 778 members in London during the previous seven weeks. In 1968 Egbuna published Black Power or Death. Egbuna also saw the socialist and communist student movements of the 1960s as problematic to the Black Power Cause. Although ideologically rooted in a similar Marxist intellectual tradition, he saw the student organisations as “socialist snobs” who decree from “the premise that only they have read and can understand Marx”. This intellectual snobbery was, according to Egbuna, “doing a great harm to the cause they claim to be upholding” by ignoring race as a key reason for oppression of black workers: "Nobody in his right mind disputes that the fact that the White worker is a prey to capitalist exploitation, as well as the Black Worker. But equally indisputable is the fact that the White worker is exploited only because he is a worker, not because he is white, while in contrast, the Black Worker is oppressed, not only because he is a worker, but also because he is Black." During the 1960s, many sympathisers of Black Power left their socialist and communist student organisations and subsequently started their own Marxist-orientated Black Power organisations, such as Black Socialist Alliance. As a consequence of the Race Relations Act 1965, incitement of racial violence had become explicitly illegal in the United Kingdom. Several members of Egbuna's UCPA were fined under this act. Perhaps most noticeable was Roy Sawah, who in a speech 1968 at Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park urged "coloured nurses to give wrong injections to patients, coloured bus crews not to take the fare of black people and Indian restaurant owners to 'put something in the curry'." Egbuna himself was later that year sentenced to prison accused of threatening to kill police and certain politicians. (These charges were dismissed when brought before a court - Obi egbuna Gideon dolo and Peter Martin were released without charge. This was a test case and served to restrict the time for imprisonment on remand with no evidence, up until the recent terror law changes. This technique was used many times by the government to try and squash dissent from mainly civil rights and union activists. From Lisala Dolo Gideon Dolo's son). This provocative language must however be seen in context of the political climate of 1968. On 20 April 1968, the then shadow cabinet Defence Secretary Enoch Powell made his "Rivers of Blood speech" in Birmingham, essentially laying out a highly prejudiced account of black immigration. The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on 4 April that same year is also likely to have influenced and radicalised several Black Power thinkers.
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Egbuna, Obi B. Wind Versus Polygamy. London. 1964. Faber & Faber. 128 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- In a village in a small newly-independent African state, the beautiful, nubile orphan Elina becomes the subject of dispute. Mr Okosisi Ojukwu, a somewhat uncouth hunter, claims her hand in marriage by virtue of paid to her father before he died on account of the full bride-price. But her elderly and disagreeable Uncle Ofodile (who tradition has assumed paternal authority over her) insists that she marry the even less appetizing Councillor Ogidi, a tubby. ageing businessman with an invincible confidence in the power of money and a of address which he imagines to be that of an American tycoon. On advice of Father Joseph, the old white the case is taken before Chief Ozuomba: ‘He is the most remarkable man I know. Strong, brilliant, popular, and sometimes impossible, he has all the qualities of a king. My confidence in his sense of justice is profound.' The chief's startling solution of the problem brings him into conflict with the newly-established Government, a conflict which highlights of the crucial social problems of a society in transition. But though Mr Egbuna's theme is serious, his handling of it is enlivened by his sense of comedy, and his ability to dramatize hilariously the latent absurdities of a situation. He has written an intelligent, absorbing and entertaining novel.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Obi Benue Egbuna (18 July 1938 - 18 January 2014) was a Nigerian-born novelist, playwright and political activist, most famous for leading the United Coloured People's Association (UCPA) and being a member of the British Black Panther Movement (1968–72). Egbuna also published several texts on Marxist–Black Power, including Destroy This Temple: The Voice of Black Power in Britain (1971) and The ABC of Black Power Thought (1973). Egbuna was born in Ozubulu, Anambra State, Nigeria. He studied at the University of Iowa and Howard University, Washington, DC, moving to England in 1961 where he lived until 1973. Here he participated in the Antiuniversity of London and became a pioneer of the Black Power movement in Britain. Being heavily influenced by Marxism, Egbuna stressed the importance of an international struggle against capitalism, as a part of the global struggle against racial oppression. In a speech from 1967 at Trafalgar Square, London, Egbuna stated: “Black Power means simply that the black of this world are to liquidate capitalist oppression of black people wherever it exists by any means necessary”. On 10 November 1967 Egbuna launched the Black Power Manifesto, published by the Universal Coloured People's Association. As spokesperson for the group, he claimed they had recruited 778 members in London during the previous seven weeks. In 1968 Egbuna published Black Power or Death. Egbuna also saw the socialist and communist student movements of the 1960s as problematic to the Black Power Cause. Although ideologically rooted in a similar Marxist intellectual tradition, he saw the student organisations as “socialist snobs” who decree from “the premise that only they have read and can understand Marx”. This intellectual snobbery was, according to Egbuna, “doing a great harm to the cause they claim to be upholding” by ignoring race as a key reason for oppression of black workers: "Nobody in his right mind disputes that the fact that the White worker is a prey to capitalist exploitation, as well as the Black Worker. But equally indisputable is the fact that the White worker is exploited only because he is a worker, not because he is white, while in contrast, the Black Worker is oppressed, not only because he is a worker, but also because he is Black." During the 1960s, many sympathisers of Black Power left their socialist and communist student organisations and subsequently started their own Marxist-orientated Black Power organisations, such as Black Socialist Alliance. As a consequence of the Race Relations Act 1965, incitement of racial violence had become explicitly illegal in the United Kingdom. Several members of Egbuna's UCPA were fined under this act. Perhaps most noticeable was Roy Sawah, who in a speech 1968 at Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park urged "coloured nurses to give wrong injections to patients, coloured bus crews not to take the fare of black people and Indian restaurant owners to 'put something in the curry'." Egbuna himself was later that year sentenced to prison accused of threatening to kill police and certain politicians. (These charges were dismissed when brought before a court - Obi egbuna Gideon dolo and Peter Martin were released without charge. This was a test case and served to restrict the time for imprisonment on remand with no evidence, up until the recent terror law changes. This technique was used many times by the government to try and squash dissent from mainly civil rights and union activists. From Lisala Dolo Gideon Dolo's son). This provocative language must however be seen in context of the political climate of 1968. On 20 April 1968, the then shadow cabinet Defence Secretary Enoch Powell made his "Rivers of Blood speech" in Birmingham, essentially laying out a highly prejudiced account of black immigration. The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on 4 April that same year is also likely to have influenced and radicalised several Black Power thinkers.
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Egudu, Romanus and Nwoga, Donatus (translators). Igbo Traditional Verse. London. 1973. Heinemann. 043590129x. African Writers Series. Compiled and translated by Romanus Egudu and Donatus Nwoga. 74 pages. paperback. AWS129. Originally published 1971 as Poetic Heritage.
DESCRIPTION- A record of the communal poetry of the Igbo people illustrating the connection between Igbo poetry and Igbo cultural life, lgbo life seen through Igbo art. Romanus Egudu and Donatus Hwoga were both Igbo lecturers of English at the University of Nigeria.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Romanus N. Egudu is a Nigerian poet and scholar. He published poetry in Transition Magazine in the 1960s while undertaking graduate studies in English Literature at Michigan State University. He has held teaching positions at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and the University of Benin, where he headed the English department. Egudu is notable for his work in West African and Igbo poetry. Alongside Donatus Nwoga, he compiled and translated Igbo poetry, published as Poetic Heritage: Igbo Traditional Verse in 1971. Donatus Nwoga (30 July 1933 - 1991) was a poetry critic and professor of African literature at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Nwoga was from Mbaise in Imo State, Nigeria. He studied at St Brigid's School, Ahiara. In the 1950s, Nwoga studied at the University of London and then at Queen's University Belfast, where he attended classes with the poet Seamus Heaney. Nwoga was a founding editor of the student magazine Gorgon and likely the first person to publish Heaney's work. Nwoga and Romanus Egudu researched Igbo poetry and published a collection of translated into English. Nwoga taught with Chinua Achebe in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He was a member of organisations including the African Literature Association, the International African Institute, the Association for Commonwealth Language and Literature Studies, and The Folklore Society.
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Ekwensi, Cyprian. Beautiful Feathers. London. 1963. Hutchinson & Company. 160 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Janina Ede.
DESCRIPTION- 'However famous a man is outside, if he is not respected inside his own home, he is like a bid with beautiful feathers, wonderful on the outside but ordinary within.' So runs the Ibo proverb which provides the theme for Cyprian Ekwensi's novel. Wilson Iyari, the leader of the Nigerian movement for African and Malagasy Solidarity, commands the respect of the masses. with the leadres of African thought, his name has significance. But inside his home he has no authority. He is disregarded, then deserted by his own wife. While he pursues his desire for African and Malagasy solidarity, his home life is crumbling and he cannot concentrate on running his business: the Independence Pharmacy. Wilson does not come to terms with himself until he discovers that the unity is a complex of the judicious and proper, the overlooked and forgotten, the tolerated and rejected.'
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Cyprian Ekwensi (September 26, 1921–November 4, 2007) was a Nigerian short story writer and author of children's books. Ekwensi, a native of Nkwelle-Ezunaka in today's Oyi local government of Anambra State, was born in Minna, Niger State. His father was David Anadumaka, a story-teller and elephant hunter. Ekwensi attended Government College in Ibadan, Oyo State, Achimota College in Ghana, and the School of Forestry, Ibadan, after which he worked for two years as a forestry officer. He also studied pharmacy at Yaba Technical Institute, Lagos School of Pharmacy, and the Chelsea School of Pharmacy of the University of London. He taught at Igbobi College. Ekwensi has nine children. His oldest son George is a well known New Jersey accountant. Ekwensi was employed as Head of Features at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) and by the Ministry of Information during the First Republic; he eventually became Director of the latter. He resigned his position in 1966, before the Civil War, and moved to Enugu with his family. He later served as chair of the Bureau for External Publicity of Biafra, prior to its reabsorption by Nigeria. Ekwensi wrote hundreds of short stories, radio and television scripts, and several dozen novels, including children's books. His 1954 PEOPLE OF THE CITY was the first book by a Nigerian to garner international attention. His novel DRUMMER BOY (1960), based on the life of Benjamin 'Kokoro' Aderounmu was a perceptive and powerful
DESCRIPTIONof the wandering, homeless and poverty-stricken life of a street artist. His most successful novel was JAGUA NANA (1961), about a Pidgin-speaking Nigerian woman who leaves her husband to work as a prostitute in a city and falls in love with a teacher. He also wrote a sequel to this, JAGUA NANA'S DAUGHTER. In 1968, he received the Dag Hammarskjöld International Prize in Literature. In 2006, he became a fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters. Ekwensi died on 4 November 2007 at the Niger Foundation in Enugu, where he underwent an operation for an undisclosed ailment. The Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), having intended to present him with an award on November 16, 2007, converted the honor to a posthumous award.
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Ekwensi, Cyprian. Burning Grass: A Story of the Fulani of Northern Nigeria. Portsmouth. 1962. Heinemann. African Writers Series. Illustrated by A. Folarin. 150 pages. paperback. AWS2. Cover drawing by Dennis Duerden. Originally published in AWS series 1962.
DESCRIPTION- BURNING GRASS is an enthralling tale of Nothern Nigeria where, when the grass is burnt on the plains, the Fulani cattlemen move southwards towards the banks of the Niger. Mai Sunsaye, the hero of the story, is afflicted with the sokugo, the wandering sickness, and his experiences and those of his herdsmen make a fascinating tale.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Cyprian Ekwensi (September 26, 1921–November 4, 2007) was a Nigerian short story writer and author of children's books. Ekwensi, a native of Nkwelle-Ezunaka in today's Oyi local government of Anambra State, was born in Minna, Niger State. His father was David Anadumaka, a story-teller and elephant hunter. Ekwensi attended Government College in Ibadan, Oyo State, Achimota College in Ghana, and the School of Forestry, Ibadan, after which he worked for two years as a forestry officer. He also studied pharmacy at Yaba Technical Institute, Lagos School of Pharmacy, and the Chelsea School of Pharmacy of the University of London. He taught at Igbobi College. Ekwensi has nine children. His oldest son George is a well known New Jersey accountant. Ekwensi was employed as Head of Features at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) and by the Ministry of Information during the First Republic; he eventually became Director of the latter. He resigned his position in 1966, before the Civil War, and moved to Enugu with his family. He later served as chair of the Bureau for External Publicity of Biafra, prior to its reabsorption by Nigeria. Ekwensi wrote hundreds of short stories, radio and television scripts, and several dozen novels, including children's books. His 1954 PEOPLE OF THE CITY was the first book by a Nigerian to garner international attention. His novel DRUMMER BOY (1960), based on the life of Benjamin 'Kokoro' Aderounmu was a perceptive and powerful
DESCRIPTIONof the wandering, homeless and poverty-stricken life of a street artist. His most successful novel was JAGUA NANA (1961), about a Pidgin-speaking Nigerian woman who leaves her husband to work as a prostitute in a city and falls in love with a teacher. He also wrote a sequel to this, JAGUA NANA'S DAUGHTER. In 1968, he received the Dag Hammarskjöld International Prize in Literature. In 2006, he became a fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters. Ekwensi died on 4 November 2007 at the Niger Foundation in Enugu, where he underwent an operation for an undisclosed ailment. The Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), having intended to present him with an award on November 16, 2007, converted the honor to a posthumous award.
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Ekwensi, Cyprian. Jagua Nana. London. 1961. Hutchinson & Company. 192 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Dorothy Brooks.
DESCRIPTION- Cyprian Ekwensi's first novel, People of the City, was widely praised when it was published in England in 1954. Peter Abrahams, the eminent South African writer said of Mr. Ekwensi that his writing is 'as important to the literary development of West Africa as Nkrumah to its politics'. His new novel, Jagua Nana, is set in modern Nigeria, and captures the feeling of a new country where money is king, and Nana is 'Jagua' because she is 'class', like a sleek Jaguar car. Jagua Nana is an ageing African beauty who yearns to become one of those at the top. Without education herself, she realizes she must marry an educated man who is on the way up. She falls in love with Freddie, a young school-teacher who wishes to study law in England. Jagua helps him with money on the understanding he will marry her. The plan fails, and she returns to her old nightclub haunts, to the crooks and the politicians. At last tragedy breaks the spell of the city for Jagua Nana. Cyprian Ekwensi has written a novel of authentic quality about the new Africa. From first to last the reader is involved in a narrative of furious pace and excitement. The unfamiliar world of the urbanized African is vividly revealed. Out of Africa have come many things. Here is an important and exciting novelist.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Cyprian Ekwensi (September 26, 1921–November 4, 2007) was a Nigerian short story writer and author of children's books. Ekwensi, a native of Nkwelle-Ezunaka in today's Oyi local government of Anambra State, was born in Minna, Niger State. His father was David Anadumaka, a story-teller and elephant hunter. Ekwensi attended Government College in Ibadan, Oyo State, Achimota College in Ghana, and the School of Forestry, Ibadan, after which he worked for two years as a forestry officer. He also studied pharmacy at Yaba Technical Institute, Lagos School of Pharmacy, and the Chelsea School of Pharmacy of the University of London. He taught at Igbobi College. Ekwensi has nine children. His oldest son George is a well known New Jersey accountant. Ekwensi was employed as Head of Features at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) and by the Ministry of Information during the First Republic; he eventually became Director of the latter. He resigned his position in 1966, before the Civil War, and moved to Enugu with his family. He later served as chair of the Bureau for External Publicity of Biafra, prior to its reabsorption by Nigeria. Ekwensi wrote hundreds of short stories, radio and television scripts, and several dozen novels, including children's books. His 1954 PEOPLE OF THE CITY was the first book by a Nigerian to garner international attention. His novel DRUMMER BOY (1960), based on the life of Benjamin 'Kokoro' Aderounmu was a perceptive and powerful
DESCRIPTIONof the wandering, homeless and poverty-stricken life of a street artist. His most successful novel was JAGUA NANA (1961), about a Pidgin-speaking Nigerian woman who leaves her husband to work as a prostitute in a city and falls in love with a teacher. He also wrote a sequel to this, JAGUA NANA'S DAUGHTER. In 1968, he received the Dag Hammarskjöld International Prize in Literature. In 2006, he became a fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters. Ekwensi died on 4 November 2007 at the Niger Foundation in Enugu, where he underwent an operation for an undisclosed ailment. The Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), having intended to present him with an award on November 16, 2007, converted the honor to a posthumous award.
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Ekwensi, Cyprian. Jagua Nana. New York. 2018. Penguin Books. 9780241334997. Penguin Modern Classics. 192 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Bold, moving, entertaining and controversial, this is the great novel of 1960s Lagos life - with one of the most unforgettable heroines in literature. Jagua Nana, no longer young but still irresistible, lives a life of hedonism in Lagos: men, parties, fights, wild nights in the Tropicana with her handsome young boyfriend Freddie. Rushing from one experience to the next in search of something she can't quite grasp, Jagua finds herself embroiled in shady politics, caught up in village feuds and a source of drama wherever she goes. In this vivid depiction of 1960s Nigeria, everyone is hustling and everyone is on the make - and a woman like Jagua must find her own unconventional path to fulfilment.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Cyprian Ekwensi (September 26, 1921–November 4, 2007) was a Nigerian short story writer and author of children's books. Ekwensi, a native of Nkwelle-Ezunaka in today's Oyi local government of Anambra State, was born in Minna, Niger State. His father was David Anadumaka, a story-teller and elephant hunter. Ekwensi attended Government College in Ibadan, Oyo State, Achimota College in Ghana, and the School of Forestry, Ibadan, after which he worked for two years as a forestry officer. He also studied pharmacy at Yaba Technical Institute, Lagos School of Pharmacy, and the Chelsea School of Pharmacy of the University of London. He taught at Igbobi College. Ekwensi has nine children. His oldest son George is a well known New Jersey accountant. Ekwensi was employed as Head of Features at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) and by the Ministry of Information during the First Republic; he eventually became Director of the latter. He resigned his position in 1966, before the Civil War, and moved to Enugu with his family. He later served as chair of the Bureau for External Publicity of Biafra, prior to its reabsorption by Nigeria. Ekwensi wrote hundreds of short stories, radio and television scripts, and several dozen novels, including children's books. His 1954 PEOPLE OF THE CITY was the first book by a Nigerian to garner international attention. His novel DRUMMER BOY (1960), based on the life of Benjamin 'Kokoro' Aderounmu was a perceptive and powerful
DESCRIPTIONof the wandering, homeless and poverty-stricken life of a street artist. His most successful novel was JAGUA NANA (1961), about a Pidgin-speaking Nigerian woman who leaves her husband to work as a prostitute in a city and falls in love with a teacher. He also wrote a sequel to this, JAGUA NANA'S DAUGHTER. In 1968, he received the Dag Hammarskjöld International Prize in Literature. In 2006, he became a fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters. Ekwensi died on 4 November 2007 at the Niger Foundation in Enugu, where he underwent an operation for an undisclosed ailment. The Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), having intended to present him with an award on November 16, 2007, converted the honor to a posthumous award.
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Ekwensi, Cyprian. Lokotown and Other Stories. London. 1966. Heinemann. African Writers Series. 152 pages. paperback. AWS19. Cover drawing by Ajo Ajayi.
DESCRIPTION- Cyprian Ekwensi is the outstanding chronicler of Nigerian city life. All the excitement and urgency as well as the seediness and disillusion that make up the world of the Hotel France, the Harlem, Marine Beach, and the Kano Limited are contained in this collection of short stories. Characters like Fussy Joe, Jagua, Nancy of the Grand Palm Hotel, Charlie the Coin-Diver, and the Stranger from Lagos emerge and go their various ways, crushed or triumphant after their brush with the hard, bright city. All the bustle, gaiety and hectic action are put into perspective by the controlled economy of Ekwensi's writing.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Cyprian Ekwensi (September 26, 1921–November 4, 2007) was a Nigerian short story writer and author of children's books. Ekwensi, a native of Nkwelle-Ezunaka in today's Oyi local government of Anambra State, was born in Minna, Niger State. His father was David Anadumaka, a story-teller and elephant hunter. Ekwensi attended Government College in Ibadan, Oyo State, Achimota College in Ghana, and the School of Forestry, Ibadan, after which he worked for two years as a forestry officer. He also studied pharmacy at Yaba Technical Institute, Lagos School of Pharmacy, and the Chelsea School of Pharmacy of the University of London. He taught at Igbobi College. Ekwensi has nine children. His oldest son George is a well known New Jersey accountant. Ekwensi was employed as Head of Features at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) and by the Ministry of Information during the First Republic; he eventually became Director of the latter. He resigned his position in 1966, before the Civil War, and moved to Enugu with his family. He later served as chair of the Bureau for External Publicity of Biafra, prior to its reabsorption by Nigeria. Ekwensi wrote hundreds of short stories, radio and television scripts, and several dozen novels, including children's books. His 1954 PEOPLE OF THE CITY was the first book by a Nigerian to garner international attention. His novel DRUMMER BOY (1960), based on the life of Benjamin 'Kokoro' Aderounmu was a perceptive and powerful
DESCRIPTIONof the wandering, homeless and poverty-stricken life of a street artist. His most successful novel was JAGUA NANA (1961), about a Pidgin-speaking Nigerian woman who leaves her husband to work as a prostitute in a city and falls in love with a teacher. He also wrote a sequel to this, JAGUA NANA'S DAUGHTER. In 1968, he received the Dag Hammarskjöld International Prize in Literature. In 2006, he became a fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters. Ekwensi died on 4 November 2007 at the Niger Foundation in Enugu, where he underwent an operation for an undisclosed ailment. The Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), having intended to present him with an award on November 16, 2007, converted the honor to a posthumous award.
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Ekwensi, Cyprian. People of the City. London. 1963. Heinemann. African Writers Series. 156 pages. paperback. AWS5. Originally published London: Dakers, 1954.
DESCRIPTION- When PEOPLE OF THE CITY was published in 1954 it was immediately acclaimed as the first major novel in English by a West African to be widely read throughout the English-speaking world. Despite the added reputation Ekwenski has achieved with his later novels, PEOPLE OF THE CITY remains a work of much greater significance in the development of modern African writing. It tells the story of a young crime reporter and dance band leader in a great West African city to comes to see that what he can do for the developing country in which he lives is more important than the considerable and varied personal pleasures he can find in the hectic life of the city.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - CYPRIAN EKWENSI was born in Minna in Northern Nigeria in 1921 and educated at Government College, Ibadan, Achimota College in what was then the Gold Coast, and the Chelsea School of Pharmacy, University of London. He taught biology and chemistry before joining the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation, and when PEOPLE OF THE CITY was published in 1954 was Head of the Features Department. Since then he has had several novels and short stories published, including JAGUAR NANA and BEAUTIFUL FEATHERS, and has also contributed to journals in Africa, Great Britain, and the United States. Married with five children, he now lives in Ikoyi and is a keen photographer, sportsman and traveller.
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Ekwensi, Cyprian. Restless City and Christmas Gold with Other Stories. London. 1975. Heinemann. 0435901729. Paperback Original. African Writers Series. 100 pages. paperback. AWS172. Cover design by George Hallett.
DESCRIPTION- Cyprian Ekwensi brings together in this collection of fifteen stories glimpses of city life, love and death; and in addition he captures the tragic, commercial and spiritual aspects of Christmas in two West African cities. This collection ranges in time from the pre-independence Africa of the fifties to today's Independent Africa (see 'Height of Freedom') in which human resources of the highest level are practically indispensable to development (see 'The Indispensable'). Collectors of Ekwensiana will be able to trace in some of these stories the genesis of later novels and novellas already published in the African Writers Series. Traces of People of the City (AWS 5) will be found in 'The Great Beyond', 'One and Eleven', 'Death of a Pathologist' and 'Bus Stop Mystery'. For Beautiful Feathers (AWS 84) read 'Night of Freedom'. For Lokotown (AWS 19) see 'Make-Believe Night'. The lead story 'Restless City' comes from the manuscript of an unpublished novel.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Cyprian Ekwensi (September 26, 1921–November 4, 2007) was a Nigerian short story writer and author of children's books. Ekwensi, a native of Nkwelle-Ezunaka in today's Oyi local government of Anambra State, was born in Minna, Niger State. His father was David Anadumaka, a story-teller and elephant hunter. Ekwensi attended Government College in Ibadan, Oyo State, Achimota College in Ghana, and the School of Forestry, Ibadan, after which he worked for two years as a forestry officer. He also studied pharmacy at Yaba Technical Institute, Lagos School of Pharmacy, and the Chelsea School of Pharmacy of the University of London. He taught at Igbobi College. Ekwensi has nine children. His oldest son George is a well known New Jersey accountant. Ekwensi was employed as Head of Features at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) and by the Ministry of Information during the First Republic; he eventually became Director of the latter. He resigned his position in 1966, before the Civil War, and moved to Enugu with his family. He later served as chair of the Bureau for External Publicity of Biafra, prior to its reabsorption by Nigeria. Ekwensi wrote hundreds of short stories, radio and television scripts, and several dozen novels, including children's books. His 1954 PEOPLE OF THE CITY was the first book by a Nigerian to garner international attention. His novel DRUMMER BOY (1960), based on the life of Benjamin 'Kokoro' Aderounmu was a perceptive and powerful
DESCRIPTIONof the wandering, homeless and poverty-stricken life of a street artist. His most successful novel was JAGUA NANA (1961), about a Pidgin-speaking Nigerian woman who leaves her husband to work as a prostitute in a city and falls in love with a teacher. He also wrote a sequel to this, JAGUA NANA'S DAUGHTER. In 1968, he received the Dag Hammarskjöld International Prize in Literature. In 2006, he became a fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters. Ekwensi died on 4 November 2007 at the Niger Foundation in Enugu, where he underwent an operation for an undisclosed ailment. The Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), having intended to present him with an award on November 16, 2007, converted the honor to a posthumous award.
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Ekwensi, Cyprian. Survive the Peace. Portsmouth. 1983. Heinemann. 0435901850. African Writers Series. 181 pages. paperback. AWS185. Cover photograph by George Hallett. Originally published in AWS series in 1976.
DESCRIPTION- James Odugo, Radio-Journalist, quickly finds out that to survive the peace after the Biafran war takes more guts and resilience than to survive the civil war itself. Confusion reigns as he and Vic, a woman announcer, flee the radio station to try and reach his wife and children. But the war has smashed his marriage and peace provides no lasting relationship with Vic. In this moving and mature novel, Cyprian Ekwensi takes us back to those tragic days with the skill of the fine storyteller that he is.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Cyprian Ekwensi (September 26, 1921–November 4, 2007) was a Nigerian short story writer and author of children's books. Ekwensi, a native of Nkwelle-Ezunaka in today's Oyi local government of Anambra State, was born in Minna, Niger State. His father was David Anadumaka, a story-teller and elephant hunter. Ekwensi attended Government College in Ibadan, Oyo State, Achimota College in Ghana, and the School of Forestry, Ibadan, after which he worked for two years as a forestry officer. He also studied pharmacy at Yaba Technical Institute, Lagos School of Pharmacy, and the Chelsea School of Pharmacy of the University of London. He taught at Igbobi College. Ekwensi has nine children. His oldest son George is a well known New Jersey accountant. Ekwensi was employed as Head of Features at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) and by the Ministry of Information during the First Republic; he eventually became Director of the latter. He resigned his position in 1966, before the Civil War, and moved to Enugu with his family. He later served as chair of the Bureau for External Publicity of Biafra, prior to its reabsorption by Nigeria. Ekwensi wrote hundreds of short stories, radio and television scripts, and several dozen novels, including children's books. His 1954 PEOPLE OF THE CITY was the first book by a Nigerian to garner international attention. His novel DRUMMER BOY (1960), based on the life of Benjamin 'Kokoro' Aderounmu was a perceptive and powerful
DESCRIPTIONof the wandering, homeless and poverty-stricken life of a street artist. His most successful novel was JAGUA NANA (1961), about a Pidgin-speaking Nigerian woman who leaves her husband to work as a prostitute in a city and falls in love with a teacher. He also wrote a sequel to this, JAGUA NANA'S DAUGHTER. In 1968, he received the Dag Hammarskjöld International Prize in Literature. In 2006, he became a fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters. Ekwensi died on 4 November 2007 at the Niger Foundation in Enugu, where he underwent an operation for an undisclosed ailment. The Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), having intended to present him with an award on November 16, 2007, converted the honor to a posthumous award.
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Ekwuru, Andrew. Songs of Steel. London. 1979. Rex Collings. 0860361055. 160 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Much has been written about the Nigerian Civil War - the experiences of the soldiers and the politicians, their justifications and excuses have been published. Political scientists have analysed, to their own satisfaction, the causes of the war. Little, however, has been written of the impact of the war on the villages and their people. In this novel, set in an Eastern Nigerian village, Andrew Ekwuru tells with vividness and simplicity the story of the devastation and demoralization caused by the war. He examines the collapse of moral standards, of the brutalizing effect that fear and despair can have on victim and victor alike. He shows, too, how love and courage can enable even the weak to surmount disaster, and how the human spirit can survive unbroken. The casualties of the Civil War, as Andrew Ekwuru demonstrates so clearly, were not to be found on the battlefields. They were in the deserted homes, the shattered families, the raped villages and the collapse of order and custom. This is a strong novel of considerable power.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY -
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Ellis, Stephen. This Present Darkness: A History of Nigerian Organized Crime. New York. 2016. Oxford University Press. 9780190494315. 256 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Nigeria and Nigerians have acquired a notorious reputation for involvement in drug-trafficking, fraud, cyber-crime and other types of serious crime. Successful Nigerian criminal networks have a global reach, interacting with their Italian, Latin American and Russian counterparts. Yet in 1944, a British colonial official wrote that 'the number of persistent and professional criminals is not great' in Nigeria and that 'crime as a career has so far made little appeal to the young Nigerian'. This book traces the origins of Nigerian organised crime to the last years of colonial rule, when nationalist politicians acquired power at a regional level. In need of funds for campaigning, they offered government contracts to foreign businesses in return for kickbacks, in a pattern that recurs to this day. Political corruption encouraged a wider disrespect for the law that spread throughout Nigerian society. When the country's oil boom came to an end in the early 1980s, young Nigerian college graduates headed abroad, eager to make money by any means. Nigerian crime went global at the very moment new criminal markets were emerging all over the world.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Professor Stephen Ellis, PhD, was Desmond Tutu Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the VU University, Amsterdam, and author of, inter alia, The Mask of Anarchy: The Religious Roots of the Liberian Civil War, Worlds of Power: Religious Thought and Political Practice in Africa, Madagascar: A Short History, and Season of Rains: Africa in the World, all available from Hurst.
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Emecheta, Buchi. Destination Biafra. London. 1982. Allison & Busby. 0850314097. 259 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Carol Binch.
DESCRIPTION- This moving and totally involving novel uses vivid fictional characters to dramatize one of the most haunting episodes of recent history. Destination Biafra is set in Nigeria in the eventful years leading from independence, to military coup, to the tragic tribal disturbances that gave birth in the late 1960s to the republic of Biafra - and bloody civil war. Central to its story is Debbie Ogedemgbe, Oxford-educated daughter of a corruptly wealthy government minister from a minority tribe. At the start of the troubles she joins the army, both to escape pressures on her to be a traditionally submissive woman and hoping to play a useful role in her country's fortunes. But she finds herself on a precarious mission that makes her the pawn of the rival leaders as she is horrifyingly exposed to the bestialities of war. Her English lover, Alan Grey, is in the country as a military adviser, yet is he as loyal to Nigeria's welfare as he professes or is he simply there to protect British interests in the oil-rich nation? Against the background of the soldier-politicians jockeying for power and the international diplomatic wranglings is drawn a poignant and often shocking picture of ordinary women and children struggling together to survive, and of the strength; compassion and even humour that they manage to draw on in the midst of suffering. Buchi Emecheta is warmly admired for her now-famous novels of family life set in London and Africa, but Destination Biafra is a remarkable new departure, a vibrant panorama of action and emotion. BUCHI EMECHETA was born of parentage in Lagos, Nigeria. She came to England in 1962, since when she has lived in North London with her five children. She is a sociology graduate of London University, and in 1980 was appointed a professor at the University of Calabar. She won the last New Campbell Award, and has written five previous novels.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Buchi Emecheta (born 21 July 1944, in Lagos) is a Nigerian novelist who has published over 20 books, including Second-Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Her themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education have won her considerable critical acclaim and honours, including an Order of the British Empire in 2005. Emecheta once described her stories as ‘stories of the world…[where]… women face the universal problems of poverty and oppression, and the longer they stay, no matter where they have come from originally, the more the problems become identical.'
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Emecheta, Buchi. Double Yoke. New York. 1983. George Braziller/Ogwugwu Afor. 080761078x. 167 pages. paperback. Jacket design by Melissa Feldman.
DESCRIPTION- Set on the campus of a Nigerian university, DOUBLE YOKE tells the story of two undergraduates who must confront the conflicting demands of tradition and modernity. While Nko pursues an education despite the resistance of those who feel a woman's identity is assumed in traditional marriage, Ete Kamba's love for her is severely tested as he is himself locked into the rigid attitudes from which Nko is attempting to break free. Nko must further contend with unscrupulous professors who would take advantage of her tenuous role as a woman in a male-dominated environment. As the author candidly portrays the status of women in emerging African nations, the choices facing Ete Kamba and Nko are neither clearcut nor perfect. In DOUBLE YOKE, Buchi Emecheta faces them head on.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Buchi Emecheta (born 21 July 1944, in Lagos) is a Nigerian novelist who has published over 20 books, including Second-Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Her themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education have won her considerable critical acclaim and honours, including an Order of the British Empire in 2005. Emecheta once described her stories as ‘stories of the world…[where]… women face the universal problems of poverty and oppression, and the longer they stay, no matter where they have come from originally, the more the problems become identical.'
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Emecheta, Buchi. Gwendolen. London. 1989. Collins. 0002235412. 239 pages. hardcover. Cover illustration by Marina Elphick.
DESCRIPTION- GWENDOLEN, the engaging young heroine of Buchi Emecheta's tenth novel, shares the bitterly poor life of her grandmother in Jamaica once her parents emigrate to London. Continuity takes many forms in Gwendolen's life as poverty buffets both her family and herself from all sides. She is first raped by an ‘uncle' on the island when she is a child, and his image pursues her to England when she is later reunited with her parents. It even takes the form of another flight from incest when Gwendolen, at sixteen, is made pregnant by her father and is forced to leave home to escape her mother's wrath and sorrow. Gwendolen's struggle to maintain her own identity and construct a viable life for herself and her baby in a hostile environment pits her against people and situations as diverse as they are sometimes terrifying. Her refusal to accept what can be changed is a moving testament of love and courage. Her own love and her own courage allow for reconciliation within her family, and allow her to surmount the artificial boundaries dividing modern British society.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Buchi Emecheta (born 21 July 1944, in Lagos) is a Nigerian novelist who has published over 20 books, including Second-Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Her themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education have won her considerable critical acclaim and honours, including an Order of the British Empire in 2005. Emecheta once described her stories as ‘stories of the world…[where]… women face the universal problems of poverty and oppression, and the longer they stay, no matter where they have come from originally, the more the problems become identical.'
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Emecheta, Buchi. Gwendolen. Portsmouth. 1994. Heinemann. 0435909738. African Writers Series. 202 pages. paperback. Cover design by Touchpaper. Cover illustration by Synthia Saint James.
DESCRIPTION- Buchi Emecheta was born in Nigeria and came to England in 1962: Her novels include In the Ditch, The Joys of Motherhood and Destination Biafra. Gwendolen is a lively, affectionate little girl growing up in a Jamaican shanty town. When her parents emigrate to England they leave their daughter in the care of her poverty-stricken grandmother. At the age of nine she is raped by a 'family friend', and by the time she joins her parents in London she has lost both her innocence and her sense of self-worth. 'Miss Emecheta's prose has a shimmer of originality. Issues of survival lie inherent in her material and give her tales weight.' - John Updike, The New Yorker.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Buchi Emecheta (born 21 July 1944, in Lagos) is a Nigerian novelist who has published over 20 books, including Second-Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Her themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education have won her considerable critical acclaim and honours, including an Order of the British Empire in 2005. Emecheta once described her stories as ‘stories of the world…[where]… women face the universal problems of poverty and oppression, and the longer they stay, no matter where they have come from originally, the more the problems become identical.'
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Emecheta, Buchi. Head Above Water. London. 1986. Ogwugwu Afo. 0950817732. 243 pages. hardcover. Cover illustration by Kathy Bor.
DESCRIPTION- At the age of twenty-two, Buchi Emecheta left her husband and found herself alone with five small children to support in cold and foggy North London - a long way from her native Nigeria. She had few qualifications and no prospects - how was she to keep her head above water? By becoming a writer, she decided - and that, despite setbacks, was what she became. Sheer determination won her a degree in Sociology and a decent place to live, and her dream seemed to come true when, in 1972, the New Statesman started to serialize her work and her first book, In the Ditch, was published. Since then, her writing has brought her all the acclaim she desired, but her account of her struggle to establish herself - subject to the whims of publishers and the vagaries of the Establishment - evokes with wry humour and raw feeling just what it means to be poor, black and unrecognized in London. 'Buchi Emecheta is a natural born writer' - SUNDAY TIMES.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Buchi Emecheta (born 21 July 1944, in Lagos) is a Nigerian novelist who has published over 20 books, including Second-Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Her themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education have won her considerable critical acclaim and honours, including an Order of the British Empire in 2005. Emecheta once described her stories as ‘stories of the world…[where]… women face the universal problems of poverty and oppression, and the longer they stay, no matter where they have come from originally, the more the problems become identical.'
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Emecheta, Buchi. In the Ditch. Portsmouth. 1994. Heinemann. 0435909940. African Writers Series. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- A social documentary set in London in the late 1960s that tells of a young, lone Nigerian mother's determination to carve a place for herself against the odds.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Buchi Emecheta (born 21 July 1944, in Lagos) is a Nigerian novelist who has published over 20 books, including Second-Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Her themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education have won her considerable critical acclaim and honours, including an Order of the British Empire in 2005. Emecheta once described her stories as ‘stories of the world…[where]… women face the universal problems of poverty and oppression, and the longer they stay, no matter where they have come from originally, the more the problems become identical.'
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Emecheta, Buchi. Kehinde. Portsmouth. 1994. Heinemann. 0435909851. African Writers Series. 144 pages. paperback. Cover illustration by Synthia Saint James.
DESCRIPTION- Kehinde and her husband Albert had always intended to return to Nigeria. When the opportunity arises, Kehinde realizes she is reluctant to leave London and the independence she has enjoyed there. Albert, longing for the prosperity and status that will be his in Nigeria, is determined not to be thwarted in his plans. He thinks that it is his wife's duty to obey him, and forces her to make terrible choices. Kehinde, plagued with guilt, is led on an unexpected path by the spirit of her dead twin.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Buchi Emecheta (born 21 July 1944, in Lagos) is a Nigerian novelist who has published over 20 books, including Second-Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Her themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education have won her considerable critical acclaim and honours, including an Order of the British Empire in 2005. Emecheta once described her stories as ‘stories of the world…[where]… women face the universal problems of poverty and oppression, and the longer they stay, no matter where they have come from originally, the more the problems become identical.'
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Emecheta, Buchi. Naira Power. London. 1983. Macmillan. 0333336380. All the novels in the Macmillan Pacesetters series deal with contemporary issues and problems in a way that is particularly designed to interest young adults, although the stories are such that they will appeal to all ages. 108 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Naira gives Ramonu power over justice up to a point. When the power fails, the consequences for him are horrifying - and witnessed by the girl who has loved him secretly for years. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Buchi Emecheta (born 21 July 1944, in Lagos) is a Nigerian novelist who has published over 20 books, including Second-Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Her themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education have won her considerable critical acclaim and honours, including an Order of the British Empire in 2005. Emecheta once described her stories as ‘stories of the world…[where]… women face the universal problems of poverty and oppression, and the longer they stay, no matter where they have come from originally, the more the problems become identical.'
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Emecheta, Buchi. Second Class Citizen. New York. 1975. George Braziller. 0807608017. 175 pages. hardcover. Cover design by Randall Richmond.
DESCRIPTION- If early childhood experiences were always the determining factor in a person's development, then Adah - a young Nigerian girl born into a world of strict tribal domination of females, where extended education of women (much less any form of independence) is unthinkable - would have found her niche in the tribal structure and remained there. But Adah had a mind of her own. She schemed to attend school, married a student and sent him to London to continue his studies, following him to London after the birth of their second child. The reality of living conditions is a grim one for a black student couple crowded into one room, and Adah's fertility (highly regarded in Nigeria) brings them close to disaster. To complicate matters further, her husband fails his examinations and lashes out at Adah in a particularly brutal fashion (spitefully destroying a manuscript she had been laboring over). Only her extraordinary courage and resourcefulness save Adah from the disintegration which might logically have been expected to overtake a black woman besieged on both sides: by a largely unsympathetic white society, as well as by a selfish, insensitive man who neither works nor studies and yet cannot comprehend why his wife should not continue to remain subservient to him, as a good African wife should. As the critic in The Guardian has noted: ‘Second-Class Citizen pales a lot of academic feminist writing into insignificance. Hers is a book that is gripping and authentic, and hard to dispute or laugh off.' BUCHI EMECHETA was born near Lagos, Nigeria in 1944. After attending school and marrying there she came to London in 1962, where she still lives with her five children. She graduated from London University as a sociologist and is now working for a higher degree, studying racial stratification in modern societies while working among the black youth in Paddington. She finds time for her writing by rising at four o'clock every morning, before the demands of children and job must be met.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Buchi Emecheta (born 21 July 1944, in Lagos) is a Nigerian novelist who has published over 20 books, including Second-Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Her themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education have won her considerable critical acclaim and honours, including an Order of the British Empire in 2005. Emecheta once described her stories as ‘stories of the world…[where]… women face the universal problems of poverty and oppression, and the longer they stay, no matter where they have come from originally, the more the problems become identical.'
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Emecheta, Buchi. The Bride Price. London. 1976. Allison & Busby. 0850311659. 168 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Taiwo Jegede.
DESCRIPTION- THE BRIDE PRICE is an unusually poignant novel - a love story, set in Nigeria just before Independence, which highlights the conflict between traditional African values and the influence of modern Europe, particularly where women are concerned. Aku-nna, the Ibo heroine, is thirteen when her father dies, and the city life she has always known ends abruptly. She has to return with her young brother and her mother to their home village where, according to tribal custom, they are ‘inherited' by her father's brother. For the year or two that remain before she will be married off, Aku-nna is grudgingly allowed to continue her schooling, but only because her ambitious uncle realises that an educated girl will fetch a higher bride price - the money a man's family must pay to the family of his prospective wife. By the time Aku-nna is fifteen, she has fallen in love - but in circumstances that threaten deep-rooted social, sexual, religious taboos of the community. Before long, alarming things begin to happen, and Aku-nna finds that she is expected to submit to humiliating physical and mental assaults. Escape might be the answer, but how can she escape her fear of the fate that, even today, is said to await every girl whose bride price is not paid?
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Buchi Emecheta (born 21 July 1944, in Lagos) is a Nigerian novelist who has published over 20 books, including Second-Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Her themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education have won her considerable critical acclaim and honours, including an Order of the British Empire in 2005. Emecheta once described her stories as ‘stories of the world…[where]… women face the universal problems of poverty and oppression, and the longer they stay, no matter where they have come from originally, the more the problems become identical.'
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Emecheta, Buchi. The Family. New York. 1990. George Braziller. 0807612456. 239 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Rita Pocock.
DESCRIPTION- Buchi Emecheta - long hailed as one of the greatest women writers to come out of Africa - is widely known for her stories of black women struggling with the conflicting demands of tradition and modernity. In her newest novel, Emecheta depicts a family which fails to function as a family should - in part because of the social and economic pressures bearing down on a Jamaican family in England. Gwendolen, the eldest daughter, suffers most from the family's inability to protect or provide for itself. Left behind in Jamaica when her parents emigrate, she lives in poverty with her grandmother and, at age nine, is raped by an ‘uncle.' By the time she is eleven and joins her family in London, she has been marked by the rape - as well as by poverty and illiteracy - to such a degree that she never entirely becomes a member of the family. Not until she again has been the victim of rape and has left home, does Gwendolen begin to understand that she must take control of her own life. As always in Emecheta's novels, the scope of the story is greater than what happens to one girl or one family. Emecheta shows the breakdown of the Brilliantons to be part of a breaking down of black traditions. In The Family, African and Jamaican blacks are dangerously ignorant of each other's culture - and sometimes of their own. It is telling that Gwendolen's parents give her a name they cannot pronounce, coming from a culture in which personal names are meant to reveal the identity of an individual. In this, her ninth novel with Braziller, Buchi Emecheta has written a painfully engrossing tale of personal bravery in the face of familial disintegration.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Buchi Emecheta (born 21 July 1944, in Lagos) is a Nigerian novelist who has published over 20 books, including Second-Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Her themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education have won her considerable critical acclaim and honours, including an Order of the British Empire in 2005. Emecheta once described her stories as ‘stories of the world…[where]… women face the universal problems of poverty and oppression, and the longer they stay, no matter where they have come from originally, the more the problems become identical.'
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Emecheta, Buchi. The Joys of Motherhood. New York. 1979. George Braziller. 0807609145. 224 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Catherine Stock.
DESCRIPTION- In this, her fourth novel to be published here, Buchi Emecheta returns to the Nigerian village life she knows so well and writes movingly of an Ibo family's efforts to survive and adapt to changing values. After a childless first marriage Nnu Ego, the daughter of a Nigerian chief, is sent from her village to Lagos to marry Nnaife Owulum who works as a laundry man for an English couple. Nnaife is a weak man and the adjustment to urban living is a painful one for Nnu Ego. Her life becomes an unceasing struggle to maintain her family. Through periods of extreme hardship and deprivation, made more intense by Nnaife's absence during World War II, Nnu Ego is sustained by the bright future she anticipates for her children when they will be able to support her. However, the traditions she has fought to uphold and the family ties she has always honored are but an anachronism for her children: Nnu Ego is left to live out her days alone. THE JOYS OF MOTHERHOOD is more than just the story of Nnu Ego and her family, however. We see Nigeria as it tries to catch up with the twentieth century, a Nigeria rocked by colonialism, World War II, and the general encroachment of the modern western world on a traditional African one. Buchi Emecheta's latest novel has a startling immediacy and an ominous significance for us all. BUCHI EMECHETA was born near Lagos, Nigeria in 1944. After attending school and marrying there, she moved to London in 1962, where she still lives with her five children. She holds a degree in sociology from London University. In 1977 she received the Jock Campbell - New Statesman Award for her three previous novels: THE BRIDE PRICE, SECOND-CLASS CITIZEN, AND THE SLAVE GIRL.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Buchi Emecheta (born 21 July 1944, in Lagos) is a Nigerian novelist who has published over 20 books, including Second-Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Her themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education have won her considerable critical acclaim and honours, including an Order of the British Empire in 2005. Emecheta once described her stories as ‘stories of the world…[where]… women face the universal problems of poverty and oppression, and the longer they stay, no matter where they have come from originally, the more the problems become identical.'
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Emecheta, Buchi. The Moonlight Bride. New York. 1983. George Braziller. 0807610623. 77 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- This is a simple story of traditional village life. Ngbeke and Ogoli, young girls in the village, are excited because a new bride is coming to the village at night -- a moonlight bride. But who is the bride? And more important, who is the groom? When they find out, they are dismayed. But they learn that what is most important in a person is not color or superficial beauty -- the most important thing is the beauty in the heart.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Buchi Emecheta (born 21 July 1944, in Lagos) is a Nigerian novelist who has published over 20 books, including Second-Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Her themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education have won her considerable critical acclaim and honours, including an Order of the British Empire in 2005. Emecheta once described her stories as ‘stories of the world…[where]… women face the universal problems of poverty and oppression, and the longer they stay, no matter where they have come from originally, the more the problems become identical.'
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Emecheta, Buchi. The New Tribe. Portsmouth. 2000. Heinemann. 9780435912048. African Writers Series. 154 pages. paperback. Cover illustration by Synthia St. James.
DESCRIPTION- When a baby girl is abandoned at birth, Reverend Arlington and his wife Ginny are only too happy to adopt her. The media cover this moving story, and a Nigerian woman living in England takes more than a passing interest in the Arlingtons. She decides that they world provide the right Christian home for her own baby, Chester. Shortly afterwards, Chester is delivered to social services with a letter explaining that the Arlingtons should be his new parents. So young Chester enters the vicarage of the sleepy seaside village of St Simon. He is the only black child for miles around. The New Tribe tells the story of Chester's long search for his true identity, and the challenges he faces as a black child in a white family.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Buchi Emecheta (born 21 July 1944, in Lagos) is a Nigerian novelist who has published over 20 books, including Second-Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Her themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education have won her considerable critical acclaim and honours, including an Order of the British Empire in 2005. Emecheta once described her stories as ‘stories of the world…[where]… women face the universal problems of poverty and oppression, and the longer they stay, no matter where they have come from originally, the more the problems become identical.'
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Emecheta, Buchi. The Rape of Shavi. New York. 1985. George Braziller. 0807611174. 178 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Robin Reid, Bob Laurie Studios.
DESCRIPTION- In the best oral tradition, Buchi Emecheta's latest novel, set partly in an imaginary country by the edge of the African Sahara and partly in England, creates a humorous, ultimately poignant portrait of a people confronted for the first time the with the ways of the civilized world. King Patayon, ruler of Shavi, has more than his share of problems - a difficult first wife, the continual fear of drought and famine, troublesome memories of his people's time in captivity. Then, from out of the sky, a group of ‘albino aliens' comes crashing down in an enormous ‘bird of fire.' The white strangers have fled from the threat of a powerful disaster in their own land, and from then on Patayon is faced with the sort of problems that even the great goddesses of the lakes cannot solve. As the albinos and the Shavis are introduced to entirely new forms of language, custom and exploitation, both are left to wonder just what exactly is ‘civilization'? With the direct and compelling prose of a natural storyteller, Buchi Emecheta focusses a penetrating and clear-eyed view on some of the most important conflicts facing the developing world today.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Buchi Emecheta (born 21 July 1944, in Lagos) is a Nigerian novelist who has published over 20 books, including Second-Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Her themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education have won her considerable critical acclaim and honours, including an Order of the British Empire in 2005. Emecheta once described her stories as ‘stories of the world…[where]… women face the universal problems of poverty and oppression, and the longer they stay, no matter where they have come from originally, the more the problems become identical.'
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Emecheta, Buchi. The Slave Girl. London. 1977. Allison & Busby. 0850312213. 179 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Taiwo Jegede.
DESCRIPTION- The birth of a girl in a small Nigerian village, in the early years of the twentieth century, would not normally be regarded as significant. But Ojebeta's arrival is different. As the youngest child and only surviving daughter, she is pampered by grateful parents and surrounded by protective charms, and life is secure if humble. Then, suddenly, tragedy disrupts the family. Responsibility for Ojebeta falls upon her older brother whose plans, it transpires, do not include the upkeep of a seven-year old sister. So it is that she comes to be left, bewildered, with strangers - rich, distant relatives who have a flourishing cloth trade in the big Onitsha market and live in such a grand manner that their household includes several abandoned young girls who have been bought as slaves. The emotive story unfolds against the background of the strange religion and new laws introduced by the British colonists, and it seems inevitable that the most life will offer Ojebeta is a change of master. Buchi Emecheta, who was born in Nigeria, came to England in 1962. She read sociology at London University and is at present researching for a postgraduate degree. The Slave Girl is her fourth book
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Buchi Emecheta (born 21 July 1944, in Lagos) is a Nigerian novelist who has published over 20 books, including Second-Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Her themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education have won her considerable critical acclaim and honours, including an Order of the British Empire in 2005. Emecheta once described her stories as ‘stories of the world…[where]… women face the universal problems of poverty and oppression, and the longer they stay, no matter where they have come from originally, the more the problems become identical.'
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Emecheta, Buchi. The Wrestling Match. New York. 1983. George Braziller. 0807610607. 74 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- This is a simple story of traditional village life, written by Buchi Emecheta, one of Nigeria's leading novelists. The children born during the Nigerian Civil War have grown up and have formed a troublesome age-group with a grudge against society. They won't work on the farm, and they take no notice of their elders. The elders decide to teach them a lesson in a very subtle way. And before they know what's happening the boys find themselves locked in conflict with other boys and with each other, not with the elders. The story culminates in a great wrestling match. Who wins? The lesson is that in war, nobody wins.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Buchi Emecheta (born 21 July 1944, in Lagos) is a Nigerian novelist who has published over 20 books, including Second-Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Her themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education have won her considerable critical acclaim and honours, including an Order of the British Empire in 2005. Emecheta once described her stories as ‘stories of the world…[where]… women face the universal problems of poverty and oppression, and the longer they stay, no matter where they have come from originally, the more the problems become identical.'
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Evaristo, Bernardine. Manifesto on Never Giving Up. New York. 2021. Grove Press. 9780802158901. 228 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Gretchen Mergenthaler. Jacket photograph by Stuart Simpson/Penguin Random House.
DESCRIPTION- From the bestselling and Booker Prize–winning author of Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo’s memoir of her own life and writing, and her manifesto on unstoppability, creativity, and activism. Bernardine Evaristo’s 2019 Booker Prize win was a historic and revolutionary occasion, with Evaristo being the first Black woman and first Black British person ever to win the prize in its fifty-year history. Girl, Woman, Other was named a favorite book of the year by President Obama and Roxane Gay, was translated into thirty-five languages, and has now reached more than a million readers. Evaristo’s astonishing nonfiction debut, Manifesto, is a vibrant and inspirational account of Evaristo’s life and career as she rebelled against the mainstream and fought over several decades to bring her creative work into the world. With her characteristic humor, Evaristo describes her childhood as one of eight siblings, with a Nigerian father and white Catholic mother, tells the story of how she helped set up Britain’s first Black women’s theatre company, remembers the queer relationships of her twenties, and recounts her determination to write books that were absent in the literary world around her. She provides a hugely powerful perspective to contemporary conversations around race, class, feminism, sexuality, and aging. She reminds us of how far we have come, and how far we still have to go. In Manifesto, Evaristo charts her theory of unstoppability, showing creative people how they too can visualize and find success in their work, ignoring the naysayers. Both unconventional memoir and inspirational text, Manifesto is a unique reminder to us all to persist in doing work we believe in, even when we might feel overlooked or discounted. Evaristo shows us how we too can follow in her footsteps, from first vision, to insistent perseverance, to eventual triumph.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bernardine Evaristo is the 2019 winner of the Booker Prize for Girl, Woman, Other, which was a national bestseller and a winner and finalist for many awards including the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Dublin Literary Award. Evaristo is the author of seven other books that explore aspects of the African diaspora. Her writing spans verse fiction, short fiction, poetry, essays, literary criticism, and drama. Evaristo is President of the Royal Society of Literature, Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London, and an Honorary Fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford. She received an OBE in 2020, and lives in London with her husband. Her most recent book is Manifesto: On Never Giving Up.
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Ezenwa-Ohaeto. Chinua Achebe: A Biography. Bloomington. 1997. Indiana University Press. 0852555466. 326 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- 'Achebe is the man who invented African literature because he was able to show, in the structure and language of Things Fall Apart, that the future of African writing did not lie in simple imitation of European forms but in the fusion of such forms with oral traditions', says Professor Simon Gikandi of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Things Fall Apart is the novel that millions of people have read, even if they are familiar with little else from the dramatic new writing of the last forty years in Africa. It is one of those rare landmarks in world literature that stand out from all the work of a generation. This is the first biography of its author Chinua Achebe. His novels span the African experience of colonialism, independence and of civilian and military corruption. His short stories in particular reflect his involvement in the Biafran civil war in Nigeria. His poetry, both in English and Igbo, reveals a sensitive talent. His children's stories introduced the young and their parents to the excitement of books. Chinua Achebe had an active and generous role in encouraging other African writers by starting the literary journal Okike by founding a publishing house in war-torn Nigeria and by introducing, in his role as the Founding Editor of the African Writers Series, new writers to a worldwide audience. Through his teaching in universities in Africa and America he showed the importance of Africa's own literature in the re-establishment of its cultural independence.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Nigerian poet and scholar Ezenwa-Ohaeto (1959–2005) was educated at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka and the University of Benin. The author of several collections of poetry, including Songs of a Traveller (1986), I Wan Bi President (1988), and Chants of a Minstrel (2002), Ezenwa-Ohaeto was one of the first Nigerians to publish poems written in pidgin English, bringing the cadence of a primarily oral language to the page. He is also the author of Chinua Achebe: A Biography (1997). His honors include a BBC Arts and Africa Poetry Award and the Association of Nigerian Authors' Cadbury Poetry Award. A critical overview of his work, Of Minstrelsy and Masks: The Legacy of Ezenwa-Ohaeto in Nigerian Writing (2007), was edited by Christine Matzke, Aderemi Raji-Oyelade, and Geoffrey V. Davis. Ezenwa-Ohaeto died of liver cancer in Cambridge, England, soon after arriving at the University of Cambridge as a visiting fellow in the African Studies Centre.
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Fagunwa, D. O. Forest of a Thousand Daemons. London. 1968. Thomas Nelson. 0175112886. Translated from the Yoruba by Wole Soyinka. 140 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- The Forest of a Thousand Daemons is a free translation of the late Chief D. O. Fagunwa's novel Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmale, the most famous of all works of Yoruba fiction. Chief Fagunwa (M.B.E.) was the leading writer in any West African language. Perhaps Akara, Ogun, the hero of this novel, is the late Chief himself - a Yoruba Bunyan. or the novel may be a pilgrimage of the Yoruba race. Perhaps none of this was intended and we have no grounds to read such things into it. Whether or not such lofty allegory was intended, The Forest of a Thousand Daemons places at the disposal of a wider reading public a story whose main themes are universal and time-honoured. The type of fantasy in it may have a touch peculiar to the Yoruba, and there is no reason why it shouldn't, but the quest for lasting happiness and peace of mind, and the hazards of that quest belong to all mankind. Wole Soyinka, the author of this novel, is the leading Nigerian playwright. A Dance of the Forest, Brother Jero, The Strong Breed, The Lion and the Jewel, which was produced at the Royal Court Theatre in 1 967, these plays and a number of poems including ‘A Telephone Conversation' are some of Mr. Soyinka's literary achievements. Educated at Ibadan and Leeds, he is now the Director of the School of Drama, University of Ibadan. Until his appointment to that post in 1967 he was a lecturer in English at the University of Lagos.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Daniel Olorunfemi Fagunwa MBE (1903 - 9 December 1963), popularly known as D. O. Fagunwa, was a Nigerian author who pioneered the Yoruba-language novel. He was born in Oke-Igbo, Ondo State. An Oloye of the Yoruba people, Fagunwa studied at St. Luke's School, Oke-Igbo, and St. Andrew's College, Oyo, before becoming a teacher himself. In 1938, entering a literary contest of the Nigerian education ministry, Fagunwa wrote his Ogboju Ode ninu Igbo Irunmale, widely considered the first novel written in the Yorùbá language and one of the first to be written in any African language. Wole Soyinka translated the book into English in 1968 as The Forest of A Thousand Daemons, first published by Random House and again by City Lights in September 2013 (ISBN 9780872866300). Fagunwa's later works include Igbo Olodumare (The Forest of God, 1949), Ireke Onibudo (1949), Irinkerindo ninu Igbo Elegbeje (Expedition to the Mount of Thought, 1954), and Adiitu Olodumare (1961). Fagunwa's novels draw heavily on folktale traditions and idioms, including many supernatural elements. His heroes are usually Yoruba hunters, who interact with kings, sages, and even gods in their quests. Thematically, his novels also explore the divide between the Christian beliefs of Africa's colonizers and the continent's traditional religions. Fagunwa remains the most widely-read Yorùbá-language author, and a major influence on such contemporary writers as Amos Tutuola. D. O. Fagunwa was the first Nigerian writer to employ folk philosophy in telling his stories. Fagunwa was awarded the Margaret Wrong Prize in 1955 and was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1959. He died in a river in 1963, the ground by the bank of the river gave way under his feet and he fell into the river. He tried to swim out of the water but he sank because the canoe by the river also fell and collapsed on him (Nigerian punch newspaper August 12, 2013 edition). Fagunwa Memorial High School and Fagunwa Grammar School in Oke-Igbo, Nigeria, are named for Fagunwa. His daughter Yejide Ogundipe serves as a council chairperson for Ile Oluji/Okeigbo.
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Gbadamosi, Bakare and Beier, Ulli. Not Even God Is Ripe Enough. Oxford. 1979. Heinemann. African Writers Series. Translated from the Yoruba. 58 pages. paperback. AWS48. Cover illustration by Georgina Beier. Originally published in 1968.
DESCRIPTION- This collection of Yoruba stories is as full of fierce amusement as the title would have one believe. Lovers escape in cooking pots, and wry retribution is the order of the day.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bakare Gbadamosi (born 1930) is a Yoruba poet, anthropologist and short story writer from Nigeria. Born in Osogbo, Hammed Gbadamosi wrote his own Yoruba poetry and short stories in the early 1960s. However, he is best known for collecting and translating Yoruba folk tales and traditional poetry in collaboration with Ulli Beier. Much of Gbadamosi's work was published by Mbari, a club founded by Beier in Ibadan.[1] In the late 1960s Gbadamosi was working as an ethnographer for the Nigerian Museum in Lagos, having previously worked 'as a letter writer, stage magician and actor'.[2] He participated in Duro Ladipo's theatre group in Osogbo.[3] According to one source, Gbadamosi later became known as Demola Onibonokuta.
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Gikandi, Simon. Reading Chinua Achebe: Language and Ideology in Fiction. Portsmouth. 1991. Heinemann. 0435080571. 176 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Simon Gikandi has set out to reveal 'the very nature of [Achebe's] creativity, its prodigious complexity and richness. its paradoxes and ambiguities'. He places Achebe's writing in a wider context than former books by integrating his critical and theoretical writings. 'This is scholarship of real stature and supersedes all other studies of Achebe's writing. It comes at a good time. Achebe's literary reputation is equal to that of any living author and a substantial critical canon has been established. This study is a quantum step forward in Achebe criticism and places the writing on a plane of theoretical discourse to which it has not yet been submitted and yet which leaves the writing rooted in social and political realia which is where Achebe places it. .‘ - G. D. Killam, Professor of English, Guelph University. Contents: Nation Formation and the Novel Things Fall Apart - No Longer At Ease - Arrow of God - A Man of the People - Anthills of the Savannah - lndex.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Simon Gikandi is Robert Schirmer Professor of English at Princeton University, where he is affiliated with the Departments of Comparative Literature and African American Studies and the Program in African Studies. Before that he was Robert Hayden Collegiate Professor of English at the University of Michigan and the director of the Program in Comparative Literature. Gikandi was elected second vice president of the Modern Language Association (MLA) in December 2016. He will become the first vice-president of the MLA in 2018 and the association's president in 2019. He served as editor of PMLA, the official journal of the MLA, from 2011 to 2016. Born in Nyeri, Kenya, Gikandi earned his BA in literature, with first-class honors, from the University of Nairobi. As a British Council Scholar at the University of Edinburgh, he graduated with an MLitt in English studies. He has a PhD in English from Northwestern University. Gikandi's major fields of research and teaching are Anglophone literatures and cultures of Africa, India, the Caribbean, and postcolonial Britain; literary and critical theory; the black Atlantic and the African diaspora; and the English novel. His current research projects are on slavery and modernity, African philology, and cultures of the novel. He is the author of many books and articles, including Writing in Limbo: Modernism and Caribbean Literature; Maps of Englishness: Writing Identity in the Culture of Colonialism; and Ngugi wa Thiong'o, a Choice Outstanding Academic Publication for 2004. He is the coauthor of The Columbia Guide to East African Literature in English since 1945, the editor of the Routledge Encyclopedia of African Literature, and the coeditor of The Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature. His book Slavery and the Culture of Taste was winner of the MLA's James Russell Lowell Award; winner of the Melville J. Herskovits Award, given by the African Studies Association for the most important scholarly work in African studies; and a Choice Outstanding Academic Title. He is the editor of The Novel in Africa and the Caribbean since 1950, volume 11 of the Oxford History of the Novel in English. Gikandi is the recipient of a number of awards, including the President's Award for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton University (2014), a Guggenheim fellowship (2001), and an American Council of Learned Societies fellowship (1989). He has also received fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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Habila, Helon. Oil On Water. New York. 2011. Norton. 9780393339642. 242 pages. paperback. Cover photograph: Abbas/Magnum Photos. Cover design by Jaya Micelli.
DESCRIPTION- In the oil-rich and environmentally devastated Niger Delta, militants have kidnapped the wife of a British oil executive. Sensing the opportunity for his first big break, Rufus, a young journalist, takes the assignment to find her and negotiate her release. Paired with his former hero, Zaq, whose journalistic heyday has passed, the two embark on a journey full of danger and unintended consequences. Called ‘one of the best' of his generation of African writers by Emmanuel Dongala, and lauded by Doris Lessing and Jim Crace, Helon Habila here solidifies his reputation as a major voice in contemporary fiction. ‘Helon Habila is a necessary voice in literature, and in this book he presents us with a fast-paced tale of Nigeria's oil conflict. Part adventure, part mystery, it is in every way a significant exposE on the human lives at stake behind the headlines.' - MAZA MENGISTE, author of BENEATH THE LIONS GAZE. ‘Helon Habila is a courageous tale teller with an uncompromising vision that simultaneously informs and compels the reader to witness the devastating effect of neocolonial practices against the endurance of local resistance. A brilliantly written page-turner by a major talent.' - RAWI HAGE, author of COCKROACH.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - HELON HABILA is the author of MEASURING TIME and WAITING FOR AN ANGEL, which won both the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Caine Prize for African Writing. A professor at George Mason University's Graduate Creative Writing Program, Habila lives in the DC area.
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Habila, Helon. Waiting For An Angel. New York. 2003. Norton. 0393051935. 229 pages. hardcover. Cover: John Sann/Julie Metz.
DESCRIPTION- Lomba is a young journalist living under military rules in Lagos, Nigeria, the most dangerous city in the world. His mind is full of soul music and girls and the lyric novel he is writing. But his roommate is brutality attacked by soldiers; his first love is forced to marry a wealthy general; and his neighbors on Poverty Street are planning a demonstration that is bound to incite riot and arrests. Lomba can no longer bury his head in the sand. Helon Habila's vivid, exciting, and heart-wrenching debut opens a window onto a world in some ways familiar - with its sensuously depicted streets, student life, and vibrant local characters - yet ruled by one of the world's most corrupt arid oppressive regimes, a scandal that ultimately drives Lomba to take a risk in the name of something greater than himself. Habila captures the energy, sensitivity, despair, and stubborn hope of a new African generation with a combination of gritty realism and poetic beauty.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - HELON HABILA is the author of MEASURING TIME and WAITING FOR AN ANGEL, which won both the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Caine Prize for African Writing. A professor at George Mason University's Graduate Creative Writing Program, Habila lives in the DC area.
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Idewu, Olawale and Adu, Omotayo. NIgerian Folk Tales. New Brunswick. 1961. Rutgers University Press. As told by Olawale Idewu & Omotayo. Told to and edited by Barbara K. & Warren S. Walker. Text decorations by Margaret Barbour. 113 pages. hardcover. From jacket photograph of a statuette in the collection of the editors by Gordon Fikejs.
DESCRIPTION- Unlike so many developing countries, Nigeria still has a strong oral tradition and there remains a great reservoir of folklore and native storytelling in spite of the influence of Western culture and education. In Nigeria prior to our time, the folk tale was the major means of transmitting from one generation to another a native culture - legends, beliefs, mores, and social attitudes - as it has always been for unlettered groups. Perhaps the perpetuation of these tales today is attributable in as great a measure to the role they play in a symbolic resistance to Western influence as to the appeal of the stories' indigenous humor and satire and the skill of the storytellers. In this collection there are stories of tricksters, tales that deal with marriages between mortals and otherworldly creatures, didactic moral fables designed to inform and to teach, stories emphasizing the importance of procreation in primitive societies, and tales that represent folk efforts to explain the nature of things in the physical world. For many of the thirty-seven Yoruba folk tales printed here parallels can be found in almost every society - such as the familiar account of the tortoise and the hare. These stories were recorded by Professor and Mrs. Walker almost entirely verbatim from an oral rendition by two Nigerians attending college in this country. Neither storyteller had ever heard the tales told in English and both were spontaneously translating from the Yoruba as they spoke. The alteration of certain traditional tales is to be accounted for partly by the narrator's intention to make the tale more acceptable or more intelligible to a non-African listener, perhaps partly by the teller's growing familiarity with a non-African written tradition, and finally by his own skill in improvisation. Distortions made to fit the story to a Western listener for the most part tend to modernize the setting, and many of the tales have been startlingly updated with cutlasses, guns, and airplanes. Professor and Mrs. Walker have written an account of the role of folk tales in Nigerian tribal life, where the telling of such narratives is a separate and established social art. They have added extensive notes on each of the stories. The result is a book which is at once an accurate piece of scholarship and a delightful reading experience for anyone interested either in folklore or in Nigeria. The text decorations, which were inspired by photos of actual Nigerian art objects, were reproduced from linoleum cuts by Margaret Barbour. The drawings were based on photographs furnished by the Segy Gallery for African Art in New York,, the Carlebach Gallery of New York, Olawale Idewu (from the collection of Dr. Lorenzo Dow Turner), and Gordon Fikejs, who photographed the statuette in the collection of the editors which is reproduced on the front of this jacket.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Olawale Idewu was a Nigerian student in a midwestern American college who was lonesome for his homeland and its culture and who was willing to share some of the tales from that culture.
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Ijimere, Obotunde. The Imprisonment of Obatala and Other Plays. Portsmouth. 1966. Heinemann. African Writers Series. Edited by Duro Ladipo and Ulli Beier. 109 pages. paperback. AWS18. The cover photograph is from a batik by Suzanne Wenger.
DESCRIPTION- Includes the plays - The Imprisonment of Obatala, Everyman, Woyengi. Theatre in the Yoruba language is mostly a kind of opera in which the songs are rehearsed while the dialogue is improvised. The first to break away from this tradition was Duro Ladipo, and his plays have had considerable influence on Obotunde Ijimere. This volume contains The Imprisonment of Obata/a, Everyman and Woyengi, which is based on an Ijaw tale. Obata/a is based on a Yoruba myth, which explores the philosophy of Yoruba orisha worship. Everyman is an adaptation of Hugo von Hofmanthal's play, but the basic theme has been rethought entirely in Yoruba terms: thus the Christian mythology of Heaven and Hell has been replaced by the Yoruba concept of reincarnation. Everyman's greatest punishment would be to be 'thrown on the heaven of potshers' that is, never to return to this earth again.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Oliver Reginald Kaizana Tambo (27 October 1917 - 24 April 1993), also known as O. R. Tambo, was a South African anti-apartheid politician and revolutionary who served as President of the African National Congress (ANC) from 1967 to 1991.
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Ike, Chukwuwmwka. Sunset at Dawn. London. 1981. Fontana Library. 0006142753. 255 pages. paperback. Cover photograph by Red Saunders.
DESCRIPTION- Air raid! ‘Enemy plane, Madam,' cried the orderly unnecessarily, for even the chickens by the roadside knew there was something dangerous overhead. Fatima threw her son out of the car door he was bravely holding open for her. The nerve-wracking sound of the jet planes was now unmistakable. She glanced up, saw two fighters making for her, held tight to Emeka with both hands and ran towards the cocoa jungle, not caring what lay in her path. Her high-heeled shoes slowed her down and she discarded them. By now the planes were overhead. She shut her eyes tight and prayed to God for her son and her life. ‘Mr Ike's novel tells a human story with skill and humour. This is what the war was really like seen through Biafran eyes! - THE SUNDAY TIMES.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Vincent Chukwuemeka Ike, born 28 April 1931 in Anambra state, Nigeria is a Nigerian writer known for a mixture of lampoon, humor and satire. He owes a little bit of his style to his Igbo cultural upbringing. He studied history, English and Religious Studies at the University of Ibadan and earned a masters degree at Stanford university. Among many youths, he is popular as the author of Expo '77, a critical look at academic examination abuses in West Africa.
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Ike, Chukwuwmwka. The Naked Gods. London. 1971. Fontana Books. 254 pages. paperback. 2770.
DESCRIPTION- To the Vice-Chancellor Sir - There is a strong rumour that you are being commandeered into presiding over a primitive pagan ritual on this campus, to discover the person who left a charm on the professor's door. As part of the ritual, every member of staff will be required to jump over the detached door, in the belief that the guilty person will collapse in the attempt. A University that has a Faculty of Science cannot endorse anything to do with -charms. All right - thinking staff members look on you to call an immediate halt to the episode. Yours faithfully, Lovers of Songhai University. ‘Very funny Mr. Ike puts to stunning comic use the clash between the conservatives and the progressives at the university.' Daily Telegraph.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Vincent Chukwuemeka Ike, born 28 April 1931 in Anambra state, Nigeria is a Nigerian writer known for a mixture of lampoon, humor and satire. He owes a little bit of his style to his Igbo cultural upbringing. He studied history, English and Religious Studies at the University of Ibadan and earned a masters degree at Stanford university. Among many youths, he is popular as the author of Expo '77, a critical look at academic examination abuses in West Africa.
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Ike, Vincent Chukwuemeka. Toads For Supper. London. 1965. Harvill Press. 192 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Brian Russell.
DESCRIPTION- To be engaged to three girls, accused by one of being the father of her child, rusticated by the University authorities these are severe setbacks in the career of any undergraduate. For Amobi matters were a good deal worse. When he boarded the lorry 'No telephone to Heaven' to return to his village in Eastern Nigeria, he faced not only his parents' anger and that of the family to whose daughter he had been betrothed since childhood, but the disappointment of every man in the village. For everybody at Ezinkwo had contributed, directly or indirectly, to the cost of his education: Amobi, they had boasted, the first son of Ezinkwo soil ever to graduate, Amobi who is going to put Ezinkwo on the map. But it was the meeting with his illiterate and shrewd father that Amobi dreaded most. He had a habit of cutting Amobi down to size, of addressing him as ‘you with all those books inside your small head' that made Amobi forget the fine figure he cut at the University, and falter in his well-rehearsed speech on his father's outmoded ideas. How Amobi got himself into this situation, and his efforts to extricate himself from it, is the subject of this first novel. The author's understanding, sympathy and insight into undergraduate life in Nigeria today makes this much more than the farce that Amobi's predicament implies. Mixed with the robust high spirits there is poetry as well as tragedy, and an underlying genuineness that makes this lighthearted
DESCRIPTIONof Nigerian life not only memorable but haunting.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Vincent Chukwuemeka Ike comes from Eastern Nigeria. The second of a family of six, he was born in 1931 and grew up in a village where his parents belonged to the Anglican branch of the Church Missionary Society and where his father besides looking after his farm and business was also parish lay treasurer, local counciller and, at one time, a Church teacher. Vincent Chukwuemeka Ike was educated at Government College Umuahia, where he qualified for the University of Ibadan, at that time the only university in Nigeria. He took an active part in the Student's Union, was selected to represent Nigeria at Student Christian Movement Conferences and thanks to a UNESCO Student's Grant was able to attend international conferences in Holland, West Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. After graduating in 1955 he taught for two years in a Girls', Secondary School before returning to Ibadan to join the Administrative staff of the University and look after the students' welfare. When the new University of Nigeria was opened in 1960 at Nsukka in Eastern Nigeria, Mr Ike was asked to fill the post of Deputy Registrar and in 1963 was appointed Registrar, a position he holds at the present time. Recently he spent six months visiting schools and Universities in America and the United Kingdom. Mr Ike started writing as a schoolboy when he edited his House Magazine; as an undergraduate he sat on the editorial board of the University Herald and was an active member of the Magazine Club. Since then his short stories have won prizes in the Nigerian Festival of the Arts, have been broadcast in Nigeria and published in magazines there. Toads For Supper is his first novel. Mr Ike is married and has one son; his wife, Adebimpe, also a graduate of Ibadan University, comes from Western Nigeria, the opposite side of the country to her husband's home. The author's hobbies include photography and carpentry.
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Ile, Jowhor. And After Many Days. New York. 2016. Tim Duggan Books. 9781101903148. 246 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Michael Morris.
DESCRIPTION- An unforgettable debut novel about a boy who goes missing, a family that is torn apart, and a nation on the brink. During the rainy season of 1995, in the bustling town of Port Harcourt, Nigeria, one family's life is disrupted by the sudden disappearance of seventeen-year-old Paul Utu, beloved brother and son. As they grapple with the sudden loss of their darling boy, they embark on a painful and moving journey of immense power which changes their lives forever and shatters the fragile ecosystem of their once ordered family. Ajie, the youngest sibling, is burdened with the guilt of having seen Paul last and convinced that his vanished brother was betrayed long ago. But his search for the truth uncovers hidden family secrets and reawakens old, long forgotten ghosts as rumours of police brutality, oil shortages, and frenzied student protests serve as a backdrop to his pursuit. In a tale that moves seamlessly back and forth through time, Ajie relives a trip to the family's ancestral village where, together, he and his family listen to the myths of how their people settled there, while the villagers argue over the mysterious Company, who found oil on their land and will do anything to guarantee support. As the story builds towards its stunning conclusion, it becomes clear that only once past and present come to a crossroads will Ajie and his family finally find the answers they have been searching for. And After Many Days introduces Ile's spellbinding ability to tightly weave together personal and political loss until, inevitably, the two threads become nearly indistinguishable. It is a masterful story of childhood, of the delicate, complex balance between the powerful and the powerless, and a searing portrait of a community as the old order gives way to the new.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jowhor Ile was born in 1980 and raised in Nigeria, where he currently lives. His fiction has appeared in McSweeney's Quarterly and Litro Magazine.
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Imasuen, Eghosa. Fine Boys: A Novel - Revised Edition. Athens. 2021. Ohio University Press. 9780821424575. 278 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Ewaen is a Nigerian teenager, bored at home in Warri and eager to flee from his parents’ unhappy marriage and incessant quarreling. When Ewaen is admitted to the University of Benin, he makes new friends who, like him, are excited about their newfound independence. They hang out in parking lots, trading jibes in pidgin and English and discovering the pleasures that freedom affords them. But when university strikes begin and ruthlessly violent confraternities unleash mayhem on their campus, Ewaen and his new friends must learn to adapt—or risk becoming the confras' next unwilling recruits. In his trademark witty, colloquial style, critically acclaimed author Eghosa Imasuen presents everyday Nigerian life against the backdrop of the pro-democracy riots of the 1980s and 1990s, the lost hopes of June 12 (Nigeria’s Democracy Day), and the terror of the Abacha years. Fine Boys is a chronicle of time, not just in Nigeria, but also for its budding post-Biafran generation.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Eghosa Imasuen is the cofounder of Narrative Landscape Press, a publishing company based in Lagos. He studied medicine at the University of Benin and lives in Lagos with his wife and twin sons.
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Iroh, Eddie. Forty-eight Guns for the General. 1976. Heinemann. 0435901893. African Writers Series. 218 pages. paperback. AWS189.
DESCRIPTION- The first of Eddie Iroh’s trilogy of war novels. The other titles are: Toads of War (1979) and The Siren in the Night. The 'forty-eight guns' refers to forty-eight mercenaries who are flown in to supposedly help the Biafrans.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - EDDIE IROH, author of Forty-eight Guns for the General (AWS 189) and Toads of War (AWS 213), now completes his action-packed trilogy of the war in Biafra. During the war he was desk editor for the Biafran War Information Bureau. Afterwards he worked for Reuters, the news agency, for Evans, the publishers, and then for the Features and Documentary Department of Nigerian Television, Enugu. Since 1979 he has been the Head and Controller of the Documentary Department, Nigerian Television Authority, Lagos, where he is currently writing and directing a documentary series on the origin and development of the Nigerian peoples called ‘Portrait of a Culture'.
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Iroh, Eddie. The Siren in the Night. Exeter. 1982. Heinemann. 0435902555. African Writers Series. 203 pages. paperback. AWS255. Cover illustration by Martin Lovis. AWS original.
DESCRIPTION- The Nigerian civil war has ended. Biafra has surrendered. But a new war is just beginning. Ben Odo Udaja, a one-time Colonel of the People's Army, defected from Biafra towards the end of the war. At first he is apprehensive about his fate. With surrender and amnesty, however, he begins to see less to fear, except perhaps reprisals from his former Biafran collaborators. But Colonel Mike Kolawole, head of the Federal Security and Intelligence Directorate, himself no stranger to acts of mindlessness, is convinced that amnesty should not mean amnesia. Kolawole considers the Biafran surrender is a ruse and Ben Udaja and his ilk are the new leaders of a rebel resurgence. In this fast moving thriller, Eddie Iroh brings his war trilogy to its exciting conclusion.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - EDDIE IROH, author of Forty-eight Guns for the General (AWS 189) and Toads of War (AWS 213), now completes his action-packed trilogy of the war in Biafra. During the war he was desk editor for the Biafran War Information Bureau. Afterwards he worked for Reuters, the news agency, for Evans, the publishers, and then for the Features and Documentary Department of Nigerian Television, Enugu. Since 1979 he has been the Head and Controller of the Documentary Department, Nigerian Television Authority, Lagos, where he is currently writing and directing a documentary series on the origin and development of the Nigerian peoples called ‘Portrait of a Culture'.
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Iroh, Eddie. Toads of War. London. 1979. Heinemann. 043590213x. African Writers Series. 144 pages. paperback. AWS213. Cover photograph by Bill Heyes. AWS original.
DESCRIPTION- The focus of this second book in a trilogy on the Biafran war, switches from the battlefront, where ill-clad and half-fed conscripts are being shot and maimed, to Owerri town where a bizarre elite ranging from bureaucrats to clergymen are growing fat on blood money and the black market in the final days of Biafra. At work Kalu Udim, who lost a hand at the front, comes up against his civil servant boss, Chima Duke, who makes sure that in-coming relief includes perfumes and dresses for Kechi Ugboma, a former air hostess. Kechi falls in love with Kalu, but she cannot afford to leave Chima. This dramatic novel is brought to a climax when, because it is a time of war, Kalu tries to resolve affairs with an automatic pistol. EDDIE IROH has recently made a mark with his action-packed thriller of the war in Biafra called Forty-eight Guns for The Genera/ (AWS 189). During the war he was desk editor for the Biafran War Information Bureau. Afterwards he worked for Reuters, the News agency, and for Evans, the publishers. He now heads the Features and Documentary Department of Nigerian Television, Enugu. This is part of a third book completing a trilogy on the war.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - EDDIE IROH, author of Forty-eight Guns for the General (AWS 189) and Toads of War (AWS 213), now completes his action-packed trilogy of the war in Biafra. During the war he was desk editor for the Biafran War Information Bureau. Afterwards he worked for Reuters, the news agency, for Evans, the publishers, and then for the Features and Documentary Department of Nigerian Television, Enugu. Since 1979 he has been the Head and Controller of the Documentary Department, Nigerian Television Authority, Lagos, where he is currently writing and directing a documentary series on the origin and development of the Nigerian peoples called ‘Portrait of a Culture'.
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Jones, Eldred Durosimi. The Writing of Wole Soyinka - 3rd Edition. London/Portsmouth. 1988. James Currey/Heinemann Kenya. 0435080210. 242 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- The authoritative study of the work of the Nobel Prize winner; Updated for the second time since the first edition in 1973; Includes sections on Soyinka's most recent work; Now has full coverage of his second autobiographical book AkE; Additional sections on his new plays; Book by book assessment of all the collections of poetry; Detailed and helpful assessments of his complex novels The Interpreters and A Season of Anomy; Updated bibliography, chronology and index
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Eldred Durosimi Jones, the distinguished literary critic and Shakespearean scholar, is Emeritus Professor of English and former Principal of the Fourah Bay College in the University of Sierra Leone. He is editor of the review African Literature Today.
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Jones-Quartey, K. A. B. A Life of Azikiwe. Baltimore. 1965. Penguin Books. 272 pages. paperback. WA14.
DESCRIPTION- 'As for me, my stiffest earthly assignment is ended and my major life's work is done. My country is now free, and I have been honoured to be its first indigenous Head of State. What more could one desire in life?' These words were spoken in 1960 by Dr Azikiwe, the President of Nigeria and one of the outstanding personalities in Africa today. Professor Jones-Quartey, a Ghanaian and personal friend, is concerned in this book to give an impartial account of his turbulent life. For if Dr Azikiwe had been (as the author puts it) 'a blameless angel, perhaps his biography would not have been worth writing for serious people to read '. In particular he examines the President's 'part in the government's acquisition of the African Continental' Bank, and tries to discover why he chose to become Head of State rather than Prime Minister on his country's independence. Above all this book gives us an insight into a man whose career has bridged the gap between empire and commonwealth, and into problems that may also beset other emergent countries in Africa. Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe, P.C. (16 November 1904 - 11 May 1996), usually referred to as Nnamdi Azikiwe or Zik, was a prominent Nigerian nationalist and statesman who served as the first President of Nigeria from 1963 to 1966, holding the presidency throughout the Nigerian First Republic. He is popularly considered a driving force behind the nation's independence and came to be known as the "father of Nigerian Nationalism". Born to Igbo parents in Zungeru, present-day Niger State, Azikiwe learned to speak Hausa, the main indigenous language of the Northern Region at an early age. He later lived in Onitsha, his parental homeland where he was raised by his aunt and grandmother and learned the Igbo language. A sojourn in Lagos exposed him to the Yoruba language and he was in college, he had been exposed to different Nigerian cultures. Motivated to get a university education, he traveled to U.S. and attended various colleges including Storer College, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania and Howard returning to Africa in 1934 to start work as a journalist in the Gold Coast. In British West Africa, Azikiwe was an important advocate of Nigerian and African nationalism, first as a journalist and later as political leader.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - K. A. B. Jones-Quartey was born in Accra in 1913. After a missionary school education he worked under Azikiwe as a reporter on the African Morning Post from 1934-37. He then went to America to continue his education and graduated in Government from the Universities of Lincoln and Columbia. By 1950 he was back in Ghana, attached to the Department of Extra-Mural Studies in the University College of Ghana, of which he became Assistant Director in 1952. He is now an Associate Professor in the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. ‘Soas' Jones-Quartey, as he is known, has travelled widely in many parts of the world; he is married with four sons.
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Kalejaiye, Oladipo. The Father of Secrets. Palo Alto. 1978. Zikawuna Books. 0930130014. 31 pages. paperback. Cover Design by Yvonne Browne.
DESCRIPTION- THE FATHER OF SECRETS, winner of the prestigious Phelan Literary Award in playwriting, explores in a comedic version the conflicts and contradictions of modern Africans and their attitude about traditional African medicine versus Western medicine. THE FATHER OF SECRETS takes place in Nigeria. Salawu, an educated lower-to-middle level civil- servant comes home to find his 16-year-old daughter Sikiratu gravely ill. Should Sikiratu be taken to a hospital or The Father-of Secrets? Who should Salawu the hospital, western medicine, penicillin, the doctor or The trust: Father of Secrets with his incantations, herbs and psychic powers? ‘African Drama is a kind of drama which elevates the spectator into a level higher than his own, the result of which is entertainment and a heightened awareness.' - Oladipo Kalejaiye in The Defiance of Imitation: An Essay on African Drama.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - OLADIPO KALEJAIYE joins the ranks of that special breed of African writers who write in English and use contemporary themes to resolve the conflicts and contradictions of traditional and modern African societies. Kalejaiye is an award-winning poet and playwright: winner of the Ina Coolbirth Memorial Poetry Prize of the University of California, Berkeley, the prestigious Phelan Literary Award in Playwriting and the 1977-78 Grand Prize for the Phelan Literary Award of Sana Jose State University. A Nigerian, Kalejaiye is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley.
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Kendhammer, Brandon and McCain, Carmen. Boko Haram. Athens. 2018. Ohio University Press. 9780821423516. Ohio Short Histories of Africa. 230 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- From its small-time origins in the early 2000s to its transformation into one of the world's most-recognized terrorist groups, this short book tells the story of Boko Haram's bloody, decade-long war in northeastern Nigeria. Going beyond the headlines, including the group's 2014 abduction of 276 girls in Chibok and the international outrage it inspired, it provides readers new to the conflict with a clearly-written and comprehensive history of how the group came to be, the Nigerian government's failed efforts to end it, and its enormous impact on ordinary citizens. Drawing on decades of research, Boko Haram is a timely addition to the acclaimed Ohio Short Histories of Africa. Brandon Kendhammer and Carmen McCain - two leading specialists on northern Nigeria - separate fact from fiction within one of the world's least understood conflicts. Most uniquely, it is a social history, one that tells the story of Boko Haram's violence through the journalism, literature, film, and music made by people close to it.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Brandon Kendhammer is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of International Development Studies at Ohio University, in Athens, OH. He has published widely on religion, ethnicity, and politics in Nigeria, and is the author of Muslims Talking Politics: Framing Islam, Democracy, and Law in Northern Nigeria.
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Killam, G. D. The Novels of Chinua Achebe. New York. 1969. Africana Publishing Corporation. 0841900248. 106 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Contemporary literature in Nigeria is best represented by the novels of Chinua Achebe, probably the foremost writer from black Africa today. Writing in English, Achebe's novels broadly reflect the evolution of Ibo life from the pre-colonial era to life under military rule in an African nation. As the first book of critical commentary devoted to the writings of Chinua Achebe, G. D. Killam has extended a great service to Achebe's audience. His lucid exposition and discussion of the four novels, THINGS FALL APART, NO LONGER AT EASE, ARROW OF GOD and A MAN OF THE PEOPLE and selected short stories enhance the reader's Appreciation of these major works of modern African literature. In addition to explaining the sociological and anthropological significance of these works, the author focuses his critical attention on these books as works of literature. His analysis encompasses both their African context and background and their thematical universal implications. Utilizing copious and often lengthy extracts as well as Achebe's prose comments, Mr. Killam has produced a thorough and probing critique of Achebe's works. G. D. Killam was formerly a Lecturer in English at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. At present, he is Associate Professor of English at York University, Toronto.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - DOUGLAS KILLAM was Professor of Commonwealth and African Literature at the University of Guelph, Canada. He has taught in Nigeria and Tanzania, and Sierra Leone. He is the author of several books of critical studies, including "Africa in English Literature", "The Writings of Chinua Achebe", and "An Introduction to the Writings of Ngugi". He is co-editor with Ruth Lowe of "The Companion to African Literatures anthologies of African fiction".
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King-Aribisala, Karen. Kicking Tongues. Portsmouth. 1988. Heinemann. 0435912003. African Writers Series. 244 pages. paperback. Cover illustration by Ademola Akintola. AWS original.
DESCRIPTION- KICKING TONGUES brilliantly transposes Chaucer's CANTERBURY TALES to modern-day Nigeria. Forty travellers gather at the Eko Holiday Inn, Lagos, intending to journey to Abuja, the new federal capital. Selected by their ‘melancholy hostess', they range from a wealthy tribal chief to a humble petrol pump attendant, from a rain maker to a woman in purdah. They are united only by their dissatisfaction with Nigeria's chaotic and corrupt regime, a concern which is reflected in the widely differing stories they tell on the journey - bawdy tales, sharp satires, poignant narratives and moral fables. Blending poetry and prose, rich visual images and witty puns, Karen King-Aribisala succeeds in transforming a fourteenth-century English classic into an exuberant and distinctively African work.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Karen King-Aribisala lectures in English at the University of Lagos. She is the author of OUR WIFE AND OTHER STORIES, which won the 1990/91 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book (African Region).
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Kotun, Debo. Abiku. Pasadena. 1999. Nepotist Books. 0966877276. A Novel Of Suspense From Nigeria. 419 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Winner of the 1995 Phi Kappa Phi Prize for Fiction, USC. ". One that puts a stone in a basket of eggs must walk ever so gently." Yoruba Proverb. Abiku, a Yoruba word which means "born to die," is an allegorical satire couched within the complex and often convoluted environment of Nigeria's social, traditional and military cultures. It is more than a book about Yoruba mythological beliefs. It extends beyond a clash of modernity and traditional beliefs, treachery, deception, or savage display of brutality among members of Nigeria's military ruling class. It is all of these and more. Above all, it is an interwoven belief of religion and spirituality, about power and its vulnerability, about a misunderstood phenomenon that is universal in scope. -Ayo Akingbemi, Ph.D.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Debo Kotun was born in Lagos, Nigeria. He studied at Johns Hopkins University, Yale, the New School for Social Research, and the Masters of Professional Writing Program of the University of Southern California.
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Lindfors, Bernth (editor). Approaches to Teaching Achebe's Things Fall Apart. New York. 1991. Modern Language Association. 9780873525480. Approaches to Teaching World Literature. 145 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, with sales exceeding three million copies, is one of the most widely read works of contemporary fiction. A classic of African literature, it is taught in college courses ranging from graduate seminars in English and comparative literature to undergraduate offerings in English, history, ethnic studies, anthropology, folklore, and political science; it is also studied in high school literature and social studies classes. Yet teaching such a book presents special problems; Things Fall Apart is rooted in African social and historical realities that are often unfamiliar to North American readers. This collection of essays, all written by experienced teachers, aims to help instructors introduce students to the rich cultural background of the novel as well as to its narrative and structural complexities. Like other books in the MLA’s Approaches to Teaching World Literature series, this volume is divided into two parts. Part 1, “Materials,” surveys biographical sources and interviews, background studies, critical commentaries, films based on Things Fall Apart, and other instructional aids. In part 2, “Approaches,” sixteen contributors describe strategies they have used to teach Achebe’s work. Several essays were solicited from eminent African scholars who, having taught abroad, know firsthand the challenges of conveying cross-cultural understanding through African literature. The volume features an introductory statement by Chinua Achebe, in which he comments on the responses his novel has elicited from readers around the world and offers advice on probing the significance of the story.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Bernth Lindfors, professor of English and African literatures at the University of Texas at Austin, is the author of Folklore in Nigerian Literature, Popular Literatures in Africa, and Comparative Approaches to African Literatures. And, he is the editor of Critical Perspectives on Chinua Achebe and Approaches to Teaching Achebe's "Things Fall Apart."
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Maja-Pearce, Adewale (editor). Wole Soyinka: An Appraisal. Oxford. 1994. Heinemann. 0435911511. 166 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- To mark the 60th birthday of Wole Soyinka, this collection of essays pays tribute to his many achievements. The essays are prefaced by Soyinka's own Nobel speech of 1986, which voiced his overriding concern for justice and freedom - a driving force in his life as well as his literature. The concluding contribution, an interview he gave to 'Biyi Bandele-Thomas some seven years on, bears witness to that unflagging concern. Other contributors include both fellow writers and distinguished academics. Some, like Nadine Gordimer, have chosen to record their personal and professional regard for Soyinka, while others, such as Wilson Harris and Abdulrazak Gurnah, adopt a more critical - though constructive and no less appreciative - stance towards play, poetry or novel. Femi Osofisan, fellow Nigerian playwright, combines the two approaches in a personal memoir of the man and his life, an interpretation of his work and a heartfelt acknowledgement of Soyinka's vital and continuing influence.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Adewale Maja-Pearce (born 1953) is an Anglo-Nigerian writer, journalist and critic, who is best known for his documentary essays. He is the author of several books, including the memoirs In My Father's Country (1987) and The House My Father Built (2014), several other non-fiction titles and a collection of short stories entitled Loyalties and Other Stories (1986). Adewale Maja-Pearce was born in London, England, to British and Yoruba parents. He grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, attending St. Gregory's College, Obalende (1965–69), and returned to Britain to be educated at the University College of Wales, Swansea (BA, 1972–75), and at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University (1984–86), where he gained a Master of Arts degree in African studies. He was employed a researcher at Index on Censorship and became the journal's Africa Editor (1986–97), as well as being Series Editor of the Heinemann African Writers Series (1986–94). Having returned to Nigeria, he lives in Surulere, Lagos, in a house inherited by his father, which he has written about in his 2014 memoir The House My Father Built. Maja-Pearce runs an editorial services agency called Yemaja, as well as a small publishing company, The New Gong. Maja-Pearce has written in various genres, his early published work featuring short stories drawing on his Nigerian background, with his collection Loyalties and Other Stories appearing in 1986. Most notable, however, as an essayist, he has written several non-fiction books, including the 2005 Remembering Ken Saro-Wiwa and Other Essays, which in the opinion of critic Uzor Uzoatu "affords us the opportunity of dipping into the immense world of Maja-Pearce as he, in twenty-three heartfelt essays and reviews, illuminates the benighted mores of modern Nigeria, the identity question in South Africa … and engages with seminal minds across the world. This book is a treasure, a profound testament." Maja-Pearce was the editor of Christopher Okigbo's Collected Poems (1986), as well as of anthologies such as The Heinemann Book of African Poetry in English (1990) and Who's Afraid of Wole Soyinka?: Essays on Censorship (1991), and also wrote the 1998 and 1999 annual reports on human rights violations in Nigeria. His memoirs include 1987's In My Father's Country: A Nigerian Journey and, most recently, The House My Father Built (2014), which the reviewer for the online magazine Bakwa described in the following terms: "a harrowing tale of Nigeria as it then was (1993-1999); a memoir of Adewale Maja-Pearce's quest to possess his birth right, his country and personal dignity. Mr Maja-Pearce presents the greatest cast of characters in the history of Nigerian literature. And nothing comes close, no clichE, except you consider Basi and Company by Ken Saro-Wiwa." Maja-Pearce has written journalism, essays and reviews for a range of international publications, among them The New York Times, Granta, The London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The London Magazine, and Prospect. He became a contributing opinion writer for The International New York Times in 2013. Maja-Pearce is married to the artist/activist Juliet Ezenwa.
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Maja-Pearce, Adewale. In My Father's Country: A Nigerian Journey. London. 1987. Heinemann. 0434441708. 177 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Michael Munday. Jacket design by Liz Barton.
DESCRIPTION- Imagine a country nearly three times the size of Britain, with perhaps 100,000,000 people speaking twelve major languages and professing three distinct religions. A nation barely twenty-five years old sprung from a civilization as ancient as the legendary splendours of its walled cities and hereditary kingships. Imagine a journey of thousands of miles - in a series of taxi-cabs - from its southern capital up into the north then back down again, and on, to the sprawling ports of the east. The country is Nigeria: one of the richest and fastest-growing nations in Africa. Adewale Maja-Pearce returned to his father's country to write a book and also, he discovered, to resolve the contradictions of his own, dual, heritage. The result is a travel book that is also a personal essay of great elegance, charm, and humour. Always readable, sometimes provocative, he takes a cool look at the very urgent issues facing modern Nigeria: the ambiguous status of women; the clash between traditional and contemporary values; the Nigerian response to Marxism and other western ideas; the brutality of everyday life in braggart, nouveau riche Lagos ('probably one of the most dangerous cities in the world'). Adewale Maja-Pearce brings a thorough knowledge of Nigerian history and culture to bear on his subject, but the particular freshness and vivacity of his account derive from his interest in people - traders and soldiers, officials and beggars, prostitutes and doctors, an English poet and the houseboy who planned to be a lawyer and travel around the world, and everyone else he talked with along the way. The keynote of the book is struck in a remark made by one of the many ordinary Nigerians whose hospitality so touched the writer: 'Bear in mind that although Nigeria has tremendous problems we Nigerians are not despairing. We are hopeful that great things will be done.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Adewale Maja-Pearce (born 1953) is an Anglo-Nigerian writer, journalist and critic, who is best known for his documentary essays. He is the author of several books, including the memoirs In My Father's Country (1987) and The House My Father Built (2014), several other non-fiction titles and a collection of short stories entitled Loyalties and Other Stories (1986). Adewale Maja-Pearce was born in London, England, to British and Yoruba parents. He grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, attending St. Gregory's College, Obalende (1965–69), and returned to Britain to be educated at the University College of Wales, Swansea (BA, 1972–75), and at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University (1984–86), where he gained a Master of Arts degree in African studies. He was employed a researcher at Index on Censorship and became the journal's Africa Editor (1986–97), as well as being Series Editor of the Heinemann African Writers Series (1986–94). Having returned to Nigeria, he lives in Surulere, Lagos, in a house inherited by his father, which he has written about in his 2014 memoir The House My Father Built. Maja-Pearce runs an editorial services agency called Yemaja, as well as a small publishing company, The New Gong. Maja-Pearce has written in various genres, his early published work featuring short stories drawing on his Nigerian background, with his collection Loyalties and Other Stories appearing in 1986. Most notable, however, as an essayist, he has written several non-fiction books, including the 2005 Remembering Ken Saro-Wiwa and Other Essays, which in the opinion of critic Uzor Uzoatu "affords us the opportunity of dipping into the immense world of Maja-Pearce as he, in twenty-three heartfelt essays and reviews, illuminates the benighted mores of modern Nigeria, the identity question in South Africa … and engages with seminal minds across the world. This book is a treasure, a profound testament." Maja-Pearce was the editor of Christopher Okigbo's Collected Poems (1986), as well as of anthologies such as The Heinemann Book of African Poetry in English (1990) and Who's Afraid of Wole Soyinka?: Essays on Censorship (1991), and also wrote the 1998 and 1999 annual reports on human rights violations in Nigeria. His memoirs include 1987's In My Father's Country: A Nigerian Journey and, most recently, The House My Father Built (2014), which the reviewer for the online magazine Bakwa described in the following terms: "a harrowing tale of Nigeria as it then was (1993-1999); a memoir of Adewale Maja-Pearce's quest to possess his birth right, his country and personal dignity. Mr Maja-Pearce presents the greatest cast of characters in the history of Nigerian literature. And nothing comes close, no clichE, except you consider Basi and Company by Ken Saro-Wiwa." Maja-Pearce has written journalism, essays and reviews for a range of international publications, among them The New York Times, Granta, The London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The London Magazine, and Prospect. He became a contributing opinion writer for The International New York Times in 2013. Maja-Pearce is married to the artist/activist Juliet Ezenwa.
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Mazrui, Ali A. The Trial of Christopher Okigbo. New York. 1971. Third Press. 0893880248. 160 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Bennie Arrington.
DESCRIPTION- This provocative novel of ideas centers on the tragedy of Christopher Okigbo - a real person and a great poet who was killed fighting for Biafra in the Nigerian Civil War. The 'trial' takes place in 'After-Africa', and Okigbo is tried on two counts: first, that he subordinated the vision of a unified Nigeria to the Biafran ideal; and second, that he had betrayed his art by acting as an Ibo first and as a poet last. The central theme is cunningly interwoven with the stories Of Hamisi, the Counsel for Salvation, a Kenyan Muslim in love with a Hausa woman, who is himself on trial for the sin of miscalculation in the 'Herebefore'; and Apolo- Gyamfi, the Counsel for Damnation, a brilliant Ghanaian who had died in a road accident while a student at Oxford, whose sin in the 'Herebefore' was impatience. The summing up and the final verdict on Christopher Okigbo, and the judgment on Hamisi and Apolo-Gyamfi, who themselves are symbolic of some of the protagonists in the Nigerian Civil War, is unexpected and will produce much controversy about the book itself and the ideas involved.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ali Al'amin Mazrui (24 February 1933 - 12 October 2014), was an academic professor, and political writer on African and Islamic studies and North-South relations. He was born in Mombasa, Kenya. His positions included Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York, and Director of the Center for Afro-American and African Studies at the University of Michigan. He produced the television documentary series The Africans: A Triple Heritage.
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Mezu, S. Okechukwu. Behind the Rising Sun. London. 1978. Heinemann. 0434352705. African Writers Series. 241 pages. paperback. AWS113. Cover photograph by George Hallett. Originally published in the AWS series 1972.
DESCRIPTION- This epic novel is about the Nigerian Civil War. In Paris Obiora Ifedi, a representative from the East, lives luxuriously while negotiating for charter planes. Large deposits are paid to European dealers who don't in fact have aircraft. There is excitement and unreality which contrasts very vividly with what is happening in Nigeria. Suddenly Freddy Onuoha, witness to these futile efforts, grows impatient - he must return dangerously by night to a shrinking Biafra. Everything, except the suffering, now looks less absolute than it did outside. The war, like all wars, throws up people who are willing to sacrifice all for people who are selling all. ‘. the most substantial work of fiction yet produced by the war.' - The Times Literary Supplement.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - S. OKECHUKWU MEZU is Associate Professor of Languages in the State University of New York. He was born in Owerri in Eastern Nigeria. After schooling in Nigeria he went to Georgetown and La Salle Universities in the United States. He took his doctorate at Johns Hopkins University and was a UNESCO fellow at the Sorbonne. He has published some of his poetry and several other books including Leopold SEdar Senghor et la dEfense et illustration de la civilisation noire (Didier 1968) and The Poetry of L. S. Senghor (Heinemann 1972).
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Munonye, John. A Dancer of Fortune. London. 1975. Heinemann. 0435901532. African Writers Series. 187 pages. paperback. AWS153. Hardcover edition - London: William Heinemann, 1974.
DESCRIPTION- An overriding theme in the novels of John Munonye is the focus on the common man. Munonye sometimes view the common man as being born into a position whereby he is already at a disadvantage, both historically and presently, He sees little difference to the fate of the common man who could be manipulated at the whims of elites and chiefs in both pre- and post-colonial Nigeria and during colonialism. Aya Ijeroko, the protagonist in John Munonye’s novel, A Dancer of Fortune, is a vagabond, school dropout, and a challenge of shame to his wife Bessie. When Ayasko discovers his outstanding talent for dancing and builds a career out of it, he likens his skill to that of civil servants who write with their hands, while he writes with his feet. Along the way, Ayasko sets in motion a succession of events during which he outfoxes those seeking to exploit him, and positions himself for a hostile takeover of their businesses.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - John Munonye (April 1929 - 10 May 1999) is an important Igbo writer and one of the most important Nigerian writers of the 20th century. He was born in Akokwa, Nigeria, and was educated at the University of Ibadan and the Institute of Education, London. He retired as the head of the Advanced Teacher Training College, Owerri. John Munonye, unlike some of his contemporaries professed a love for optimism in the face of colonial onslaught on traditional values. To him, the dialectical environment of African and western tradition can be seen in both a positive light and outcome for the common Igbo or Nigerian man or woman. An overriding theme in his novels is the focus on the common man. Munonye sometimes view the common man as being born into a position whereby he is already at a disadvantage, both historically and presently, He sees little difference to the fate of the common man who could be manipulated at the whims of elites and chiefs in both pre- and post-colonial Nigeria and during colonialism.
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Munonye, John. A Wreath For the Maidens. London. 1973. Heinemann. 0435901214. African Writers Series. 248 pages. paperback. AWS121. Cover photograph by George Hallett.
DESCRIPTION- Eric and Biere have much in common. They suffer the same humiliations while growing up in a country which is still a colony. As students and teachers they welcome independence but find events building up to the bloody confrontation of civil war. The two friends are forced by their principles to take sides. But their ideals are soon shattered in this futile conflict, this sacrifice of the maidens. John Munonye's new novel shows his customary skill at making the experiences of ordinary people come alive.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - JOHN MUNONYE was born in 1929 in Akokwa, Nigeria, and educated at Christ the King College, Onitsha. In 1948 he went to University College, Ibadan, graduating B.A. in First Division in 1952. He spent a year doing a post-graduate course in education at London University. Since 1954 he has worked for the Ministry of Education in Nigeria; he is at present Principal of the Advanced Teacher Training College, Owerri, Three other novels have been published in African Writers Series: The Only Son (AWS 21), Obi (AWS 45) and Oil of Obange (AWS 94).
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Munonye, John. Bridge To a Wedding. London. 1978. Heinemann. 0435901958. African Writers Series. 228 pages. paperback. AWS195. Cover photograph by George Hallett.
DESCRIPTION- The theme of the broken bridge that has to be re-made shapes this powerful novel about a feud and reconciliation set in town and country in post-independence Nigeria. Kafo had offended his cousin, Obieke, and therefore had to leave the home village for another town where he brought up his six children. His eldest daughter, Rosen is the Juliet of the story. Her school friendship with Maria brings the family in touch once more with the village, from which Kafo is excluded. Junior, who is Maria's brother, wants to marry Rose but the ancient feud must be settled before they can be united.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - John Munonye (April 1929 - 10 May 1999) is an important Igbo writer and one of the most important Nigerian writers of the 20th century. He was born in Akokwa, Nigeria, and was educated at the University of Ibadan and the Institute of Education, London. He retired as the head of the Advanced Teacher Training College, Owerri. John Munonye, unlike some of his contemporaries professed a love for optimism in the face of colonial onslaught on traditional values. To him, the dialectical environment of African and western tradition can be seen in both a positive light and outcome for the common Igbo or Nigerian man or woman. An overriding theme in his novels is the focus on the common man. Munonye sometimes view the common man as being born into a position whereby he is already at a disadvantage, both historically and presently, He sees little difference to the fate of the common man who could be manipulated at the whims of elites and chiefs in both pre- and post-colonial Nigeria and during colonialism.
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Munonye, John. Obi. London. 1969. Heinemann. 0435900455. African Writers Series. 210 pages. paperback. AWS45. Cover illustration by Peter Edwards.
DESCRIPTION- Obi convincingly depicts the struggles of an educated Christian couple, Joe and Anna, to maintain their standards and ideals when they decide to return to their village to build their Obi, or homestead, with the money they have earned in the town. Although they are an obviously happy and devoted couple, pressure is soon put upon Joe to marry another wife as, after three years of marriage, there is still no sign of Anna having a baby. As a Christian Joe will not consider this although he does take his wife to visit a witch-doctor and then sends her to hospital for treatment which eventually proves successful. In this simply yet powerfully told story, tribal and traditional ideas constantly conflict with educated and progressive ones. They thus invade even the privacy the deepest of human relationships - marriage.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - JOHN MUNONYE was born in 1929 in Akokwa, Nigeria, and educated at Christ the King College, Onitsha. In 1948 he went to University College, Ibadan, and read Latin, Greek, and History, graduating B.A. in First Division in 1952. He spent a year doing a post-graduate course in education at London University and, in 1954, returned to Nigeria to work for the Ministry of Education as a Senior inspector of Education. He is married with two children. His successful first novel The Only Son is also published in the African Writers Series (No. 21).
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Munonye, John. Oil Man of Obange. London. 1971. Heinemann. 0435900943. African Writers Series. 186 pages. paperback. AWS94. Cover design by Uzo Egonu. Originally published in the AWS series 1971.
DESCRIPTION- The tragedy of the Oil Man of Obange is the more intense because it is on a small scale and personal. For generations his family have scratched a living from the land; they lose their land, and all die, except Jeri and his sister. He has children, and in order to send them to school, he must pedal a long and difficult road each day, with cans of palm oil balanced precariously on his bicycle, to earn the fees for their education. At last, the struggle becomes too great.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - JOHN MUNONYE is proving to be one of Africa's most consistently excellent novelists. Julian Mitchell writing in The Guardian about "the extraordinary outburst of Nigerian talent" said ' 'Achebe opened the way for a whole series of Nigerian writers to investigate the cultural clash between the traditional pagan and the modern Christianised ways of life. The best of them, apart from Achebe himself, is John Munonye." Between 1954 and 1976 he worked for the Ministry of Education in Nigeria. Five other novels have been published in African Writers Series: The Only Son (AWS 21) Obi (AWS 45), A Wreath for the Maidens (AWS 121), A Dancer of Fortune (AWS 153), and Bridge to a Wedding (AWS 195).
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Munonye, John. The Only Son. London. 1966. Heinemann. African Writers Series. 201 pages. paperback. AWS21. Cover drawing by Uche Okeke.
DESCRIPTION- Chiaku is a widow with an only son, Nnanna. Her whole life is centred round her son and devoted to bringing him up in the traditions of their people in Eastern Nigeria. Although urged to remarry, she cannot contemplate leaving Nnanna to look after himself. But the time comes when Nnanna begins to feel the attractions of Western Education and the new ideas imported into Nigerian society by the colonial government and the missionaries. He is fascinated by the skills to be learnt at the mission schools, and pressure is put on Chiaku to allow her only son to work for an Irish priest and be educated in ways she cannot understand. Nnanna goes away; distrust and misunderstanding ensue, and the break-up of Chiaku's small world seems inevitable. John Munonye's portrait of Chiaku, whose world crumbles when her son is drawn away by something she cannot combat, is sympathetically drawn, and his presentation of the missionaries both just and penetrating.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - JOHN MUNONYE was born in 1929 in Akokwa, Eastern Nigeria, the fourth of seven children, and educated at Christ the King College, Onitsha. In 1948 he went to University College, Ibadan, and read Latin, Greek, and history, graduating B.A. in First Division in 1952. He spent a year doing a post-graduate course in education at London University, and in 1954 returned to Nigeria to work for the Ministry of Education. At present he is Senior inspector of Education in Eastern Nigeria. He is married with two children.
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Ndibe, Okey. Arrows of Rain. Portsmouth. 2000. Heinemann. 0435906577. African Writers Series. 248 pages. paperback. Cover illustation by Fletcher Sibthorp.
DESCRIPTION- A young woman runs into the sea and drowns. The last man who spoke to her, the curious individual known as Bukuru, is asked to account for the suicide. His shocking revelations land him in court. Alone and undefended, Bukuru has to calculate the cost of silence in the face of stories which must be told. Both humorous and poignant. ARROWS OF RAIN dramatizes the relationship between an individual and the modern African state. Okey Ndibe examines the erosion of moral insight in both public and private life, drawing out the complex factors behind the near-collapse of a nation. ‘An ambitious and brave first novel, ARROWS OF RAIN could well jump start the moral political mission of serious African literature begun so well by Ousmane, Ngugi, and the immortal Achebe.' - Ekwueme Mike Thelwell.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Okey Ndibe (born 1960) is a novelist, political columnist, and essayist. Of Igbo ethnicity, Ndibe was born in Yola, Nigeria. He is the author of Arrows of Rain, a critically acclaimed novel published in 2000
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Nwachukwu, Iheoma. Japa and Other Stories. 2024. University of Georgia Press. 9780820367279. Series: Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. 168 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- These eight brutally beautiful stories are struck full of fragmented dreams, with highly developed thieves, misadventurers, and displaced characters all heaving through a human struggle to anchor themselves in a new home or sometimes a new reality. This book is about young Nigerian immigrants who bilocate, trek through the desert, become temporary Mormons, sneak through Russia, and yearn for new life in strange new territories that force them to confront what it means to search for a connection far from home. Japa and Other Stories came out of a struggle Iheoma Nwachukwu faced when trying to orient himself in the United States of 2017 to 2021, when attitudes toward immigrants suddenly shifted. The Japa characters explored in this book are immigrants who have no plans to return to their home country—for voluntary reasons—although they retain a strong connection to home.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - IHEOMA NWACHUKWU is a fiction writer and poet. He has won fellowships from the Mississippi Arts Commission, the Michener Center, and the Chinua Achebe Center. His work has been published in Ploughshares, the Southern Review, the Iowa Review, AGNI, Electric Literature, Crazyhorse, and other venues. Nwachukwu is an assistant professor at Eastern University and lives in Pennsylvania.
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Nwakanma, Obi. Christopher Okigbo 1930-67: Thirsting for Sunlight. Oxford. 2010. James Currey. 9781847010131. 12 black and white illustrations. 304 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Christopher Okigbo, once described as 'Africa's most lyrical poet of the twentieth century' was killed in September 1967, fighting for the independence of Biafra. The Sunday Times described his death as 'the single most important tragedy of the Nigerian civil war'. The manner in which Okigbo died typified the passionate, tortured and dramatic quality of his life. Widely considered along with Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe as part of modern Nigeria's greatest literary triumvirate, Okigbo's death promoted him to cult status among subsequent generations of African writers. This is the first full biography of the Nigerian poet. It places Okigbo within the turmoil of his generation and illustrates the aspects of his life that gave rise to such an intense poetry. How did his experience in the prestigious, English-type boarding school, Umuahia, where he was known more as a sportsman than a scholar, influence his life and later choices? Why was he sacked from the colonial service, and how did that lead him towards a search for private recovery, and ultimately towards poetry? What led him to take up arms? In other words, how did his eclectic pursuits as high school teacher, university librarian, publisher, gun-runner and guerrilla fuel his poetic drive? OBI NWAKANMA, journalist and poet, is Assistant Professor in the Department of English atTruman State University, Kirksville, Missouri. Nigeria: HEBN (PB)
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - OBI NWAKANMA, journalist and poet, is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Truman State University, Kirksville, Missouri.
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Nwankwo, Nkem. Danda. London. 1964. Andre Deutsch. 205 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Janina Ede.
DESCRIPTION- Danda is unforgettable. He is one of those characters produced sooner or later by the literature of every country, who live and breathe with the spirit of that country: he comes more from myth than invention. His home is the Ibo village of Aniocha in Eastern Nigeria, and he dances in arid out of it, shocking the Establishment of elders, charming the women and outraging his patriarchal father, Wherever he goes he creates a world which is essentially African, lit by the Nigerian sun, shaded by akpaka trees, sometimes darkened by the gibberings of discredited spirits or turned upside down in the afterglow of palm wine-but which cannot fail to move readers everywhere. What happens to Danda is dramatic, and involves the whole village-the arrogant status-conscious chief, Nwokeke; Nwamma, Danda's gentle and crafty mother; Ekeama, the flighty young wife; and Araba, the irascible potentate whose two sons both delight and threaten him. They are all such recognizable characters; only a writer of great vitality could re-create this small African group in universal terms, and Nkem Nwankwo's vivid and poetic English owes nothing to other literatures. It is his own, as his warm and spell-binding imagination is his own. Nkem Nwankwo was born in 1936, in Nawfia-Awka, Onitsha, and was educated in Nigeria. He says he spent his university career ‘writing voraciously'. Now he teaches English at Ibadan Grammar School, He won the second prize in a drama competition organized by Encounter to mark Nigeria's independence. .
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Nkem Nwankwo (June 12, 1936 - June 12, 2001) was a Nigerian novelist and poet. Born in Nawfia, Nigeria, he attended University College in Ibadan. He wrote for magazines soon after graduating, and gained attention with his 1964 novel DANDA. He wrote several other works after that including satires such as My MERCEDES IS BIGGER THAN YOURS. During the 1970s, Nwankwo earned a Master's and Ph.D. at Indiana University. He also wrote about corruption in Nigeria and taught at Michigan State University and Tennessee State University.
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Nwankwo, Nkem. More Tales Out of School. Lagos. 1965. African Universities Press. Illustrated by Adebayo Ajayi. pages. paperback. Cover art by Adebayo Ajayi.
DESCRIPTION- Stories for children from the Nigerian author of Danda and My Mercedes is Bigger than Yours.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Nkem Nwankwo (June 12, 1936 - June 12, 2001) was a Nigerian novelist and poet. Born in Nawfia, Nigeria, he attended University College in Ibadan. He wrote for magazines soon after graduating, and gained attention with his 1964 novel DANDA. He wrote several other works after that including satires such as My MERCEDES IS BIGGER THAN YOURS. During the 1970s, Nwankwo earned a Master's and Ph.D. at Indiana University. He also wrote about corruption in Nigeria and taught at Michigan State University and Tennessee State University.
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Nwankwo, Nkem. My Mercedes Is Bigger Than Yours. New York. 1975. Harper & Row. 0060132086. 177 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Angela Arnet.
DESCRIPTION- Onuma, who thought of himself as a Renaissance man, was at present a public relations promoter in Lagos. His life had been a pleasant one; his family was wealthy; an uncle had sent him to an exclusive school which he had enjoyed enormously. He'd found the work easy and he'd been very popular with his fellow students. He had, at an early age, discovered all the vices, and his power over women. They couldn't, they said, resist his large, warm, mischievous eyes. As he matured and improved his methods, women threw themselves at him. He went on to the university (one of a handful of students in a country of millions to receive such an education) where he found, not entirely to his pleasure, that he was expected to study and to cultivate his teachers. It was in his second year at the university that his code of life was set - a code of complete, unashamed individualism. And now. a student no longer, he was coming home after years away, driving a Jaguar! NKEM NWANKWO has written a delightful, bittersweet novel that should make those of his readers who are not familiar with Nigeria feel very much at home there, and Onuma, as he dances through its pages, will become a deliciously interesting new friend for anyone who is not too frightfully proper.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Nkem Nwankwo (June 12, 1936 - June 12, 2001) was a Nigerian novelist and poet. Born in Nawfia, Nigeria, he attended University College in Ibadan. He wrote for magazines soon after graduating, and gained attention with his 1964 novel DANDA. He wrote several other works after that including satires such as My MERCEDES IS BIGGER THAN YOURS. During the 1970s, Nwankwo earned a Master's and Ph.D. at Indiana University. He also wrote about corruption in Nigeria and taught at Michigan State University and Tennessee State University.
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Nwapa, Flora. Efuru. London. 1966. Heinemann. African Writers Series. 281 pages. paperback. AWS26. Cover drawing by Shyam Varma.
DESCRIPTION- Efuru, beautiful and respected, is loved and deserted by two ordinary undistinguished husbands.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Florence Nwanzuruahu Nkiru Nwapa (13 January 1931 - 16 October 1993), was a Nigerian author who has been called the mother of modern African literature. She was the forerunner to a generation of African women writers, and was also acknowledged as the first African woman novelist to be published in the English language in Britain. She achieved international recognition, with her first novel Efuru, published in 1966 at the age of 30 years by Heinemann Educational Books. While never considering herself a feminist, she was best known for recreating life and traditions from an Igbo woman's viewpoint. Nwapa is also known for her governmental work in reconstruction after the Biafran War, in particular, she worked with orphans and refugees who were displaced during the war. Furthermore, she published African literature and promoted women in African society. She was one of the first African women publishers when she founded Tana Press in Nigeria in 1970.
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Nwapa, Flora. Idu. London. 1970. Heinemann. African Writers Series. 218 pages. paperback. AWS56.
DESCRIPTION- Idu is a 1970 novel and the second novel put out by Nigerian novelist Flora Nwapa. The book centers around Idu, a young woman in a Nigerian village whose husband has died, and her efforts to be reunited with him. The novel has been seen as one of Nwapa's more controversial works for its focus on Idu's reliance on her husband.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Florence Nwanzuruahu Nkiru Nwapa (13 January 1931 - 16 October 1993), was a Nigerian author who has been called the mother of modern African literature. She was the forerunner to a generation of African women writers, and was also acknowledged as the first African woman novelist to be published in the English language in Britain. She achieved international recognition, with her first novel Efuru, published in 1966 at the age of 30 years by Heinemann Educational Books. While never considering herself a feminist, she was best known for recreating life and traditions from an Igbo woman's viewpoint. Nwapa is also known for her governmental work in reconstruction after the Biafran War, in particular, she worked with orphans and refugees who were displaced during the war. Furthermore, she published African literature and promoted women in African society. She was one of the first African women publishers when she founded Tana Press in Nigeria in 1970.
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Nwokolo, Chuma. The Extinction of Menai: A Novel. Athens. 2018. Ohio University Press. 9780821422984. Modern African Writing. 5.5 x 8.5. 424 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- In a novel of stunning scope, Chuma Nwokolo moves across time and place to deliver an story that speaks to urgent contemporary concerns. His characters’ indelible voices offer perspectives that are simultaneously global, political, and intimately human. The place at The Extinction of Menai’s heart is the Niger delta village of Kreektown, even as the action spans continents. The cause of the trouble is an unethical drug trial administered to Kreektown residents—the fictional Menai people—in the early 1980s. And the unfolding tragedy is the looming end, decades later, of the Menai and their culture. Characters include continents-apart twin brothers separated at birth, an excommunicated Menai daughter living an urbane life with her doctor husband, and an infamous vigilante. And there is spiritual leader Mata Nimito, who retraces their ancient migration on his quest to preserve the soul of his people and resolve the consequences of a centuries-old betrayal. This epic for the modern era encompasses bioethics, language extinction, and Nigerian history and diaspora. Nwokolo confronts power relations between large corporations and small communities, corporate lobbies and governments, and big pharma and consumers, all expressed through the competing narratives that record the life and death of a civilization.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Chuma Nwokolo was born in Jos, Nigeria, in 1963. His books include The Extortionist, Dangerous Inheritance, African Tales at Jailpoint, One More Tale for the Road, Diaries of a Dead African, The Ghost of Sani Abacha, and How to Spell Naija in 100 Short Stories (1 & 2) He has published two poetry collections, Memories of Stone and The Final Testament of a Minor God. His stories have appeared in the London Review of Books, La Internazionale, AGNI, and elsewhere. A lawyer by trade, he founded the Bribecode good governance campaign.
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Nzekwu, Onuora. Blade Among the Boys. London. 1962. Hutchinson & Company. 192 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- Patrick Ikenga, like most of his friends in the little Nigerian town of Ado, is a religious two-timer. He attends Mass and he worships his ancestors. Patrick's family follows the Church's tenets just so far, and is always most careful not to jeopardize the ancient pagan concepts of fertility. When Patrick announces his complete allegiance to Christ and his intention of becoming a priest his mother is horrified. She reminds her son that he is okpala-the spiritual head of his dead and living family-and for one who is okpala to be a womanless man will be an insult to his ancestors and an object of pity and derision to his relations. Patrick gets a job in Lagos and meets girls. His mother is overjoyed and makes plans to wed him to the bride she has chosen for him. But then he becomes a noviciate for the priesthood and his mother and his rejected bride fight again to save him from the shame of celibacy. This is the second novel by Onuora Nzekwu, the Nigerian author of WAND OF NOBLE WOOD. Born in 1928, he has worked as a teacher and on the Nigeria Magazine.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Onuora Nzekwu, also known as Joseph Onuora Nzekwu (February 19, 1928 - April 21, 2017) was a Nigerian professor, writer and editor from the Igbo people. Nzekwu was born to Mr. Obiese Nzekwu and Mrs. Mary Ogugua Nzekwu (nee Aghadiuno). In January 1956, he joined the Federal Civil Service as an editorial assistant at the Nigeria Magazine Division of the Federal Ministry of Information. Nzekwu worked as an editorial assistant from 1956 to 1958. In 1958, he took over the position of editor-in-chief of the magazine. Nzekwu continued to run the Nigeria Magazine Division of the Federal Ministry of Information until 1966, when the Nigerian Crisis compelled him to transfer his services to the Eastern Nigeria Public Service. Nzekwu began as a senior information officer at Eastern Nigeria, a post that the combined the roles of Information Ministry and Cultural officer. In 1968, he was promoted deputy director of the newly created Cultural Division. At the end of hostilities in January 1970, Nzekwu returned to the Federal Ministry of Information in May and was assigned to the information division as senior information officer. Nzekwu worked as Protem general manager of News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) until July 1, 1979, when he then took over the position of substantive general manager. Nzekwu retired from the Nigeria Public Service in 1985, after presiding over the affairs of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) for nearly eight years and servicing his country's government for 39 years. Onuora Nzekwu received the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship in 1961, which enabled him to study American Methods of Magazine Production with Crafts Horizons in New York. In 1964, Nzekwu was awarded an UNESCO Fellowship which allowed him to study Copyright Administration for three months in Geneva, Prague, Paris, London, New York and Washington. On August 8, 2006, NAN observed its 30th Anniversary during celebrations at Abuja. The Agency presented a plaque to with the engraving “Maker of NAN,” to Nzekwu. In December, 2008, Nzekwu was conferred with the Nigerian National Honor of the Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON). Nzekwu has also authored several novels. Nzekwu co-authored Eze Goes to School and Eze Goes to College with historian Michael Crowder. The two school supplementary readers were first published by African University Press in 1964 and 1988 respectively. In 1977, Nzekwu published his first non-fiction work titled, The Chima Dynasty in Onitsha, in which he presented the history of Onitsha through an account of the reign of its monarchs. Nzekwu's novel, Faith of Our Fathers, a compendium of the arts, beliefs, social institutions and code of values that characterize the Onitsha traditional community was published in 2003. Nzekwu married Onoenyi Justina Ogbenyeanu, daughter of Chief Isaac Aniegboka Mbanefo, Odu II of Onitsha, in June 1960 and was inducted into the ancient and prestigious Agbalanze Society of Onitsha in May 1991. He died on April 21, 2017.
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Obasanjo, Olusegun. My Command: An Account of the Nigerian Civil War, 1967-1970. London. 1981. Heinemann. 0435902490. African Writers Series. 177 pages. paperback. AWS249.
DESCRIPTION- MY COMMAND is the first book about the Nigerian Civil War to be written by one of the top commanders - one who was eventually to become Head of State. The author starts with a concise survey of the political background between Independence in 1960 and the outbreak of war seven years later. When the war began the author was a colonel in charge of 2 Area Command. After two years he replaced Colonel Adekunle as Commander of the 3 Marine Commando Division, which played a crucial role in winning the Nigerian Civil War for the Federal Government. The book gives a vivid and detailed account of the military operations on all fronts, which will be of absorbing interest to the lay reader as well as to those concerned with military history. The author concludes with an account of the management of the last days, with an objective assessment of foreign attitudes and involvement, and with a chapter on the human aspect. Throughout, the author illuminates his narrative with interesting anecdotes which reveal him not only as an outstanding commander, but as a man of great humanity. General Olusegun Obasanjo was Head of State from February 1976 until 1, October '1979 when he handed over to an elected civilian regime, thus ending another epoch in the history of the country.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - GENERAL OLUSEGUN OBASANJO was born at Abeokuta, Ogun State, on 5 March 1937. After attending Abeokuta Baptist Boys High School, he joined the Nigerian Army in 1958. In May 1969, he was appointed General Officer commanding the 3 Marine Commando Division. Following the abortive coup d'Etat of 13 February 1976, in which General Murtala Mohammed was assassinated, General Obasanjo became the Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. In this position, he led Nigeria back to civilian rule, handing over to an elected government on 1 October 1979. General Obasanjo is the first Distinguished Fellow of the University of Ibadan and now lives in retirement in Abeokuta. He devotes his time to farming and writing - especially about Nigeria's recent past.
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Obiechina, Emmanuel N. Onitsha Market Literature. London. 1972. Heinemann. 0435901095. African Writers Series. Paperback Original. 182 pages. paperback. AWS109. Cover design by Uzo Egonu.
DESCRIPTION- Onitsha Market pamphlets have been a remarkable feature of the literary history of the last twenty (sic) years in Nigeria. They have been much discussed in magazines but many people have only seen isolated examples. Here is an anthology which allows readers to see their full diversity. They will not only amuse and entertain but give a true insight into popular tastes The cultural and social lessons to be drawn are of interest throughout Africa and wherever comparative literature is studied. For example, why did the first popular market in written literature in English emerge in Onitsha? And why did it emerge at the time it did?'
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Emmanuel Obiechina (Born 20 September 1933, Nkpo, Igboland) is the pioneering and distinguished scholar of the historic Onicha (Oshimiri Delta) market literature genre and versatile literary critic and author
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Obioma, Chigozie. The Fishermen. London. 2015. ONE/Pushkin Press. 9780957548855. 304 pages. hardcover. Cover design by Gray318.
DESCRIPTION- SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2015 MAN BOOKER PRIZE. In this dazzling debut novel, four young brothers in a small Nigerian town encounter a madman, whose prophecy of violence threatens the core of their family Told from the point of view of nine-year-old Benjamin, the youngest of four brothers, The Fishermen is the Cain and Abel-esque story of an unforgettable childhood in 1990s Nigeria. When their father has to travel to a distant city for work, the brothers take advantage of his extended absence to skip school and go fishing. At the forbidden nearby river they encounter a madman, who predicts that one of the brothers will kill another. What happens next is an almost mythic event whose impact - both tragic and redemptive - will transcend the lives and imaginations of both its characters and its readers. Chigozie Obioma emerges as one of the best new voices of modern African literature, echoing its older generation's masterful storytelling with a contemporary fearlessness and purpose. NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL PRAISE FOR THE FISHERMEN: 'In his exploration of the mysterious and the murderous, of the terrors that can take hold of the human mind, of the colors of life in Africa. and most of all in his ability to create dramatic tension in this most human of African stories, Chigozie Obioma truly is the heir to Chinua Achebe' The New York Times. 'A confident dEbut novel. frank and lyrical' New Yorker 'A startling debut. leaps off the pages' Mariella Frostrup, BBC Radio 4 Open Book. 'A striking, controlled and masterfully taut debut. The tale has a timeless quality that renders it almost allegorical and it is the more powerful for it' Financial Times. 'It's like being in a Zola or Theodore Dreiser novel. The Fishermen is an elegy to lost promise. and yet it remains hopeful about the redemptive possibilities of a new generation' Guardian 'Suffused with an air of legend and the supernatural. ingenious, subtle, ambitious and intriguing' TLS. 'Terrific' Irish Examiner 'Full of deceptive simplicity, lyrical language and playful Igbo mythology and humour. an impressive and beautifully imagined work' Economist. 'Packed with power and tragedy' Shortlist 'Hardly anyone writing today is delivering this level of intricacy, lyricism and control. it just doesn't get better than this' Alexandra Fuller, author of Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight and Leaving Before the Rains Come. 'A novel with an intimate canvas but also an undercurrent of something larger, more primal' We Love This Book. 'An exciting new voice in African literary fiction. astonishingly vivid. beautifully written. read it slowly, savour the writing, enjoy' Bookbag. 'The most frustrating thing about The Fishermen is that the author has no other books for the reader to devour once the final page is reached' Chicago Tribune. 'Mr Obioma's long-limbed and elegant writing is shot through with strikingly elevated phrasings. its lessons may be slippery, but its power is unmistakable' Wall Street Journal 'Finely crafted, technically precise and deftly structured. I loved it. Should I call Obioma the next Bulawayo? Adichie or Achebe? He could be called all of these things, but The Fishermen is also. a novel that is all its own' The Millions. 'Excellent. Chigozie Obioma writes with sophistication and inventiveness. a dark and beautiful book by a writer with seemingly endless promise' NPR. 'Searing, incandescent' Harvard Crimson 'Obioma excels at juxtaposing sharp observation, rich images of the natural world, and motifs from biblical and tribal lore; his novel succeeds as a convincing modern narrative and as a majestic reimagining of timeless folklore' Publisher's Weekly, Starred review. 'Elegantly near-mythic. Obioma's quietly unfolding story of family tragedy gathers strength as its cycle of violence spins faster and faster. All fiction readers will enjoy' Library Journal, Starred review. 'A lively, energetic debut novel. the talented Obioma exhibits a richly nuanced understanding of culture and character. A powerful, haunting tale of grief, healing, and sibling loyalty' Kirkus. 'Darkly mythic. a kind of African Cormac McCarthy, committed to a stark vision of life in which our pretensions to civilization are forever held up and exposed as skin deep' USA Today. 'A consummate tragedy on a personal scale. Obioma has mastered that tension essential to tragedy' Globe and Mail. 'A classic. [Obioma's] language flares and gleams poetically and his grip on narrative is unfaltering' Sydney Morning Herald.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Chigozie Obioma was born in 1986 in Akure, Nigeria. His short stories have appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review and New Madrid. He was a Fall 2012 OMI Fellow at Ledig House, New York. He has lived in Nigeria, Cyprus and Turkey, and currently resides in the United States, where he has completed an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan. The Fishermen is his first novel.
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Ochiagha, Terri. A Short History of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Athens. 2018. Ohio University Press. 9780821423486. Ohio Short Histories of Africa. 160 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- The publication of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart (1958) is heralded as the inaugural moment of modern African fiction, and the book remains the most widely read African novel of all time. Translated into dozens of languages, it has sold more than twelve million copies, and has become a canonical reading in schools the world over. While Things Fall Apart is neither the first African novel to be published in the West nor necessarily the most critically valued, its iconic status has surpassed even that of its author. Until now - in the sixtieth anniversary year of its publication - there has not been an updated history that moves beyond the book's commonly discussed contexts and themes. In the accessible and concise A Short History of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, Terri Ochiagha provides that history, asking new questions and bringing to wider attention to unfamiliar but crucial elements of the Things Fall Apart story. These include new insights into questions of canonicity, and into literary, historiographical, and precolonial aesthetic influences. She also assesses adaptations and appropriations not just in films but in theatre, hip-hop, and popular literary genres such as Onitsha Market Literature.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Terri Ochiagha is a teaching fellow in modern African history at King’s College London, specializing in Nigerian cultural and literary history, colonial whiteness and, most recently, embodied orientalism and the culture of taste in Morocco. Her first book, Achebe and Friends at Umuahia: The Making of a Literary Elite, won the African Studies Association UK’s Fage & Oliver Prize in 2015.
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Ochiagha, Terri. Achebe and Friends at Umuahia: The Making of a Literary Elite. Rochester. 2018. Boydell & Brewer/James Currey. 9781847011961. 10 b/w illustrations. 216 pages. paperback. Front cover: School House 1945, Government College, Umuahia.
DESCRIPTION- This is the first in-depth scholarly study of the literary awakening of the young intellectuals who became known as Nigeria's “first-generation” writers in the post-colonial period. Terri Ochiagha's research focuses on Chinua Achebe, Elechi Amadi, Chike Momah, Christopher Okigbo and Chukwuemeka Ike, and also discusses the experiences of Gabriel Okara, Ken Saro-Wiwa and I.C. Aniebo, in the context of their education in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s at Government College, Umuahia. The author provides fresh perspectives on Postcolonial and World literary processes, colonial education in British Africa, literary representations of colonialism and Chinua Achebe's seminal position in African literature. She demonstrates how each of the writers used this very particular education to shape their own visions of the world in which they operated and examines the implications that this had for African literature as a whole.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - TERRI OCHIAGHA holds one of the prestigious British Academy Newton International Fellowships (2014-16) hosted by the School of English, University of Sussex. She was previously a Senior Associate Member of St. Antony's College, University of Oxford.
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Oguine, Ike. A Squatter's Tale. Portsmouth. 2000. Heinemann. 0435906550. African Writers Series. 201 pages. paperback. AWSunnumbered. Cover illustration by Joanna Clinton.
DESCRIPTION- A SQUATTER'S TALE is Ike Oguine's first novel. Young financier Obi enjoys life in the fast lane in 1990's Lagos. He walks tall in designer suits with his girlfriend at his side, enjoying the envy of those with empty purses. When his finance company collapses, Obi's decadent lifestyle comes to an abrupt end, and he is forced to flee to the United States. There he has to live on the margins of society. Obi wants money, he wants a woman, and he wants to live the good life. This fast-paced novel, by turns comic and moving, reveals what success and failure mean for the young Nigerian at home and in exile. Ike Oguine explores the alienation experienced by today's economic refugees under the cover of light-hearted comedy.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ike Oguine is a writer and lawyer from Nigeria. Oguine has been described as part of the third generation of Nigerian literature. As a commentator, he has written several opinion pieces for the New Internationalist, West Africa and Times Literary Supplement, and has written several short stories. His first novel, A Squatter's Tale, was first published in 1997 and later republished as part of the Heinemann African Writers Series in 2000. Oguine's professional career is as a lawyer. First he worked for Chevron as the lead counsel on the West African Gas Pipeline, the Escravos GTL, the Brass LNG Project and the ONLNG project. From April 2014 to May 2015, he served as General Counsel to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, under an appointment made by President Goodluck Jonathan.
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Ojaide, Tanure. Labyrinths of the Delta. Greenfield Center. 1986. Greenfield Review Press. 0912678674. Paperback Original. 103 pages. paperback. Cover photograph: Equatorial Forest, Urhobo, Niger-Congo, Rattle, wood, shells,.
DESCRIPTION- TANURE OJAIDE, Nigerian poet, translator and critic, was educated in Nigeria and the United States, where he received a Ph.D. from Syracuse University in 1984. The author of Children of Iroko (The Greenfield Review Press, 1973), his forthcoming books include Songs for the Dancer-God (Cross Cultural Communications), The Endless Song (New Horn Press), and The Poetry of Wole Soyinka (Macmillan). He spent the summer of 1984 at Yaddo, the artists' colony in Saratoga Springs, New York and was a 1985 participant in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Generally regarded as a leading member of the new generation of Nigerian and African poets, he teaches African poetry and Oral Literature at the University of Maiduguri. ‘I think he may be one of the most important Nigerian poets of his generation.' - Hayden Carruth.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Tanure Ojaide (born 1948) is a prolific Nigerian poet and writer. He is noted for his unique stylistic vision and for his intense criticism of imperialism, religion, and other issues. Ojaide, a Ph.D., has won major national and international poetry awards, including the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for the Africa Region (1987), the BBC Arts and Africa Poetry Award (1988), the All-Africa Okigbo Prize for Poetry (1988 and 1997), and also the Association of Nigerian Authors' Poetry Prize (1988 and 1994).
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Ojaide, Tanure. The Blood of Peace ad Other Poems. Oxford. 1991. Heinemann. 0435911937. African Writers Series. 128 pages. paperback. Cover design by Vinston Bair.
DESCRIPTION- Tanure Ojaide - 1987 Africa regional winner of the African Commonweath Poetry Prize, and 1988 winner of the All-Africa Okigbo Prize for poetry and the BBC Arts and Africa Poetry Prize - is a leading member of the new generation of African poets. His simple rhythmical poems are presented in three separate sections - Verdicts, the Blood of Peace and the Warrior's Trail. Ojaide's melodic style lends a disguise to a deep-rooted political content, and the collection ultimately calls for all Nigerians, and Africans, to stand firm against corruption and demand their rights. `strong, supple, various, colorful, moving, invariably interesting. .' - Hayden Carruth, veteran American poet. `I personally regard him (Ojaide) as perhaps the most important voice in the generation of African writers following Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka.' - Joseph Bruchac, The Greenfield Review Literary Center.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Tanure Ojaide (born 1948) is a prolific Nigerian poet and writer. He is noted for his unique stylistic vision and for his intense criticism of imperialism, religion, and other issues. He is regarded as a socio-political and an ecocentric poet.
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Okara, Gabriel. Gabriel Okara: Collected Poems. Lincoln. 2016. University of Nebraska Press. 9780803286870. Edited and with an introduction by Brenda Marie Osbey. 6 x 9. 137 pages. paperback. Cover photo courtesy Ebi Okara.
DESCRIPTION- Gabriel Okara, a prize-winning author whose literary career spans six decades, is rightly hailed as the elder statesman of Nigerian literature. The first Modernist poet of anglophone Africa, he is best known for The Fisherman's Invocation (1978), The Dreamer, His Vision (2005), and for his early experimental novel, The Voice (1964). Arranged in six sections, Gabriel Okara: Collected Poems includes the poet's earliest lyric verse along with poems written in response to Nigeria's war years; literary tributes and elegies to fellow poets, activists, and loved ones long dead; and recent dramatic and narrative poems. The introduction by Brenda Marie Osbey contextualizes Okara's work in the history of Nigerian, African, and English language literatures. Gabriel Okara: Collected Poems is at once a treasure for those long in search of a single authoritative edition and a revelation and timely introduction for readers new to the work of one of Africa's most revered poets.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Gabriel Okara was born at Bumoundi, Bayelsa State, in the Niger Delta in 1921 and educated at Government College Umuahia in Nigeria and Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He worked as a bookbinder and printer for Federal Government Press at Lagos, served as the director of cultural and information services for the shortlived Republic of Biafra, and was the general manager of the Rivers State newspaper and broadcasting corporations. He is an honorary member of the Pan-African Writers' Association, a fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, and is currently writer in residence at the University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria. Brenda Marie Osbey is a poet and essayist. Her most recent volumes are History and Other Poems and All Souls: Essential Poems. A native of New Orleans, she is poet laureate emerita of Louisiana and distinguished visiting professor of Africana Studies at Brown University.
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Okara, Gabriel. The Fisherman's Invocation. London. 1978. Heinemann. 0435901834. African Writers Series. 63 pages. paperback. AWS183.
DESCRIPTION- Gabriel Okara’s ‘The Fisherman’s Invocation’ looks at how the past feeds into the future, using the end of a celebration to show the mix of holding onto traditions while moving forward in a postcolonial world. Okara mixes storytelling from his Nigerian roots with modern ideas about life and identity. The poem reflects on Nigeria’s struggles, both as a nation and for its people. Okara’s background as a painter shows in how he creates strong emotions and paints clear pictures with words, making the poem feel meaningful and relatable.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Gabriel Okara was born at Bumoundi, Bayelsa State, in the Niger Delta in 1921 and educated at Government College Umuahia in Nigeria and Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He worked as a bookbinder and printer for Federal Government Press at Lagos, served as the director of cultural and information services for the shortlived Republic of Biafra, and was the general manager of the Rivers State newspaper and broadcasting corporations. He is an honorary member of the Pan-African Writers' Association, a fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, and is currently writer in residence at the University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria. Brenda Marie Osbey is a poet and essayist. Her most recent volumes are History and Other Poems and All Souls: Essential Poems. A native of New Orleans, she is poet laureate emerita of Louisiana and distinguished visiting professor of Africana Studies at Brown University.
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Okara, Gabriel. The Voice. New York. 1970. Africana Publishing Corporation. 0841900159. Introduction by Arthur Ravenscroft. 127 pages. paperback. Cover illustration by Pedro Guedes. Originally published London: Deutsch, 1964.
DESCRIPTION- Gabriel Okara's first novel, The Voice (1964), is a remarkable linguistic experiment in which Okara translated directly from the Ijo (Ijaw) language, imposing Ijo syntax onto English in order to give literal expression to African ideas and imagery. The novel creates a symbolic landscape in which the forces of traditional African culture and Western materialism contend. Its tragic hero, Okolo, is both an individual and a universal figure, and the ephemeral “it” that he is searching for could represent any number of transcendent moral values. Okara's skilled portrayal of the inner tensions of his hero distinguished him from many other Nigerian novelists.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Gabriel Okara was born at Bumoundi, Bayelsa State, in the Niger Delta in 1921 and educated at Government College Umuahia in Nigeria and Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He worked as a bookbinder and printer for Federal Government Press at Lagos, served as the director of cultural and information services for the shortlived Republic of Biafra, and was the general manager of the Rivers State newspaper and broadcasting corporations. He is an honorary member of the Pan-African Writers' Association, a fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, and is currently writer in residence at the University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria. Brenda Marie Osbey is a poet and essayist. Her most recent volumes are History and Other Poems and All Souls: Essential Poems. A native of New Orleans, she is poet laureate emerita of Louisiana and distinguished visiting professor of Africana Studies at Brown University.
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Okigbo, Christopher. Labyrinths: Poems. New York. 1971. Heinemann/Africana Publishing Corporation. 0841900167. African Writers Series. 72 pages. paperback. AWS62.
DESCRIPTION- Although these poems were written and published separately, they are, in fact, organically related. Heavensgate was originally conceived as an Easter sequence. It later grew into a ceremony of innocence, something like a mass, an offering to Idoto, the village stream of which I drank, in which I washed, as a child; the celebrant, a personage like Orpheus, is about to begin a journey. Cleansing involves total nakedness, a complete self-surrender to the water spirit that nurtures all creation. The various sections of the poem, therefore, present this celebrant at various stations of his cross. Limits and Distances are man's outer and inner worlds projected - the phenomenal and the imaginative, not in terms of their separateness but of their relationship - an attempt to reconcile the universal opposites of life and death in a live-die proposition: one is the other and either is both. ‘Siren Limits' presents a protagonist in pursuit of the white elephant. In his progression to a sacred waterfront he falls victim to his own demonic obsession, becomes disembodied or loses his second self. ‘Fragments out of the deluge' renders in retrospect certain details of the protagonist and of his milieu -the collective rape of innocence and profanation of the mysteries, in atonement for which he has had to suffer immolation. (Limits was written at the end of a journey of several centuries from Nsukka to Yola in pursuit of what turned out to be an illusion.) Distances is, on the other hand, a poem of homecoming, but of homecoming in its spiritual and psychic aspect. The quest broken off after ‘Siren Limits' is resumed, this time in the unconscious. The self that suffers, that experiences, ultimately finds fulfillment in a form of psychic union with the supreme spirit that is both destructive and creative. The process is one of sensual anaesthesia, of total liberation from all physical and emotional tension; the end result, a state of aesthetic grace. (Distances was written after my first experience of surgery under general anaesthesia.) Between Limits and Distances an interval, Silences, is provided, in which two groups of mourners explore the possibilities of poetic metaphor in an attempt to elicit the music to which all imperishable cries must aspire. Both parts of Silences were inspired by the events of the day: Lament of the Silent Sisters, by the Western Nigeria Crisis of 1962, and the death of Patrice Lumumba; Lament of the Drums, by the imprisonment of Obafemi Awolowo, and the tragic death of his eldest son. The ‘Silent Sisters' are, however, sometimes like the drowning Franciscan nuns of Hopkins' The Wreck of the Deutschland, sometimes like the ‘Sirenes' of Debussy's Nocturne - two dissonant dreams associated in the dominant motif ‘NO in thunder' (from one of Melville's letters to Hawthorne). This motif is developed by a series of related airs from sources as diverse as Malcolm Cowley, Raja Ratnam, Stephane Mallarme, Rabindranath Tagore, Garcia Lorca and the yet unpublished Peter Thomas - airs which enable the ‘Silent Sisters' to evoke, quite often by calling wolf, consonant tunes in life and letters. Section I, for instance, erects an illusion, a storm-tossed ship at mid-sea. The image of drowning virgins, and the dream of ultimate martyrdom are, however, also present. The illusion is enlarged by the motif of carrion-comfort (from one of Hopkins' poems). Section II develops this latter motif in the image of flies and splintered flames gloating over a carrion. The chorus breaks into a ‘swan song' in Section III; and in the alternation (Section IV) between the [xii] Introduction Crier and the Chorus the sea herself, hidden face of the dream, is celebrated in her many colours. In Section V the main actors in the events of the day become almost recognizable in the opening couplets. The problem ‘How does one say NO in thunder' is then finally resolved in silence. For the ultimate answer is to be sought only in terms of each poet's response to his medium. Labyrinths is thus a fable of man's perennial quest for fulfilment. (The tide may suggest Minos' legendary palace at Cnossus, but the double headed axe is as much a symbol of sovereignty in traditional Ibo society as in Crete. Besides, the long and tortuous passage to the shrine of the ‘long-juju' of the Aro Ibos may perhaps, best be described as a labyrinth.) Inevitably, several presences haunt the complex of rooms and ante-rooms, of halls and corridors that lead to the palace of the White Goddess, and in which a country visitor might easily lose his way. Nevertheless, a poet-protagonist is assumed throughout; a personage, however, much larger than Orpheus; one with a load of destiny on his head, rather like Gilgamesh, like Aeneas, like the hero of Melville's Moby Dick, like the Fisher King of Eliot's Waste Land; a personage for whom the progression through ‘Heavensgate' through ‘Limits' through ‘Distances' is like telling the beads of a rosary; except that the beads are neither stone nor agate but globules of anguish strung together on memory. Every work of this kind is necessarily a cry of anguish - of the root extending its branches of coral, of corals extending their roots into each living hour; the swell of the silent sea the great heaving dream at its highest, the thunder of splitting pods - the tears scatter, take root, the cotyledons broken, burgeon into laughter of leaf; or else rot into vital hidden roles in the nitrogen cycle. The present dream clamoured to be born a cadenced cry: silence to appease the fever of flight beyond the iron gate. - from the introduction by Christopher Okigbo.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo (August 16, 1932–1967) was a Nigerian poet, teacher, and librarian, who died fighting for the independence of Biafra. He is today widely acknowledged as an outstanding postcolonial English-language African poet and one of the major modernist writers of the 20th century.
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Okigbo, Christopher. Limits. Ibadan. 1964. Mbari Publications. First published by Transition Magazine in 1962. Transition was established in 1961 by Rajat Neogy and was published from 1961 to 1976 on the African continent. [22 pages]. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- Christopher Okigbo published three volumes of poetry during his short lifetime: Heavensgate (1962), Limits (1964), and Silences (1965). His collected poems appeared posthumously in 1971 under the title Labyrinths, with Path of Thunder. Okigbo had a deep familiarity with ancient Greek and Latin writers and with modern poets such as T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, as well as with Igbo (Ibo) mythology. His poems are highly personal, richly symbolic renderings of his experiences, his thoughts on the role of the poet, and other themes. He weaves images of the forests, animals, and streams of his native Igbo landscape into works that are often obscure, allusive, or difficult. Despite this, his verse is intensely evocative and shows careful craftsmanship. Okigbo became the most widely translated of all Nigerian poets. A volume entitled Collected Poems was published in 1986.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo (16 August 1932–1967) was a Nigerian poet, teacher, and librarian, who died fighting for the independence of Biafra. He is today widely acknowledged as an outstanding postcolonial English-language African poet and one of the major modernist writers of the 20th century. Okigbo was born on 16 August 1932, in the town of Ojoto, about 10 miles from the city of Onitsha in Anambra State. His father was a teacher in Catholic missionary schools during the heyday of British colonial rule in Nigeria, and Okigbo spent his early years moving from station to station. Despite his father's devout Christianity, Okigbo had an affinity, and came to believe later in his life, that in him was reincarnated the soul of his maternal grandfather, a priest of Idoto, an Igbo deity. Idoto is personified in the river of the same name that flows through Okigbo's village, and the "water goddess" figures prominently in his work. Okigbo graduated from Government College Umuahia (in present Abia State, Nigeria) two years after Chinua Achebe, another noted Nigerian writer, having earned himself a reputation as both a voracious reader and a versatile athlete. The following year, he was accepted to University College in Ibadan. Originally intending to study Medicine, he switched to Classics in his second year. In college, he also earned a reputation as a gifted pianist, accompanying Wole Soyinka in his first public appearance as a singer. It is believed that Okigbo also wrote original music at that time, though none of this has survived. Upon graduating in 1956, he held a succession of jobs in various locations throughout the country, while making his first forays into poetry. He worked at the Nigerian Tobacco Company, United Africa Company, the Fiditi Grammar School (where he taught Latin), and finally as Assistant Librarian at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka, where he helped to found the African Authors Association. During those years, he began publishing his work in various journals, notably Black Orpheus, a literary journal intended to bring together the best works of African and African American writers. While his poetry can be read in part as powerful expression of postcolonial African nationalism, he was adamantly opposed to Negritude, which he denounced as a romantic pursuit of the "mystique of blackness" for its own sake; he similarly rejected the conception of a commonality of experience between Africans and black Americans, a stark philosophical contrast to the editorial policy of Black Orpheus. It was on precisely these grounds that he rejected the first prize in African poetry awarded to him at the 1965 World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, while declaring that there is no such thing as a Negro or black poet. In 1963, he left Nsukka to assume the position of West African Representative of Cambridge University Press at Ibadan, a position affording the opportunity to travel frequently to the United Kingdom, where he attracted further attention. At Ibadan, he became an active member of the Mbari literary club, and completed, composed or published the works of his mature years, including Limits (1964), Silences (1962–65), Lament of the Masks (commemorating the centenary of the birth of W. B. Yeats in the forms of a Yoruba praise poem, 1964), Dance of the Painted Maidens (commemorating the 1964 birth of his daughter, Obiageli or Ibrahimat, whom he regarded as a reincarnation of his mother) and his final highly prophetic sequence, Path of Thunder (1965–67), which was published posthumously in 1971 with his magnum opus, Labyrinths, which incorporates the poems from the earlier collections. In 1966 the Nigerian crisis came to a head. Okigbo, living in Ibadan at the time, relocated to eastern Nigeria to await the outcome of the turn of events which culminated in the secession of the eastern provinces as independent Biafra on 30 May 1967. Living in Enugu, he worked together with Achebe to establish a new publishing house, Citadel Press. With the secession of Biafra, Okigbo immediately joined the new state's military as a volunteer, field-commissioned major. An accomplished soldier, he was killed in action during a major push by Nigerian troops against Nsukka, the university town where he found his voice as a poet, and which he vowed to defend with his life. Earlier, in July, his hilltop house at Enugu, where several of his unpublished writings (perhaps including the beginnings of a novel) were, was destroyed in a bombing raid by the Nigerian air force. Also destroyed was Pointed Arches, an autobiography in verse which he describes in a letter to his friend and biographer, Sunday Anozie, as an account of the experiences of life and letters which conspired to sharpen his creative imagination. Several of his unpublished papers are, however, known to have survived the war. Inherited by his daughter, Obiageli, who established the Christopher Okigbo Foundation in 2005 to perpetuate his legacy, the papers were catalogued in January 2006 by Chukwuma Azuonye, Professor of African Literature at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Boston, who assisted the foundation in nominating them for the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. Azuonye's preliminary studies of the papers indicate that, apart from new poems in English, including drafts of an Anthem for Biafra, Okigbo's unpublished papers include poems written in Igbo language. The Igbo poems are fascinating in that they open up new vistas in the study of Okigbo's poetry, countering the views of some critics, especially the troika (Chinweizu, Onwuchekwa Jemie and Ihechukwu Madubuike) in their 1980 Towards the Decolonization of African Literature, that he sacrificed his indigenous African sensibility in pursuit of obscurantist Euro-modernism.
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Okorafor, Nnedi. Noor. New York. 2021. DAW Books. 9780756416096. 214 pages. hardcover. Jacket art by Greg Ruth. Jacket design by Jim Tierney.
DESCRIPTION- From Africanfuturist luminary Okorafor comes a new science fiction novel of intense action and thoughtful rumination on biotechnology, destiny, and humanity in a near-future Nigeria. Anwuli Okwudili prefers to be called AO. To her, these initials have always stood for Artificial Organism. AO has never really felt. natural, and that's putting it lightly. Her parents spent most of the days before she was born praying for her peaceful passing because even in-utero she was "wrong". But she lived. Then came the car accident years later that disabled her even further. Yet instead of viewing her strange body the way the world views it, as freakish, unnatural, even the work of the devil, AO embraces all that she is: A woman with a ton of major and necessary body augmentations. And then one day she goes to her local market and everything goes wrong. Once on the run, she meets a Fulani herdsman named DNA and the race against time across the deserts of Northern Nigeria begins. In a world where all things are streamed, everyone is watching the "reckoning of the murderess and the terrorist" and the "saga of the wicked woman and mad man" unfold. This fast-paced, relentless journey of tribe, destiny, body, and the wonderland of technology revels in the fact that the future sometimes isn't so predictable. Expect the unaccepted.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Nnedi Okorafor was born in the United States to two Igbo (Nigerian) immigrant parents. She holds a PhD in English and was a professor of creative writing at Chicago State University. She has been the winner of many awards for her short stories and young adult books, and won a World Fantasy Award for Who Fears Death. Nnedi's books are inspired by her Nigerian heritage and her many trips to Africa.
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Okorafor, Nnedi. Remote Control. New York. 2021. Tordotcom. 9781250772800. 159 pages. hardcover. Jacket art by Greg Ruth. Jacket design by Christine Foltzer.
DESCRIPTION- An alien artifact turns a young girl into Death's adopted daughter in Remote Control, a thrilling sci-fi tale of community and female empowerment from Nebula and Hugo Award-winner Nnedi Okorafor. “She’s the adopted daughter of the Angel of Death. Beware of her. Mind her. Death guards her like one of its own.” The day Fatima forgot her name, Death paid a visit. From hereon in she would be known as Sankofa - a name that meant nothing to anyone but her, the only tie to her family and her past. Her touch is death, and with a glance a town can fall. And she walks - alone, except for her fox companion - searching for the object that came from the sky and gave itself to her when the meteors fell and when she was yet unchanged; searching for answers. But is there a greater purpose for Sankofa, now that Death is her constant companion?
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Nnedi Okorafor was born in the United States to two Igbo (Nigerian) immigrant parents. She holds a PhD in English and was a professor of creative writing at Chicago State University. She has been the winner of many awards for her short stories and young adult books, and won a World Fantasy Award for Who Fears Death. Nnedi's books are inspired by her Nigerian heritage and her many trips to Africa.
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Okorafor, Nnedi. Who Fears Death. New York. 2010. DAW. 9780756406172. 387 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by G-Force Design. World Fantasy AwardWinner, 2011.
DESCRIPTION- An award-winning literary author presents her first foray into supernatural fantasy with a novel of post-apocalyptic Africa. In a far future, post-nuclear-holocaust Africa, genocide plagues one region. The aggressors, the Nuru, have decided to follow the Great Book and exterminate the Okeke. But when the only surviving member of a slain Okeke village is brutally raped, she manages to escape, wandering farther into the desert. She gives birth to a baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand and instinctively knows that her daughter is different. She names her daughter Onyesonwu, which means ‘Who Fears Death?' in an ancient African tongue. Reared under the tutelage of a mysterious and traditional shaman, Onyesonwu discovers her magical destiny-to end the genocide of her people. The journey to fulfill her destiny will force her to grapple with nature, tradition, history, true love, the spiritual mysteries of her culture-and eventually death itself.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Nnedi Okorafor (full name: Nnedimma Nkemdili Okorafor; previously known as Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu; translated from Igbo into English as "mother is good"; born April 8, 1974) is a Nigerian-American writer of fantasy and science fiction for both children and adults. Nnedi Okorafor was born in the United States to two Nigerian immigrant parents. She holds a Ph.D. in English and is a professor at Chicago State University. She has been the winner of and finalist for many awards.
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Okoro, Anezi. The Village School. Lagos. 1966. African Universities Press. Illustrated by Frances Effiong. 112 pages. paperback. Cover rt by Frances Effiong.
DESCRIPTION- This is the story of an African village community with the primary school as its focus; a down to earth story where most people are part-hero and part-villain; and where at a time of transition, life swirls around the village school and everyone is caught in its web or brushed by the swirl.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Professor Anezi Okoro (born 1929) is one of Nigeria finest fiction writers and arguably the most distinguished author in the genre he embraced, writing for young teens in what some critics have come to refer to as the ‘village school stories.'
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Okparanta, Chinelo. Under the Udalda Trees. New York. 2015. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 9780544003446. 328 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Michaela Sullivan. Jacket art by Swim Ink 2.
DESCRIPTION- Inspired by Nigeria's folktales and its war, Under the Udala Trees is a deeply searching, powerful debut about the dangers of living and loving openly. Ijeoma comes of age as her nation does; born before independence, she is eleven when civil war breaks out in the young republic of Nigeria. Sent away to safety, she meets another displaced child and they, star-crossed, fall in love. They are from different ethnic communities. They are also both girls. When their love is discovered, Ijeoma learns that she will have to hide this part of herself. But there is a cost to living inside a lie. As Edwidge Danticat has made personal the legacy of Haiti's political coming of age, Okparanta's Under the Udala Trees uses one woman's lifetime to examine the ways in which Nigerians continue to struggle toward selfhood. Even as their nation contends with and recovers from the effects of war and division, Nigerian lives are also wrecked and lost from taboo and prejudice. This story offers a glimmer of hope - a future where a woman might just be able to shape her life around truth and love. Acclaimed by Vogue, the Financial Times, and many others, Chinelo Okparanta continues to distill “experience into something crystalline, stark but lustrous” (New York Times Book Review). Under the Udala Trees marks the further rise of a star whose “tales will break your heart open” (New York Daily News).
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Born and raised in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, Chinelo Okparanta received her BS from Pennsylvania State University, her MA from Rutgers University, and her MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. A Colgate University Olive B. O'Connor Fellow in Fiction as well as a recipient of the University of Iowa's Provost's Postgraduate Fellowship in Fiction, Okparanta was one of Granta's six New Voices for 2012. Her stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Tin House, The Kenyon Review, among others. Short-listed for the 2013 Caine Prize in African Writing, she is also a 2014 O. Henry Award winner and a 2014 Lambda Literary Award winner for Lesbian Fiction. She has been awarded fellowships and residencies by Bread Loaf (John Gardner Fellow in Fiction), the Jentel Foundation, the Hermitage Foundation, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, as well as Hedgebrook.
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Okpewho, Isidore. The Victims. New York. 1970. Longman. 058264075x. 220 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- This novel, set in a Nigerian village, is a graphic portrayal of life in a polygamous family and the economic and psychological forces that are gnawing at the institution of polygamy in contemporary Africa. ‘Toddy shops and polygamy are the downfall of a Nigerian husband in The Victims, a first novel of considerable promise. Obanua Ozoma pours his wages down his throat, fights endlessly with his first wife, takes on a second with twin thievish daughters and a roving eye for the local contractor. A kind of bush-village 'L'Assommoir' complete with chorus of hags, rewarding proverbs ('the breeze has exposed the chicken's rump') and strong social protest against superstition and exploitation, it should not be missed.' - Christopher Wordsworth; The Guardian, London.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Isidore Okpewho (born 1941 Abraka, Nigeria) is a Nigerian novelist, and critic. He won the 1976 African Arts Prize for Literature, and 1993 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Best Book Africa. He graduated from the University of London, and from the University of Denver with a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, and from the University of London with a D.Lit. in the Humanities. He taught at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York from 1974 to 1976, University of Ibadan from 1976 to 1990, Harvard University from 1990 to 1991, and Binghamton University. He was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 1982, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 1982, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in 1988, the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute in 1990, National Humanities Center in 1997, and 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship.
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Okri, Ben. Astonishing the Gods. London. 1995. Phoenix House. 0316638293. 158 pages. hardcover. Cover painting: Sue Clarke.
DESCRIPTION- From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Famished Road comes a bewitching novel which carries the reader to the shores of an enchanted island, a strange but never unfamiliar world where the evidence of the senses is constantly questioned, where illusions dazzle, elude and delight. This is a story for all ages, set in a time and place best known to lovers of fairytales and myths. It is a modern fable, a way of understanding who we are now and how our search for identity affects our perceptions and actions, shot through with the gentle magic of Ben Okri's imaginative prose. ‘Incidents at the Shrine promises to make [Ben Okri] one of the tiny group of African writers taken seriously on an international scale.' - The Times.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ben Okri (born 15 March 1959) is a Nigerian poet and novelist. Okri is considered one of the foremost African authors in the post-modern and post-colonial traditions and has been compared favourably to authors such as Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez. Ben Okri is a member of the Urhobo people; his father was Urhobo, and his mother was half-Igbo. He was born in Minna in west central Nigeria to Grace and Silver Okri in 1959. His father Silver moved his family to London when Okri was less than two years old so that Silver could study law. Okri thus spent his earliest years in London, and attended primary school in Peckham. In 1968 Silver moved his family back to Nigeria where he practised law in Lagos, providing free or discounted services for those who could not afford it. His exposure to the Nigerian civil war and a culture in which his peers saw visions of spirits at this time later provided inspiration for Okri's fiction. At the age of 14, after being rejected for admission to a university program in physics because of his youth, Okri claimed to have had a revelation that poetry was his chosen calling. He began writing articles on social and political issues, but these never found a publisher. He then wrote short stories based on those articles, and some were published in women's journals and evening papers. Okri claimed that his criticism of the government in some of this early work led to his name being placed on a death list, and necessitated his departure from the country. In the late 1970s, Okri moved back to England to study comparative literature at Essex University with a grant from the Nigerian government. But when funding for his scholarship fell through, Okri found himself homeless, sometimes living in parks and sometimes with friends. He describes this period as 'very, very important' to his work: 'I wrote and wrote in that period. If anything [the desire to write] actually intensified.' Okri's success as a writer began when he published his first novel Flowers and Shadows, at the age of 21. He then served West Africa magazine as poetry editor from 1983 to 1986, and was a regular contributor to the BBC World Service between 1983 and 1985, continuing to publish throughout this period. His reputation as an author was secured when he won the Booker Prize for Fiction for his novel The Famished Road in 1991. Since he published his first novel, Flowers and Shadows (1980), Okri has risen to an international acclaim, and he is often described as one of Africa's leading writers. His best known work, The Famished Road, which was awarded the 1991 Booker Prize, along with Songs of Enchantment and Infinite Riches make up a trilogy that follows the life of Azaro, a spirit-child narrator, through the social and political turmoil of an African nation reminiscent of Okri's remembrance of war-torn Nigeria. Okri's work is particularly difficult to categorise. Although it has been widely categorised as post-modern, some scholars have noted that the seeming realism with which he depicts the spirit-world challenges this categorisation. If Okri does attribute reality to a spiritual world, it is claimed, then his 'allegiances are not postmodern [because] he still believes that there is something ahistorical or transcendental conferring legitimacy on some, and not other, truth-claims.' Alternative characterisations of Okri's work suggest an allegiance to Yoruba folklore, New Ageism, spiritual realism, magical realism, visionary materialism, and existentialism. Against these analyses, Okri has always rejected the categorisation of his work as magical realism, claiming that this categorisation is the result of laziness on the part of critics and likening this categorisation to the observation that 'a horse. has four legs and a tail. That doesn't describe it.' He has instead described his fiction as obeying a kind of 'dream logic,' and stated that his fiction is often preoccupied with the 'philosophical conundrum. what is reality?' insisting that: 'I grew up in a tradition where there are simply more dimensions to reality: legends and myths and ancestors and spirits and death. Which brings the question: what is reality? Everyone's reality is different. For different perceptions of reality we need a different language. We like to think that the world is rational and precise and exactly how we see it, but something erupts in our reality which makes us sense that there's more to the fabric of life. I'm fascinated by the mysterious element that runs through our lives. Everyone is looking out of the world through their emotion and history. Nobody has an absolute reality.' Okri's short fiction has been described as more realistic and less fantastic than his novels, but these stories also depict Africans in communion with spirits, while his poetry and nonfiction have a more overt political tone, focusing on the potential of Africa and the world to overcome the problems of modernity. Okri was made an honorary Vice-President of the English Centre for the International PEN and a member of the board of the Royal National Theatre. On 26 April 2012 Okri was appointed the new vice-president of the Caine Prize for African Writing, having been on the advisory committee and associated with the prize since it was established 13 years previously. Okri has described his work as influenced as much by the philosophical texts in his father's book shelves as it was by literature, and Okri cites the influence of both Francis Bacon and Michel de Montaigne on his A Time for New Dreams. His literary influences include Aesop's Fables, Arabian Nights, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Coleridge's 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. Okri's 1999 epic poem, Mental Fight, is also named for a quote from the poet William Blake's 'And did those feet. ', and critics have noted the close relationship between Blake and Okri's poetry. Okri was also influenced by the oral tradition of his people, and particularly his mother's storytelling: 'If my mother wanted to make a point, she wouldn't correct me, she'd tell me a story.' His first-hand experiences of civil war in Nigeria are said to have inspired many of his works.
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Okri, Ben. Incidents at the Shrine. Boston. 1987. Faber & Faber. 0571129641. 136 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- This collection of eight short stories by one of the most exciting young writers on the international scene takes the reader into the underworlds of London and Lagos, Nigeria. In the opening story, a young boy witnesses the destruction of Biafra and sees its meaning in the ‘disappearance' of a local girl. ‘Converging City' and ' 'The Dream-Vendor's August' trace labyrinthine journeys through the slums of Lagos, while two other stories follow an exiled African man wandering through a desolate, fragmented Inner London, In the title story an urban African is regenerated by the ancestral spirits in his home village; ‘Crooked Prayer' is an exuberant acceptance of the playfulness of God. With stark simplicity and dark humor, Okri blurs the distinctions between the bizarre and the familiar, the modern and the traditional, the mundane and the spiritual, creating a startling combination of African and western sensibilities. ‘Lyrical, funny and never despairing. Okri demonstrates precision short-story writing without wasting a word. these earthy and deceptively crafted narratives are enthusiastically recommended.' - Time Out.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ben Okri (born 15 March 1959) is a Nigerian poet and novelist. Okri is considered one of the foremost African authors in the post-modern and post-colonial traditions and has been compared favourably to authors such as Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez. Ben Okri is a member of the Urhobo people; his father was Urhobo, and his mother was half-Igbo. He was born in Minna in west central Nigeria to Grace and Silver Okri in 1959. His father Silver moved his family to London when Okri was less than two years old so that Silver could study law. Okri thus spent his earliest years in London, and attended primary school in Peckham. In 1968 Silver moved his family back to Nigeria where he practised law in Lagos, providing free or discounted services for those who could not afford it. His exposure to the Nigerian civil war and a culture in which his peers saw visions of spirits at this time later provided inspiration for Okri's fiction. At the age of 14, after being rejected for admission to a university program in physics because of his youth, Okri claimed to have had a revelation that poetry was his chosen calling. He began writing articles on social and political issues, but these never found a publisher. He then wrote short stories based on those articles, and some were published in women's journals and evening papers. Okri claimed that his criticism of the government in some of this early work led to his name being placed on a death list, and necessitated his departure from the country. In the late 1970s, Okri moved back to England to study comparative literature at Essex University with a grant from the Nigerian government. But when funding for his scholarship fell through, Okri found himself homeless, sometimes living in parks and sometimes with friends. He describes this period as 'very, very important' to his work: 'I wrote and wrote in that period. If anything [the desire to write] actually intensified.' Okri's success as a writer began when he published his first novel Flowers and Shadows, at the age of 21. He then served West Africa magazine as poetry editor from 1983 to 1986, and was a regular contributor to the BBC World Service between 1983 and 1985, continuing to publish throughout this period. His reputation as an author was secured when he won the Booker Prize for Fiction for his novel The Famished Road in 1991. Since he published his first novel, Flowers and Shadows (1980), Okri has risen to an international acclaim, and he is often described as one of Africa's leading writers. His best known work, The Famished Road, which was awarded the 1991 Booker Prize, along with Songs of Enchantment and Infinite Riches make up a trilogy that follows the life of Azaro, a spirit-child narrator, through the social and political turmoil of an African nation reminiscent of Okri's remembrance of war-torn Nigeria. Okri's work is particularly difficult to categorise. Although it has been widely categorised as post-modern, some scholars have noted that the seeming realism with which he depicts the spirit-world challenges this categorisation. If Okri does attribute reality to a spiritual world, it is claimed, then his 'allegiances are not postmodern [because] he still believes that there is something ahistorical or transcendental conferring legitimacy on some, and not other, truth-claims.' Alternative characterisations of Okri's work suggest an allegiance to Yoruba folklore, New Ageism, spiritual realism, magical realism, visionary materialism, and existentialism. Against these analyses, Okri has always rejected the categorisation of his work as magical realism, claiming that this categorisation is the result of laziness on the part of critics and likening this categorisation to the observation that 'a horse. has four legs and a tail. That doesn't describe it.' He has instead described his fiction as obeying a kind of 'dream logic,' and stated that his fiction is often preoccupied with the 'philosophical conundrum. what is reality?' insisting that: 'I grew up in a tradition where there are simply more dimensions to reality: legends and myths and ancestors and spirits and death. Which brings the question: what is reality? Everyone's reality is different. For different perceptions of reality we need a different language. We like to think that the world is rational and precise and exactly how we see it, but something erupts in our reality which makes us sense that there's more to the fabric of life. I'm fascinated by the mysterious element that runs through our lives. Everyone is looking out of the world through their emotion and history. Nobody has an absolute reality.' Okri's short fiction has been described as more realistic and less fantastic than his novels, but these stories also depict Africans in communion with spirits, while his poetry and nonfiction have a more overt political tone, focusing on the potential of Africa and the world to overcome the problems of modernity. Okri was made an honorary Vice-President of the English Centre for the International PEN and a member of the board of the Royal National Theatre. On 26 April 2012 Okri was appointed the new vice-president of the Caine Prize for African Writing, having been on the advisory committee and associated with the prize since it was established 13 years previously. Okri has described his work as influenced as much by the philosophical texts in his father's book shelves as it was by literature, and Okri cites the influence of both Francis Bacon and Michel de Montaigne on his A Time for New Dreams. His literary influences include Aesop's Fables, Arabian Nights, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Coleridge's 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. Okri's 1999 epic poem, Mental Fight, is also named for a quote from the poet William Blake's 'And did those feet. ', and critics have noted the close relationship between Blake and Okri's poetry. Okri was also influenced by the oral tradition of his people, and particularly his mother's storytelling: 'If my mother wanted to make a point, she wouldn't correct me, she'd tell me a story.' His first-hand experiences of civil war in Nigeria are said to have inspired many of his works.
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Okri, Ben. Infinite Riches. London. 1998. Phoenix House. 1861591209. 338 pages. hardcover. Jacket painting by Alan McGowan. Author photograph by Wolf Suschitzky.
DESCRIPTION- ‘The miracle is that we go on living and loving as best we can. As the hours tick by, the departing governor- general works long into the hot night, destroying the evidence, rewriting history. Somewhere else, their dreams full of power and wealth, the future leaders of the country sleep uneasily. On the eve of a new age, Azaro's world is in turmoil. His father has been arrested for a murder he didn't commit. This fresh crisis has roused and empowered Azaro's mother, and the women who follow her in her quest for justice. In the neighbourhood, dark and unseen powers are unleashed by the destruction of the forests and the rape of the land. As the white men prepare to leave, a new tension fills the air. With the clear eyes of a spirit-child, Azaro sees it all - his father's powerlessness, mirrored in the disappointment of the people and the anger of the dispossessed spirits. infinite Riches continues the story which began with THE FAMISHED ROAD and opens a new chapter in the adventures of Azaro as he continues to make sense of the perplexing world of the living. By turns thunderous and tender, INFINITE RICHES will resonate in the mind and heart of the reader for a long time. Ben Okri has won several awards, including the Booker prize in 1991 for THE FAMISHED ROAD, the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa, the Paris Review Aga Khan Prize for Fiction, the Chianti Rufino-Antico Fattore International Literary prize and the Premio Grinzane Cavour Prize. He is a vice-president of the English Centre of International PEN and was presented with the Crystal Award for outstanding contribution to the Arts and to cross-cultural understanding by the World Economic Forum. As well as fiction, he has published a collection of poetry, An African Elegy and a volume of essays, A WAY OF BEING FREE. He was born in Minna, Nigeria.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ben Okri (born 15 March 1959) is a Nigerian poet and novelist. Okri is considered one of the foremost African authors in the post-modern and post-colonial traditions and has been compared favourably to authors such as Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez. Ben Okri is a member of the Urhobo people; his father was Urhobo, and his mother was half-Igbo. He was born in Minna in west central Nigeria to Grace and Silver Okri in 1959. His father Silver moved his family to London when Okri was less than two years old so that Silver could study law. Okri thus spent his earliest years in London, and attended primary school in Peckham. In 1968 Silver moved his family back to Nigeria where he practised law in Lagos, providing free or discounted services for those who could not afford it. His exposure to the Nigerian civil war and a culture in which his peers saw visions of spirits at this time later provided inspiration for Okri's fiction. At the age of 14, after being rejected for admission to a university program in physics because of his youth, Okri claimed to have had a revelation that poetry was his chosen calling. He began writing articles on social and political issues, but these never found a publisher. He then wrote short stories based on those articles, and some were published in women's journals and evening papers. Okri claimed that his criticism of the government in some of this early work led to his name being placed on a death list, and necessitated his departure from the country. In the late 1970s, Okri moved back to England to study comparative literature at Essex University with a grant from the Nigerian government. But when funding for his scholarship fell through, Okri found himself homeless, sometimes living in parks and sometimes with friends. He describes this period as 'very, very important' to his work: 'I wrote and wrote in that period. If anything [the desire to write] actually intensified.' Okri's success as a writer began when he published his first novel Flowers and Shadows, at the age of 21. He then served West Africa magazine as poetry editor from 1983 to 1986, and was a regular contributor to the BBC World Service between 1983 and 1985, continuing to publish throughout this period. His reputation as an author was secured when he won the Booker Prize for Fiction for his novel The Famished Road in 1991. Since he published his first novel, Flowers and Shadows (1980), Okri has risen to an international acclaim, and he is often described as one of Africa's leading writers. His best known work, The Famished Road, which was awarded the 1991 Booker Prize, along with Songs of Enchantment and Infinite Riches make up a trilogy that follows the life of Azaro, a spirit-child narrator, through the social and political turmoil of an African nation reminiscent of Okri's remembrance of war-torn Nigeria. Okri's work is particularly difficult to categorise. Although it has been widely categorised as post-modern, some scholars have noted that the seeming realism with which he depicts the spirit-world challenges this categorisation. If Okri does attribute reality to a spiritual world, it is claimed, then his 'allegiances are not postmodern [because] he still believes that there is something ahistorical or transcendental conferring legitimacy on some, and not other, truth-claims.' Alternative characterisations of Okri's work suggest an allegiance to Yoruba folklore, New Ageism, spiritual realism, magical realism, visionary materialism, and existentialism. Against these analyses, Okri has always rejected the categorisation of his work as magical realism, claiming that this categorisation is the result of laziness on the part of critics and likening this categorisation to the observation that 'a horse. has four legs and a tail. That doesn't describe it.' He has instead described his fiction as obeying a kind of 'dream logic,' and stated that his fiction is often preoccupied with the 'philosophical conundrum. what is reality?' insisting that: 'I grew up in a tradition where there are simply more dimensions to reality: legends and myths and ancestors and spirits and death. Which brings the question: what is reality? Everyone's reality is different. For different perceptions of reality we need a different language. We like to think that the world is rational and precise and exactly how we see it, but something erupts in our reality which makes us sense that there's more to the fabric of life. I'm fascinated by the mysterious element that runs through our lives. Everyone is looking out of the world through their emotion and history. Nobody has an absolute reality.' Okri's short fiction has been described as more realistic and less fantastic than his novels, but these stories also depict Africans in communion with spirits, while his poetry and nonfiction have a more overt political tone, focusing on the potential of Africa and the world to overcome the problems of modernity. Okri was made an honorary Vice-President of the English Centre for the International PEN and a member of the board of the Royal National Theatre. On 26 April 2012 Okri was appointed the new vice-president of the Caine Prize for African Writing, having been on the advisory committee and associated with the prize since it was established 13 years previously. Okri has described his work as influenced as much by the philosophical texts in his father's book shelves as it was by literature, and Okri cites the influence of both Francis Bacon and Michel de Montaigne on his A Time for New Dreams. His literary influences include Aesop's Fables, Arabian Nights, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Coleridge's 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. Okri's 1999 epic poem, Mental Fight, is also named for a quote from the poet William Blake's 'And did those feet. ', and critics have noted the close relationship between Blake and Okri's poetry. Okri was also influenced by the oral tradition of his people, and particularly his mother's storytelling: 'If my mother wanted to make a point, she wouldn't correct me, she'd tell me a story.' His first-hand experiences of civil war in Nigeria are said to have inspired many of his works.
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Okri, Ben. Mental Flight: An Anti-Spell For the 21st Century. London. 1999. Phoenix House. 1861591640. 68 pages. hardcover.
DESCRIPTION- This epic poem is intended as a celebration of humanity's achievements at the end of this millennium, and a rallying cry for the next. Strongly political, the poem touches on issues of racism, intolerance, and environmental destruction, amongst others.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ben Okri (born 15 March 1959) is a Nigerian poet and novelist. Okri is considered one of the foremost African authors in the post-modern and post-colonial traditions and has been compared favourably to authors such as Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez. Ben Okri is a member of the Urhobo people; his father was Urhobo, and his mother was half-Igbo. He was born in Minna in west central Nigeria to Grace and Silver Okri in 1959. His father Silver moved his family to London when Okri was less than two years old so that Silver could study law. Okri thus spent his earliest years in London, and attended primary school in Peckham. In 1968 Silver moved his family back to Nigeria where he practised law in Lagos, providing free or discounted services for those who could not afford it. His exposure to the Nigerian civil war and a culture in which his peers saw visions of spirits at this time later provided inspiration for Okri's fiction. At the age of 14, after being rejected for admission to a university program in physics because of his youth, Okri claimed to have had a revelation that poetry was his chosen calling. He began writing articles on social and political issues, but these never found a publisher. He then wrote short stories based on those articles, and some were published in women's journals and evening papers. Okri claimed that his criticism of the government in some of this early work led to his name being placed on a death list, and necessitated his departure from the country. In the late 1970s, Okri moved back to England to study comparative literature at Essex University with a grant from the Nigerian government. But when funding for his scholarship fell through, Okri found himself homeless, sometimes living in parks and sometimes with friends. He describes this period as 'very, very important' to his work: 'I wrote and wrote in that period. If anything [the desire to write] actually intensified.' Okri's success as a writer began when he published his first novel Flowers and Shadows, at the age of 21. He then served West Africa magazine as poetry editor from 1983 to 1986, and was a regular contributor to the BBC World Service between 1983 and 1985, continuing to publish throughout this period. His reputation as an author was secured when he won the Booker Prize for Fiction for his novel The Famished Road in 1991. Since he published his first novel, Flowers and Shadows (1980), Okri has risen to an international acclaim, and he is often described as one of Africa's leading writers. His best known work, The Famished Road, which was awarded the 1991 Booker Prize, along with Songs of Enchantment and Infinite Riches make up a trilogy that follows the life of Azaro, a spirit-child narrator, through the social and political turmoil of an African nation reminiscent of Okri's remembrance of war-torn Nigeria. Okri's work is particularly difficult to categorise. Although it has been widely categorised as post-modern, some scholars have noted that the seeming realism with which he depicts the spirit-world challenges this categorisation. If Okri does attribute reality to a spiritual world, it is claimed, then his 'allegiances are not postmodern [because] he still believes that there is something ahistorical or transcendental conferring legitimacy on some, and not other, truth-claims.' Alternative characterisations of Okri's work suggest an allegiance to Yoruba folklore, New Ageism, spiritual realism, magical realism, visionary materialism, and existentialism. Against these analyses, Okri has always rejected the categorisation of his work as magical realism, claiming that this categorisation is the result of laziness on the part of critics and likening this categorisation to the observation that 'a horse. has four legs and a tail. That doesn't describe it.' He has instead described his fiction as obeying a kind of 'dream logic,' and stated that his fiction is often preoccupied with the 'philosophical conundrum. what is reality?' insisting that: 'I grew up in a tradition where there are simply more dimensions to reality: legends and myths and ancestors and spirits and death. Which brings the question: what is reality? Everyone's reality is different. For different perceptions of reality we need a different language. We like to think that the world is rational and precise and exactly how we see it, but something erupts in our reality which makes us sense that there's more to the fabric of life. I'm fascinated by the mysterious element that runs through our lives. Everyone is looking out of the world through their emotion and history. Nobody has an absolute reality.' Okri's short fiction has been described as more realistic and less fantastic than his novels, but these stories also depict Africans in communion with spirits, while his poetry and nonfiction have a more overt political tone, focusing on the potential of Africa and the world to overcome the problems of modernity. Okri was made an honorary Vice-President of the English Centre for the International PEN and a member of the board of the Royal National Theatre. On 26 April 2012 Okri was appointed the new vice-president of the Caine Prize for African Writing, having been on the advisory committee and associated with the prize since it was established 13 years previously. Okri has described his work as influenced as much by the philosophical texts in his father's book shelves as it was by literature, and Okri cites the influence of both Francis Bacon and Michel de Montaigne on his A Time for New Dreams. His literary influences include Aesop's Fables, Arabian Nights, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Coleridge's 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. Okri's 1999 epic poem, Mental Fight, is also named for a quote from the poet William Blake's 'And did those feet. ', and critics have noted the close relationship between Blake and Okri's poetry. Okri was also influenced by the oral tradition of his people, and particularly his mother's storytelling: 'If my mother wanted to make a point, she wouldn't correct me, she'd tell me a story.' His first-hand experiences of civil war in Nigeria are said to have inspired many of his works.
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Okri, Ben. Songs of Enchantment. London. 1993. Jonathan Cape. 0224036300. 304 pages. hardcover. Jacket photograph by Jo Agis. Jacket design by Peer Dyer.
DESCRIPTION- Ben Okri, winner of the 1991 Booker Prize for The Famished Road, now gives us Songs of Enchantment, and it is hard to imagine a more gloriously written novel. Azaro, the spririt-child, is a reluctant traveler in the realities of this world. In this moving story of love and transformation, his adventures begin with the disruption of his family. Under the pressure of poverty and myth, his mother departs to follow the legendary Madame Koto. An obsession for a beautiful beggar girl snares forbidden visions. Set in an age of enchantments, their story takes place among the upheavals of a nation struggling to be born. There are mass political hallucinations, battles of contending forces in the realm of dreams, mysterious disappearances, and the rise of the Jackal-headed Masquerade. With humor and wisdom, Ben Okri tells of Azaro's father and how, drawing on the magic of courage, he undergoes the great penance of love. Through the experiences of this unique family we see that life lived with compassion and fire and serenity can vanquish the forces of oppression, and counter the darkness with light. At the end of the absorbing novel we feel it to be true when Azaro's father says, 'Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger.' In this remarkable sequel to his Booker Prize-winning novel The Famished Road, Okri continues the story of the spirit-child who is a reluctant but keen observer of his family's turmoil and the political convulsions of a struggling new Africa. Through his shimmering consciousness and hallucinatory visions, the boy finds the strength to survive.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ben Okri (born 15 March 1959) is a Nigerian poet and novelist. Okri is considered one of the foremost African authors in the post-modern and post-colonial traditions and has been compared favourably to authors such as Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez. Ben Okri is a member of the Urhobo people; his father was Urhobo, and his mother was half-Igbo. He was born in Minna in west central Nigeria to Grace and Silver Okri in 1959. His father Silver moved his family to London when Okri was less than two years old so that Silver could study law. Okri thus spent his earliest years in London, and attended primary school in Peckham. In 1968 Silver moved his family back to Nigeria where he practised law in Lagos, providing free or discounted services for those who could not afford it. His exposure to the Nigerian civil war and a culture in which his peers saw visions of spirits at this time later provided inspiration for Okri's fiction. At the age of 14, after being rejected for admission to a university program in physics because of his youth, Okri claimed to have had a revelation that poetry was his chosen calling. He began writing articles on social and political issues, but these never found a publisher. He then wrote short stories based on those articles, and some were published in women's journals and evening papers. Okri claimed that his criticism of the government in some of this early work led to his name being placed on a death list, and necessitated his departure from the country. In the late 1970s, Okri moved back to England to study comparative literature at Essex University with a grant from the Nigerian government. But when funding for his scholarship fell through, Okri found himself homeless, sometimes living in parks and sometimes with friends. He describes this period as 'very, very important' to his work: 'I wrote and wrote in that period. If anything [the desire to write] actually intensified.' Okri's success as a writer began when he published his first novel Flowers and Shadows, at the age of 21. He then served West Africa magazine as poetry editor from 1983 to 1986, and was a regular contributor to the BBC World Service between 1983 and 1985, continuing to publish throughout this period. His reputation as an author was secured when he won the Booker Prize for Fiction for his novel The Famished Road in 1991. Since he published his first novel, Flowers and Shadows (1980), Okri has risen to an international acclaim, and he is often described as one of Africa's leading writers. His best known work, The Famished Road, which was awarded the 1991 Booker Prize, along with Songs of Enchantment and Infinite Riches make up a trilogy that follows the life of Azaro, a spirit-child narrator, through the social and political turmoil of an African nation reminiscent of Okri's remembrance of war-torn Nigeria. Okri's work is particularly difficult to categorise. Although it has been widely categorised as post-modern, some scholars have noted that the seeming realism with which he depicts the spirit-world challenges this categorisation. If Okri does attribute reality to a spiritual world, it is claimed, then his 'allegiances are not postmodern [because] he still believes that there is something ahistorical or transcendental conferring legitimacy on some, and not other, truth-claims.' Alternative characterisations of Okri's work suggest an allegiance to Yoruba folklore, New Ageism, spiritual realism, magical realism, visionary materialism, and existentialism. Against these analyses, Okri has always rejected the categorisation of his work as magical realism, claiming that this categorisation is the result of laziness on the part of critics and likening this categorisation to the observation that 'a horse. has four legs and a tail. That doesn't describe it.' He has instead described his fiction as obeying a kind of 'dream logic,' and stated that his fiction is often preoccupied with the 'philosophical conundrum. what is reality?' insisting that: 'I grew up in a tradition where there are simply more dimensions to reality: legends and myths and ancestors and spirits and death. Which brings the question: what is reality? Everyone's reality is different. For different perceptions of reality we need a different language. We like to think that the world is rational and precise and exactly how we see it, but something erupts in our reality which makes us sense that there's more to the fabric of life. I'm fascinated by the mysterious element that runs through our lives. Everyone is looking out of the world through their emotion and history. Nobody has an absolute reality.' Okri's short fiction has been described as more realistic and less fantastic than his novels, but these stories also depict Africans in communion with spirits, while his poetry and nonfiction have a more overt political tone, focusing on the potential of Africa and the world to overcome the problems of modernity. Okri was made an honorary Vice-President of the English Centre for the International PEN and a member of the board of the Royal National Theatre. On 26 April 2012 Okri was appointed the new vice-president of the Caine Prize for African Writing, having been on the advisory committee and associated with the prize since it was established 13 years previously. Okri has described his work as influenced as much by the philosophical texts in his father's book shelves as it was by literature, and Okri cites the influence of both Francis Bacon and Michel de Montaigne on his A Time for New Dreams. His literary influences include Aesop's Fables, Arabian Nights, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Coleridge's 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. Okri's 1999 epic poem, Mental Fight, is also named for a quote from the poet William Blake's 'And did those feet. ', and critics have noted the close relationship between Blake and Okri's poetry. Okri was also influenced by the oral tradition of his people, and particularly his mother's storytelling: 'If my mother wanted to make a point, she wouldn't correct me, she'd tell me a story.' His first-hand experiences of civil war in Nigeria are said to have inspired many of his works.
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Okri, Ben. Stars of the New Curfew. New York. 1989. Viking Press. 0670825204. 208 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Neil Stuart. Jacket illustration by Irene Von Treskow.
DESCRIPTION- 'An electrifying collection - Ben Okri combines anarchical energy with authoritative' - Graham Swift. In these six stories, set in the chaotic streets of Lagos and the jungle heart of Nigeria, all the laws of cause and effect, fact and fiction, are suspended. It is a world where the lives of the powerless veer terrifyingly close to nightmare. A marvelous storyteller, Ben Okri writes about Africa in rich, lyrical, almost hallucinatory prose, guiding us through the fabulous and the mundane, the serene and the randomly violent. The unrelenting heat and the implacable darkness of the blackout and the military curfew serve as backdrops for the lives of Okri's characters - the innocent, the corrupt, the amorous, and the insane. Each attempts to find a way to dogged resistance, unquenchable humor, and an insistence on the possibility of love in the face of terror. Written with the lucidity and logic of dreams, Stars of the New Curfew is a book of extraordinary vision and imagination.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ben Okri (born 15 March 1959) is a Nigerian poet and novelist. Okri is considered one of the foremost African authors in the post-modern and post-colonial traditions and has been compared favourably to authors such as Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez. Ben Okri is a member of the Urhobo people; his father was Urhobo, and his mother was half-Igbo. He was born in Minna in west central Nigeria to Grace and Silver Okri in 1959. His father Silver moved his family to London when Okri was less than two years old so that Silver could study law. Okri thus spent his earliest years in London, and attended primary school in Peckham. In 1968 Silver moved his family back to Nigeria where he practised law in Lagos, providing free or discounted services for those who could not afford it. His exposure to the Nigerian civil war and a culture in which his peers saw visions of spirits at this time later provided inspiration for Okri's fiction. At the age of 14, after being rejected for admission to a university program in physics because of his youth, Okri claimed to have had a revelation that poetry was his chosen calling. He began writing articles on social and political issues, but these never found a publisher. He then wrote short stories based on those articles, and some were published in women's journals and evening papers. Okri claimed that his criticism of the government in some of this early work led to his name being placed on a death list, and necessitated his departure from the country. In the late 1970s, Okri moved back to England to study comparative literature at Essex University with a grant from the Nigerian government. But when funding for his scholarship fell through, Okri found himself homeless, sometimes living in parks and sometimes with friends. He describes this period as 'very, very important' to his work: 'I wrote and wrote in that period. If anything [the desire to write] actually intensified.' Okri's success as a writer began when he published his first novel Flowers and Shadows, at the age of 21. He then served West Africa magazine as poetry editor from 1983 to 1986, and was a regular contributor to the BBC World Service between 1983 and 1985, continuing to publish throughout this period. His reputation as an author was secured when he won the Booker Prize for Fiction for his novel The Famished Road in 1991. Since he published his first novel, Flowers and Shadows (1980), Okri has risen to an international acclaim, and he is often described as one of Africa's leading writers. His best known work, The Famished Road, which was awarded the 1991 Booker Prize, along with Songs of Enchantment and Infinite Riches make up a trilogy that follows the life of Azaro, a spirit-child narrator, through the social and political turmoil of an African nation reminiscent of Okri's remembrance of war-torn Nigeria. Okri's work is particularly difficult to categorise. Although it has been widely categorised as post-modern, some scholars have noted that the seeming realism with which he depicts the spirit-world challenges this categorisation. If Okri does attribute reality to a spiritual world, it is claimed, then his 'allegiances are not postmodern [because] he still believes that there is something ahistorical or transcendental conferring legitimacy on some, and not other, truth-claims.' Alternative characterisations of Okri's work suggest an allegiance to Yoruba folklore, New Ageism, spiritual realism, magical realism, visionary materialism, and existentialism. Against these analyses, Okri has always rejected the categorisation of his work as magical realism, claiming that this categorisation is the result of laziness on the part of critics and likening this categorisation to the observation that 'a horse. has four legs and a tail. That doesn't describe it.' He has instead described his fiction as obeying a kind of 'dream logic,' and stated that his fiction is often preoccupied with the 'philosophical conundrum. what is reality?' insisting that: 'I grew up in a tradition where there are simply more dimensions to reality: legends and myths and ancestors and spirits and death. Which brings the question: what is reality? Everyone's reality is different. For different perceptions of reality we need a different language. We like to think that the world is rational and precise and exactly how we see it, but something erupts in our reality which makes us sense that there's more to the fabric of life. I'm fascinated by the mysterious element that runs through our lives. Everyone is looking out of the world through their emotion and history. Nobody has an absolute reality.' Okri's short fiction has been described as more realistic and less fantastic than his novels, but these stories also depict Africans in communion with spirits, while his poetry and nonfiction have a more overt political tone, focusing on the potential of Africa and the world to overcome the problems of modernity. Okri was made an honorary Vice-President of the English Centre for the International PEN and a member of the board of the Royal National Theatre. On 26 April 2012 Okri was appointed the new vice-president of the Caine Prize for African Writing, having been on the advisory committee and associated with the prize since it was established 13 years previously. Okri has described his work as influenced as much by the philosophical texts in his father's book shelves as it was by literature, and Okri cites the influence of both Francis Bacon and Michel de Montaigne on his A Time for New Dreams. His literary influences include Aesop's Fables, Arabian Nights, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Coleridge's 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. Okri's 1999 epic poem, Mental Fight, is also named for a quote from the poet William Blake's 'And did those feet. ', and critics have noted the close relationship between Blake and Okri's poetry. Okri was also influenced by the oral tradition of his people, and particularly his mother's storytelling: 'If my mother wanted to make a point, she wouldn't correct me, she'd tell me a story.' His first-hand experiences of civil war in Nigeria are said to have inspired many of his works.
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Okri, Ben. The Famished Road. New York. 1992. Doubleday. 0385424760. Winner Of The Booker Prize For Fiction. 512 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Dirk van Dooren. Jacket design by Whitney G. Cookman.
DESCRIPTION- The Famished Road is a novel of uncommon beauty and power about Azaro, a boy who lives in a teeming, impoverished African village. Azaro is a spirit child, one who stays in contact with the spirit realm that other children abandon at birth. Through his eyes we glimpse the goings-on of everyday life in the village: his father's quest for work; his mother's attempts to keep their meager resources out of the hands of the landlord and other creditors; the nightly drunken gatherings at the local bar; the intrusion of violent political factions, which cynically manipulate the townspeople. Attending these events is a motley host of deformed visitors from the spirit kingdom who haunt Azaro and, beckoning him to return to their dominion, lead him away from the safety of the village and into mischief - much to the sorrow of his beleaguered parents. As the narrative slowly intensifies, as the ordinary and extraordinary merge in unexpected ways, as the village becomes increasingly infested with violence and corruption, Azaro's parents continue their struggle to survive, to make sure there is food in the house, to keep trouble from their door. Their heroic labors culminate in an epic series of contests Azaro's father enters as he tries to pull together the last scraps of his dignity. The Famished Road is a rich, phantasmagorical blend of African folk tale, magic realism, and social observation. In the tradition of Günter Grass's The Tin Drum, Ben Okri has given us a boy-hero whose childlike vision transforms the way we look at the world. With this novel, the 1991 winner of the Booker Prize, Britain's most prestigious literary award, Okri astounds us with his mastery as a writer, his trenchant gaze, and his deep compassion.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Ben Okri (born 15 March 1959) is a Nigerian poet and novelist. Okri is considered one of the foremost African authors in the post-modern and post-colonial traditions and has been compared favourably to authors such as Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez. Ben Okri is a member of the Urhobo people; his father was Urhobo, and his mother was half-Igbo. He was born in Minna in west central Nigeria to Grace and Silver Okri in 1959. His father Silver moved his family to London when Okri was less than two years old so that Silver could study law. Okri thus spent his earliest years in London, and attended primary school in Peckham. In 1968 Silver moved his family back to Nigeria where he practised law in Lagos, providing free or discounted services for those who could not afford it. His exposure to the Nigerian civil war and a culture in which his peers saw visions of spirits at this time later provided inspiration for Okri's fiction. At the age of 14, after being rejected for admission to a university program in physics because of his youth, Okri claimed to have had a revelation that poetry was his chosen calling. He began writing articles on social and political issues, but these never found a publisher. He then wrote short stories based on those articles, and some were published in women's journals and evening papers. Okri claimed that his criticism of the government in some of this early work led to his name being placed on a death list, and necessitated his departure from the country. In the late 1970s, Okri moved back to England to study comparative literature at Essex University with a grant from the Nigerian government. But when funding for his scholarship fell through, Okri found himself homeless, sometimes living in parks and sometimes with friends. He describes this period as 'very, very important' to his work: 'I wrote and wrote in that period. If anything [the desire to write] actually intensified.' Okri's success as a writer began when he published his first novel Flowers and Shadows, at the age of 21. He then served West Africa magazine as poetry editor from 1983 to 1986, and was a regular contributor to the BBC World Service between 1983 and 1985, continuing to publish throughout this period. His reputation as an author was secured when he won the Booker Prize for Fiction for his novel The Famished Road in 1991. Since he published his first novel, Flowers and Shadows (1980), Okri has risen to an international acclaim, and he is often described as one of Africa's leading writers. His best known work, The Famished Road, which was awarded the 1991 Booker Prize, along with Songs of Enchantment and Infinite Riches make up a trilogy that follows the life of Azaro, a spirit-child narrator, through the social and political turmoil of an African nation reminiscent of Okri's remembrance of war-torn Nigeria. Okri's work is particularly difficult to categorise. Although it has been widely categorised as post-modern, some scholars have noted that the seeming realism with which he depicts the spirit-world challenges this categorisation. If Okri does attribute reality to a spiritual world, it is claimed, then his 'allegiances are not postmodern [because] he still believes that there is something ahistorical or transcendental conferring legitimacy on some, and not other, truth-claims.' Alternative characterisations of Okri's work suggest an allegiance to Yoruba folklore, New Ageism, spiritual realism, magical realism, visionary materialism, and existentialism. Against these analyses, Okri has always rejected the categorisation of his work as magical realism, claiming that this categorisation is the result of laziness on the part of critics and likening this categorisation to the observation that 'a horse. has four legs and a tail. That doesn't describe it.' He has instead described his fiction as obeying a kind of 'dream logic,' and stated that his fiction is often preoccupied with the 'philosophical conundrum. what is reality?' insisting that: 'I grew up in a tradition where there are simply more dimensions to reality: legends and myths and ancestors and spirits and death. Which brings the question: what is reality? Everyone's reality is different. For different perceptions of reality we need a different language. We like to think that the world is rational and precise and exactly how we see it, but something erupts in our reality which makes us sense that there's more to the fabric of life. I'm fascinated by the mysterious element that runs through our lives. Everyone is looking out of the world through their emotion and history. Nobody has an absolute reality.' Okri's short fiction has been described as more realistic and less fantastic than his novels, but these stories also depict Africans in communion with spirits, while his poetry and nonfiction have a more overt political tone, focusing on the potential of Africa and the world to overcome the problems of modernity. Okri was made an honorary Vice-President of the English Centre for the International PEN and a member of the board of the Royal National Theatre. On 26 April 2012 Okri was appointed the new vice-president of the Caine Prize for African Writing, having been on the advisory committee and associated with the prize since it was established 13 years previously. Okri has described his work as influenced as much by the philosophical texts in his father's book shelves as it was by literature, and Okri cites the influence of both Francis Bacon and Michel de Montaigne on his A Time for New Dreams. His literary influences include Aesop's Fables, Arabian Nights, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Coleridge's 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. Okri's 1999 epic poem, Mental Fight, is also named for a quote from the poet William Blake's 'And did those feet. ', and critics have noted the close relationship between Blake and Okri's poetry. Okri was also influenced by the oral tradition of his people, and particularly his mother's storytelling: 'If my mother wanted to make a point, she wouldn't correct me, she'd tell me a story.' His first-hand experiences of civil war in Nigeria are said to have inspired many of his works.
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Okunlọla, Dayọ. Without Extremeties. Leeds. 1992. Peepal Tree Books. 9780948833427. 107 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION- When Babatunde and his friends gather in Mama T's famous peppersoup joint, they tell gist, jokes and stories to make sense of a world gone mad. These stories, as pungent and peppery as Mama T's soup, satirise the 'oppressocracy' of contemporary Nigeria in a bubbling mixture of pidgin and standard English, using forms as diverse as science fiction and the folk-tale. Corruption, overweening power and privilege, military copus and food shortages - these lunatic times are enough to drive a suffering people to despair, but Okunlola's characters refuse to see themselves as victims and the stories celebrate their ingenuity and resistance. So when a drunken Babatunde, an idiosyncratic speller at the best of times, is roped in to carve an inscription on a monument to be unveiled by a visiting world bank delegation, he somehow manages to get in the last word. ". these satirical pieces vividly bring to life conditions in contemporary Nigeria." Trinidad Sunday Guardian.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Adeyo (Dayo) Okunlola was born in Nigeria in 1956. In the early 1990s he came to London where he has subsequently worked as a teacher of science in secondary schools.
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Olajuwon, Hakeem (with Peter Knobler). Living the Dream: My Life and Basketball. Boston. 1996. Little Brown. 0316094277. 301 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Martha Kennedy.
DESCRIPTION- He grew up in Nigeria and didn't even pick up a basketball until he was seventeen. But just two years later Hakeem Olajuwon powered his American college team, the University of Houston, to the NCAA Final Four. And that was only the beginning. In LIVING THE DREAM, the center of the back-to-back NBA champion Houston Rockets shares one of the most remarkable basketball stories of our time. Hakeem tells exactly how it felt coming to America, leaving his family and friends. He puts you on campus, inside the locker room, and at the Final Four with the University of Houston's famous basketball fraternity, ‘Phi Slama Jama.' Drafted into the NBA, he tells how, with one phone call, he, Michael Jordan, and Clyde Drexler might have all been Houston Rockets teammates. Hakeem gives vivid on-the-court profiles of his teammates, coaches, and competitors over the course of his long career with the Rockets, including Shaquille O'Neal, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Moses Malone, Larry Bird, Ralph Sampson, Pat Riley, and Patrick Ewing. He gives remarkable insights into the teamwork, cooperation, and attitud