THE PORTAL FOR AFRICAN LITERATURES, WRITERS, AND FILMS

African continent is replete with brilliant writers, filmmakers, and artisans that are world-renowned. The main objective of indigokafe is to showcase and present African writers and filmmakers worldwide.

 

 

 

Literatures:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Books and all forms of writing have always been objects of terror to those who seek to suppress the truth.” -Wole Soyinka, The Man Died: The Prison Notes of Wole Soyinka.

 

 

The Vine with Henry Louis Gates Jr.: Wole Soyinka

 

 

Globetrotter & Hitler's Children (Black Goat): Amatoritsero Ede (Author),

Chris Abani (Editor)

This title will be released on August 1, 2009.

Product Description:

“A startling new voice in Canadian letters.” —Olive Senior, author of Shell

"Ede has the warmth of William Carlos Williams and the analytical power of Malcolm X.”—George Elliott Clarke, author of George & Rue

Amatoritsero Ede was born in Nigeria and has won various awards for his poetry. He lives in Canada.

About the Author:
Amatisoritsero Ede, born in Nigeria, worked as an editor at Spectrum Books, a major Nigerian publisher. His previous poetry collections have won various awards, including the ANA All Africa Christopher Okigbo Prize for Literature (endowed by Wole Soyinka, Nigerian Nobel Laureate for literature). His writing also appears in various anthologies and he was the 2005-2006 Writer-in-Residence at Carleton University.

 

 

I Do Not Come to You by Chance: By Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

From Publishers Weekly
In this highly entertaining novel about Nigerian Internet scammers, Kingsley Ibe is an engineering school graduate who can't find a job and still lives at home with his family. After his girlfriend rejects him and his father dies, Kingsley is taken on by his Uncle Boniface (aka Cash Daddy), who is in the business of Internet scams, otherwise known as 419s. Soon, Kingsley is writing e-mail solicitations to the gullible of cyberspace, and any qualms he may have had about ripping off innocent people evaporate as he steps into the good life with a big new house, a Lexus and a new love interest (who doesn't know how Kingsley earns his money). Meanwhile, Cash Daddy develops political ambitions and gains some ruthless enemies bent on crushing him. As the plots converge, Kingsley must decide whether to sell his soul to build a 419 kingdom. Although the narrative follows a somewhat predictable trajectory, Kingsley's engaging voice and the story's vividly rendered setting prove that while crime may not pay, writing about it as infectiously as Nwaubani does certainly pays off for the reader. (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani was born in Enugu, Nigeria. She earned her very first income from winning a writing competition at the age of thirteen. As a teenager, she secretly dreamed of becoming a CIA or KGB spy. She ended up studying Psychology at the University of Ibadan instead. She lives in Abuja, Nigeria. I Do Not Come to You by Chance is her first novel.

 

Harvest of Thorns: By Shimmer Chinodya

From Publishers Weekly
The revolution that ended white minority rule in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) is seen here chiefly through the eyes of Benjamin Tichafa, a young guerrilla. He is the son of a devoutly religious couple, his father a government messenger completely subservient to his white superiors. Enraged by the treatment of blacks, a teenage Benjamin turns from his parents' apolitical religion. After being arrested in a demonstration, he joins the revolution. The novel is enriched by the viewpoints of black Rhodesians who, out of fear or for economic reasons, do not fully support the struggle. The slaying of a dictatorial white farm owner dismays his foreman, whose livelihood is now threatened. The fatal beating of a woman who reluctantly informed on the guerrillas raises misgivings in Benjamin's outfit. Though ultimately portraying the victory as worthwhile, Chinodya also shows the price paid in lives, tattered families and lost traditions. The result is a humane and penetrating look at a brutal government and a bloody revolution. This is the first of the Zimbabwean author's works to be published here.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
“Zimbabwe has fine black writers and Shimmer Chinodya is one of the best. Harvest of Thorns brilliantly pictures the transition between the old white dominated Southern Rhodesia, through the Bush War, to the new black regime. It is a brave book, a good strong story, and it is often very funny. People who know the country will salute its honesty, but I hope newcomers to African writing will give this book a try. They won't be disappointed.”–Doris Lessing

About the Author
Shimmer Chinodya was born in Gweru in 1957 and was educated at Goromonzi High School and the University of Zimbabwe, where he studied literature and education. He gained an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa, USA, in 1985, a year after he had attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University. He is the author of several books including Harvest of Thorns, for which he won the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1990. His short story "Can We Talk", included in Can We Talk and Other Stories, was shortlisted for The Caine Prize for African Writing in 2000. Other works by Shimmer Chinodya: Dew in the Morning (1982) (Available in the AWS in 2001) Farai's Girls (1984) Child of War (published under the name of B. Chirasha) (1985). Chinodya has worked extensively as a curriculm developer, materials designer, editor and screen writer. He has been awarded various fellowships abroad and from 1995 to 1997 was the Distinguished Visiting Professor in creative writing at St. La

 

 

The Thing Around Your Neck: By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Product 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.

 

Tales of Freedom: By Ben Okri

Synopsis:

As one of Britain's foremost poets, Ben Okri is rightly acclaimed for his use of language. And as a Booker Prize winning novelist, this skill was shown to particular effect in both "Starbook" (his most recent work) and in "The Famished Road". In "Tales of Freedom" he brings both poetry and story together in a fascinating new form, using writing and image pared down to their essentials, where haiku and story meet. Thus we discover Pinprop, the slave to an old couple lost in a clearing, who holds the keys to the universe in his quirky hands. Then there is the beautifully dressed black Russian on the train, helping to film a new version of "Eugene Onegin". Later, in the chaos of the aftermath of war, orphaned children paint mysterious shapes of bulls, birds, hybrid creatures, and we wonder if grief has unhinged them into genius...And who is that woman, who hardly speaks, who presses a tiny flower into the palm of the young boy on the bus, and then leaves his life forever?"Tales of Freedom" offers a haunting necklace of images which flash and sparkle as the light shines on them. Quick and stimulating to read, but slowly burning in the memory, they offer a different, more transcendent way of looking at our extreme, gritty world - and show the wealth of freedom that's available beyond the confines of our usual perceptions.

About the Author
Ben Okri has published 8 novels, including The Famished Road and Starbook, as well as collections of poetry, short stories and essays. His work has been translated into more than 20 languages. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has been awarded the OBE as well as numerous international prizes, including the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa, the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction and the Chianti Rufino-Antico Fattore. He is a Vice-President of the English Centre of International PEN and was presented with a Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum. He was born in Nigeria and lives in London.

 

The Trial of Dedan Kimanthi: By Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Micere Githae Mugo

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the United States of Africa:

By Abdourahman A. Waberi (Author), Percival Everett (Foreword), David Ball (Translator), Nicole Ball (Translator)

Book 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, Malaïka, 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. (20080922).

Reviews:

"Surreal and Provocative....Highly Recommended."-Editor, Cafeafricana

"Along with the impertinent funny stuff that peppers the text, this book is above all a philosophical tale that gives a caustic critique of contemporary civilization through a distorting mirror."-Le Devoir

"Exhilarating and instructive. . . . This is a powerful, courageous, inventive novel."-Le Matricule des Anges

Starbook: By Ben Okri

Okri's vision pervades every page and a vision so spiritualised, so peculiarly optimistic, will not be to everyone's taste. There is not a shadow of cynicism or knowingness here; the ironic, the distanced, are remarkable by their absence. But it is the imaginative generosity and peculiar purity of the writing that continually touch the heart. Here is a prose with a tender tread, alive to human frailty. 'The king loved to watch over sleeping beings. Often he wandered the kingdom at night, watching over his sleeping subjects ... the good and the bad all slept in the same way, under the mercy of immense forces, under the mercy of the ultimate mysteries.' Starbook is a novel at 'the mercy of ultimate mysteries'. Okri does not wish to solve or reduce these mysteries, he reveres them too much for that, and instead seduces the reader with a rapt recounting of the infinite within the particular.---Ben Brown,The Observer.

 

 

 

Tribute to Iya Adunni Susan Wenger, 1915 - 2009

 

 

 

The House of Hunger: By Dambudzo Marechera

Synposis

This volume features startling stories of distinction by a remarkable writer who vividly describes the township squalor of growing up in settler-exploited Rhodesia.

"This man is a marvelous writer. From the first page you have to salute a fromidable talent. A black man who has sufferred all the stupid brutalities of the white oppression in Rhodesia-now Zimbabwe-his rage explodes, not in political rhetoric, but in afusion of lyricism, wit, obscenity. Incredible that such a poweful indictment should also be so funny. If this is his first book, what may we not hope from his next...and his next?"--Doris Lessing

 

Every Day is for the Thief: By Teju Cole

Every Day is for the Thief is an account of a Nigerian in the diaspora who returns home after many years abroad. The book gains its strength as much from its subject matter (contemporary Lagosian life as experienced by a visiting former resident) as from its prose style (reminiscent of John Berger and J.M. Coetzee). Teju Cole's nuanced book explores themes as diverse as the minor joys of daily Lagosian existence and the crudities of contemporary forms of corruption. His work is both a critique and a message of hope to a Nigeria rapidly in transformation.-Amazon

 

 

 

Source: JL, Reference Department
Indiana University Libraries
September 1997

• Achebe, Chinua
• Adiaffi, Jean Marie
• Aidoo, Ama Ata
• Alkali, Zainab
• Amadi, Elechi
• Armah, Ayi Kwei
• Ba, Mariama
• Bebey, Francis
• Beyala, Calixthe
• Breytenbach, Breyten
• Brink, Andre
• Buenga, Bolya
• Bugul, Ken
• Chraibi, Driss
• Coetzee, J.M.
• Dangarembga, Tsitsi
• Diop, Birago Ismail
• Djebar, Assia
• Edgell, Zee
• Emecheta, Buchi
• Ekwensi, Cyprian Odiatu Duaka

 

Bibliography

Books by Dambudzo Marechera

 

 

Chimamanda Adichie: leitura - FLIP 2008 [áudio original]

 

 

 

Ben Okri discusses his approach to writing

 

In Arcadia

Dangerous Love

 

 

Songs of Enchantment

Astonishing the Gods

 

 

 

 

Writings in Nine Tongues:

For ease of reference, the entries are further organised into the following genres:

• Novels
• Traditional literature
• Short stories
• Drama
• Essays and prose
• Poetry
• Non-fiction
• Dictionaries

The Publishers' Association of South Africa is confident that the Writings in Nine Tongues catalogue, together with this supplement, will serve as a reference for all those interested in literature in the nine African languages of South Africa.

Without the involvement of the publishing houses represented, the production of this supplement would not have been possible. I would like to take this opportunity to thank these publishers and to commend them for their commitment to promoting access to literature in these rich and previously marginalized languages.

 

The Importance of Oriki in Yoruba Mural Art

Praise Poems as Historical Data: The Example of the Yoruba Oriki: By Bolanle Awe

Laudatory Poetry: Yoruba Oriki

Laudatory Poetry: Zulu

 

 

On Writing About Africa - Charlayne Hunter-Gault

 

• Marachera, Dambudzo
• Mashinini, Emma
• Mahfouz, Najib
• Mernissi, Fatima
• Miller, Ruth
• Millin, Sarah Gertrude
• Mokhoere, Caesarino Kona
• Mugo, Micere
• Muhando-Mlama, Penina
• Ngcobo, Lauretta
• Ngema, Mbongeni
• Ngugi wa Thiong'o
• Nkosi, Lewis
• Nwapa, Flora
• Nzekwu, Onuora
• Ogot, Grace
• Ogundipe-Leslie,

 

White is for Witching: By Helen Oyeyemi

This title will be released on June 23, 2009.

Reviews:

"Helen Oyeyemi is a startling literary prodigy." — The Washington Post Book World

"There's an intellectual sharpness about the author's writing which is a pleasure to read." — Financial Times

"Oyeyemi displays the young writer's amazing sure-handedness that is far beyond her years." —Seattle Post-Intelligencer

"Helen Oyeyemi leaves you obsessed with her characters and in awe of her talent." — Glamour

Book Description:
" Miranda is at home — homesick, home sick..."

As a child, Miranda Silver developed pica, a rare eating disorder that causes its victims to consume nonedible substances. The death of her mother when Miranda is sixteen exacerbates her condition; nothing, however, satisfies a strange hunger passed down through the women in her family. And then there's the family house in Dover, England, converted to a bed-and-breakfast by Miranda's father. Dover has long been known for its hostility toward outsiders. But The Silver House manifests a more conscious malice toward strangers, dispatching those visitors it despises. Enraged by the constant stream of foreign staff and guests, the house finally unleashes its most destructive power.

With distinct originality and grace, and an extraordinary gift for making the fantastic believable, Helen Oyeyemi spins the politics of family and nation into a riveting and unforgettable mystery.

About the Author
HELEN OYEYEMI is the author of The Icarus Girl and The Opposite House , which The Times (London) named as one of “best novels of the year” and was recently shortlisted for the 2008 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for fiction. She is currently at work on her fourth novel.

Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century

List of African Writers by country

African Writers Series: Heinemann

African Writers: Voices of Change

• Okigbo, Christopher
• Omotoso, Kole
• Osofian, Femi
• Ouologuem, Yambo
• Onwueme, Tess
• Reddy, Jayapraga
• Rif'at, Alifah
• Roberts, Sheila
• al Sa'dawi, Nawal
• Sadji, Abdoulaye
• Salih, al Tayyib
• Samir, Lili
• Schreiner, Olive Emilie Albertina
• Sebbar, Leila
• Sembene Ousmane
• Senghor, Leopold Sedar
• Serhane, Abdelhak
• Smith, Pauline
• Sofola, Zulu
• de Sousa, Noemie
• Sow Fall, Aminata
• Soyinka, Wole
• Sutherland, Efua
• Tansi, Sony Labou
• Thiam, Awa
• Tlali, Miriam
• Walters, Joseph Jeffrey
• Warner-Vieyra, Myriam
• Yacine, Kateb
• Al-Zayat, Latifa
• General (by geographic region)
  • Africa
  • East Africa
  • North Africa
  • West Africa
  • Algeria
  • Cameroon
  • Egypt
  • Ghana
  • Kenya
  • Nigeria
  • Senegal
  • Somali
  • South Africa
  • Zimbabwe
• Other Bibliographies

 

The Imprisonment of Obatala & and other plays: By Obotunde Ijimere/Ulli Beier

The Phantom of Nigerian Theatre: By Oyekan Owomoyela

Synopsis:

This volume contains The Imprisonment of Obatala, Everyman and Woyengi, which is based on an Ijaw tale. Obatala 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.

About the Author:
OBOTUNDE IJIMERE was born in Otan Aiyegbaju, western Nigeria, in 1930. After leaving secondary school he joined Duro Ladipo's theatre company, but soon discovered he had no talent for acting. He attended Ulli Beier's extra-mural writers' workshop in Oshogbo, and followed his advice to write in English rather than in Yoruba. Apart from the plays in this volume he has written some short stories (he is not very satisfied with the result) and several other plays, including one in pidgin, The Fall of Man, specially written for Theatre Express, the Lagos-based theatre group.

 

 

The Virgin of Flames: By Chris Abani

Synopsis:

From the author of the award-winning GraceLand comes a searing, dazzlingly written novel of a tarnished City of Angels

Praised as "singular" ( The Philadelphia Inquirer ) and "extraordinary" ( The New York Times Book Review ), GraceLand stunned critics and instantly established Chris Abani as an exciting new voice in fiction. In his second novel, set against the uncompromising landscape of East L.A., Abani follows a struggling artist named Black, whose life and friendships reveal a world far removed from the mainstream. Through Black's journey of self- discovery, Abani raises essential questions about poverty, religion, and ethnicity in America today. The Virgin of Flames , a marvelous and gritty novel filled with indelible images and unforgettable characters, confirms Chris Abani as an immensely talented writer.

Biography:

Chris Abani, author of GraceLand and Becoming Abigail , was born in Nigeria and has lived in London, New York, and Los Angeles. He is currently an associate professor at the University of California, Riverside.

 

 

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie:

Speech at the Christopher Okigbo International Conference at Harvard University

 

Black Short Fiction and Folklore:

Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria, West Africa:

 

 

Kofi Anyidoho, Ghana

 

 

"The Role of a Scholar in a Postcolonial World." By Ngugi wa Thiong'o.

On March 30 2005, The UO International Studies presented Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Kenyan novelist and human rights activist, speaking on "Planting African Memory: The Role of a Scholar in a Postcolonial World."

 

Camwood at Crossroads: By Femi Euba

Synopsis:

A philosophical novel about exploitation, in particular the evangelical factor. Olumofin, a Nigerian Attorney now living in the US, stands at the intersection of culture-crossings implicating the fate of his African identity within the American world, especially that of his intended intimacy with an African-American Creole. In an attempt to come to terms with the past, initiated by present criminal currents in the news media regarding the depraved religious practices of his estranged father, he unleashes, through shifting thought processes that cross from Lagos to New Orleans, the demons of exploitation (humorous as well as tragic) that have defined his colonial upbringing and the cross-cultural paths of his future African-American in-laws.

About the Author:

Professor of Theatre and English at Louisiana State University. Practicing playwright, director, actor and a scholar, Femi Euba received an MFA in Playwriting and Dramatic Literature, and an MA in African-American Studies from Yale, and a doctorate in English Literature from the University of Ife in Nigeria. His plays include the award-winning The Gulf, The Eye of Gabriel and several radio plays for the BBC Radio. Although he began writing short stories at an early age, Camwood at Crossroads as his first novel unreservedly adds fiction to his literary output as a creative artist.

"Highly Recommended! The novel Camwood at Crossroads is a tapestry of words akin to the art-house films of Krzysztof Kieslowski....A superbly written novel, lyrical, and descriptive."--Editor, Indigokafe and Cafeafricana.com

To purchase Camwood at Crossroads: Go to amazon.com

Bibliography of Femi Euba:

 

 

 

Wole Soyinka: By Funmi Iyanda

 

 

Get a Life: By Nadine Gordimer

Synopsis:

Nobel Prize winner Nadine Gordimer follows the inner lives of characters confronted by unforeseen circumstances. Paul Bannerman, an ecologist in South Africa, believes he understands the trajectory of his life, with the usual markers of vocation and marriage. But when he's diagnosed with thyroid cancer and, after surgery, prescribed treatment that will leave him radioactive-and for a period a danger to others-he begins to question, as Auden wrote, "what Authority gives / existence its surprise." As Paul recuperates in the garden of his childhood home, he enters an unthinkable existence and another kind of illumination-a process that will irrevocably change not only his life but the lives of his wife and parents. BACKCOVER: "More profound, more searching, more accomplished than what she was writing earlier in her long and distinguished career."
-Los Angeles Times

"Nadine Gordimer's work is endowed with an emotional genius so palpable one experiences it like a finger pressing steadily upon the prose."
-The Village Voice

"A timely novel and a provocative one: a novel to enjoy and ponder, as its characters all do, the dizzying complications inherent in human choice."
-The Washington Times

"I will always be grateful for the presence in the world of Nadine Gordimer, who has delivered in literature a South Africa most of us could not have known without her."
-Gail Caldwell, The Boston Globe

 

 

Plumas en alquiler-Feathers in rent (Wole Soyinka, Nigeria)

 

Lawless & Other Stories: By Sefi Atta

From Zamfara up north to the Niger Delta down south with a finale in Lagos, this collection of stories and a novella are inspired by newspaper headlines and narrated by a range of Nigerian voices. Atta's stories have earned recognition in contests such as the Zoetrope Short Fiction Contest, Glimmer Train's Very Short Fiction Award, Red Hen Press Short Story Award, the PEN International David TK Wong Prize and the Caine Prize.

“The majesty of one woman's spirit provides the backdrop for the opening story: a tale of unrelenting domestic abuse, and institutionalized cruelty and injustice in the name of Sharia. A powerful beginning to a collection of stories structured around greater or lesser violations of God's law or Man's....Finally, after the darkness of the ‘Lawless' stories, ‘The Miracle Worker' was refreshing. At the story's end, the wife's response to her husband's financial ruin made me smile the ‘I give up' smile: sometimes the wit of a story lies in the relentless logic of its ending.” – Olatoun Williams

“With this collection of stories, Soyinka Prize-winning author Sefi Atta consolidates her position as one of the leading writers of her generation. The stories, which take us from Zamfara to Mississippi, with many points in-between, are written with quiet virtuosity. Atta's control of tone is remarkable, especially given that she often takes on subjects—immigration, religion, domestic abuse—that in lesser hands tend to become polemical or preachy. What we get from Atta are compulsively readable tales, leavened with a sly wit and a generous vision.” – Teju Cole author of Every Day is for the Thief

 

 

Decolonizing the Mind: By Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Book Description:

...many of the ideas are familiar from Ngugi's earlier critical books, and earlier lectures, elsewhere. But the material here has a new context and the ideas a new focus. This leading African writer presents the arguments for using African language and forms after successfully using an African language himself' - Anne Walmsley in The Guardian .'...after 25 years of independence, there is beginning to emerge a generation of writers for whom colonialism is a matter of history and not of direct personal experience. In retrospect that literature characterised by Ngugi as 'Afro-European' - the literature written by Africans in European languages - will come to be seen as part and parcel of the uneasy period between colonialism and full independence, a period equally reflected in the continent's political instability as it attempts to find its feet. Ngugi's importance - and that of this book - lies in the courage with which he has confronted this most urgent of issues' - Adewale Maja-Pearce in The New Statesman .

 

 

Acerca del poema de David Constantine (Jack Mapanje, Malawi)

 

Writers:

 

Uwem Akpan June 2008

 

Say You're One of Them: By Uwem Akpan

Book Description:

Nigerian-born Jesuit priest Akpan transports the reader into gritty scenes of chaos and fear in his rich debut collection of five long stories set in war-torn Africa. An Ex-mas Feast tells the heartbreaking story of eight-year-old Jigana, a Kenyan boy whose 12-year-old sister, Maisha, works as a prostitute to support her family. Jigana's mother quells the children's hunger by having them sniff glue while they wait for Maisha to earn enough to bring home a holiday meal. In Luxurious Hearses, Jubril, a teenage Muslim, flees the violence in northern Nigeria. Attacked by his own Muslim neighbors, his only way out is on a bus transporting Christians to the south. In Fattening for Gabon, 10-year-old Kotchikpa and his younger sister are sent by their sick parents to live with their uncle, Fofo Kpee, who in turn explains to the children that they are going to live with their prosperous godparents, who, as Kotchikpa pieces together, are actually human traffickers. Akpan's prose is beautiful and his stories are insightful and revealing, made even more harrowing because all the horror—and there is much—is seen through the eyes of children. (June) Read a web-exclusive q&a with Uwem Akpan at www.publishersweekly.com/akpan. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.----From Publishers Weekly-

 

 

 

Oyiza Adaba Interviews Chinua Achebe Part 1

 

Wole Soyinka	Nadine Gordimer	J.M. Coetzee	Christopher Okigbo
Nobel Laureate 1986	Nobel Laureate 1991	Nobel Laureate 2003	Poet
Nigeria, West Africa	South Africa	South Africa	Nigeria, West Africa

 

 

Diary of a Bad Year: By J.M. Coetzee

Synopsis

Nobelist Coetzee's 19th book features a stand-in for himself: Señor C, a white 72-year-old South African writer living in Australia who has written Waiting for the Barbarians. C falls into a metaphysical passion for his sexy 29-year-old Filipina neighbor, Anya, and quickly plots to spend more time with her by offering her a job as his typist. C's latest project is a series of political and philosophical essays, and Coetzee divides each page of the present novel in three: any given page features a bit of an essay (often its title and opening paragraph) at the top; C's POV in the middle; and Anya's voice at the bottom. C's opinions in the essays are mostly on the left (he despises Bush, Blair & Co., and is opposed to the Iraq War) and they bore Anya, who wants something less lofty. Meanwhile, Anya's lover, Alan—a smart, conservative 42-year-old investment consultant who's good in the sack, and who stands for everything C despises—becomes increasingly scornful and jealous, and eventually concocts an elaborate plan to defraud C. of money. Unfortunately, Anya is little more than a trophy to be disputed, and Alan as an unscrupulous, boorish reactionary is a caricature. While C's essays, especially the later ones inspired by Anya, hold some interest, this follow-up to Slow Year is not one of Coetzee's major efforts. (Jan.)

 

 

Nadine Gordimer on Racism

Books by Helen Oyeyemi

 

Midaq Alley: By Naguib Mahfouz

Synopsis

Never has Nobel Prize-winner Naguib Mahfouz's talent for rich and luxurious storytelling been more evident than in this outstanding novel, first published in Arabic in 1947. One of his most popular books (and considered by many to be one of his best), Midaq Alley centers around the residents of one of the teeming back alleys of Cairo.

 

 

  

On this edition of Conversations with History, UC Berkeley's Harry Kreisler talks with Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka. In an extraordinarily prolific and rich body of work including plays, novels, poems, and essays, Professor Soyinka draws on both Yoruba and western culture to exquisitely weave a subtle understanding of the tragedy and comedy of the human condition. Series: Conversations with History [10/2002] [Humanities] [Show ID: 6797]

 

 

Professsor Ngugi wa Thiong'o

UC Irvine 2008

 

Man Who Came in from the Back of Beyond: By Biyi Bandele:

Book 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.

 

 

 

 

Books by Prof. Oyekan Owomoyela:

 

Ayi Kwei Armah , Amos Tutuola, D.O Fagunwa, Naguib Mahfouz, Chinua Achebe, Toyin Falola

Ama Ata Aidoo, Moses Isegawa, Camara Laye, Kateb Yacine

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Helon Habila, Helen Oyeyemi

 

Films:

“The situation of “reculturization” is a terrible one, because Mexican telenovelas in particular take a majority of space on African TV. A country like Mauritania for the last 10 years produced three films. Sadly, I'm the director of the three films. ”-Abderrahmane Sissako

 

 

Profile on film director, Abherrahmane Sissako

 

The Library of African Cinema: Films from Africa made by Africans offer restorative images and a new film language. The beautiful and sometimes challenging films in this collection not only showcase the works of master filmmakers but also innovative new talents who are embracing video technology. To see Africa through African eyes will break stereotypes and enlighten viewers about life in Africa. --CN

 

 

Global Media @ MIT

 

 

 

Black Orpheus: Directed by Marcel Camus

Amazon.com
Marcel Camus's 1959 update of the Greek myth features an all-black cast and a story set in the frenetic energy of Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Orpheus, a trolley car conductor and superb samba dancer, is engaged to Mira but in love with Eurydice. For his change of heart, Orpheus and his new doomed lover are pursued by a vengeful Mira and a determined Death through the feverish Carnival night. Camus at once demystifies and remystifies the old story, shifting not only its location but its tone and context, forcing a reevaluation of the legend as a more passionate, pulsing, sensual experience. The film is really one-of-a-kind, an absolute whirl that barely needs words. --Tom Keogh

Product Description
1960 Academy Award Winner and winner of the Palme d'Or at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, Marcel Camus' Black Orpheus retells the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice against the madness of Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. With its magnificent color photography and lively soundtrack, this film brought the infectious bossa nova beat to the United States. Criterion is proud to present the extended international version of Black Orpheus in a gorgeous new transfer.

 

 

 

Peter Scarlet interviews Abderrahmane Sissako, the director of "Waiting for Happiness." Find out more about the making of this carefully observed film about a young man's return to the traditional Mauritanian village of his youth, and hear more about Sissako's latest film, "Bamako."

 

 

 

Moolaade (2004): Directed by Ousmane Sembene

In an African village this is the day when six 4-9-year-old girls are to be circumcised. All children know that the operation is horrible torture and sometimes lethal, and all adults know that some circumcised women can only give birth by Caesarean section. Two of the girls have drowned themselves in the well to escape the operation. The four other girls seek "magical protection" (moolaadé) by a woman (Colle) who seven years before refused to have her daughter circumcised. Moolaadé is indicated by a coloured rope. But no one would dare step over and fetch the children. Moolaadé can only be revoked by Colle herself. Her husband's relatives persuade him to whip her in public into revoking. Opposite groups of women shout to her to revoke or to be steadfast, but no woman interferes. When Colle is at the wedge of fainting, the merchant takes action and stops the maltreatment. Therefore he is hunted out of the village and, when out of sight, murdered. Written by Max Scharnberg, Stockholm, Sweden

 

 

Hyenas

Mansour Diof e Mamadou Mahourédia Gueye nunha escena do filme "Hyènes" (1992) de Djibril Diop Mambety.