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.

 

 

 

 

 

How Not to Write About Africa - Binyavanga Wainaina - narrated by Djimon Hounsou

Binyavanga Wainana exposes the clichés and stereotypes non-African writers employ all too often when they set out to describe the

continent.

 

African Writers Series

 

The Education of a British-Protected Child (Essays): By Chinua Achebe

Synopsis:

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.

Biography:

Chinua Achebe was born in Ogidi, Nigeria, the son of a teacher in a missionary school. His parents, though they installed in him many of the values of their traditional Igbo culture, were devout evangelical Protestants and christened him Albert after Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria. In 1944 Achebe attended Government College in Umuahia. Like other major Nigerian writers including Wole Soyinka, Elechi Amadi, John Okigbo, John Pepper Clark, and Cole Omotso, he was also educated at the University College of Ibadan, where he studied English, history and theology. At the university Achebe rejected his British name and took his indigenous name Chinua. In 1953 he graduated with a BA. Before joining the Nigerian Broadcasting Company in Lagos in 1954 he travelled in Africa and America, and worked for a short time as a teacher. In the 1960s he was the director of External Services in charge of the Voice of Nigeria.

Chinua Achebe is the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and Professor of Africana Studies at Brown University. He was, for over 15 years, the Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College. He is the author of five novels, two short-story collections, and numerous other books. In 2007, Achebe was awarded the Man Booker International Prize. He lives with his wife in Providence, Rhode Island.

 

Snakepit: By Moses Isegawa

Synopsis:

The author of 2000's Abyssinian Chronicles sets another ambitious narrative of trouble and turmoil near the end of Idi Amin's dictatorship in Uganda, a country "like a madwoman of untold beauty; efforts to save her were bound to be doomed." Bat Katanga, native son and recent postgraduate student at Cambridge University, returns to Uganda to seek his fortune during the chaotic scramble for economic independence and personal enrichment in the 1970s. His education and intelligence immediately—albeit slightly improbably—land him a high-level job in the Ministry of Power and Communications, working for the bloodthirsty, power-hungry General Bazooka, head of the corrupt Anti-Smuggling Unit. The notorious excesses and infighting of the Amin regime are detailed from General Bazooka's perspective as well as that of several others, including beautiful Victoria, the general's former mistress who's now angling for Bat, and mercenary Englishman Robert Ashes, who intends to come out on top, no matter what the cost. When Bat is intimidated into taking a bribe from a Saudi official, the general, whose own standing is in question, has him abducted. In prison, Bat, who is nearly as calculating and Machiavellian as his employers, is forced to re-evaluate everything. Even after his release, the downward trajectory of his life continues, while the country itself plunges toward anarchy. This is a headlong and blurry novel filled with violence and sex, deceit and revenge—a messy, captivating portrait of a desperate time and place. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Author spotlight:

Moses Isegawa was born in Uganda and worked as a history teacher before leaving for the Netherlands in 1990. He is the author of Abyssinian Chronicles . He lives in Amsterdam.

 

An Elegy for Easterly: Petina Gappah

Synopsis

A woman in a township in Zimbabwe is surrounded by throngs of dusty children but longs for a baby of her own; an old man finds that his new job making coffins at No Matter Funeral Parlor brings unexpected riches; a politician's widow stands quietly by at her husband's funeral, watching his colleagues bury an empty casket. Petina Gappah's characters may have ordinary hopes and dreams, but they are living in a world where a loaf of bread costs half a million dollars, where wives can't trust even their husbands for fear of AIDS, and where people know exactly what will be printed in the one and only daily newspaper because the news is always, always good.

In her spirited debut collection, the Zimbabwean writer Petina Gappah brings us the resilience and inventiveness of the people who struggle to live under Robert Mugabe's regime. She takes us across the city of Harare, from the townships beset by power cuts to the manicured lawns of privilege and corruption, where wealthy husbands keep their first wives in the “big houses” while their unofficial second wives wait in the “small houses,” hoping for a promotion.

Despite their circumstances, the characters in An Elegy for Easterly are more than victims—they are all too human, with as much capacity to inflict pain as to endure it. They struggle with the larger issues common to all people everywhere: failed promises, unfulfilled dreams, and the yearning for something to anchor them to life.

About the Author

Petina Gappah's writing has appeared in Prospect , Farafina , Per Contra , The Guardian , the Zimbabwe Times , PEN America , and Transition . She currently works in Geneva as an international trade lawyer.

 

In Dependence: By Sarah Ladipo Manyika

Synopsis

It is the early-sixties when a young Tayo Ajayi sails to England from Nigeria to take up a scholarship at Oxford University. In this city of dreaming spires, he finds himself among a generation high on visions of a new and better world. The whole world seems ablaze with change: independence at home, the Civil Rights movement and the first tremors of cultural and sexual revolutions. It is then that Tayo meets Vanessa Richardson, the beautiful daughter of an ex-colonial officer. "In Dependence" is Tayo and Vanessa's story of a brave but bittersweet love affair. It is the story of two people struggling to find themselves and each other a story of passion and idealism, courage and betrayal, and the universal desire to fall, madly, deeply, in love.

About the Author

Sarah was raised in Nigeria and has lived in Kenya, France and England. She is married to a Zimbabwean and currently resides in the United States where she lectures in English literature at San Francisco State University. Sarah holds a Ph.D. in Education with a focus on Africa and the African Diaspora.

 

White is for Witching: By Helen Oyeyemi

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.

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

The Gunny Sack: By M.G. Vassanji

Synopsis:

This first novel by a Nairobi-born writer raised in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania celebrates the spirit of Asian pioneers, Muslims from India who moved to East Africa in the early 1900s. Living under German colonial rule, the family of Dhanji Govindji become permanent residents of Africa while witnessing historical events that result in the birth of African nationalism. Vassanji has created a family memoir, a coming-of-age story that looks at the past with affection and understanding. He shows that the hopes and dreams of Indian immigrants were essentially the same as those of Europeans who passed through Ellis Island: education for their children and a more prosperous future for the next generation.

Reviews:
“Vassanji is one of the country's finest storytellers.”
— Quill & Quire

“Vassanji captures a wide and authentic perspective that ranks with V. S. Naipaul and Graham Greene.”
— The Times (London)

About the Author:

M.G. Vassanji was born in Kenya and raised in Tanzania. Before coming to Canada in 1978, he attended MIT and the University of Pennsylvania, where he specialized in theoretical nuclear physics. From 1978 to 1980 he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Atomic Energy of Canada, and from 1980 to 1989 he was a research associate at the University of Toronto. During this period he developed a keen interest in medieval Indian literature and history. Vassanji is the author of six novels and two collections of short stories. His work has appeared in various countries and several languages. His most recent novel, The Assassin's Song , was shortlisted for both the Giller Prize and the Governor General's Prize for best novel in Canada. He has twice won the Giller Prize for fiction and is a member of the Order of Canada.

 

 

 

Response to 'How to Write About Africa' by Binyavanga Wainaina - Part 1

Binyavanga Wainaina (born 1971) is a Kenyan author, journalist and winner of the Caine Prize.

 

 

Grandma's Sun: A Childhood Memoir from Africa: By Tayo Olafioye

The narrative describes the author's birth and childhood in Igbotako, education and career at the University of Lagos and at universities in the States. Throughout, the author is concerned with the historical junctures and social and cultural changes in postcolonial Nigeria.

Tayo Olafioye is a poet, novelist and scholar, active in Nigeria and the united States. He has won prizes for his volumes of poetry, which include Sorrows of a Town Crier (1988) and Bush Girl Comes to Town (1988). His other publications include The Excellence of Silence, the Saga of Sego (1982) and two works of literary criticism: Responses to Creativity (1988) and critic as Terrorist: Views on New African Writings (1989). His most recent collections are entitled A Carnival of Looters (2000) and The Parliament of Idiots (2002), both published by Kraft Books, Nigeria. This is the author's semi-fictional autobiography, written in the third person, following in the tradition of Camara Laye's African Child, Wole Soyinka's trilogy (Ake, Isara, Ibadan) and Tanure Ojaide's Great Boys: An African Childhood. The narrative describes the author's birth and childhood in Igbotako, education and career at the University of Lagos and at universities in the States. Throughout, the author is concerned with the historical junctures and social and cultural changes in postcolonial Nigeria.

Books by Tayo Olafioye

 

 

Response to 'How to Write About Africa' by Binyavanga Wainaina - Part 2

Technical problems with Part 3 on YouTube

 

 

Poems of Black Africa: Edited by Wole Soyinka

Abangira - G. Adali-Mortty - Costa Andrade - Jared Angira - Peter Anyang' Nyong'o - Kofi Awoonor - Kwesi Brew - Dennis Brutus - Siraman Cissoko - J. P. Clark - José Craveirinha - Viriato da Cruz - Bernard Dadié - Kaoberdiano Dambara - Joe de Graft - Solomon Deressa - Noémia de Sousa - Birago Diop - David Diop - Mbella Sonne Dipoko - - Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin - Armando Guebuza - Ismael Hurreh - Antonio Jacinto - Paulin Joachim - Charles Kabuto Kabuye - W. Kamera - JoMarcelino dos Santos nathan Kariara - Amin Kassam - Yusuf O. Kassam - Keorapetse Kgositsile - Kittobbe - Mazisi Kunene - Kojo Gyinaye Kyei - Taban Lo Liyong - Stephen Lubega - Theo Luzuka - Valente Malangatana - Ifeanyi Menkiti - Mindelense - Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali - Agostinho Neto - Athru Nortje - Richard Ntiru - Atukwei Okai - Gabriel Okara - Christopher Okigbo - Yambo Ouloguem - Frank Kobina Parkes - Okot p'Bitek - Lenrie Peters - Rabérivelo - Isaac Rammopo - Jorge Rebelo - Arnaldo Santos - L. S. Senghor - Onésimo Silveira - Wole Soyinka - J.-B. Tati-Loutard - Bahadur Tejani - B. S. Tibenderana - Enoch Tindimwebwa - Kalu Uka - Tchicaya U Tam'si - Okogbule Wonodi:--Wikipedia

 

 

 

The Vine with Henry Louis Gates Jr.: Wole Soyinka

 

 

Waiting: By Goretti Kyomuhendo

Set during the last year of the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin's brutal regime, Waiting exposes the fear and courage of a small, close-knit community uncertain of what the edicts of a madman and the marauding of his uncontrollable army will bring with each coming day. As Amin's war with Ugandan exiles and the Tanzanian army comes to an end, one family learns what it takes to survive and eventually to plan for a new life.

Goretti Kyomuhendo won the Uganda National Literary Award for Best Novel of the Year in 1999. She currently directs FEMRITE, a women's publishing house in Uganda.

Biography:

Kyomuhendo (1965- ) was born and raised in Hoima, Western Uganda. She started writing in 1992 for Kampala-based newspapers and has since expanded in writing fiction; she has published four novels. Kyomuhendo also co-founded FEMRITE, a women's publishing house, and is currently working as their Program Coordinator.

 

Artisans:

Nigerian Artists of the Oshogbo School: Paintings by Yinka Adeyemi, Adeniyi Adeyemi, and Kola Adeyemi

 

Yinka Adeyemi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Globetrotter & Hitler's Children: By Amatoritsero Ede

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.

 

 

Tail of the Blue Bird: By Nii Ayikwei Parkes

Synopsis:

Sonokrom, a village in the Ghanaian hinterland, has not changed for thousands of years. Here, the men and women speak the language of the forest, drink aphrodisiacs with their palm wine and walk alongside the spirits of their ancestors. The discovery of sinister remains – possibly human, definitely 'evil' – and the disappearance of a local man brings the intrusion of the city in the form of Kayo; a young forensic pathologist convinced that scientific logic can shatter even the most inexplicable of mysteries.

As events in the village become more and more incomprehensible, Kayo and his sidekick, Constable Garba, find that Western logic and political bureaucracy are no longer equal to the task in hand. Strange boys wandering in the forest, ghostly music in the night and a flock of birds that come from far away to fill a desolate hut with discarded feathers take the newcomers into a world where, in the unknown, they discover a higher truth that leaves scientific explanations far behind.

Tail of the Blue Bird is a story of the clash and clasp between old and new worlds. Lyrically beautiful, at once uncanny and heart-warmingly human, this is a story that tells us that at the heart of modern man there remains the capacity to know the unknowable.

 

 

Nii Ayikwei Parkes talks to Bola Mosuro on BBC Network Africa

 

 

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,

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.

 

 

 

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.

"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

 

 

The Figurine (Araromire) Trailer1

 

 

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.