Tag: african fiction

Dark heart of the Night by Leonora Miano

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Dark Heart of the Night by Leonora Miano

Cameroonian fiction

Original title – L’Intérieur de la nuit

Translator – Tamsin Black

Source – Personal copy

I moved to Cameroon in Africa with another book that has a lot to say about female lives within that country. This is my next stop on this year’s Women in Translation Month. Leona Miano has lived in France since the early 90s. This was her debut novel and won some prizes, including the Prix Goncourt’s award for books that appeal to Teenage readers. That book saw a woman going back to Cameroon after three years away a return to the dark heart of Africa and her small village. The book looks at colonialism the violence that has been seen in a lot of different African countries as the colonial powers withdraw, leaving a vacuum of power and mistakes made in the years after. This book tells the story of a girl returning to her village after she had seen the wider world and is a different girl than the one who left her small town a few years earlier.

As for the girls, they stayed put, turning over and over soil that yielded only what was forcibly rooted out. No one had ever had the odd idea of sending them to school. In normal times during the day, only mature women, unmarried girls, and young children were to be found in the clearing. Most of the men lived in towns far away or in other countries, and they came home only now and then. In these distant places, they seldom made a fortune. The life they led there gobbled up everything they were supposed to save to keep the promises they had made to themselves and the clan. When they called in to the village, it was only to drop off a few leftovers and boom out instructions, which they would not be able to see carried out. Then, they went away. And the women stayed, with the world on their shoulders. Women with sons were quick to make them bear some of this weight. They packed them off to work as they might have deposited money in an account. The sons took wives then lived as their fathers had lived before them.

The tradtional nature of the village is shown her.

Ayane has decided to go home, and when she arrives back in her remote village of Eku. But this has been caused by her mother dying, and when she returns, her former friends and villagers view her as different. This woman is now differently educated. Is she a witch? As this happens. The village is caught in a storm as a militia arrives and bloody violence descends on them all. This is all viewed by Ayane as she hides and observes how the villagers react to all this.; The militia are the sort of pan-African forces that cropped up in the post-colonial times of Africa as countries tried to forge a new identity. But this is viewed as a given by the villagers, as this is maybe their resignation to the events and bloody violence, death and heartache, as Isilo, the leader of the Militia, tells the young woman and men what to do. The story shifts between the villagers, Ayane and her mother.

Ayané was a frail child with pale skin. Pale, they said, because her skin was not the coal-black color of the local people, cooked over and again by the sun since time immemorial. But she was in fact as dark as cocoa beans. Of course, the women said she was bewitched, probably a witch returned from the dead. And even though none of them had managed to find a mark on her skin to prove it, they told their children not to go near her. Never had the local children screamed so loudly in the evening at the beatings they received, sometimes with a pestle, for having ventured into a forbidden house. Girls and boys alike all ran after her to play with the toys her father made her and tell her the gossip their mothers whispered to them about her parents. Sometimes, the village women, who had no dealings with Aama, were obliged to talk to her. The fact was, their kids were often in her hut or in her garden. For she had a garden with non-edible plants, which she grew for no other reason than to admire the beauty of their flowers and smell their fragrance. The garden, too, made the women talk:

Ayane was a plae girl but is now a woman her mother stayed inthe village

This is a book that has blurred lines in the story, no real plot, it is about he event in the village and that as a wider view of post-colonial Africa. The use of the woman returning having seen the world beyond Eku, beyond their past and traditions, as the wider world outsider, their village is changing, and this is shown in a way by Ayane, her education and wider view having to return for the funeral makes her an observer on the violence that follows. But also the Militia is a sign of pan-African ideas, the struggle post-colonially to find identity for their country. Then the village and the locals have an almost death-like fatalism as they seem to be so far detached from the world that has been and the world that is coming. Their village is lost in time. In that the violence is almost the death of their way of life, as the modern world comes crashing in on their world! I liked this book; it isn’t a straightforward read, but I’d like to read more from her . Mainly because her later books deal with Afropean matters.

 

Thirteen months of Sunrise by Rania Mamoun

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Thirteen months of sunrise by Rania Manoun

Sudanese fiction

Original title – ثلاثة عشر شهرًا من شروق الشمس

Translator – Elisabeth Jaquette

Source – Personal copy

Rania Mamoun is a very well-known figure in Sudanese literature she started out as a journalist contributing to the cultural pages of a Sudanese paper. She has also written for a quarterly magazine.. She has also worked in television. Her works have been translated into various languages. She has written a few novels. A couple of short story collections. She was given a grant by the arab fund for Art and Culture. That has led to workshops, and she also did a list of the ten best books from Sudan. Her last book was on  BRITTLE PAPERS, 100 best AFRICAN BOOKS, two years ago.I think it is an excellent choice for this year’s Women in Translation. Comma Press has been bringing lots of excellent translations out in several city collections, and some books like this, a collection of short stories from a single writer. They have championed many Arabic and writers from smaller countries less well known.

THIRTEEN IS NOT A SUPERSTITIOUS or unlucky number, it’s the number of months in a year in Ethiopia.

But that’s another story.

I was very frustrated by the time he arrived. The computer in front of me had frozen and a customer needed help. It was morning and I was still half-asleep.

I assumed he was Sudanese when I saw him, or, more accurately, I didn’t assume anything. It wouldn’t have been unusual to meet a Sudanese man in my country.

Isn’t it normal for Sudanese people to live in Sudan? I don’t know why I didn’t ask myself where he was from when he spoke to me in English. Maybe my mind was elsewhere.

I fixed the problem with the computer and was in a better mood. I overheard him grumbling about a floppy disk.

The opening of Thirteen months of sunrise the title short story of the collection

Thirteen months of Sunrise is the very first collection from Sudan to be published.. The collection explores the Ethiopian calendar, an Ethiopian man in Sudan who is a student collecting data for his master’s thesis, which sees the two cultures together, as he studies around the Nile, which is about being Ethiopian in Sudan and getting by. I will focus on two other stories of the ten Pssing, which I think is the strongest story in the collection it is about a daughter thinking back on her dead father and the memories she has of her past, and when her homeland and homelife were a lot smoother. I finish with the shortest story in the book about one week of a love. I laughed, I read the title, and I thought this is an Arabic take on how Craig David would be but this is from the point of view of the female being met by a man who, after a week, is gone? (he wrote a song about a one-week love). The stories capture the modern female voice in Sudan.

Day One

WE MET UP AS PEOPLE DO. He didn’t make an impression.

Day Two

We sat side by side, he edged closer. I felt his gaze engulf me. I smiled to myself. He had beautiful eyes.

Day Three

He asked me whether I was seeing anyone.

I responded with silence. Maybe silence was malice

on my part.

Day Four

He told me: I love you, I’ve never had feelings like this before? And I felt myself falling for him; in my heart I accepted his love.

Half of the week of love you’ll need to read the rest to find out what happened !

 

I love that the Comma Press is trying to shine a light on countries where the writers aren’t so well known to us in English and where maybe the country is considered dangerous. I like this collection. I have read several books translated from Arabic, but not many of them have had female voices at their heart. The collection covers a wealth of subjects, really, student living in Sudan, loss of a family member, love, and then getting ghosted! How to afford your health care. It shows how similar even our lives are to those in Sudan. From loss to falling in love, I said the story about the week’s love reminds me of the song about a week in love, but this is from the female side of a similar story. All subjects on how to get by in Sudan!  I hope to read her novels at some point. This is a collection that can easily be read in an evening. The ten stories are less than 70 pages. Have you read any books from Comma Press or any great female voice translated from English to Arabic?

The Palm wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola

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The Palm Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola

Nigerian fiction

Source – Library book

I have been on the lookout for a second-hand version of this book on one of those lists that readers of many books keep, noting and thinking critically acclaimed or essential in a canon when they were written, and still do today. This is one such book, the debut novel by Amos Tutuola, which was considered one of the first modern African novels in English when it was published in the 1950s. Tutola was born to his father’s third wife and was from the Egba people, which is why he knows the traditional ways. AS THEY follow the Yoruba religion, and also he will have grown up with the Yoruba folktales, which this book is a retelling of. The book was described by T.S. Eliot as a creepy, crawly imagination. Another early champion of the book was Dylan Thomas (I can see this in the palm wine drinking, and also the sense of community and place was strong in Thomas’ work, like it is in Tutuola’s)

I was a palm-wine drinkard since I was a boy of ten years of age. I had no other work more than to drink palm-wine in my life. In those days we did not know other money, except COWRIES, so that everything was very cheap, and my father was the richest man in our town.

My father got eight children and I was the eldest among them, all of the rest were hard workers, but I myself was an expert palm-wine drinkard. I was drinking palm-wine from morning till night and from night

till morning. By that time I could not drink ordinary water at all except palm-wine.

But when my father noticed that I could not do any work more than to drink, he engaged an expert palm-wine tapster for me; he had no other work more than to tap palm-wine every day.

the opening and shows how much he drinks !!

The book is told by the narrator a son of a wealthy man, who said Palm wine drtnkard of the title of the book, as his wealth means he has the money to be able to afford a Palm wine tapist who are those that can tap the Palm tree and make the Palm wine for him to drink. But when this tapist falls to his death, he loses his supply of Palm wine, and the book becomes a sort of Quest novel as he hunts for a new tapist. Along the way, he meets an old man, a kind of sage, in a way that tells him things. But as the quest heads in, he faces obstacles and changes as he fights beasts and saves people, and the narrator changes. This is a richly told book that is steeped in the local folklore of his people. In a way, you feel that the places and world Tutola has described of wealthy tribal sons and their servants are long gone.

THE DESCRIPTION OF THE CURIOUS CREATURE:-

He was a beautiful “complete” gentleman, he dressed with the finest and most costly clothes, all the parts of his body were completed, he was a tall man but stout.

As this gentleman came to the market on that day, if he had been an article or animal for sale, he would be sold at least for £2000 (two thousand pounds). As this complete gentleman came to the market on that day, and at the same time that this lady saw him in the mar-ket, she did nothing more than to ask him where he was living, but this fine gentleman did not answer her or approach her at all. But when she noticed that the fine or complete gentleman did not listen to her, she left her articles and began to watch the movements of the complete gentleman about in the market and left her articles unsold.

the adventure along the way have chapter heading like this

Over the years, I have run this blog, I have tried to cover a lot of fiction from all the different countries in Africa, thus making the fiction not just African, but this is a book from the Egba people of Nigeria and uses the Yoruba folktales,, just as in the last pos,t Laxness has used Icelandic sgas. To talk about his world, well, this was written just after World War II, and he saw Tutola, who had been in the RAF. But he had struggled when he was demobbed to find work, as everyone else had, and he ended up writing this book from his folklore past. It is considered a classic of the first Books from Nigeria to come out in English and lead the way for many of the great writers from his country that followed him. The book was also the first on the Jubilee list to come from books published in the Commonwealth during the Queen’s reign. I hope to read his second novel sometime. Have you read any other books by him?

 

 

Beyond The Door of No Return by David Diop

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Beyond the Door of No Return by David Diop

Senegalese fiction

Original title – La Porte du voyage sans retour

Translator – Sam Taylor

Source – Personal copy

I bought this book just after Christmas; I have been watching it since it came out. I don’t think it will make the Booker longlist these days. The list seems to have a turnover of new writers every and David Diop had won the International Booker in 2021. I was a fan of the book he won with All blood is black. It captures the war from an African soldier’s point of view wonderfully. This is his latest book. This time, he has gone farther back in history and back to his homeland of Senegal, a tale of the early years of the French involvement with his country told through a French Naturalist and the chief’s daughter.

Ndiak kept telling me that he resembled his mother more than his father. She was the noblest and most beautiful woman in the kingdom of Waalo, possibly in the whole world, and–since he had inherited her beauty- he was quite naturally the most beautiful young man I had ever seen.His features were stunningly regular and symmetrical, as if nature had calculated the proportions of his face using the same golden number as the sculptor of the Apollo Belvedere.I merely nodded and smiled when Ndiak boasted, which encouraged him to say, without laughing, to anyone who would listen: “You see, even this toubab Adanson who has seen more lands than all of us put together, including five generations

Ndiak learns him the local languahge as they head out to find Miram

The materialist Michel Adamson is dying, and his daughter is attending to him. When he finally passes, he has one word on his lips: a lady named Miriam. His daughter has never known her father mention this name and has no idea who this woman was. So she found his journals from the 1750s when he was sent to collect plants from Senegal. Which he had done, and on his return, he had written one of the first guides to Flora and Fauna in Senegal. This was an actual trip the real botanist took. But the story of this man and his meeting with Miriam Seck, the beguiling daughter of a chief, is Taken and taken to be a slave is a nod to the title of the book, which is the name given to a door on the island out of Senegal and the last door that many slaves went through when they left Senegal. Anyway, she escaped and returned to her homeland in what is now Cape Verde, the islands just off the coast, with his young companion, a 15-year-old Ndiak, who teaches him the Wolof language, the language that is the most spoken in Senegal. The book focuses on when these two meet and the relationship and sparks that fly between them so much that fifty years later, when he is dying, he has her name on his lips.

Now that I am an old man, I do not believe that the sin for which I reproached myself was really so great. Is it not absurd to attach moral judgments to natural urges? But I must acknowledge that it was my religion that kept me from offending Maram Seck. Had I made advances, I would almost certainly have lost her trust and she would not have told me her story. If the world in which we lived had given us that chance, I would have one day asked her to marry me. And if she had accepted, I would have known her, in the way nature invites us to when a man loves a woman and a woman loves a man.

He is drawn to Miram

This is a story that mixes the violence that followed slavery and how it tore families apart. But it is also how a French man, by finding how the language of the locals works, gets more connected to the tribes and the locals and how the oral tradition of the country is opened up when Adamson learns Wolof. I love the way we are drawn into the story. The use of his last words, Miriam, is, of course, very much like the last words of Citizen Kane. This is his Rosebud moment, that moment when that one love that slipped through your hands is there, and this is a woman, an alluring, powerful, and brave woman, so much so she has become part of the vocal tradition in her country. I enjoyed this way of tackling slavery through both the African and French eyes, using a real person for the main character’s work. There were many people like Adamson who, when the world was unknown, went to hunt those plants that many of us would now call common in our Gardens. Have you read this book? and do you think it will be on the Booker longlist? For me, I’d love to see it there.

Winston score – A I hope it makes the longlist an interesting historical work

 

The River Between

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The River Between by Ngūgī wa Thiong’o

Kenyan fiction

Source – Personal Copy

I keep thinking every year would be Thiong’o’s year to win the Nobel Literature Prize, but as the years go by, you think time is running short for him to win the prize. So I decided it was time to review another of his books. I recently bought a Penguin edition of another of his books, so it seemed time to get to this one. It has been on my shelves for years and is one from the African writer series, and it felt time to review it. I know Lisa had reviewed it years ago. It is a timely novel I think whenever you read it the themes within the book are still present not just in Africa but elsewhere in the world where modernity and tradition class and history and the present class This is the tale of kids turning into adults and the rituals around them but is also a tale of the modern and ancient traditions clashing

Soon Waiyaki joined again in the daily rhythm of life in the village. He went out to look after cattle; organized raids, went out hunting. He joined in the dances for the young boys and felt happy. Days came and went; and still it was the same life.

His yes retained a strong and resolute look. Some people said that there was something evil in their glitter. But his father must have had the same sort of eyes; in a body becoming distorted with wrinkles, his eyes remained alive and youthful.

One evening, a few wecks after his second birth, Waiyaki was called by his father, who liked holding talks in his thingira, the man’s hut. Waiyaki entered very quietly, because he was always uneasy in the presence of his father.

Wayaki soon became his father favourite

The plot follows two villages and the different paths they take, but it is a more complex and twisted story than That at the heart of it is three sons who are sent by the father to study at the local school it soon becomes clear the youngest of these sons Waiyaki is not just a great student but a natural at s]keeping the peace and sorting out fights there Father sees himself as the saviour his boys learn at the Christian school. In the next village, there is a young girl coming of age, and in line with Tradition, she is due to undergo Female circumcision or FGM (Female Genital Mutilation), a come act in many tribes, and the title alludes to some of the tales a river and hills etc the traditional tales used to make this barbaric act seem part of a tradition. But as this Girl dies as the procedure goes wrong, it sets ripples through their villages and pits past and presents modern ideas against Ancient traditions. Add to this, an exlict love affair that Waiyaki gets involved in, and we have a melting pot of Christian tribal history and how to move a tribe into the modern world and two ideas of what is the best way as those on both sides split and the Gikuyu’s tribe future is at stake.

The sacrifices went hand in hand with preparations for the coming circumcision. Everywhere candidates for the initiation were gathering. They went from house to house, singing and dancing the ritual songs, the same that had been sung from the old times, when Demi were on the land.

Waiyaki was one of the candidates. He was now a young man with strong, straight limbs. He did not like the dances very much, mainly because he could not do them as well as his fellow candidates, who had been practising them for years.After all, it was soon after his second birth that he had gone to Siriana, and he had lived there for all those years, although he normally came home during the holidays. Waiyaki was often surprised at his father, who in some ways seemed to defy age.His voice, however, thin and tremulous, betrayed him. Waiyaki often remembered why he was sent to Siriana.

He is due to be circumcisied as well but he also knows the teaching from his school

This, for me is when Thiong’o is at his best as a writer, when he talks about the world of he knows the tribe he is part of. This is the time when the world he lived in was in Flux as the past traditions changed as the Western world and Christianity crept into the world he knows this is written in the mid-60s not long after Kenya gained independence and the struggle in the book is the struggle in the country how to keep tradition and move forward. It also tackles FGM, a practice that has been banned for just a decade in Kenya. It tackles, like many books of the time, the struggle to hold on to the past and move forward into the Modern world. I like this as it seemed like a book written from the perspective of someone who had seen the struggles and the coming-of-age ceremonies within the tribe. Have you read any books from Thiong’o? do you think he will win the Nobel ?

Winston score – B solid book about the turmoil and changes in Kenya in the mid 60s

The Most secret memory of men by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr

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The Most secret memory of men by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr

Senegalese fiction

Original title –  La plus secrète mémoire des hommes

Translator – Lara Vergnaud

Source – Review copy

I was lucky to have been sent this by Other press all the way from the US, which I am thankful as they have been bringing some great books in translation out the last couple of years, and this is one I had wanted to read I have toyed with the idea of Prix Goincourt project of some sort, but when I looked at the winners and availability in English for a lot of the older winners it fell apart I’m still after a project that has a lot of older books in translation in it. Anyway, I brought Mohamed Mbougar Sarr’s first book, brotherhood a couple of years ago as he was on a list of up-and-coming African writers I had read a few years ago and when he won the Prix Goncourt with this his second book, I decided when offer this book I read this as he is the first francophile writer from Sub Saharan Africa to win the prize.

She entered the elevator, a terrible smile on her lips. As we rose to the thirteenth floor, I plunged, toward utter ruin.

Siga D.’s body had known, done, tried everything. What could I offer her? Where could I take her? What could I think up? Who did I think I was? Those philosophers who extol the inexhaustible virtues of erotic inventiveness never had to deal with a Siga D., whose mere presence wiped away my sexual history. How should I go about it? The fourth floor already. She won’t feel anything, she won’t even feel you enter, your body will liquefy against hers, it will trickle down and be absorbed by the sheets, by the mattress. Seventh. You won’t just drown inside of her, you’ll disappear, disintegrate, crumble, she’s going to obliterate you, and the pieces that are left will drift into the clinamen of the ancient materialists, Leucippus, Democritus of Abdera

His meeting Siga D and her power over him

The book is a novel, but at its heart is a true story it is like one of those dramas where some of the names and facts have been changed. The book focuses on a book and a writer in the novel. The book is called The Labyrinth of Inhumanity and the writer is from Senegal called T C Elimane a man in his day called the BLACK Rimbaud heralded as the voice of Africa, won the Fench literary prize Prix Renaudot but in the novel this happens in 1938 before the war. But the real tale this is partly drawn from is the 1968 winner by the Malian writer Yamboi Oulologuem. His book Bound to Violence had a claim of plagiarism against it . But in his case the editor had removed his credit that the passages are from a couple of books he had used, and that book is due out as a penguin classic soon (I will be getting that when it comes out ). So when Diegan, the main narrator of the book gets hold of this fabled book from a Senegalese writer, Siga D, the two sleep together even though she is a lot older than home, but she has a presence, and as the story unfolds as he hunts for more information about the book and the writer. That Siga D is related to the writer. Our narrator is like a book detective trying to find out what happened after T c Elimane was called a plagiarist and disappeared from sight and was never seen again he follows the years after this happened, and this takes him after the war years to South America, where he had met and mixed with the cream of Latim=n American fiction but also the Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz at a point I kept thinking I can’t remember him mention in Gombrowicz Diary which I read many years ago and in one of those odd bookish eclipse moments it happened to be reading this as the new translation of Gombrowicz Possesed came out a book I had in its first translation, be interested to read and compare at some point. The book is a tale of being an African writer and how those writers are viewed, but is also a great road trip novel as we follow the trail left by Elimane.

My roommate, who refused to frequent our writers coterie (he found our mentality too bourgeois), finally read The Labyrinth of Inhumanity. His verdict was terse: “hard to translate,” which by his criteria amounted to the highest praise.

He asked me questions about the book and the author. I told him what I knew. The story intrigued him, and he told me I should visit the press archives. If I was able to gain access to certain newspapers from 1938, I might, he thought, be able to find out something. I told him that when I came to Paris eight years earlier, I had already tried to access old newspapers in search of traces of The Labyrinth of Inhu-manity. In particular, I had been hoping to read the investigation by Bollème (Brigitte) mentioned by the Reader’s Guide in its T.C. Elimane entry. All my attempts had ended in failure. Though I had discovered, in regard to Brigitte Bollème, that after a long career as a literary journalist for Revue des deux modes and publishing a few monographs, she had sat on the jury for the Prix Femina, over which she presided from 1973 to her death in 1985.

He starting down the rabbit hole of this writer and his story

Wow!!!, that is the simplest word for this book. I was blown away by it I had to keep pinching myself to remind myself that the actual book doesn’t exist as I so want to join Diegane in his journey alongside ass he finds the editors and those involved in the book he is like a New Yorker fact checker running down. I Love tracking down writers. There are many a rabbit hole I get drawn down and many a half projects on my shelves, unlike here, where he has got down and dug up the labyrinth around the book, he has answered what happened after that in a case like this is not often known the real writer didn’t quite disappear as much as Elimane does in the book . It made me want to read Yambo’s actual book. Sarr has captured the love of books readers had thrown in a road trip to the mix and just some wonderful characters along the way. I am reminded how many great Francophile and English books from Africa are forgotten or never widely known. He shows how hard it can be to break through as an African writer in the way they are discussed in part of the book in Paris. I think my love for this book should be clear I am on a golden run of books now. Have you read this or any great new voices from Senegal or elsewhere in francophile Africa?

Winston score +++++++A Gone a Little John Peel with my score as one of the best books I have read in many a year.

The Living and the rest by José Eduardo Agualusa

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The living and the rest by José Eduardo Agualusa

Angolan fiction

Original title –Os Vivos e os Outros

Translator – Daniel Hahn

Source – Review copy

I decided as the last Czech book for Czech Lit Month was a piece of magic realism, it would be fun to have another very different piece of Magic realism from Angolan writer José Eduardo Agualasa, a writer I have featured twice before on the blog and a writer I love to read he has such a rich imagination and this book sabout a group of writers that end up getting cut off on an island after a storm just appealed and as. The last book had an island in it. The two seemed good to review together. Agualasa has been on the Booker international list, so that was another reason I wanted to read this as he is a writer who could end up again on the list, and I am sure he must be near the top of some Nobel lists; it wouldn’t be a shock to me for him to win in the next decade.

-My character, Jude, is a brutally self-centred guy, narcis. sistic, machista, and misogynist.”
“You aren’t afraid readers will mix the two of you up?”
“You think I’m a jerk?”
Daniel laughs nervously.
“The narrator of this book has your name, he’s a writer.”
“I like exploring the possibility of being someone else, someone unlike me, while still being myself. I like confusing
readers, too.”
The conversation continues. Jude talks about the new wave of African writers, who are more concerned with being writers than with seeming African. He talks about cosmopolitanism, localism and identity. Finally Daniel asks the audience if they have any questions. One girl raises her hand.

I agree with new African writers changiong how we view lit from Africa

As I said, the book follows seven days after a cyclone hits an island on the eve of its first Literary festival and the group of writers that had arrived early are cut off, not knowing what has happened to the mainland and unable to contact the outside world this is the framing device but what follows isn’t so much as the survival story but how a group of writers let their imaginations go wild. Even though they all seem to be African writers that had got their early from Angola, Mozambique and Nigeria there is a feeling that you may know some of these writers they are well-known writers not quite painted enough you can say oh that is Okri or so on but yes you feel as thou they are writers you have read well I do and the in-jokes about how African lit is viewed in the rest of the world ( I often feel guilty of this I must try and separate out writing as every country has a style of its own etc etc you know I am planning in the last few months of this year to add a few more titles from Africa) anyway there is a sense of them knowing each other a sense of being in the circuit together at book fairs, festival etc. But as they days go on some of them see the lines between reality and dreams and the works blurring as they days go by Have they lived or are they in limbo what happens when a group of imaginative writers is cut off and have no sense of the outside world around them? well, you find out here

.Jude smiles, amused at her distress. He tells her he spent years wearing shoes with platform soles. He had them custom-made, at an old cobbler’s in Lagos, who managed very skilfully to disguise their height. Whenever conference organisers asked him if he preferred to speak standing up, at a lectern, or sitting down, he always went for the second option. He also preferred being photographed sitting down. It took him years to get over his complex.
“You’re really not as short as all that,” says Luzia. “I’m serious

This made me smile just as I thought of a famous actor very small that has shoes that make him taller.

This is the second book in recent years that has used a literary festival as a framing device for the story, but they go in different ways after that the other was Pola Olioixarac Mona. But this has more in common with a book like Lord of the flies except this is what happens when a bunch of writers with great imaginations are cut off and left to live without the everyday essential of internet phones contact with the outside world what happens when the mind drifts between the real and the uin=real between life and death what happened after the storm. This is a book that blurs those lines I was reminded of some of Antonio Lobo Antunes’s book The return of the Carvals that saw the orignal the great figures of Portugeese exploration reappear in Lisbon. But here we see the myths and legions of these writers growing over the day. An clever piece of magic realism that shows the power of the imaginagtion and how we can sometimes forget we are alive when there is. no one to tell you have survived something. Have you read this book ?

Winstons score – B soild book from a great writer I think it may have a chance of the booker longlist

Black Foam by Haji Jabir

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Black Foam by Haji Jabir

Eritrean fiction

Original title – “رغوة سوداء”

Translators  – Sawad Hussain and Marcia Lynx Qualey

Source – review copy

When I was offered the chance to review this I jumped at it as it is a new country for Winstonsdad but also I saw it was translated by Marcia Qualey anyone around the world of translated fiction will know as she runs Arablit website and magazine also has a great podcast she does around Arabic literature all of these is the goto place for ARABIC Literature. Anyway back to the book and to Haji Jabir he was born in a coastal town in Eritrea he has written five novels and is involved with other writers from his country to try and bridge the gap from his country to both the Arabic and African world. I reviewed a book earlier this month from WEST Africa about being a migrant from there well this takes us to East Africa. We follow a different route out of Africa.

He paused for a moment before admitting that he wanted to pay a bribe to be let in. He was afraid it wouldn’t sit right with her, but he decided to move decisively toward his goal, since she had been so frank with him. He was counting on her immense sense of gratitude and her willingness to help. And, as it happened, Saba brushed aside the points in his story where he’d feared she might stop. But then she paused on another matter. “Do you think money is the only thing that stands between you and the Falasha camp?”

His journey has many twists and turns

We follow one man’s journey from Eritrea to first a couple of Places in Ethiopia and then across the Red sea and on to Israel. But who is that man Dawood, David, or Dawit he is a man that changes who he is to try and get by in each new place to get near to the chance to get out and go to Israel. But this is a story of a man on the run that yes can fit in but over time every time gets caught he can be a Muslim, a Christian, and in the end a Jew as he wants to be with a group of Beta Israel the Falasha Jews from Ethiopia. He also observes things like how when he arrives in Addis the capital there isn’t a country ready for war in a way showing his isolation. He is the child of soldier that fought in the war and was in the army himself. we see his and the country’s isolation. He heads through to Gondar the area of Ethiopia where the Falasha Jews are from as he does like a lizard he shed a name and a way of life to make the final step to Israel but then he sees what happens when your skin is darker in that country. All this drifts in the book as thou he looks back at what has brought him to his final destination. As he drifts through the back alleys and darker side of Jerusalem.

The European looked surprised by David’s question. It took him a moment to realize he had emerged from the story, only to be dragged right back in. He almost answered and really, he would’ve liked to give an answer. But after a moment, he realized his dilemma. He had the choice to come closer, but after that, he wouldn’t have a chance to back out. Stories have one door through which we can enter, after which we spin in their world forever. No matter what we think, chere’s no escape from the stories in which we become entangled.

As he ends up as David he has so many stories but which is his real story.

I said I reviewed a book earlier this month about a man that failed to get out of his country but here we see. a man escaping his country but also who he is. What is in a name that is a question we see in this book does a change of name and who you pretend to believe in the change you as a person? But what is at each person’s heart can this one man get through it is about minorities whether that is Eritrean or Falasha the marginalized of this world trying for a better life this book looks at just one man’s journey but how many peoples lives is in this tale how many people try to follow David’s route in part as we see it told in flashback through the book his childhood the wanting to get out and the finally getting there and it not being what it seemed to him. Have you a favorite read from East Africa ?

Winstons score -+A We see David journey through the many skins and names he wore along the way!

 

So distant from my life by Monique Ilboudo

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So distant from my life by Monique Ilboudo

Burkinabe fiction

Original title – Si Loin de ma vie

Translator – Yarri Kamara

Source – subscription edition

I have subscribed for a couple of years now to Tilted axis as they seem to be bringing out some wonderfully challenging and exciting books for us to read in English. So when they brought out their first book from Africa I was keen to see what it would be and when this was the book from Burkina writer Monique Ilboudo a writer well known in Francophile African writing. She is a writer and human right activist, She was in the documentary Femmes Aux Yeux Ouvert (woman with open eyes)where she read a poem about how men in her country are in charge of sexual relations and the effect that has on women in her country. She is currently an ambassador in the Nordic and  Baltic states for her country.

Everything went well the first few months. A carpenter friend had made a nice signboard for me: Business letters – Beautiful love letters – Debt recovery letters – All your letters – Cheap prices. I didn’t like the last line, ‘Cheap prices’, which he had added as a favour to me, but I didn’t say anything. Anything free comes with a price. My lovely signboard brought in my first customers, who, satisfied, brought in more customers.

Within a few months, my bench was never empty and Doulaye, the shopkeeper, thanked me for the customers who passedf me and went and sat on his high stools to order a coffee or tea or even an omlette or fried eggs while waiting their turn

His letter wrting business does well to start off with.

What she does in this short novella is capture so many young men’s lives from Africa it is a sort of universal warning and insight into the struggles and desires of young men told through one man’s world. Jeanphi is a young man who is a go-getter in a way as he sees his life outside his home this is the fictional African city of Ouabany is like many of the large cities of west Africa brimming with life and those wanting a better world away from it. He tries to make his way with the modern take on a letter-writer trade. Doing his letter writing in a cyber cafe through the net helps people connect but all the time there is a draw to that route many a man takes to North Africa to try and make the way to Europe and he tries and fails a couple of times but when he does he meets an older gay french man and connects with him and lives with him in his home back in Ouabany as he becomes his assistant will he ever get to Europe what is this relationship with this gay french man all about?

Comfort is a drug that enslaves quickly. It was just a year ago that I moved into the enchanting pink villa. Yet I had the impression that I had always slept in an air-conditioned room, in a big soft bed. Having a bank account that was never in the red seemed the most natural of things. Eating, not just to satisfy my hunger but also my whims of the day, going to the cinema, to restaurants, as I wished, living without worrying about tomorrow all quickly became habit. Above all, I had become accustomed to the respect and deference that people showed me. All that was about to collapse.

He lives the Lux life in the older man’s villa later in the book

I said this is a universal tale and I think that is why she picked a fictional city as it removed place from his story it could be Dakar, Lagos, or Ouagadougou  Jeanphi being drawn to Europe and the journey to North afirca and then the wait and see if you get the chance to get to Europe the most dangerous part of the journey. not this is one man’s journey but is actually everyman’s story of those that never even get to north Africa this is a tale of a man that does fail and tries again like many but it is also a look at the pitfalls of that journey and challenges. She also shows hope is alive in west Africa but life is hard he tries to get on but then his relationship with the older french man is maybe another darker side of the way people can get into Europe usually a female but yes men can also get caught up he isn’t gay but the man is and maybe this is a way to escape. This book uses short choppy vignette-like chapters that make it feel like a much larger fuller book than it is which is just over 100 pages. At times I felt lost but maybe that is the world of our characters! Have you read this or any other books from West Africa that talk about migrants’ journeys?

Winstons score – +A – A universal take on the migrant journey from west Africa and the pitfalls of this journey.

Co-wives, Co-widows by Adrienne Yabouza

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Co-wives, Co-widows by Adrienne Yabouza

Central African Republic fiction

Original tilte – Co-épouses et co-veuves

Translator – Rachel McGill

Source – Personal copy

I saw this a few weeks ago it had passed me by when it came out last year I have read other books from the Dedalus African series. But when I saw it was the first book from the Central African Republic to be translated I knew I had to get it I am not in a rush to read every country in the world although it is something over time I want to complete I have a number of countries to go so this the second novel from Adrienne Yabouza a self-taught writer who has Feld her country because of the civil war. She worked as a hairdresser and has written since a young age she has also written books for kids this is her first book to be translated into English she has said Mariam Ba is an influence I reviewed a book by Ba 11 years ago and can see the connection as it was about   a woman whose husband has a second wife this book takes the two wives stories in a way it could be what happened next to that story.

For some reason, or no reason at all, Lidou felt a sudden pain in his chest. It was a burning kind of pain. It began to get worse. It travelled to his left arm. He dropped his radio on the floor. He tried to take deep breaths of the courtyard air, to flush away the pain, but the pain kept getting worse. He was panting now, his face contorted. He tried to call out, but his voice was weak and was drowned out by Flavour singing his hit song ‘Ashewo’, one time too many, on the radio. The four children Lidou had made with Grekpoubou were elsewhere, the son he’d given Ndongo Passy was probably still in bed. Yaché had gone out, to get her hair braided, perhaps.

The scene where he passes away little do they know what will follow this event.

The book focus on the aftermath of the death of Lidou the husband of both Ndongo Passsy and Grekpoubou the book shows how he spends time with each of the wives it is early on he grabs his chest and dies this throws the wives under the bus so to speak it turns out that his Estate is passed on to them this draws the two close as they start to fight for there world which because of the Patrica nature of the system they find them caught up to and the way those closes to Lidou have come and tried to take over his world apart from the wives so what we see is two women especially Ndongo who seems so empowered by this and takes Grekpoudou and draws the two into a sisterhood for there world. As they battle the corruption and legal world that sees them as surplus now he has died.

In PK 10, Poto-Poto neighbourhood, they were about to strike the linga drum to announce Lidou’s death.A wake was a grand occasion: people were already gathering, eager for the opportunity to let their tears flow in company. The tom-tom player began to beat out his rhythms. It was as if a termite
mound was emptying, as a whole silent population assembled in the compound.

They say that a truce should hold until the dead person is in the ground. Zouaboua didn’t care for that convention; he was already weighing up his options. He’d grown up with Lidou; they’d been like friends and brothers. If an inheritance could fill Zouaboua’s pockets, at least something good would’ve come from Lido’s death. Zouaboua had already made good progress in that direction: he wasn’t going to let a couple of gossiping wives stand in his way.

The vultures start before he is in the ground.

It is far to say I loved this it isn’t what I thought it would be which is maybe a criticism of polygamous marriages it isn’t actually at the heart of this is their world the two wives and how they are thrown together but there a connection to Lidou through marriage makes them more like sisters at times in the book. I said it was like Ba book which examined a husband who wants to take a second wife. This could be viewed as a tail end of that story in a way. What happens after that we get a glimpse into how he’d spend a night her and a night there but it also shows the corruption and how Patrica the world they live in still is. Whereas the family dynamics is deeply centred around the females. The two women are a sisterhood around Lidou. It also shows how death can leave a void and what happens when people try to grab what is left from those who should have it. An insight into death, being female, having a fellow wife and how you have to fight to get by when the male head of the house has died. how they became co-widows to keep their world alive. A great feel to the book I think Rachel has kept alive what is a book that mixes so many emotions sadness sorrow grief anger and humour all in one this has it all. Have you a favourite book from region of Africa?

Winstons score- A – has a little bit of everything `I look for in a book a village, family dynamics and also the political world it is set in.

 

Standing Heavy by GauZ

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Standing Heavy by Gauz

Ivorian Literature

Original title – Debout-Payé

Translator – frank Wynne

Source – Copy

Well it seems apt to review a book that frank has translated the day after we all watched him announce the Booker international winner last night this is the first book for a few month I have read that Frank has worked on this jumped out with its eye catching(lol) cover art. It is the debut novel by the Ivory Coast writer Gauzthe pen name of writer Patrick Armand-Gbaka Brede. As a young man he loved the books of Amadou Kourouma and Louis Ferdinand Celine and has also said the Maryse Conde and Romain Gary have influenced his writing. This was his debut novel and came after he had spent a number of years living in France and it follows a number of fellow Ivorians over three generations. as they try to get by in France.

THE BLIND WOMAN
Accompanied by her husband, her daughter and her dog, a blind woman is doing the sales. The man chatters to her constantly; his accent is from somewhere in the South of
France, and he speaks in precise, carefully constructed sentences. She spends time stroking the fabrics in order to make her choice. From time to time, he gently places his hand
on hers to steer her in the right direction. Another couple compelled to touch. Another display of tenderness. Another relationship based on co-dependency. The woman’s disability enhances the communication of those around her.

One of the character pen pictures we get throughout the book.Here about a Blind woman in the shop.

As I said the bookfollows three generations of a men as they arrive in Paris from the Ivory Coast and how over time they have often end as Security guards as they try to get by with out the right papers. The first in the 60s is Ferdinand(A nod to Celine I wonder) His story remind me of the wind rush literature I have read recently for he like many in those oaks arrived full of hope only to have it dashed. Then in the 90s We follow two Ivorians as they see a Paris in Flux then we have some that maybe is some like Gauz himself that’s traveled in the millennium years and ends up as the all seeing eyes of the security guard. Now that is a quick breeze through those three for me the part of the book is the little vignettes that we get a sort off Guards speak and Knowledge names customers etc what we get is a satirical view of their mundane lives but how they see all there but as so often not see by most shoppers barring the Arab princess.He capture the comradely but also the struggles of the immigrants.

 Security Guards in the Movies

In the tens of thousands of movies and B-Movies that have been made since the Lumber brothers first made The arrival of a train at La ciotart, no security guard has ever been shown as a hero. On the contrary, security guards are usually the characters who quickly and casually killed off as part of the hero’s plan to get final confirmation with the bad guy in the last scene

The Last scene of Brain De Palm’s scarface, when Tony Montana’s house is attacked is a perfect example of the senseless slaughter of security guards in cinema

They are sometime like the Guys in the red uniform in the first series of Star Trek a one episode Job!!

I enjoyed this is as I regularly work with some agency staff at work everyday who work along side us and there to help with the risks we have with a patient and a number of them are from Nigeria and Ghana and when they chat about there work and lives it struck a chord with Gauz  characters and their stories and shows how certain jobs end mainly being done by African immigrants as they are just suited and have the skills for them. So I love it when you connect to works of fiction on a personal level and this especially when it is in books of translation so when these guys chatted it felt like some of the chats we have at work.I loved his eye for detail those little vignettes and pen pictures about what they see and how they work but also however time you can read people so well. It is an insight into those guards. I mean how often do we see them  apart from as it is point out those Babies always seem to smile or they try to make them smile. Now this is Gauz Debut novel and as Tony mentioned in his review he has written another book that sort of flips the story here as it follows a white man in the Ivory Coast in the 19th century. Which I we may hopefully see.If you are after a satirical look at life as a Guard in Paris. Do you know any other novels that highlights those people that we pass unseen in jobs that are there but we don’t see the cleaner, waiters, etc. A great new voice and one I hope we see more from him and Frank has brought this vibrant book to life.

Winstons score – +A an insight to that man in the corner of the shops in Paris.

Burning grass by Cyprian Ekwensi

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Burning Grass by Cyprian Ekwensi

Nigerian fiction

Source – Personal copy

One of the things I want to try and do this year is clear my own pile of books and also read more from places I have covered less the last few years and one of these is my small collection of African writer series books I have brought a few as I have seen them so I decide it was time to work down them and I chose this which happened to be the second book on the writer list. Cyprian Ekwensi had a number of books on the African writer series list. He was born in Northern Nigeria where this book was set( the book came out of a journey where he spent times with the Fulani cattlemen. He worked for the Nigerian broadcast company and then became the director of Information for the department of Information he did this before the civil war in Nigeria. He wrote a number of novels and  short stories and he passed away in 2007. This is the first title I have read by him. He is well regarded as one of the first voice of post colonial African Literature he also

When the girl came running toward them they saw the terror in her eyes. close on her heels came a dark-visaged man , frowning and cursing, brandishing a koboko. He stopped when he was the girl throw herself against the old man’s feet and cry out to be saved.

“She is my slave!!”  he roared. “I want her back!she’s running away!”he raised the whip.

“Your slave?” said the old man, leaping to his feet. His son’s glance met the girl’s , caught the mute appeal

I love this as which son was it maybe both !!

The book follows a family from the Fulani tribe a group of wandering cattlemen . The book opens with a runaway slave girl that comes across the family and the head Mai Sunday. He knows the girls master he is a cruel master and he arranges to rescue the girl from her situation but this then cause a knock on effect as his sons all connect with this woman Fatimeh his youngest falls for her. but she and his other son then run away this leaves the youngest Rikku heartbroken the book follows Mai as he tries to help his son get over this loss but also as they live there wandering life as the move with the way they need to feed the cattle and also add to this a dove appears and there is a large number of people falling ill to sleeping sickness. we see a family drift apart but as the book draws to the end the start to draw back together.

Mai Sunday’s first sight of the village on the great river did not excite him.He had been travelling through bush which thickened day after day, sleeping in trees, eating forest fruit, preaching at little villages on the way, and now the thought of seeing Jalla doubled his pleasure.

He followed the earth motor road. At intervals along the road he noticed little clearings lined with stones. Here a traveller might stop and wash his hands and feet in the water provided and say his prayers. When he arrived at the next one he washed his face, hands and feet in the water and said a short prayer before continuing his journey. The road wound ion for another half a mile, and turning beyond a mahogany tree he saw the grass huts. There were about one hundred of the,, all huddled together, and he thought: “if ever a fire should break out here, only Allah from above can save anyone”

Mai as he head to the river and also the fact the tribe is Muslim as the enter the motor road the mix of the future and past.

Now this is one of the earliest in the African writer series and maybe is a world that isn’t there now the tribe is still there infect the Fulani is widespread tribe over north Nigeria and the surround countries. they still like in the book have a very traditional world customs and costume so in fact it is similar to the book what he does so well is capture the coming and goings of the family as they wander the bush feeding the cattle as there family had done for generations with Mai we have a classical Patrica figure  the head of a family but as we see in the opening when he rescues Fatimeh  the slave girl also how he tries to help his youngest son. this was read in a lot of schools when it came out it was aimed by Heinmann the publisher as the cut the length of the book in half from the original manuscript it works as it isn’t a flabby work it is very direct and so well paced as we follow the life of this family as they head from place to place. Have you read any of his book or any others from the African writer series ( which I believe is due to be revived soon which is a great Idea as for me it introduce me over the years to so many great voices and also brought books from countries under represented in English )

Winstons score – B a solid tale of a family wandering North Nigeria as we see the family dynamics and the world they live in.

Nobel winner 2021 Abdulrazak Gurnah

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It is that time of year again when the Nobel literature prize is announced it just has and this year’s winner is Abdulrazak Gurnah a writer that is not known to me so he is  a leftfield choice I have just ordered two of his books I see that Lisa has read him at Anzlitlovers  .  He has been on the booker list twice in 1994 and 2001. If you have read him what would you recommend ?

The Perfect nine by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

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The Perfect Nine by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

Kenyan fiction

Original title – Kenda Muiyuru

Translator – The writer himself

Source – personal copy

Now I reach the writer that on the man booker list that was the biggest name on the list Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’ is one of the best known and most respected African writers of his generation. He is often mentioned as a future Nobel winner in the last few years he has been high in the betting each year.  He was one of the first writers to break through and also one of the first writers to question the colonial times and what happened. I reviewed his 1967 novel a grain of wheat a number of years ago that was his best-known book he wrote in English initially before in later years he has written in his native language Gikuyu which he wrote in originally and then translated into English. Which I feel was a great idea as he has kept what must be the rhythm the book had in its original language as this is a novel in verse that has a nod towards greek classics.

Peace! May all glory be to thee, Giver Supreme, peace! May all glory be to the, giver supreme.

In some parts of africa, they call it Mulungu, but it is the same Giver.

The Zulu call himUnkulunkulu, nut he is the same giver.

Others call it Nyassi, Jok, Oldumare, Chukwu, or Ngai, but each id the same giver.

The Hebrews call upon Yahweh or Jehovah, and he is the same giver.

Mohammedans call him Allah, and he is the same Giver

The second chapter connects the story of the giver to both Islam and christian traditions

The story is the story of his own tribe a writing down of the oral history of the story of the Perfect nine the nine daughters of Gikuyu and Mumbi have had nine perfect and beautiful daughters and well there is a tenth daughter. So the news of these daughters has spread so when 99 suitors appear for them.  they are sent on quests ad challenges of strength and skill along the road to find the best set by the parents to the mountain and lands to discover, The last challenge for those that are left is to find the cure to help Wariga the tenth daughter who has been injured and needs a cure that is held by an Orge king so the suitor’s team up each with daughter and then set out this is the origins of the tribe as each daughter settles with them suitor these are all told in little verse in the book that tells of them settling such as Wantjiru, the matriarch of the3 Anjiru clan Wanmbui, Wanjiku and so on these are all the matriarchs of the clans that make up the tribe.

Wanjira, Matriarch of the Anjiru Clan

Of the Perfect nine, she is the oldest.

It is saqid she once put a curse on a hyena

But she had simply put a curse on greed.

Her face exudes empathy and goodness, and

She does not falter when fighting for peace;

She swears by her clan as she calls for conflicts to cease.

When visitors decend upon her from anywhere,

She says, “Don’t ask hunger questions. First give it food”

Her beauty makes men fight to walk beside her.

One of the clan stories of the nine and how they staert the clans.

 

This is a poetic book that has a nod toward the greek epic verses. That is also told in verse poems like Aeneid.  But there is  also the oral tradition of the storyteller around the fire. This is the history of a tribe that had been passed down from generation to generation. It is an origin story that has echoes of other origin stories from around the world. Gikuyu and Mumbi cold be adam and eve and their descendants. But also a nod to tribal histories I remember Michael Palin visit a tribe and being shown a similar history to this. It follows also follows a classic quest story a sort of quest to find something like The lord of the ring’s journey that sees the daughter’s show strength but also sees the suitors fall to one side a survival of the fittest. Myth and reality blur as the epic tells of the start of the tribe. It is very different from his earlier work but also an interesting work that embodies a tribal and vocal history that in these fast-changing times is disappearing like Hunter school which I read earlier this year tribal history is fast disappearing in this modern age where we all want to be connected and the world is shrinking but individual tribes are disappearing and histories are. So that is the tenth book I have reviewed from this year’s longlist three left!

Winstons score – B+