African writers series

A companion vol. to the author's The rebels and The morning after.

A travelogue in which the author criticizes American society and its values, after Clark spent eight months in the United States.

Gaele Sobott-Mogwe's stories tell of everyday life in Southern Africa. She captures the casual or determined oppression of men and women, the delightful tenderness of human affection, the powerful rhythm of African myth. The politics of personal relationships are explored against a background of social injustice and material hardship. Yet we never lose sight of the individual human experience, the moment of insight, the sensation of pain or pleasure.

This Ethiopian novel about the search for an arsonist gives a glimpse of village life among the Gurage people in the 1960s. To find the culprit the village finds out using the ancient institution of the Afersata, the traditional Ethiopian way of investigating crimes.

Using the conflict between the city and tribal villages, the ravages of the great African drought, and Third World politics as a compelling backdrop, Achebe weaves a potent drama of modern Africa.

A serial killer leads authorities in Nevada to the graves of his women victims which he has secretly booby trapped. A grave explodes, killing several people and he escapes in the confusion, but reporter Irene Kelly survives and goes after him

Mine Boy is a novel that talks about the problems the African miners experienced during the apartheid in South Africa. It shows the struggle of Africans to attain equal rights and to be treated as human beings with dignity.

Autobiographies of individual villagers arranged in thematic chapters.

Read worldwide for her wisdom, authenticity, and skillful prose, South African born Bessie Head (1937-1986) offers a moving and magical tale of an orphaned girl, Margaret Cadmore, who goes to teach in a remote village in Botswana where her own people are kept as slaves. Her presence polarizes a community that does not see her people as human, and condemns her to the lonely life of an outcast. In the love story and intrigue that follows Head brilliantly combines a portrait of loneliness with a rich affirmation of the mystery and spirituality of life. The core of this otherworldly, rhapsodic work is a plot about racial injustice and prejudice with a lesson in how traditional intolerance may render whole sections of a society untouchable.

Exiled in a delapidated hotel in South-West France. Sharif, the narrator, looks back on his life. Memories of a bohemian existence in England and France, a time of love affairs and dissipation, are set against the changing political situation of his North African homeland. The experience of his own nation, with its promise of freedom, is echoed in Sharif's life. With sardonic humour Sharif describes the wealth of characters who have passed through his life. Yet how can he make sense of this life as everything he believes in begins to crumble?

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, written in 1789, details its writer's life in slavery, his time spent serving on galleys, the eventual attainment of his own freedom and later success in business. Including a look at how slavery stood in West Africa, the book received favorable reviews and was one of the first slave narratives to be read widely.

The "Suns of Independence" considered a masterpiece of modern African literature, enables the reader to gain unique insight into African culture and conflicts. Through Fama and Salimata, the husband and wife at the heart of the story, Kourouma conveys the confusion that torments many Africans when a traditional and a later, more materialistic culture collide. The last of the Dumbuya princes who had reigned over the Malinke tribe before the European conquest, Fama seeks a place for himself within the new hierarchy of bureaucrats and border guards. Salimata, haunted by memories of a ritualistic excision and a brutal rape, searches for the means to have a child who will pass on the Dumbuya legacy to future generations. Interwoven with tales and proverbs from the ancient Malinke traditions, this modern novel brilliantly captures the struggles, desires, and dreams of a people in a West African country living through the tumultuous days of Independence. -- Publisher description.

"The great Kenyan writer and Nobel Prize nominee Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo's powerful fictional critique of capitalism. One of the cornerstones of Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo's fame, Devil on the Cross was written in secret, on toilet paper, while Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo was in prison. It tells the tragic story of Wariinga, a young woman who moves from a rural Kenyan town to the capital, Nairobi, only to be exploited by her boss and later by a corrupt businessman. As she struggles to survive, Wariinga begins to realize that her problems are only symptoms of a larger societal malaise and that much of the misfortune stems from the Western, capitalist influences on her country. An impassioned cry for a Kenya free of dictatorship and for African writers to work in their own local dialects, Devil on the Cross has had a profound influence on Africa and on post-colonial African literature"--

"The puzzling murder of three African directors of a foreign-owned brewery sets the scene for this novel about disillusionment in independent Kenya. It is--on the surface--a suspenseful investigation of a triple murder. But as the intertwined stories of the four suspects unfold, a devastating picture emerges of a modern third-world nation whose frustrated people feel their leaders have failed them time after time"--P. of cover.

"Who is Matigari? Is he young or old; a man or fate; dead or living...or even a resurrection of Jesus Christ? These are the questions asked by the people of this unnamed country, when a man who has survived the war for independence emerges from the mountains and starts making strange claims and demands. Matigari is in search of his family to rebuild his home and start a new and peaceful future. But his search becomes a quest for truth and justice as he finds the people still dispossessed and the land he loves ruled by corruption, fear, and misery. Rumors spring up that a man with superhuman qualities has risen to renew the freedom struggle. The novel races toward its climax as Matigari realizes that words alone cannot defeat the enemy. He vows to use the force of arms to achieve his true liberation. Matigari is a satire on the betrayal of human ideals and on the bitter experience of post-independence African society."--BOOK JACKET.

A collection of 20 stories written between 1980-1991 which deal with themes relevant to various regions of Africa.

Steve Biko was one of the foremost figures in South Africa's struggle for liberation from the Apartheid regime. Murdered by the police when he was only 30, he had already established himself as a leader through his work as a political activist and his writings on Black Consciousness. I Write What I Like was first published in 1978 shortly after his brutal murder in detention. This collection of writings displays all the qualities which have made Biko one of the most influential thinkers in contemporary South African politics - a profound humanity, passionate conviction, humour and courage.

'A man's story is always badly told. That's because a person never stops being born. Nobody leads one sole life, we are all multiplied into different and ever-changeable men.' So it is with all the stories in this collection, which never make a definitive judgement on the individual life, but only suggest its possibilities. Set in Mozambique, the stories reflect the legacy of Portuguese colonialism and the tragedy of the subsequent civil war. Mia Couto's first collection, Voices Made Night, was described as 'lyrical', 'magical' and 'compassionate' by the reviewers, who were unanimous in identifying a significant new talent from the continent. This volume confirms that judgement.

Mor-Zamba était un enfant sans racines lorsqu'il arriva à Ekoumdoum. Et la peine qu'il eut à se faire adopter par le village témoigna que l'époque basculait dans un monde nouveau, aux règles brouillées par la colonisation. Raflé par les Blancs avec des milliers d'autres, il découvre Fort-Nègre, l'immense ville coloniale, et son pendant noir, Kola-Kola, fabuleux bidonville où il participera à la lutte contre l'occupant blanc. Dans ce roman majeur de la littérature africaine, Mongo Beti, romancier féroce, conte avec ferveur les bouleversements de l'Afrique à la veille des Indépendances.

"When a baby girl is abandoned at birth, Reverend Arlington and his wife Ginny are only too happy to adopt her. The media cover this moving story, and a Nigerian woman living in England takes more than a passing interest in the Arlingtons. She decides that they would provide the right Christian home for her own baby, Chester. Shortly afterwards, Chester is delivered to social services with a letter explaining that the Arlingtons should be his new parents. So young Chester enters the vicarage of the sleepy seaside village of St. Simon. He is the only black child for miles around." "The New Tribe tells the story of Chester's long search for his true identity, and the challenges he faces as a black child in a white family."--Jacket.

A novel of a Western educated Nigerian struggling to bridge the chasm between his education and his tribal upbringing and culture. On his return to Nigeria he gains a position with the Scholarship Board and is immediately offered bribes by people trying to get a scholarship. Scandalised, he initially refuses but after getting into financial difficulties and losing his faith in his countrymen’s ability to modernise after his family forbids him to marry the woman he loves due to a tribal taboo, he eventually succumbs to the temptation and is caught in a government ‘sting’.

This powerful biography provides an in-depth look at Nelson Mandela who grew up in a rural village in South Africa under racist apartheid rule--a regime he ultimately helped overthrow. Denenberg explores the history of South Africa and its often violent struggle for civil rights, while tracing Mandela's role in that history. Lawyer, leader of the African National Congress, political prisoner who spent 26 years in jail, president--no one else has had such enormous influence on his fellow South Africans. Even beyond South Africa Nelson Mandela has influenced freedom fighters everywhere.

115 p. ; 20 cm

Only now, with freedom, can Jack Mapanje speak of his harrowing ordeal in Mikuyu Prison, where 'desperate voices of fractured souls' clamour to be heard. In poems of uncommon power and unflinching description Mapanje condemns a brutal regime. Yet in these poems Mapanje also affirms the enduring love of family and friends and the spirit of his fellow detainees. Today, living in England, he celebrates the hope kept alive by those who fight for human rights.

"A thousand seasons wasted wandering amazed along alien roads, another thousand spent finding paths to the living way."

Succession ouverte (1962, Heirs to the Past) is a story of Ferdi Driss, who returns to Morocco for his father's funeral. Driss has spent sixteen years in France, but now re-establishes his relations with his mother and brothers. Gradually Driss realizes how old family values have given way to the ideas of the West. "Remember, Driss? Would any of us have dared to start dinner before he got back, whether it was after midnight or dawn? You remember, don't you?". The author Driss Chraïbi (1926-2007) is a French-Moroccan novelist, considered to be the father of the modern Moroccan novel. Chraïbi's work drew heavily on his own life. Central theme in his novels was the clash between different cultures, the East and the West, Arab and French. Chraïbi's range of style changes from epic to comedy. He was one of the pioneers of Maghrebian writers to explore the oppression of women and children in an Islamic, patriarchal society.