50books_poc | Entries tagged with africa

When I was lamenting the dearth of picturebooks set in Africa not written by white folks, my friend Maura C recommended Tololwa Mollel (a Black man from Tanzania) and Ifeoma Onyefulu (a Black woman from Nigeria).

I started with Mollel, ILLing all (16) books by him that my library system has #completionist

Most of his books are retellings of traditional folktales, though some are based on his experience growing up on his grandparents' coffee farm in northern Tanzania in the 1960s.

My favorites were probably:

Kitoto the Mighty (illustrated by Kristi Frost) -- a mouse seeks the most powerful being to protect him from the hawk
Subira, Subira (illustrated by Linda Saport) -- a girl struggles to get her younger brother to behave
Big Boy (illustrated by E.B. Lewis) -- a Tanzanian boy wishes he were bigger ... but what if his wish were granted?
Song Bird (illustrated by Rosanne Litzinger) -- girl saves the day! (okay, magical song bird saves the day, but the girl keeps the grownups from messing it up)
To Dinner, For Dinner (illustrated by Synthia Saint James) -- mostly I just love the mole wearing glasses

veleda-k.livejournal.com

#19: Summer of the Big Bachi by Naomi Hirahara

( Summer of the Big Bachi )

#20: Oil on Water by Helon Habila

( Oil on Water )

spiralsheep.livejournal.com

4. I read Chinua Achebe's Collected Poems. I felt as if I'm not the intended audience for the majority of these poems. I'm not "African"/Nigerian/Igbo. Only a handful of the poems, mostly early "Biafra" poems, seemed aimed at me and my level of understanding. Instead I felt the great privilege of being invited into someone else's conversation as a listening party. So I read and allowed the poems to sink into my mind without flailing about for full understanding, which I find is often a productive way to interact with poetry.

Achebe's 1960s idea of "Africa" and "African" seemed, to me, to be very much a product of its time. Achebe's work also, I thought, began by speaking from Africa/Biafra/Igboland and moved into speaking about Nigeria/Igboland. But in such a brief collection, with free-standing poems communicating on their own internal merits, it's probably foolish of me to try reading conclusions into the work, and also highlights my position as an outsider who is detached from the central conversation Achebe is involved in.

Excerpt from Knowing Robs Us

[...] had reason not given us
assurance that day will daily break
and the sun's array return to disarm
night's fantastic figurations -
each daybreak
would be garlanded at the city gate
and escorted with royal drums
to a stupendous festival
of an amazed world.

There are a sample Chinua Achebe poem, and related art by Chaz Maviyane-Davies, at my dw journal.

Tags: africa, african, igbo, nigerian, poetry

pauraque

Born in Liberia and descended from the nation's founders, Helene Cooper lived there for 14 years as a member of the wealthy elite. She knew her homeland -- its unique history as a colony populated by former U.S. slaves, its sights, its tastes, its scents, its joys and its dangers. When Liberia's bloody coup d'etat finally came, Cooper had to leave a home she knew well.

But as she would come to realize, she did not know it nearly so well as she thought she did.

( Read more... )

tags: a: cooper helene, genre: memoir, author: black (Liberian), setting: Liberia & United States

rachelmanija.livejournal.com

A completely adorable children's science-fantasy set on an Africa-derived planet in which Earth is a legend and most of the technology is biological. I am a complete sucker for biotech, not to mention science-fantasy, and the extravagant invention and playfulness of the world gives the novel enormous charm.

All the best books about plants are written by northeasterners, be they about pruning your office building or growing and maintaining the perfect personal computer from CPU seed to adult PC.

Zahrah Tsami is born with dadalocks - dreadlocks with vines growing in them. This marks her as potential trouble in her conformist culture, so she grows up quiet and shy, keeping her head down and trying to ignore the teasing from other kids. She gains the ability to levitate with menarche, but since she's afraid of heights she's reluctant to explore it.

But her best friend, the young radical Dari, persuades her to venture with him into the Forbidden Greeny Jungle, where he can explore and she can, maybe, learn to fly. He promptly gets bitten by a deadly snake, and the only antidote is the egg of the scariest creature in the very scary scary jungle... into which Zahrah ventures, armed only with a grumpy compass, a malfunctioning digi-book, and a talent she's afraid to use.

Though the prose is overly simplistic and sometimes clunky, the setting is so great, and the tone is so sweet and playful, that I read this with a huge smile on my face. It's also one of the few American children's fantasy novels with an African (ish) heroine, written by an African-American author, AND with a black girl on the cover, so it could probably use some support.

Zahrah the Windseeker

veleda-k.livejournal.com

What we have today is a selection of not very good reviews. Why? Because I'm moving into an apartment that's half the size of my current place. That means that some stuff has got to go. So I'd thought I'd do these reviews before I got rid of the books.

( Shadow Family by Miyuki Miyabe )

( Waiting for Rain by Sirshendu Mukhopadhyay )

( All I Asking for is My Body by Milton Murayama )

( Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan )

hive-mind-d86.livejournal.com

Kush: The Jewel of Nubia by Miriam Ma'at-Ka-Re Monges

Hello there, I'm going to attempt to read and review 50 books that are probably mostly going to be focused on Africa because I ~~am minorly obsessed~~ find the cultures, philosophical systems and religions interesting. I'm probably not going to finish 50 in a year because with any luck I'll have a PhD place soon and then ~~the sponges will eat my brain~~ I'll have very little free time.

This is a very interesting and readable nonfiction book about Ancient Egypt and Nubia the Kingdom south of Egypt. It argues (very well) that Nubian culture influenced Egyptian/Kemetic culture and gives some wonderful details about society and worship in both. It shows very definately that Egypt was an African culture and shouldn't be held apart. It shows striking similarities in Egyptian and Nubian culture. It argues very successfully for an Afrocentric approach.

I have two problems with it. The first is that I don't think it was edited very well. For example you open the book and are presented with an 'upside-down' map of Egypt and Nubia, the caption tells you the orientation is changed so that you see the map from an Afrocentric perspective. It takes several pages for this to be explained; essentially the Nile runs south to north so if you live on the Nile south is up (which absolutely explains the positions of Lower and Upper Egypt and that always confused me). A few tweaks would have made it more accessable.

I picked this up because I wanted to know more about Nubia. The first half of the book is almost entirely about Egypt and the second half constantly compares the two cultures. I came away feeling vaguely dissapointed, not because I didn't learn anything but because the title fooled me into thinking this book would be all about Nubia.

So in conclusion a very good book about Egypt and the relationship between Nubia and Egypt. The chapters on Divine Kingship and Matriarchal Systems are particularly informative, the discussion on the roles of royal women and the Kandakes/Candaces were fantastic. The evidence linking Egypt and Nubia is pretty solid and (I think) it blows the idea of Egypt somehow being a Middle Eastern or Mediterranean civilisation out of the water and through the stratosphere in a gazzillion smoking pieces. But when you pick it up expecting to dive in to Kush, to Kerma surfacing in Cairo seems a bit of a shame.

anitabuchan.livejournal.com

I initially wasn't going to count uni reading for this, but since I haven't had time to read fiction for what feels like months, I'm giving that up :). Also, I thought these articles might be of interest to a few here.

21. Retrieving Women's History: Changing Perceptions of the Role of Women in Politics and Society, ed. S. Jay Kleinberg.

There are several articles by women of colour in this anthology, but the two I read were:

The Presentation of African Women in Historical Writing by Ayesha Mei-Tje Imam

Imam reviews historical writing on African women, discussing areas which have been studied, areas which haven't, and approaches taken towards African women in historical writing. I found the last bit most interesting. She outlines the four ways African women have generally been presented by historians: as oppressed and subordinate to men; as equal but different to men; as oppressed victims of colonial policy; and, most recently, as actors in social processes who have experienced a general decline in status due to colonialism.

She also outlines problems with the above four approaches, before linking the decline in status women suffered as a result of colonialism to both Christianity and capitalism. Christianity (and 'education') led to girls being raised as future wives and mothers, rather than future citizens. Capitalism, and changes in local economies, led to women losing economic power.

Breaking the silence and broadening the frontiers of history: recent studies on African women by Zenebeworke Tadesse

Tadesse gives a brief historiography of African women, before, as the title suggests, reviewing recent historical studies of African women. She explores the heroine/victim dichotomy she says has dominated the study of African women, arguing that they are either presented as eternal victims and passive objects, or as heroines of women's uprisings and as powerful matriarchs (as an example, she brings up the Igbo women's war). She then summarises various studies on subjects such as women and slavery (both women as slaves and as slave-owners), women in the colonial period, women and resistance, and urban women.

Overall, both articles are very interesting and informative for anyone looking for a quick guide to historical writing on African women.

Tags: a:imam ayesha mei-tje a:tadesse zenebeworke w-ed:kleinberg s jay

sanguinity

(Two novels and a short story. The numbering is wacky because I'm keeping two different lists, one for books and one for shorts.)

7. Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, Zarah the Windseeker.

I've said it before, and if the odds continue, I'll be saying it again: this comm has saved YA fantasy for me. Especially quest fantasy, which is a subgenre I had pretty much sworn completely off from boredom and irritation.

Rather than writing my own review, I'll point you to

rootedinsong's review: the world is too lush, and too daydreamy, for me to want to wrestle with writing up a description.

And even though I know that I totally shouldn't want to go backpacking in The Forbidden Greeny Jungle -- Zarah's adventures made all of mine feel very soft -- I totally totally want to. Totally. Even if I have to put up with her faulty guidebook (and really, didn't that perfectly capture the faulty-guidebook experience? Not useless enough to toss, but oh, how much time is spent trying to sift the useful information from the was-he-even-here? misinformation) I totally want to go.

But I'm going to need to learn to climb trees first.

However, speaking of guidebooks, tree-climbing, and The Forbidden Greeny Jungle...

16. Nnedi Okorafor, "From the Lost Diary of TreeFrog7".

Precisely what the title says: the lost diary of TreeFrog7, one of the authors of The Forbidden Greeny Jungle Field Guide. TreeFrog7 and Morituri36, in the Forbidden Greeny Jungle. Exploring. And alternately squabbling and rhapsodizing about each other, like what you do when you've been alone together in the backwoods too long.

I'm thinking this one will mostly appeal to fans of the Forbidden Greeny Jungle, and should probably be read after Windseeker -- it doesn't really strike me as a stand-alone. But Forbidden Greeny Jungle fans will probably want to click that. (

rootedinsong? It's about the CPU plants!)

(BTW, Okorafor's website suggests that there are more Ginen shorts out there than just this one. Does anyone know how many or where any of them are published?)

8. Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, The Shadow Speaker.

Set in the same multiverse as Windseeker, but in Earth's Niger, a hundred-odd years into our future, when Zarah's world and Earth have inexplicably begun to merge. As

rootedinsong points out, this is a darker book than the Windseeker, what with technology and ecology upsets, people being displaced (both within worlds and between worlds), and according social backlashes.

Like all novice shadowspeakers, Ejii is pushed by the shadows to travel -- in this case, to pursue the local ruler/warlord and avert an impending war. But traveling is also part of a shadowspeaker's development: grow or die, but don't overreach your abilities-of-the-moment by too much, or that will kill you, too. (There is a parallel I am groping for between the shadowspeakers' journeys and the various metamorphoses in Butler's novels, but I am having trouble wrapping my arms around it. Other than the sense that growing is a dangerous, reckless, nearly-uncontrolled process, wherein you dig deep and deeper, and hope that the digging deep doesn't break you. And then discover that the digging deep did break you: ultimately, the question isn't whether you break, the question is whether, having broken, you lay down and die or become something else. The Shadow Speaker isn't anywhere near as grim as most/any of Butler, but I do have a strong sense legacy here.)

Oh, and another thing about this book that pleases me: it's messy. The warlord Ejii is pursuing, Saurauniya Jaa, is a strong believer in problem-solving via decisive bloodshed: our first introduction to her is when she decapitates Ejii's father in front of Ejii. However, while Jaa is Ejii's main antagonist, Jaa herself is not evil, and this is not a story of White Hats and Black Hats: Jaa is Ejii's mentor, and their conflict is over whether Jaa's ruthlessness is more compassionate than Ejii's desire to prevent bloodshed.

And like Windseeker: oh, the worldbuilding! Onion! The lions! The storm! Forests that spontaneously appear and disappear! Eee! (And did I mention the lions? The lions!)

kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com

Title: The Mzungu Boy
Author: Meja Mwangi
Number of Pages: 150 pages
My Rating: 4/5

Set in British-ruled Kenya in the early '50s, this is the story of Kariuki, a Kenyan boy who becomes friends with Nigel, an English boy who's come to stay on his grandparents' farm during the summer.

What I really liked about this book is how honest it was. While the boys are friends, it doesn't paint an idealistic portrait of their friendship. Being friends doesn't magically make the horrible things that are going on any better, nor does it solve any problems. In fact, it only makes things worse. It's not a story about a white person becoming friends with a person of color and learning to be a better person, either. This is told from Kariuki's POV and Nigel's entitlement and privilege are not glossed over at all.

For example, when they first meet, he insists Kariuki take some fish he (Nigel) caught, even though Kariuki tells him they're not allowed to have fish and that he will get in trouble if he takes them. So of course Kariuki gets in trouble, and Nigel is just la-di-da, whatever, and goes on about his merry way and continues to do the same sort of thoughtless things throughout the book. Another good example is when the villagers are all rounded up in a pen because Nigel's grandfather thinks they've done something, and Nigel just sits there and then when he spots Kariuki, waves blithely at him.

Reading this book, I could imagine how it would have been if written by your typical white children's author and was so, so glad it wasn't.

ms-erupt.livejournal.com

06. How Far We Slaves Have Come! by Nelson Mandela; Fidel Castro
Pages: 83
Genre: Non-fiction; World Politics; Diplomacy and International Relations; South Africa; Latin America
Rating: 5/10; May or May Not Recommend

( Short review and possibly spoilery review. )

Comments may contain spoilers.

ms-erupt.livejournal.com

05. Nelson Mandela, Speeches 1990: Intensify the Struggle to Abolish Apartheid by Nelson Mandela; Greg McCartan
Pages: 74
Genre(s): Non-fiction; World History; World Politics; African History; African Studies
Rating: 8/10; Would Recommend

( Short review and possibly spoilery review. )

Comments may contain spoilers.

sweet-adelheid.livejournal.com

#28 - Desmond Tutu, No Future without Forgiveness (1999, Rider & Co)
Appointed by Nelson Mandela to be co-Chairperson of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up in South Africa following the transfer of power from the Nationalist Apartheid Government, Desmond Tutu writes in this book about the history leading to the Commission, the progress of the Commission itself, and his thoughts on forgiveness. Link here.

#29 - illustrated by David Diaz, Smoky Night, words by Eve Bunting (1994, Harcourt Brace)
The illustrations are stunning. The backgrounds are mixed media collage: including shards of glass one the page that mentions "smash and destroy", half-crushed rice cracker snacks on the page about the destruction of Mrs Kim's shop. Link here.

#30 - illustrated by David Diaz, Just One Flick of a Finger, words by Marybeth Lorbiecki (1996, Dial)
A beautiful example of the way picture books are meant to work (no matter what age group they are aimed at) and I credit a lot of that to Diaz' design and layout work in addition to his illustrations. Link here.

#31 - Adeline Yen Mah, China: Land of Emperors and Dragons (2008, Allen & Unwin)
It is a *very* basic introduction to Chinese history; very much an overview. It (allied with some Avatar-related posts I've been reading around LJ, and IBARW stuff) has made me realise how much I don't understand about China, and how I do tend to view the entire Imperial era as some sort of pretty fantasy "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" world. Which is a major failing on my part. Link here.

Tags needed: a: tutu desmond, a: mah adeline yen, i: diaz david, (and if we're still going to do whitefella tags, w-a: lorbiecki marybeth, w-a: bunting eve.

postingwhore.livejournal.com

I just finished reading Wizard of the Crow by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and felt compelled to post about it to this community and extol its virtues to anyone who would listen.

Summary from Amazon.com: In exile now for more than twenty years, Kenyan novelist, playwright, poet and critic Ngugi wa Thiong’o has become one of the most widely read African writers.

Commencing in “our times” and set in the fictional “Free Republic of Aburiria,” Wizard of the Crow dramatizes with corrosive humor and keenness of observation a battle for control of the souls of the Aburirian people. Fashioning the stories of the powerful and the ordinary into a dazzling mosaic, this magnificent novel reveals humanity in all its endlessly surprising complexity.

The summary doesn't even begin to describe how amazing this book is. Thiong'o himself says the aim of the novel is "to sum up Africa of the twentieth century in the context of two thousand years of world history", and the novel depicts "a battle for the control of the souls of the Aburĩrian people" by the competing forces of a corrupt dictatorship, folk wisdom/religion, fanatic Christianity, and self-serving capitalism. The novel is a gigantic political satire that strikes with great accuracy because by reducing these entities into farcical imitations of themselves, it exposes the truth about them. This novel is funny and touching and fast-paced and just *O*.

This book also follows along the tradition of African story-telling in its construction. It weaves distinct threads that eventually come back to the main narrative to create a cohesive whole, and I was amazed at the ability of Thiong'o to create a narrative of hope out of a story of chaos. This is possibility some of the finest fiction I've ever read, and although it is pretty long (768 pages in hardcover), it's worth every single minute. The time went by so fast for me because I was completely immersed in the novel, just wanting to know how it all ends, and that's what I love about this novel—it's an engaging tragicomedy that really gets into what Africa is. This novel is peopled by real Africans, men and women, all of whom are complex and none of whom are passive "victims" awaiting rescue, even if they are farcical at times.

Current Mood: enthralled
Current Music: Waking Ashland - Charity | Powered by Last.fm

rootedinsong.livejournal.com

16. Zahrah the Windseeker, by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu

I was hoping to find a YA fantasy novel/series that I could turn into a squeeing fangirl about. Well, I got my wish. This is awesome. (The author has a blog, too.)

I loved the world-building. Ecological technology, an organic Internet, computers that you grow from seeds and that adapt to you raise them... *squeals with happiness* The world is based on Africa, and everyone in it (as far as we know) is black; almost all of humanity lives in one country and never leaves it, because the rest of the world is considered too dangerous, so humanity has not needed to adapt to different environments. So black is the default, and that assumption is just in the background... which is in such sharp contrast to your typical white-bread fantasy novel, and so right.

The plot is basically your standard fantasy quest plot, which is fine with me; I never get tired of that if it's done well. (And I read more for world-building than plot anyway.)

Go read it. All of you.

17. The Shadow Speaker, by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu

Older and more nuanced than Zahrah the Windseeker, and a bit harder/darker. It's set mostly in a future Earth which has started to intersect with the world of Zahrah and three other worlds. Current weaponry and some other technology has ceased working, and people are being born with magical powers; the protagonist is a teenage girl who has the ability to hear the "shadows," which are some sort of spirit that can give guidance and tell the future.

Again, the world-building in this was awesome. I especially liked the author's descriptions of how the protagonist's abilities work; they came across as so psychologically true (says the aspiring therapist who looks to fantasy novels for the best descriptions ever of how therapy, interpersonal influence, and other psychological phenomena work). (The scene with the sentient storm struck me as very Rogerian.) :)

Read this one too.

vegablack62.livejournal.com

Ayann Hirsi Ali's memoir Infidel is first off a very compelling and engaging read. She writes well and knows how to tell her story. What's more she has had a fascinating life. I was expecially interested in her description of her childhood and family history in Somalia. Her grandmother and her own mother were both strong dominating women who at times abused her, at other times pushed her into being strong herself, even as they enforced the restrictive rules of their religion and culture. Her mother is a fascinating and tragic character. She traveled to a city from the countryside as a young girl where she embreaced both education, and modernity and a fiercely conservative Islam.

Ayann Ali herself embraced both at times the liberal carefuly considered Islam of her father, the conservative Islam of the Moslem Brotherhood, and finally the Atheism that she discovered in school in the Netherlands. (Interesting I found her reactions to Holland and to Atheism very similar to her mother's to modern urban life and Wahabiism.) I enjoyed reading this and for those who disagree with her I would say that this is her take on her own life and not anothers.

noorie.livejournal.com

1/50: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Half of a Yellow Sun

From Publishers' Weekly: "When the Igbo people of eastern Nigeria seceded in 1967 to form the independent nation of Biafra, a bloody, crippling three-year civil war followed. That period in African history is captured with haunting intimacy in this artful page-turner from Nigerian novelist Adichie (Purple Hibiscus). Adichie tells her profoundly gripping story primarily through the eyes and lives of Ugwu, a 13-year-old peasant houseboy who survives conscription into the raggedy Biafran army, and twin sisters Olanna and Kainene, who are from a wealthy and well-connected family."

( My thoughts... )

waelisc.livejournal.com

The full title is Liberian Women Peacemakers: Fighting for the Right to Be Seen, Heard, and Counted, compiled by the African Women and Peace Support Network, published by Africa World Press in 2004.

This book recounts the work of numerous women and women's groups in Liberia to end a civil war that lasted for 14 long years. They were courageous, persistent, creative, patient, and single-minded in their pursuit of peace. They held demonstrations, facilitated meetings between rival warlords, talked rebel soldiers out of violent acts, kept a disarmament period from dissolving into chaos, and invited themselves to peace talks held in neighboring countries and demanded to be allowed to address the assembled leaders. What they did was mindblowingly inspiring.

Half of the book gives an overview of the civil war years (1989-2003) and the peacemaking efforts that went on all through that period. The other half is interviews with women of all walks of life on their contributions to the work of making peace. These two quotes stand out for me:

To be an effective peacemaker you must be a very patient person. You must be calm and a very, very good listener. You must listen not only with your ears but with your eyes. You must listen with your heart, your soul, and your mind, because sometimes people say one thing and they mean something completely different. You must be very slow to speak on what you hear.

--Gloria Musu-Scott, Chief Justice

I worked for peace with LWI, NAWOCOL, Women Action for Good Will, Concern for Women. We all joined together to bring peace in this country. We went round from village to village to talk with those boys to put the gun down. We went to Po River, to Mount Barclay, to Lofa, even to the border. When the leaders were in town, we demonstrated on the streets: we wanted peace.

--Martha Nagbe, farmer

I looked for a book on this topic at the library after seeing Pray the Devil Back to Hell, a documentary that focuses on the last year of women's peacemaking efforts before the civil war was finally ended, and on women's efforts to nurture the fragile peace through a period of transitional government and elections in 2006. (On my journal here. I didn't post to

12films_poc because the director & producer are white.)

maebeth.livejournal.com

Finally we are through the dead white guys (I exaggerate some, they are not all dead yet.)

So, some words on What it means to be church:

Lee, Jung Young, Marginality: The Key to Multicultural Theology. (Fortress, 1995).
We've all been trying too hard to be in the center. True church is at the margins. This is an excellent book, hurt only by Lee's hyperbole when it comes to who is "in" and who is "out" of church. Yes, white churches are almost always focused on centrality, and have little experience on the margins. But that does not mean that ALL white people are trying to stay that way. Still, the basic theology is excellent and helpful.

Cone, James, Black Theology, Black Power (Orbis 1997).
This was actually written in 1969.
Excellent explanation of how white and black churches are tempted to buy into the idea of church as part of the status quo, and a radical call to give up that role. Sexist language was hard, but the preface to this addition includes an apology for that and an explanation that to have edited for this edition would have been to pretend he didn't have that very sexist past.

Bujo, Benezet, African Theology in its Social Context (Orbis 1992).
Radical idea of how Christian faith COULD be permitted to really adapt to local cultures, including an excellent section on how ancestor worship can be redeemed as ancestor appreciation and the idea of Christ as our common ancestor. This would lead to the idea that different tribes have the same ancestor and therefore can learn to cooperate. I don't have the knowledge to evaluate the African context, but appreciated the idea of radically removing the "christian" and "european culture" connection. This text was so sexist it was hard to read. Its hard to believe that Bujo even knows that women exist.