Great African Reads discussion

I just noticed we don't seem to have a thread for making general recommendations of books about or from Africa. so i made one! Recommend away!

2 of my favorite books set in Africa are The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingslover and What is the What by Dave Eggers. If you haven't already read them, I would highly recommend them!

Sarah wrote: "2 of my favorite books set in Africa are The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingslover and What is the What by Dave Eggers. If you haven't already read them, I would highly recommend them!"

hi Sarah! i liked both of these too...i think The Poisonwood Bible was our first foray into trying a "group read" and i think a few of us discussed What Is the What alongside other books dealing with children and war...i'd have to poke around to find the threads. if you or any member wants to re-animate a discussion, all the threads are open so feel free! let us know if you have trouble finding the appropriate thread and we'll help out.

I hope the group doesn't mind, I have made some additions to the Great African Reads list.

Cheeers, Matt

Matt wrote: "I hope the group doesn't mind, I have made some additions to the Great African Reads list.

Cheeers, Matt"

Hi Matt,
yes, of course, it is fine for members to add books to the group bookshelf. we only ask that you put it on the "to-read" shelf because the "read" shelf is for books we have read "formally" as a group--either as part of Tour d'Afrique or when we discuss a book together written by one of our member-authors. i edited your entries, so don't worry; just keep in mind for the future. thanks!

Marieke wrote: "Matt wrote: "I hope the group doesn't mind, I have made some additions to the Great African Reads list.

Cheeers, Matt"

Hi Matt,
yes, of course, it is fine for members to add books to the group bo..."

Thanks, I'm bad about doing that on my own page, too.

no worries! it's just one of our few feeble attempts at being organized. i do not pretend to be organized in my own life, however. :D

Two books(new) were recommended to me by several friends from South Africa: The Masque of Africa,By V.S. Naipaul: and the other is: South Africa's Brave New World by R.W Johnson: these are my winter reads this year. laurene

Thanks, Laurene! i just added both The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief and South Africa's Brave New World: The Beloved Country Since the End of Apartheid.

I've just bought the Masque of Africa. I love Naipaul, especially his really early books.

Petra X wrote: "I've just bought the Masque of Africa. I love Naipaul, especially his really early books."

are you planning to read it soon? you have to let us know! :D

Yes, have the intention both at the same time as both will give a varience of eyewitness to what occured previously and intermix the promatical argueing going on in thier views from both ends of living thru all that inaffectous aparthied society. It all has a long way to go.

I'm hoping to sell it! If it doesn't sell for Christmas I'll probably take it home and read it.

Petra, have you read A House for Mr. Biswas? This is the one I have to read. Which do YOU like best by Naipaul. The Masque one looks very interesting. If you read it please let us know what you think.

Laurene wrote: "Two books(new) were recommended to me by several friends from South Africa: The Masque of Africa,By V.S. Naipaul: and the other is: South Africa's Brave New World by R.W Johnson: these are my winte..."

On 21 July 2010, the Editors of the London Review of Books wrote this on their blog:

We have had a number of complaints about a post on the LRB blog on 6 July on the grounds that it was racist. The LRB does not condone racism, nor does the author of the post, R.W. Johnson. We recognise that the post was susceptible of that interpretation and that it was therefore an error of judgment on our part to publish it. We’re sorry. We have since taken the post down.

Read the discussion which followed at:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2010/07/21/... the editors

wow, manu--i had never heard of RW Johnson or his book prior to Laurene's recommendation. are you familiar with it? did you see the original blog post? i'll be searching scholarly journal book reviews for it today; now i'm doubly curious about the book and its author. many people in the US publish their thoughts and then claim them not to be racist...i'd like to know for myself how RW Johnson perceives and presents things.

Laurene, my apologies, but i'm not sure i understand your post #12 above. could i trouble you to clarify your thoughts there? and i'm also curious to know why your friends from South Africa have recommended these two books...

I am almost finished with the book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation which is the original title . I have a copy that came out after the movie and is called "Invictus". I likied the movie, but I LOVE the book. It is very interesting and the movie comes from only about the last 1/3 of the book. It is about how NElson Mandela used the World Cup to unite South Africa behing the Springboks.

I loved playing the enemy, too- it made me love Nelson Mandela, all over again!! The movie was good, too- but I preferred the book, as well.

While at my moonlighting job as a bookstore clerk, I met the author of this book Red-Spotted Ox: A Pokot Life. Her husband is a retired archaeologist who worked all over Africa, and she described the book as a Pokot man's autobiography as he told it to her in the 1970s. She had apparently kept the notes for a long time, but finally wrote it up and got it published this year. I don't have a copy of the book yet, but some people here have expressed interest in books about African culture from an African perspective and this looks like it might be a good example. We've invited the author and her husband over for dinner to hear more about their lives in Africa, so I'm going to try to get hold of the book before then!

Andrea, thank you for telling us about this book. I have added it, but I would definitely like to have more details if possible.

that looks great, Andrea! do you think she'd want to talk to us here at GAR??

Marieke, I'll ask her. I think the proceeds from sale of the book are going to some kind of cultural organization, but I'm going to try to get more details.

Andrea wrote: "Marieke, I'll ask her. I think the proceeds from sale of the book are going to some kind of cultural organization, but I'm going to try to get more details."

great, thanks!
i shared the book page from GR with my supervisor. he also thought it looks really cool. it won't be released until this summer? is that right?

It seems it came out this past August in the U.S.

Andrea wrote: "It seems it came out this past August in the U.S."

oh! i don't know what year it is, clearly.

I wonder if anybody remembers a novel set in the Belgian Congo that involves a mission set at the edge of a horseshoe waterfall. At some point in the story a pickup truck is driven over the falls. I think a forthcoming book, of which I am reading the galley, plagiarizes this story from somewhere, but curse my leaky brain, I can't remember where. Graham Greene maybe? Help me out if you can, any clue would help.

The Last Resort: A Memoir of Zimbabwe

http://thelastresortdocumentary.com/

If you're interested in what has been happening recently in Zimbabwe, then this book is a great read -- though I know several have alerady read it.

Ooo, thanks for mentioning The Last Resort, Wendy. I heard about it when it was published, but had forgotten about it. I'll check to see if my library has it!

Oh, I am so upset that I can't find the original story that promo is based on! Please help me if you can! The protagonist of the original is a young, white missionary whose plane crashes on arrival and she is helped out of the wreck by a Nigerian money/drug smuggler who then vanishes for most of the rest of the book. Still not ringing bells with anybody?

I'm still scratching my head...I asked my boss but he couldn't think of anything. He doesn't read many novels.

I don't know what that book is but it sounds really good!

A really fun book about Africa is The White Masai. it,s about a woman who gives up modern living to live with a Masai and his family.
it,s fun trip that you get to take with her. if you like it and I loved it she wrote two more.

Another very interesting suggestion, especially those with interest in France's role in the slave trade, is OURIKA.

Ourika...this one, Ruthmarie?

Tkirshman, i have The White Masai but have never managed to read it. :(

Yes, Ourika, the work by Claire de Duras, translated by John Fowles in the MLA Texts and Translations series. Short read, really, but excellent insight into the life of a Senegalese woman brought to France during the (French) revolutionary era.

I've requested it from our stacks! The catalog says it's just 47 pages. The goodreads book description was really interesting in explaining it's significance, especially regarding "firsts."

Yes, very short, but illuminating, et surtout pour les francophiles/francophones/historiens etc.

A very good book written by a woman who grew up in Nigeria is Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away. Yes, it is a novel, but very well done!

Chrissie wrote: "A very good book written by a woman who grew up in Nigeria is Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away. Yes, it is a novel, but very well done!"

i don't think it's been published in the US, yet?! exciting! i think it will be available at the start of June. :D

No, it will be published later this year. I read an egalley. That is like an ARC. Did my review help you decide? I hope it helped!

I just read The Weather in Africa/Three Novellasby Martha Gellhorn, a friend and contemporary of Hemingway's. It is three novellas set in Tanzania and Kenya in the 50s-60s. They focus on white characters. Two of the novellas are about whites who live in Africa and the third is about a woman who travels alone to Mombasa from Europe. I thought they were very well-written and reminded me a little in style of Nadine Gordimer, kind of deeply psychological but with a narrator who was a little sly and "in on" things with the reader, standing a little distanced from the characters. It may not be easy to get, but if you run across it, it's worth reading.

In August we are publishing The Radiance of the King by Camara Laye (most famous for L'Enfant Noir) and with an introduction by Toni Morrison. I hope we haven't missed the trip to Guinea, because I think this would be a great choice for a read and discussion.

New York Review Books wrote: "In August we are publishing The Radiance of the King by Camara Laye (most famous for L'Enfant Noir) and with an introduction by Toni Morrison. I hope we haven't misse..."

thanks for the heads up! exciting!
i'm not terribly good with my alphabets, but i'm pretty sure Guinea is coming up...we did Gabon, we're doing Gambia, then Ghana...then Guinea? Muphyn is our Tour Operator is knows our alphabet better than me. :D

Moeletsi Mbeki's Architects of Poverty - talks about the challenges facing the economies of African countries and the reasons......

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is another great novel from Nigeria

Credo Mutwa's Indaba my children - is for anyone who wants to learn about south african culture and customs...

Ake by Wole Soyinka is his childhood memoirs of life in Nigeria

Fela wrote: "Moeletsi Mbeki's Architects of Poverty - talks about the challenges facing the economies of African countries and the reasons......

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is another great nov..."

Thanks, Fela, i've read
Purple Hibiscus and loved it. i read Aké: The Years of Childhood in college but i should read it again because it's been so long. Architects of Poverty is not one i'm familiar with, nor is Indaba My Children are new to me, but i will definitely check them out!

Got alot of books added to my TBR from this thread. Thanks guys!

I found this book in a used bookstore. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. The writing style is really intriguing and of course the subject also, so I might have to dive into it a little while waiting for the Tour to get to Ghana.

Just saw this list of books from African authors on the Africa is a country website http://africasacountry.com/2011/12/22... Some titles have been mentioned already, others are definitely on my TBR shelves/lists; others will be added to them!

Nina wrote: "Just saw this list of books from African authors on the Africa is a country website http://africasacountry.com/2011/12/22... Some titles have been mentioned already, othe..."

ha! i saw this, too, and linked to it in our contemporary lit folder. :D

Is it significant that not one of the African authors whose books are recommended by Prof. Jayawardane as exemplars of good writing, lives in Africa; or that the only woman amongst them wasn't even born in Africa?

Do we have to emigrate to be noticed?