Ordained by the oracle by Asare Konadu
17 Nov 2011 13 Comments
in african fiction, Ghana Tags: 2011, african fiction, NEW VOICES
Ordained by the oracle by Asare Konadu
Ghanaian Fiction
When Kinna announced Ghanaian lit week I had just read this novel so I put it to one side and decided to review it for Ghanaian lit week .Samuel Asare Konadu was born in 1932 ,he worked as a reporter and for the Ghana information services ,in the mid sixties he studied traditional customs ,he also started a publishing venture Anowuo book ,how publish some books in the sixties to success .
SO what is Ordained by the oracle about well we follow Boateng ,he is a successful trader in a the Elmina (a coastal town in the south of Ghana ) ,he is a modern man dealing in the modern world in his day-to-day life ,his wife is in hospital dying it turns out ,now she grew up in a small village and via her grandmother ,has mor belief in the old tribal ways of life .So when Dora the wife dies ,Boateng decides to follow his wifes wishes and to sp[end forty days and nights wife his wife’s body .So with his wife he returns to the village his wife is from and then spends the forty days and nights with the body.As he does this he reflects on his life and his wife’s life also the people they know .he is helped by people in the village as he spend the forty days and nights .AS he starts to putting things in order in his mind having the time to just think and dwell
Boateng found his sleep after two nights of keeping awake .He thought in the first few hours of the life that faced him without his wife ,but the company he had in the presence of the guide took away the fear that gripped him .When he was locked up with his dead wife .The room they now occupied was a few yards from where Dora lay in state .
Just after the forty days .
Rather like tail of the blue bird by Nii Ayikwei Parkes ,this book deals with the clashing of to worlds the old village tribal world of Dora and her grandparents that she spent time with when she was younger ,and that of Boateng his modern world and him wanting to turn his back on traditional ways .These meet when the modern world in the form of the modern Hospital his dying wife is in can’t keep her alive ,so this sends Boateng down a path of rediscovering the past and the values he was in trouble of losing .Konadu writing is poetic and he keep the pages turning with shortish economical written chapters ,your never left with endless pages of unnecessary writing .The feeling is this is Konadu own world he is describing ,he himself was born in southern Ghana .I think this is a real lost gem of african writing it was part of the early African writer series no 55 an earlier work by him is no40 also in the first series of the African writer series .It was first published in 1969 .
Have you read this book ?
What is your favourite Ghana book ?
The tongue’s blood does not run dry by Assia Djebar
31 Oct 2011 13 Comments
in african fiction, Algeria, books from africa Tags: 2011, african fiction, Assia Djebar, NOBEL LIT, prize winners, TRANSLATIONS
The tongue’s blood does not run dry by Assia Djebar
Algerian Fiction
Translator – Tegan Raleigh
Assia Djebar name has flown high in the nobel odds the last couple of years so I decided to try her ,before she does win it .Assia Djebar is her pen name her real name being Fatima-Zohar Imalayen ,she is a Algerian of Berber origins , she was the first Algerian women to go the prestigious ENS the elite Parisian college .Her first book was published in 1957 ,she was also the first Maghreb to be voted on to the Académie française and won the Neustadt prize .I must say given all that she is still not well-known in the english speaking world and really should be .
This collection the first of two books I got by her from the library is a collection of short stories and a 80 page novella Felicie’s body ,I ll leave the stories mainly set in Algeria and all dealing with a female perspective on what it is to be a women in modern Algeria ,Felicie’s body deals with a women near the end of her life and indeed after her death she is french catholic and was married for her life to her Algerian husband who died before her now nearing the end of her life we see her having to take a muslim name to be buried beside her beloved husband this story really catches what it is to be between two worlds as this family is some of her children drawn to Algeria other to France we see how this family copes with her death of the mother and her wishes to be buried beside her husband in Algeria .
You arrive on a Monday morning in February ,unconscious already.In the ambulance ,I sit down next to my sister Ourdia ,who’s come with you from Oran .I tell myself this time you’ve come to die by my side ,right under my eyes .But will you at least look at me ,just once ? Smile at me ,maybe talk ?
The opening of Felicie’s body .
I was trying to think of a way to sum up her writing and how it impacted me but I think she has best summed up by a quote of her own -
I write like many other Algerian women with a sense of urgency against regression and misogyny .
That sums up so well how this book grabbed me and her as a writer feisty and lots of strong female characters .I asked my self is this a potential nobel winner having read other Nobel winners work and the answers is yes and I hope she does so her work can reach a wider audiences of readers .Her’s is a voice that lifts the lid on the female Muslim world of north africa and also how these women or there families are effected in France .The translation works a treat her the translator is new to me but has done a great job here .The book was published in the US by seven stories press in 2006 and the original stories were published in French in 1997 .
Have you read her works ?
Have you a favourite North African writer ?
Waiting for the wild beasts to vote by Ahmadou Kourouma
27 Jul 2011 8 Comments
in african fiction, books from africa, Ivory Coast, TRANSLATIONS Tags: 2011, african fiction, frank wynne, prize winners, TRANSLATIONS
Source – personnel copy
Translator – Frank Wynne
Earlier this year when I interview Frank Wynne the translator of this book to name his favourite translation he choose this book .By the late Ahmadou Kourouma ,he grew up in Ivory coast ,from a well-known family he spent time in the french military and studied in Lyon in france (mathematics).But after his homeland of Ivory coast gained independence from france in 1960 ,he questioned the leadership of Felix houphouet-Boigny and was sent to prison and after that spent thirty years in exile returning in 1994 just after the death of Felix H-B .Ahmadou Kourouma died in 2003 .
So what is waiting for the wild beasts to vote about well ,it is a story of an African leader told by a Bingo a sora (a storytelling singer) told over five nights .The leader Koyoga was an orphan that became a leader of the gulf coast ( a made up african country but easily a number of countries round ivory coast )and along the way gain a huge mythology about his life and what had happen to him .we see the french involvement at the start with what are called the naked people ,then Koyoga father was the first of this tribe to wear clothes .Then we see Koyoga a solider take power in his homeland and start of with ideals and standards a friend of the west france in particular .But then his promises start to fall apart and people start to doubt him so he turns to violence and corruption to keep power .
When you recovered the Qur’an and the aerolite,you will ready yourself for democratic presidential elections . Elections based on universal suffrage supervised by an independent National commission .You will seek a new mandate secure in the knowledge that you will triumph ,that you will be re-elected .For you know ,you are certain ,that if by chance men refuse to vote for you ,the beast will come from the jungle ,will lay their hands on ballot paper and will elect you by a landslide .
The closing page and the title of the book is made clear .
Well this book is a must read for anyone ,part magic realism part african folk tale ,also a chunk of history of post colonial africa .Is Koyoga far-fetched ,well no if you’ve watch the film the last king of Scotland or any programme about the regimes and the leaders in Romania ,North Korea and many others to know that fact and fiction and what these people did in their lives are very blurred . Kourouma is a wonderful storyteller Bingo brings the leaders life to life through his tales .This book is also closely related to the Latin american dictator novels by Roa Bastos or Angel Asturias in the fact like them it examine the character of the people in this case post french africa ,there is some say that it was Togo president Eyedema was the main blueprint for the leader as he like Koyaga had a mythical status having being the sole survivor of a plane crash .But in my opinion it is far wider than that and yes it is based in africa but erase the names and some of the place it could be south america ,south-east asia or even post soviet states .So if you want an insight into africa ,the mind of a dictator ,how much the western world has influence in the third world .I know this is due out shortly as an E-BOOK as Frank told me when I meet him at IFFP prize .This is probably in the top ten novels about Afica for me if not top of that list .It sold over a 100,00 books in france when published .
Do you have a favorite African novel ?
Do you have a favourite dictator novel ?
The book of chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agulusa
10 Jan 2011 12 Comments
in african fiction, Angola, Uncategorized Tags: african fiction, prize winners, TRANSLATIONS
This was a reread for me I read this just after it came out in 2007 and wondered if on second reading would be as good as the first and I m pleased to say yes this book is firmly in my favourite african books of all time .Jose Eduardo Agualusa is a Angolan writer he lived in Brazil briefly but now divides his time between Lisbon and Luanda he has written 7 novels so far this was the 2007 Independent foreign fiction winner .
The book is a series of interlocking stories or vignettes that are set in modern-day Angola and involve Felix Ventura an albino weaver of new histories for people ,these stories are narrated by a gecko that is a reincarnation of a dead man ,Well as you see this is firmly in magic realism or african mysticism ,Felix is a type fixer helps people rewrite their lives change there histories ,he is also albino which from what little I know in some parts of africa is a bad omen or a good omen but in felix’s case it seems to give him an air of detachment from the people he deals with .The strength of the book lies in the way it deals with Angola’s past at times violent and how these people look to the future .Felix is so good that one person decides to search into his new past with shocking results .
Once ,when I was in my old human form ,I decided to kill myself .I wanted to die ,completely .I hoped for eternal life ,heaven and hell ,god ,the devil .reincarnation ,all that stuff ,was no more than slowly woven superstition ,devolped over centuries and centuries ont mans greatest terror .There was a gun shop right by my house .
The gecko remember his past life .
Dreams also interweave the books ,Like dreams the new histories rewrites people are never the same and always different .This book is funny in parts and very poignant in others ,such a bright book from such a dark stories and the sadness of Angola’s past is a real work of art .Like my fellow blogger Kinna rereading this is a timely reminder of the need to read more Lusophilla literature .The book was translated by Daniel Hahn who shared the Independent prize as the translator . for ,me this is a bridge between the african village fiction I love and the latin american magic realism I love ,in parts I remembered Borges or Marquez in others Okri came to mind .
HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK ?
HAVE YOU A FAVOURITE LUSOPHILE NOVEL ?
So long a letter by Mariama Ba
05 Jan 2011 14 Comments
in african fiction, books from, Senegal Tags: african fiction, TRANSLATIONS
source – library
Mariama Ba is a Sengalese writer and activist for femmist roghts in here native country ,she struggle to get herself a good education as the feeling was at the time that girls could not get taught ,she later married a Member of parilment and got divorced from him end up bring there nine children up by herself .So long a letter was her debut novel and was described by the nigerian academic Abiola Irele the most deeply felt presentation of the female condition in african fiction .
So long a letter as the titles suggest is told in the forms of letters ,the letters are between two old friends Ramatoulaye a schoolteacher that had recently lost her husband and her best friend Aissatou .we discover via the letter there married life how they met and how they spent a long and happy marriage together til her lat husband decided to take a second wife Binetou ,this upsets Ramatoulaye she struggles to cope with this in the male dominated society of Senegal .
On the third day ,the same comings and goings of friends ,relatives ,the poor ,the unknown ,The name of the deceased ,who was popular ,has a buzzing crowd ,welcomed in my house that has been stripped of all that could be stolen ,all that could be spoilt .mats of all sorts are spread out everywhere there is a space metal chairs have been hired for the occasion take on the blue hue of the sun .
Ramatoulaye describes the scene of her late husband Moudo funeral .
The insight in to everyday African life for a normal everyday African women is wonderful and terrifying at the same time ,the toughness of the islamic system they follow having to share a husband are things that we never really encounter here ,Ramatoulaye comes across as such a strong person ,some of Mariama own spirit seems to have rubbed off on this character .This is great starter for female African fiction and rightly deserves it place on the African writer series classic .It gave me an insight into the islamic world and multiple marriages in Africa .at 90 pages long it is an afternoon read or as I did a pocket read for those spare minutes of the day when you need a small book in your coat pocket to read .I enjoyed the style the book was written in the letter format is a clever way to let you into the head of the two main characters and is a under used format in fiction .The book was written in french and translated by Modupo Bodo-Thomas ,and was first published in english in 1981 and won the Noma awards .
Have you read this book ?
What should I read next from a African female writer ?
Tail of the blue bird by Nii Ayikwei Parkes
20 Nov 2010 18 Comments
in african fiction, Ghana Tags: african fiction, NEW VOICES
SOURCE -LIBRARY
Nii Ayikwei Parkes is a Ghanaian writer ,social commentator ,he was BBC radio threes writer in residence in 2005 ,he has his own web page which is full of piece of his work and spoken word performances .
Tail of the blue bird is part crime ,part social commentary ,this is a true one-off mixing the best of African fiction with crime fiction for a heady mix .the Novel centres on a rural village Sonokrom in the middle of nowhere in Ghana ,this is a place were the traditional values and customs still rule over the people of the villages .But a discovery leads to an investigation by two outsiders from the more modern world of Accra the capital ,Kayo one of these outsiders has just returned from the UK and is a crime scene investigations ,with a scientific mind that is the complete opposite to the villagers ,the pair struggle with the case .
So we have a case in a village near Tafo that we need your help with .It is not even a case we would have bothered with, but the minister for roads and highways is sleeping with a girl from Tafo .She discovered some human matter and the minister himself called me that day to deploy some men .
As we find out the case was a favour to a minister .The man’s struggle with events that at times see unnatural almost supernatural ,flocks of birds, ghost boys ,Also the reluctant villagers add to the struggle .
The writing is wonderful Parkes manages to pull you into the men as they head to this village ,he evokes the spirit of African villages as they struggle with the old way of life and the ever-increasing modern world as mobile phones computers , western ways creep in from the capital Accra ,but even earlier in the book we discover that Kayo struggles on his return to the capital from the UK ,as the local police don’t initially seem to keen on his CSI skills ,but later accept him and his ultra modern ideas ,even thou Kayo at times struggles with the mystery’s of Ghana’s hinterlands .
I read this for KINNA READS GHANA WEEK ,ps sorry its late and single vol Kinna ,I would go and check her blog as she has reviewed some great African fiction in the last year .
Traveller to the east by Thomas Molfo
15 Oct 2010 5 Comments
in african fiction, lesotho Tags: african fiction, TRANSLATIONS
source – library
Thomas Molfo was born in 1876 in Bestho now Lesotho in southern Africa ,he is considered the first African novelist ,He is best known for a later novel Chaka a story of a Lulu king .
The story centres on Fekisi a young man in the Basutoland ,,he works looking after the herds and is the chiefs son but he seeks something more .After witness some acts ariound the villages questions his postion and his village , so sets off to the east and what lies ahead,This journey she the young man witness murder and eventually convert to Christianity by the white men in the east ,meanwhile there are sections on how the village copes when he leaves ,discussion of circumcision school where all the boys Fekisi age are taught how to be men in preparation of circumcision .
There was a feast of the boys being held .The son of the chief was coming out of circumcision school .This son was the first-born child of the chief ,the son of his first wife .He it was who would attain chieftainship and follow his father .It was feast if the heir .
Fekisi struggles with position and life .
This book is short at only 80 pages ,It encompasses a mythical feel but also a worrying christian angle ,I view from some research into the writer it was use to convert people alongside Bunyan’s pilgrim Progress ,his wiring style is in the storytelling tradition and easy to read ,Just the second half of the book didnt grab me I may try his novel as his style and the translation where both great ,just disliked the christian propaganda at the end of the book .but the first part in the village and the journey was some of the best southern African writing I have read .there is a museum in Morjia In Lesotho and a web page on the region and its history here .the book was orginally published in episodes in a news paper It was translated by Harry Ashton .
who wants to help ?
20 Sep 2010 23 Comments
in #translationthurs, african fiction, around the world, asian fiction, TRANSLATIONS Tags: 2010, african fiction, ARAB FICTION, around the world 52, belgium around the world, FINNISH, french lit, italy, ROMANIA, senegal, spain, TRANSLATIONS
I would love some people to help me out with the around the world challenge have a basic format but ideas and offers of help most welcome .THE IDEA SO FAR IS 11 CATEGORISE no order but a year-long challenge ,thinks I need help with are using mister linky ,making a button for blogs to show any help or offers of support be most welcome . here is what the categories would be -
- EUROPE (NORTHERN) -ie Germany ,Holland ,Sweden ,Denmark , Finland,Russia ,Poland ,uk ,Iceland ,Ireland ..
- EUROPE(SOUTHERN)-ie spain ,Portugal,Italy ,Greece,Turkey Balkans …
- AFRICA (FRENCH AFRICA) The west of africa mainly Senegal ,Cotes de Ivorie including books in other language from these areas in english.
- AFRICA (ENGLISH SPEAKING ) southern and eastern africa IE Kenya ,Ghana ,South Africa also books in other languages translated in to english
- ARABIC books from the arabic world Algeria ,Egypt etc
- ASIA (Korea ,Japan and China )
- ASIA rest of asia
- AMERICAS (NORTH) US AND CANADA BOOKS
- AMERICAS (CENTRAL) plus Caribbean
- AMERICAS (SOUTH )
- AUSTRALIA ,NEW ZEALAND AND OCEANIA
There are categories I ve in mind and let people read in what ever order they want but one a month for challenge leaving spare month as we all have things crop up and may need time in hand .
WHAT DO YOU THINK ?
I want this to be fun my personnel goal was to read books from 52 countries this year I ve nearly done that in twelve months ,its given me such a scope of books ,I just in a little way want to pass that on to other people in a fun way ,all the best stu and winston .
red dust and hard lives
27 Aug 2010 8 Comments
in african fiction, Zimbabwe Tags: african fiction, NEW VOICES
TITLE – HOUSE OF HUNGER BY DAMBUDZO MARECHERA
SOURCE – LIBRARY
This is yet another one of the wonderful heinemann african writer series .Dambudzo was a Rhodesian /Zimbabwean writer ,he grew up in a trouble family studied at university in Zimbabwe and Oxford but was expelled from both due to causing unrest he lead a turbulent life and left very little writing behind him but what he did leave is considered the best south african writing of its period ,he did in 1987 aged only 35 .the book is a 80 page novella and 9 shorter stories they stretch from his native Zimbabwe to his student days in Oxford ,a lot of the african stories are set in the ghettos of Zimbabwe and encapsulate the struggle of growing up in this war-torn and poverty stricken country ,the stories set in england mainly discuss alienation of being a african in the uk ,there is a strong sense of the tales being based in part on Dambdzo own life .sometimes they don’t made easy reading but essential I would say in the post colonial southern africa he is potraying via the stories .
I had never killed a goat before .But it was christmas .and father who had always done it was dead .He had been dead for seven years .My sister Ruth could not possibly be expected to kill the goat .It was supposed to be a man’s job .And mother was dead too .There was the two of us in the house ,Ruth and I was on sabbatical from university and christmas I had hoped would be a break from the book
the start of the christmas reunion where a brother returns home for christmas with his sister
I enjoyed this book so much Dambudzo writing style is crisp and not flowery ,he catches in Rhodesia /Zimbabwe as huge changes are afoot in his homeland and he shows it through his characters eyes ,also he captures what must have been his own experiences in london and Oxford for the uk based stories alienation and also the racist attitudes at times from the british man on the street ,also I read and thought what a great loss at his early age has been for his homeland ,the great changes since the downfall of the Ian smith regime the fresh start but now the trnany of Robert Mugabe ,such a talent writer would have surely have been a great voice for the everyman struggling under the present regime .A wonderful collection by a talented writer .
Winston’s scores -
I ve gone for something different this time A video and song by K’naan the african rapper about the hardship of every day life in the ghettos this seems to sum up parts of this book wonderfully .sometimes we forget how hard some peoples lives are everyday .
Tales from Dayrut by Mohamed Mustagab
15 Aug 2010 5 Comments
in african fiction, Egypt Tags: ARAB FICTION, NEW BOOKS, NEW VOICES, prize winners
Mohamed Mustagab grew up in Dayrut in the upper Nile region of Egypt ,he was involved in the construction industry before becoming a Journalist ,He Has a number of collections of short stories published in English he died in 2006 aged 68 ,he was also general director of the academy of arabic language in later life .This collection of short stories focus on the town of his birth it ,which is a poverty stricken area but with a rich character as portrayed in these stories and the novella ,we meet numerous characters from the village ,there is a murder in Bughayi bridge where divers and the police discover numerous body parts as the crowd of onlookers grows the bride gives way,after there has been a lot of honor style killings ,some stories are funny like the JBR’s telling of a clan and Jabir the camels they keep ,eating camel meat and drying the sinews ,the book last part is a novella called The secret history of Nu’man A bd al -Hafiz which tells of nu’man becoming a man having his circumcision which doesn’t go quite to plan and marriage wonderful evocative story of a small town man the description of his life ,even down to the dowries that were passed on by the families on his marriage .
1. forty pounds to be paid in its entirety immediately following the winter hold on irrigation ,meaning the case when umm Nu’mans supply of clamped salted fish had run out .
2. six kilos of buuya wheat or eight of Australian wheat .
3.five ratls of clarified buffalo butter or seven of cow’s .
4.A goat or sheep for slaughter .
the list of dowries items .
The is a real beauty in Mustagab’s writing a man looking back on the characters and environs of his childhood in the town of Dayrut ,the stories are some times edging into the surreal and at times have a real dark satire element ,the area he is talking about is a place rich in spirit and beliefs . This gives a great view of an area of Egypt I didn’t know anything about .As ever Humphrey Davies does a wonderful job on translation but what else would you expect from the prize-winning translator ,the book is published by the american university press of Cairo .This is my third read for the arabic summer reading challenge from arablit blog .I ve some more arabic books as well to read over the next month or two as well.
