Rising Anthills
Female genital excision, or the ritual of cutting the external genitals of girls and women, is undoubtedly one of the most heavily and widely debated cultural traditions of our time. By looking at how writers of African descent have presented the practice in their literary work, Elisabeth Bekers shows how the debate on female genital excision evolved over the last four decades of the twentieth century, in response to changing attitudes about ethnicity, nationalism, colonialism, feminism, and human rights. Rising Anthills (the title refers to a Dogon myth) analyzes works in English, French, and Arabic by African and African American writers, both women and men, from different parts of the African continent and the diaspora. Attending closely to the nuances of language and the complexities of the issue, Bekers explores lesser-known writers side by side with such recognizable names as Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Flora Nwapa, Nawal El Saadawi, Ahmadou Kourouma, Calixthe Beyala, Alice Walker, and Gloria Naylor. Following their literary discussions of female genital excision, she discerns a gradual evolution--from the 1960s, when writers mindful of its communal significance carefully "wrote around" the physical operation, through the 1970s and 1980s, when they began to speak out against the practice and their societies' gender politics, to the late 1990s, when they situated their denunciations of female genital excision in a much broader, international context of women's oppression and the struggle for women's rights.
Do Bicycles Equal Development in Mozambique?
Challenges some key assumptions of both the donors and the government about how development can be achieved in Mozambique. Is Mozambique an African success story? It has 7 percent a year growth rate and substantial foreign investment. Fifteen years after the war of destabilisation, the peace has held. Mozambique is the donors' model pupil, carefully following their prescriptions and receiving more than a billion dollars a year in aid. The number of bicycles has doubled and this is often cited as the symbol of development. In this book the authors challenge some key assumptions of both the donors and the government and ask questions such as whether there has been too much stress on the Millennium Development Goals and too little support for economic development; if it makes sense to target thepoorest of the poor, or would it be better to target those who create the jobs which will employ the poor; whether there has been too much emphasis on foreign investment and too little on developing domestic capital; and if the private sector really will end poverty, or must there be a stronger role for the state in the economy? This book is about more than Mozambique. Mozambique is an apparent success story that is used to justify the present 'post-Washington consensus' development model. Here, the case of Mozambique is situated within the broader development debate. Joseph Hanlon is Senior Lecturer at the Open University and the author of Beggar Your Neighbours; Mozambique: Who Calls the Shots?; and Peace without Profit (all published by James Currey) which have all made influential interventions in the development debate; Teresa Smart is Director of the London Mathematics Centre, Institute of Education. Published in association with the Open University
Ten Years of the Caine Prize for African Writing
Celebrating ten years of the leading literary prize for African fiction (dubbed "The African Booker"), 10 Years of the Caine Prize brings together the ten winning stories along with a story each from the four African winners of the Booker Prize: Chinua Achebe, J.M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, and Ben Okri.The ten winners: Leila Aboulela for The MuseumHelon Habila for Love PoemsBinyavanga Wainaina for Discovering HomeYvonne Adhiambo Owuor for Weight of WhispersBrian Chikwava for Seventh Street AlchemyS.A. Afolabi for Monday Morning Mary Watson for JungfrauMonica Arac de Nyeko for Jambula TreeHenrietta Rose-Innes for Poison(The tenth winner is to be announced and published in the New Internationalist in July 2009.)
South Africa
Including short stories from some of South Africa's best and most renowned writers (Nadine Gordimer, J.M. Coetzee, and Alan Paton, to name only a few), this collection accompanies readers to a recent, but altogether different South Africa, reflecting perspectives of both the oppressed and the oppressors. Some of the stories are previously unpublished, but all of them constitute examples of the most imaginative and provocative South African writing, from many disparate perspectives.
Crossing the Zambezi
This is the story of 150 years of conflict and contested claims over control and access to the waters and banks of the River Zambezi, one of Africa's longest and most important rivers. This book is a history of claims to the Zambezi, focussed on the stretch of the river extending from the Victoria Falls downstream into Lake Kariba, which today constitutes the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. It is a story of150 years of conflict over the changing landscape of the river, in which the tension between the Zambezi's 'river people' and more powerful others has been central. The Zambezi is one of Africa's longest and most important rivers - securing access to its waters and control over its banks, traffic and commerce were crucial political priorities for leaders of precolonial states no less than their colonial and postcolonial successors. The book is about the ways in which the course of the Zambezi has shaped history, its shifting role as link, barrier or conduit, the political, economic and cultural uses of the technological projects that have transformed the landscape, and their legacies in the conflicts of today. By investigating how the claims made today by Zambezi 'river people' relate to longer history of claims and appropriations, the book contributes to long-standing debates over the relationship between geography and history, landscape and power. JOANN MCGREGOR is a Lecturer in Geography at University College London
Women Writing Africa
The fourth volume, focused on Northern Africa, includes more than 100 texts from Algeria, Egypt, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan, and Tunisia. This pioneering volume includes works from 3000 BCE to the present; from an Egyptian Queen's marriage proposal to contemporary women promoting new marriage and family laws. In addition to Berber poetry and oral history, much prose in the volume is original, and many names will resonate with modern readers, including Leila Abou Zeid, Amina Arfaoui, Salwa Bakr, Assia Djebar, Nawal El Saadawi, and Fatima Mernissi. Important themes include polygamy, FGM, the veil, education, and political participation.
Granta
This issue of 'Granta' contains fresh voices from Africa, in all their differences, as well as memoir and reportage which reflect the past and present of its people. Included are contributions from Segun Afolabi, Helon Habila, Nadine Gordimer, Moses Isegawa, Geert Van Kesteren, Ivan Vladislavic and Binyavanga Wainaina.
The Cambridge Companion to the African American Novel
Combining scholarship covering one hundred fifty years of novel writing in the U.S., newly commissioned essays examine eighty African American novels. They include well-known works as well as writings recently recovered or acknowledged. The collection features essays on the slave narrative, coming of age, vernacular modernism, and the post-colonial novel to help readers gain a better appreciation of the African American novel's diversity and complexity.
In Wonderland
First published one hundred years ago, and now translated into English for the first time by noted Norwegian scholar Sverre Lyngstad, In Wonderland is a diaristic account of a trip Hamsun took to Russia at the turn of the century. This detailed travelogue is a rich and loving portrait of the people and culture of Russia, and is filled with the trademark style and keen observations of the author of such classics as Hunger, Mysteries, and Growth of the Soil.In Wonderland is unlike any other book written by Hamsun, and offers not only an intimate glimpse into the mind of the Nobel Prize winning author at his unguarded best, but a rare view into a Russia that would soon vanish in the fire of revolution.
Under African Skies
Spanning a wide geographical range, this collection features many of the now prominent first generation of African writers and draws attention to a new generation of writers. Powerful, intriguing and essentially non-Western, these stories will be welcome by an audience truly ready for multicultural voices. With contributions from: Amos Tutuola (Nigeria)Camara Laye (Guinea)Birago Diop (Senegal)Sembene Ousmane (Senegal)Lu穩s Bernardo Honwana (Mozambique)Ngugi wa Thiong'o (Kenya)Tayeb Salih (Sudan)Es'kia Mphahlele (South Africa)Grace Ogot (Kenya)Ama Ata Aidoo (Ghana)Chinua Achebe (Nigeria)Bessie Head (South Africa/Botswana)Similih M. Cordor (Liberia)Ren矇 Philombe (Cameroon)Tijan M. Sallah (Gambia)Ken Saro-Wiwa (Nigeria)Don Mattera (South Africa)Yvonne Vera (Zimbabwe)V矇ronique Tadjo (Ivory Coast)Ben Okri (Nigeria)Alexander Kanengoni (Zimbabwe)Mzamane Nhlapo (Lesotho)Steve Chimombo (Malawi)Sindiwe Magona (South Africa)Nuruddin Farah (Somalia)Mandla Langa (South Africa)
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o
Extensive use has been made of Ngugi's Detained: A Writer's Prison Diary This interpretation of the work of Ngugi wa Thiong'o discusses his philosophy, writing style, social and political focus, and ultimate vision and aspirations. Each work of fiction is examined in depth, and there is an evaluation of Ngugi's standing as a writer and social figure. Separate chapters cover each of Ngugi's novels, from The River Between and Weep Not, Child to Matigari, as well as his drama and short stories. There is alsoan examination of his social commentaries in the popular press, to which the early formation of his ideological position can be traced. Kenya: EAEP
Reading Chinua Achebe
Analysis of the writings of Chinua Achebe aimed at students of literature. Simon Gikandi has set out to reveal '...the very nature of [Achebe's] creativity, its prodigious complexity and richness...its paradoxes and ambiguities. This is scholarship of real stature and supersedes all other studies of Achebe's writing. It comes at a good time. Achebe's literary reputation is equal to that of any living author and a substantial critical canon has been established. - G.D. Killam, Professor of English, University of Guelph Kenya: EAEP
