Ode to Lata - The South Asian Gay Experience

Written by Shirlene Alusa-Brown | May 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Ali is a banker by day and an active socialite by night. Although it sounds like a normal life, it is anything but that. He is a gay Asian male running away from a background that includes a Hindu mother in postcolonial Kenya who had him watching Hindi cinema; an emotionally abusive bisexual lover; and the haunting memories of the death of his fatherat the hands of his mistress. » Read more…

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Well-Souled in South Africa by Mital Shah

Written by Mwabi Murdock | March 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Mital Shah and her team decided to document South Africa in a way that had not been done before. They wanted South Africa to lead the way and they would follow. The result is a beautiful 312 page book filled with fashion portraits, interviews, and local knowledge from South African style influencers as well as breathtaking landscape and historical imagery. The book is about the beauty, style, and soul of South Africa as Mital experienced them. » Read more…

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What Is The What

Written by Mwabi Kaira-Murdock | February 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Dave Eggers met Valentino Achak Deng, a Sudanese refugee finally living in Atlanta after spending almost his entire childhood fleeing the civil war. Together they decided to tell the long story of Valentino’s life as a “Lost Boy of Sudan.” Eggers soon realized that fictionalizing the story would give it a full effect. » Read more…

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Chris Abani - Song For Night

Written by Mwabi Kaira-Murdock | February 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Song for Night is a first-person tale of lost identity, suffering, and displacement. My Luck became a solider at age 12 after witnessing the murders of his Islam-convert father and stoic mother. My Luck is now 15. He is small for his age and very smart. He was trained to detect and defuse land mines. To ensure that My Luck and his brave comrades, including Ijeoma, the girl My Luck loves, remain quiet no matter what happens, the troop leaders have cut their vocal chords. » Read more…

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Half of a Yellow Sun

Written by Busola Grillo | January 6, 2008 | Leave a Comment

There was a time in the history of Nigeria when the Igbo people from the East segregated to form an independent nation called BIAFRA, this was in 1967. The outcome was a three year civil war which has been captured in this riveting novel by Adichie; a young Nigerian author whom some have called the Chinua Achebe incarnate. » Read more…

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Infidel - Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Written by Mwabi Kaira-Murdock | January 6, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Infidel is an autobiographical book and New York Times bestseller by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The initial print of the book sold out in two days in the Netherlands. » Read more…

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Benjamin Kwakye - The Sun By Night

Written by Shirlene Alusa-Brown | December 27, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Benjamin Kwakye has scored another winner with his second book, The Sun By Night. A prostitute has been found murdered and Manu, a wealthy, happily married businessman is the prime suspect. Secrets begin to unravel as the story unfolds, leaving Manu’s life exposed to the public. As the trial unfolds the attention turns to the issues that affect the trial, including the social standing, the stigmas attached to a prostitute, and the views on marriage and infidelity. As the drama unfolds, one is drawn into the contrasting worlds, and, just as soon as you think that you know how it is going to end, the story takes an unexpected turn. » Read more…

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Ngugi wa Thiongo - Wizard of the Crow

Written by Busola Grillo | December 11, 2007 | Leave a Comment

There is an old adage from the Yoruba tribe of West Africa that says “A reversing ram will gather momentum and charge with more power.” Ngugi is the reversing ram, gathering momentum and charging powerfully with his latest release; Wizard of the Crow after a 20 year break. » Read more…

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Dayo Forster - Reading the Ceiling

Written by Shirlene Alusa-Brown | December 10, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Dayo Forster Dayo was born in Gambia and now lives in Kenya. She has published a short story in Kwani?, Kenya’s literary magazine, and was one of twelve African writers selected as a participant for the 2006 Caine Prize Writer’s Workshop. The story produced as a result of the ten-day workshop will be published in a Caine Prize anthology in July 2006. » Read more…

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Judith Stone - When She Was White: The True Story of a Family Divided by Race

Written by Busola Grillo | November 8, 2007 | Leave a Comment

In 1966, a 9-yr old Sandra Laing was expelled from an all white school South African school due to a reclassification of her complexion–DARK. This is despite her being the daughter of white-skinned, European, Afrikaaner parents. Over the next couple of years, Sandra was once again reclassified as white as a result of her father’s efforts to separate his child from what was considered a stigmatized black race. This story is a documentation of some of the effects of the Apartheid that ripped the country of South Africa during this era.

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Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie

Written by Busola Grillo | September 2, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie debuts with this breathtaking novel about the life of 15 year-old Kambili. Born into a family comprising of herself, her brother and their parents; a loving and devoting but uneducated mother and an educated, wealthy Catholic politician father, Kambili grew up in the confines of an upright and holy family. She was raised to be proper and speak the right English so that everyone would recognize her as intelligent. Her father was perfect in every way or so he appeared and he dared his family to portray anything short of perfection. He was politically active in the community, but at home, a complete judgmental fanatic.

Kambili and her brother imagined a life outside of the walls of their home and how much fun it would be to grow up laughing just for the fun of it, playing with the neighbors kids and doing those things that kids love to do. The imagined living in a home where both their parents could agree on something together instead of their mother agreeing to everything that was presented by their father even when she was in complete opposition. Kambili wished that her mother enjoyed her family as opposed to subjecting to it. » Read more…

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