BOOK Southern Africa

Léonora Miano Lashes Out at Her US Publisher Over Faulty Foreword

by Ben - Editor on 19 Mar 2010   |   

Alert! Cameroonian novelist Léonora Miano – lately in South Africa at the Time of the Writer – is not happy with her US publishers, Bison Books, aka The University of Nebraska Press. Seems the press has tacked a foreword on to its translation of Miano’s L’Interieur de la nuit (Dark Heart of the Night) without first consulting the author. The Guardian’s Richard Lea picks up the story:

I’ve heard of novelists disagreeing with their reviewers, but this is something else entirely. “Cameroon does not have the worse human rights record in Africa … Cameroon is not the setting of the novel … I did not leave Cameroon to France to flee from a violent place … My novel is not a criticism of Negritude or Panafricanism … I’ve not just written another novel. Three more have actually been published …” It beggars belief that Miano didn’t get a look at this before it was stuck on the front of her book – now she’s asking for the foreword to be withdrawn.

• Complete article at Guardian Blogs

Here’s Miano’s letter to the Complete Review on the offending foreword, which first drew Lea’s attention:

But now, UN Press also felt entitled to add a foreword. Why not, if the aim was to help the readers know the writer and understand the novel? The problem is that the foreword is full of misleading information. Let’s say it frankly, it’s full of lies:

[...]

Cameroon is not the setting of the novel which was, as I’ve said it many times, inspired by a documentary that I saw on children at war. We don’t have those in Cameroon nowadays, and if we ever had, I never heard about it.

• Read the complete letter

Book details

• Dark Heart of the Night by Léonora Miano
  EAN: 9780803228238
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Photo courtesy the Centre for Creative Arts

Two Writers from Africa on the Orange Prize Longlist

by Ben - Editor on 17 Mar 2010   |   

Alert! The longlist for the £30 000-plus-a-statue-named-Bessie Orange Prize for fiction, the UK’s (world’s?) premiere women-writers-only literary award, has been announced.

When I first saw it, my bleary eyes deceived me into thinking that there were no African longlistees. Two rapid-fire tweets from @BOOKSA friend @urbanrenewal quickly put me to rights, however (click here and here). There are in fact at least two writers of African provenance on the list: Nadifa Mohamed, who was born in Somalia and Laila Lalami (@lailalalami), who was born in Morocco. Lalami is currently listed as living in Los Angeles; while Mohamed apparently lives in the UK.

Here are the blurbs for their longlisted books:

Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed

A stunning novel set in 1930s Somalia spanning a decade of war and upheaval, all seen through the eyes of a small boy alone in the world. Aden,1935; a city vibrant, alive, and full of hidden dangers. And home to Jama, a ten year-old boy. But then his mother dies unexpectedly and he finds himself alone in the world. Jama is forced home to his native Somalia, the land of his nomadic ancestors. War is on the horizon and the fascist Italian forces who control parts of east Africa are preparing for battle. Yet Jama cannot rest until he discovers whether his father, who has been absent from his life since he was a baby, is alive somewhere. And so begins an epic journey which will take Jama north through Djibouti, war-torn Eritrea and Sudan, to Egypt. And from there, aboard a ship transporting Jewish refugees just released from German concentration camp, across the seas to Britain and freedom. This story of one boy’s long walk to freedom is also the story of how the Second World War affected Africa and its people. A story of displacement and family.

Secret Son by Laila Lalami

When a young man is given the chance to rewrite his future, he doesn’t realize the price he will pay for giving up his past…Casablanca’s stinking alleys are the only home that nineteen-year-old Youssef El-Mekki has ever known. Raised by his mother in a one-room home, the film stars flickering on the local cinema’s screen offer the only glimmer of hope to his frustrated dreams of escape. Until, that is, the father he thought dead turns out to be very much alive. A high profile businessman with wealth to burn, Nabil is disenchanted with his daughter and eager to take in the boy he never knew. Soon Youssef is installed in his penthouse and sampling the gold-plated luxuries enjoyed by Casablanca’s elite. But as he leaves the slums of his childhood behind him, he comes up against a starkly un-glittering reality…

Click here for the Orange Prize longlist in full (it includes the likes of Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel). The Guardian has a nice slideshow of the 2010 longlisted covers, meanwhile; and probably also has the best overall Orange Prize feature page.

The 2010 Orange Prize shortlist will be announced on 20 April, and the winner on 9 June. Good luck to Mohamed and Lalami!

Book details

• Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed
  EAN: 9780007315741
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• Secret Son by Laila Lalami
  EAN: 9780670918294
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World Cup stories from South Africa

by Henrietta on 16 Mar 2010   |   

Elf:Fußballgeschichten aus Südafrika (Football Stories from South Africa) is a new anthology from German publisher Peter Hammer Verlag, timed to coincide with the World Cup year.

Edited by Manfred Loimeier, the book features 12 football-themed stories by local authors. It includes translated works by Diane Awerbuck, Lauren Beukes, Patrick Cairns, Greig Cameron, Kerry Leighton, Sarah Lotz, Maakomele Mak Manaka, Siphiwe ka Ngwenya, Vuyiswa Nodada, Xoli Norman, Henrietta Rose-Innes and Sifiso Zimba.

The publisher’s (Google-translated) website notes that the 2010 World Cup in South Africa is “an opportunity to gather stories from young South African authors, which cast a spotlight on football and the social framework in which this event will be held. [On] a life full of petty crime, AIDS and drugs, but also irrepressible zest for life and a playful ease in dealing with the burdens of societal change.”

Andrew Stone Reviews Africa Lens: 20 Years of Getaway Photography by Justin Fox

by Jani on 16 Mar 2010   |   

Verdict: carrot

FOR some two decades Getaway Magazine has taken us on journeys to some of the most remote destinations on the planet allowing us, through the lenses of its cameras, to view these amazing places from the comfort of our homes.

The magazine set the benchmark for travel journalism in Africa and really opened the continent up for the average traveller to explore the land north of our borders.

• Complete review at the Dispatch Online

• Africa Lens: 20 Years of Getaway Photography homepage

Book Details

• Africa Lens: 20 Years of Getaway Photography by Justin Fox
  EAN: 9781770097605
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Notes from the Time of the Writer: New Frank Talk; Aher Arop Bol and Leonara Miano; Uwem Akpan and Imraan Coovadia

by Nadia on 12 Mar 2010   |   

Notes and galleries from recent Time of the Writer events

The launch of Andile Mngxitama’s latest New Frank Talk pamphlet

The fifth issue of the New Frank Talk series, titled White Revolutionaries as Missionaries?, was launched by series editor and founder Andile Mngxitama at the Wellington Tavern Deck at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre this week.

Black Consciousness revivalist Mngxitama has had a hand in four publications recently: From Mbeki to Zuma, Why Biko Wouldn’t Vote and Black Colonialsists: the Trouble with Africa, which he wrote for the New Frank Talk series, plus Biko Lives! Contesting the Legacies of Steve Biko<, which he co-edited for Pan Macmillan.

The fifth NFT book is edited by Heinrich Böhmke, who spoke about his involvement with social movements at the launch.

“I’ve been involved since 1999, when the Concerned Community Forum and the people of Wentworth put marches together against Mbeki’s policies.

“About two years ago, I felt uncomfortable with middle class academics, mostly whites, so-called activists who were promoting themselves in their careers, and wore their suffering on their sleeves,” he said.

His essay is essentially about the motivations of and roles played by white people in black struggles, taking as its departure point a missionary named Stephen Kay who published Travels and Researches in Caffraria in 1843, describing the character, customs and moral condition of the peoples inhabiting portions of Southern Africa.

Mngxitama, who holds an MA in Sociology from the University of Witwatersrand, said he was delighted to be in Durban for the launch.
“Black Consciousness was founded here, Strini Moodley and Steve Biko did a lot of work to unite black people at that particular era, so it was like coming back home,” he said.

Mngxitama also related some personal thoughts on Black Consciousness in the 21st Century, quoting the Winnie Mandela of the recent and controversial Nadira Naipaul “interview”, in which she says that Nelson Mandela sold South Africans out, that black people were excluded economically, and that those blacks who were included were merely tokens.

“Those of us in BC did not have to hear this, because we already knew it. Our freedom has been compromised for a long time. It’s interesting to see the responses – white people’s first reaction to her statement is to protect Mandela and project Winnie as a mad, black woman,” he remarked.

Mngxitama also asked the question, “What makes us understand that democracy has not liberated the majority of black people? How did we move from wanting freedom to fighting for RDP houses?” People who were prepared to die for freedom before, now accept so little.

“In this book, Böhmke exposes how the process of conversion works, and he goes 185 years back to reveal it. He writes very well, showing how the missionary used the bible to convert black people. The same thing happens now, with the ‘new missionaries’ using the constitution to convert black people to perform the same job” of co-option.

Mngxitama concluded by saying that with white revolutionaries, all are not bad, but the way their interests are organised makes it impossible for them to come together with BC organisations.

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Writing Home

Literary enthusiasts and writers have been converging on UKZN’s Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre for the evening sessions of the 13th Time of the Writer Festival. Earlier this week, the first order of the night was to present the prestigious Currie Award, given to Dr Betty Govinden for her contribution as a South African Indian woman to SA society and letters. Dr Govinden received the award for her book, Sister Outsiders.

After that it was time for writers Aher Arop Bol of Sudan/SA and Leonara Miano of Cameroon/France to address the audience with the help of faciltator Lindy Stiebel.

Aher Arop Bol’s The Lost Boy tells the tale of the journey of a small Sudanese boy in 1987, who is carried into the Panyido Refugee Camp, Ethiopia, on the shoulders of his uncle. He does not know why he is there or if he ever will see his parents again. The boy, of course, is Bol, who is launched upon an epic quest for survival, education,and a refusal to remain “lost”. Bol now lives in South Africa, studying for an LLB at UNISA, and running a spaza shop in Pretoria, the income from which he uses to support his brothers in Uganda.

Leonara Miana, widely-recognised in Francophone literary circles, writes with an uncompromising view, and doesn’t shrink from what she sees. Her latest offering, Les aubes ecarlates, follows child soldier Epa on a journey that intimately examines the memory of slavery on the Afrcian continent and the scars it has left. Her book will be launched in English in America in April.

“My book is about my homeland,” said Bol. “I had to learn about the problems it faced from the outside world.”

“Home,” he continued, “is where people recognise you.”

Miano countered, “I don’t have a home and I’m not looking for one.” She loves living with mixed cultures, which is part and parcel of the life of a true artist, in her opinion – but she also believes in active change, and strives to take part in transforming “Old France” into a place that will be better for children.

***

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Why I Write What I Write

Another of the Time of the Writer’s evening talks had award-winning Nigerian author Uwem Akpan discussing his book of short stories, Say You’re One of Them, which was featured on Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club in September 2009, the first book of short stories ever chosen by Winfrey.

Akpan was paired with the sharp, witty Imraan Coovadia of South Africa, whose latest novel is High Low In-between. This riveting read is born of the current, post-apartheid dispensation, and turn on several themes, including human suffering and death. “Suffering is real in the world, people die and people get hurt,” said Coovadia.

Akpan’s book highlights the perspective of children’s suffering, whereas Coovadia’s sends a woman into widowhood and the painful aftermath. Both writers, hosted on stage by Karabo Kgoleng, believe that working in fiction allows them the greatest freedom of exploration in writing.

When questioned on the youth of today and what democracy means to them, Coovadia said, to laughter, that strongly believes the youth are a lost cause – and they have their parents to blame. “There’s a disconnection between parents and teenagers, but hopefully the future generations will be better. Keep them away from this one!”

However, Father Uwem believes not putting too much pessure on the youth to become who they are can make our lives richer.

African Safaris Are A Holgate Family Affair

by Amanda on 10 Mar 2010   |   

Intrepid traveler and social activist, Kingsley Holgate has written a fresh article about the safaris he and his family have undertaken – in which he offers some tips for others wanting to take Africa, like him, head on. For more incredible adventure tales, take a look at Afrika: Dispatches From the Outside Edge.

My wife, Gill (Mashozi) and our son, Ross and I have always been adventurers and we went on our first expedition in 1993. This “Afrika Odyssey”, a waterway journey in open boats from Cape Town to Cairo will always be our greatest adventure.
 
Zulu River Odyssey was my and Ross’ father-and-son journey, at the source of the Tugela, high up on Izinthaba zo Khahlamba, the Barrier of Spears, in the mighty Drakensberg. I fell on the mountain, dislocating my shoulder. In absolute agony, I remember having to jump from a high rock into a deep Tugela Gorge pool, with Ross waiting at the bottom to rescue me if I passed out from the pain. It’s a special bond between father and son; ours strengthened by the sharing of countless adventures.

• Read the complete article

Book details

• Afrika: Dispatches From the Outside Edge by Kingsley Holgate
  EAN: 9781770075047
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Moeletsi Mbeki Speaks to AFRICOM Members in Germany

by Nina on 10 Mar 2010   |   

Moeletsi Mbeki has made it his business to know what’s going on in Africa and to study the reasons behind the continent’s struggles. His extremely popular and widely recognized work on the subject, Acrhitects of Poverty: Why African Capitalism Needs Changing, provides the backdrop to a recent speech he gave to AFRICOM (U.S. Africa Command) members in Stuttgart, Germany, as part of the AFRICOM Speaker’s Series:

“Security and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: Looking to the Future”

Africa’s colonial legacy

The challenge facing Sub-Saharan Africa is not State building as many analysts believe. The immediate challenge most of Africa faces is society building.

Building a viable, sustainable and stable society requires the establishment and development of legitimate, socially hegemonic group or groups that can then build a viable state. This was what European colonial powers failed to do in Sub-Saharan Africa before they departed in the mid- 1950s to early 1960s. Instead they left behind a semblance of a state which had no social anchors. This was what led to Africa’s instability during the last half a century. This instability continues to this day in many countries despite a few signs of hope, in a handful of countries.

The most important factor in the creation of a stable capitalist society is the rise of a property owning class that controls extensive assets. On its own, this class of property owners is not sufficient to create a stable society because in order to develop the assets of these property owners and make them profitable, the owners require the technical and managerial skills of professional and artisan classes, generally referred to as the middle class. The bargaining power of this middle class also acts as a restraining influence on the political power of the large property owners.

• Read the complete article at Africom.mil

Book details

• Architects of Poverty: Why Africa’s Capitalism needs Changing by Moeletsi Mbeki
  EAN: 9781770101616
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I'm so happy I could dance! :-)

by Aernout Zevenbergen on 09 Mar 2010   |   

It has been a bit of a regular theme, on those rare occasions of me blogging here, on book.co.za: How to get my book “Spots of a leopard – on being a man” beyond the boundaries of SA… Doing the digital version is simple, that has happened already. But how to really get the paper versions into this marvelous continent of ours?

Sure, the myths are that people don’t want to buy books there. Indeed, anything north of the Limpopo is not easy Barnes & Nobbles land. Most bookshops limit themselves to a few classics, a bestseller or two and tons of educational material. However, I have found that a great deal of problems in doing business with East Africa is simply the Catch 22 that no one seems willing or able to break open: “There is no export because there is no market – there is no market because there is no export”. The reality of this is that linkages of trust and the logistics of chains simply do not exist.

Trade doesn’t happen where trade is thought of as impossible. No matter how “true” that thought is, in and of itself.

Despite over half a century of independence from colonial masters, and despite twenty years since SA got on the road to freedom as a real African country, the eyes of book shops, publishers and distributors still are mainly focused on ‘the North’.

With few initiatives amongst Africans in the book business industry to strengthen ties, and with everyone in South Africa (me included) hoping to find the cracks in the walls around the ‘developed markets’ it has shown itself close to impossible to export books from here to East Africa.

The demand is there. Or so bookshops owners tell me. It is just that a trodden path is way much easier and nicer to walk on, than to clear a new one. With publishers from the UK actually doing a thing or two to make sure their books reach a market in (East) Africa, why would the distributors there get all excited about South African colleagues who seem reluctant to do so?

Sure, kalahari.co.ke has opened up shop in East Africa. It takes an estimated 11 days for any book ordered on their site to leave the warehouse of On the dot somehwere in SA to make it onto someone’s nightstand in Nairobi. Because kalahari.co.ke (apparently) does not hold any stock in Kenya itself. The website seems no more than a portal into a market. No risk, no energy, tiny investment.

It is an approach that won’t really cause a tsunami amongst book readers in East Africa, I guess.

So, what is one to do?

As a Dutchman, I’ve been taught from a very young age to dredge a channel where there is none, if one is needed to make life more enjoyable.

And it seems to be paying off…. Hooray!

Just this afternoon I have written an invoice for the first shipment of books to Book Stop in Nairobi, the best book store in town there. A shipper will come and fetch them tomorrow.

And now, to all those colleagues who wouldn’t mind entering the market of East Africa: know that there is great demand for books from SA in Kenya…!

Anyone interested to come and sail on this new channel – please feel free to contact me.

Aernout

Percy Zvomuya Profiles Veronique Tadjo (and Three of Her Books)

by Ben - Editor on 09 Mar 2010   |   

The Mail & Guardian’s chief African lit correspondent weaves VS Naipaul into this terrific profile of French-Ivorian author Tadjo, who teaches at Wits University, and has a new novel coming out in May:

But it’s as a writer rather than as a teacher that Tadjo has found fame. In the past few years Tadjo’s The Blind Kingdom, Queen Pokou and As the Crow Flies — all books originally written in French — have become available to English-speaking readers.

The Blind Kingdom is about a dark, dysfunctional state, which appropriately uses the symbol of the bat. This state, unlike the blind nocturnal mammal, is ramming its head in self-destruct mode into walls and high-rise buildings.

Queen Pokou, winner of the 2005 Grand Prix Litteraire D’Afrique Noire (the premier prize in Francophone African literature), is a beautiful retelling of the founding myths of the Baoule people of Côte d’Ivoire.

It is the story of Abraha Pokou, an 18th-century Ashanti woman, fleeing royal intrigue and murder at the Ashanti court. Pokou and her followers flee, with the royal Ashanti army in pursuit, and come to the great Comoe River. An oracle tells them that to cross, they have to sacrifice a royal child to the river spirits.

• Read the complete article

Book details

• As the Crow Flies by Véronique Tadjo
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780143026228
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• The Blind Kingdom by Veronique Tadjo
  EAN: 9780955507915
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• Queen Pokou: Concerto for a Sacrifice by Veronique Tadjo
  EAN: 9780955507991
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Help Granta Select the Best African Short Stories of the Past 50 Years?

by Ben - Editor on 09 Mar 2010   |   

Alert! BOOK SA is not entirely convinced of the genuineness of the call, but Granta magazine is apparently looking for help compiling the top African short stories of the past 50 years. The following notice has been found poking out of various online literary thickets:

The Granta Book of The African Short Story

Edited by Helon Habila and Binyavanga Wainaina

This anthology will bring together the best of the best African short stories published in the last 50 years. You are invited to recommend any great short story you have read in a collection, a magazine, online, or heard on the radio, but it has to be by an African author.

The story could be in English, French, Portuguese, Arabic, or any major African language, but the final language of publication will be English. Send story title, author’s name, and any publication information you have to help us track your recommended story. Send before April 30, 2010, to: africastories2010@gmail.com

Is it real? BOOK SA will be calling Granta later on to find out. Even if not, however, the exercise of considering Africa’s top shorts might be worthwhile. From South Africa, off the top of my head, I’d recommend Siphiwo Mahala’s “The Suit Continued” and Ivan Vladislavic’s “The WHITES ONLY Bench” as strong contenders.

Your choices? Comments welcome below, as always.

Book details

• Granta 109: Work edited by Alex Clark
  EAN: 9781905881130
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• Granta 91: The View from Africa edited by Ian Jack
  EAN: 9781929001224
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