This is my second Senegalese novel (the first was the amusing Xala, last year) and so far one of my favorite African novels of the 13 or so I’ve read. So Long a Letter is the story of two Senegalese women, friends living in post-colonial Dakar, written in the form of a long letter from Ramatoulaye to Aissatou. Ramatoulaye is grieving the recent death of her husband Modou. We gradually learn that Modou was no saint, however, and that Aissatou also is without her husband, Mawdo Ba–because she divorced […]
Enchanting/Frustrating African Fantasy
I have a lot of thoughts about this book because I found it both enchanting and frustrating. Let’s start with the plot: We’re somewhere in Africa. The Nuru, a lighter skinned people, and the Okeke, a darker skinned people, are enemies. The Nuru are on course to exterminate the Okeke, following (what they think is) the guidance written in The Great Book. One Okeke woman is raped by a really terrible Nuru during a raping/pillaging raid. She escapes, giving birth in the desert to a baby girl whom she […]
The Radiance of Tomorrow…aaaannnd Cannonball!
It is the end, or maybe the beginning, of another story. Every story begins and ends with a woman, a mother, a grandmother, a girl, a child. Every story is a birth… To round out my ten African books of the year, I picked up this novel by Ishmael Beah, known for his previous non-fiction, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of A Boy Soldier. After reading this, I definitely want to pick that one up, too. This is fiction, but it’s obviously based on truth. […]
Foreign Gods, Inc.
This is the seventh of ten African books. I’ve been trying to get these books from different African countries, but Nigerian authors are so prolific! They’re hard to escape. Maybe after I finish the ten, I’ll seek out more non-Nigerian books to even it out. Foreign Gods, Inc. is about Ike, a cabdriver in NYC who had a promising future…until he married poorly and started gambling. Embarrassed by his failures (and his ex-wife), he ignores his mother’s e-mailed pleas for help–he can’t send money home, […]