A beryl is a precious stone. It is rough until cut and polished when its beauty turns it into an aquamarine, or an emerald or the flawless golden heliodor. A beryl is rare and coveted. Beryl Markham was a wild thing created by Africa. She walked like a leopard and lived life with no boundaries. She was a maverick. A pioneer. Which during the early part of the twentieth century was a rare and golden thing. The wikipedia entry on her is dry and lifeless but the historical fiction, […]
This is not actually a book about birds.
Well this was a surprisingly delightful little book. Mr. Malik is a “short, round, balding brown man”–a sixty-something widower with a comb-over. After his wife’s death, on his doctor’s advice, he picked up a hobby: birds. Every Tuesday morning, he joins the East African Ornithological Society bird walk, led by Rose Mbikwa, Scottish widow of a Nairobi politician. Mr. Malik most definitely has a (quiet) crush on Ms. Mbikwa. One Tuesday, the showy and good-looking Harry Khan, Mr. Malik’s former classmate, shows up at the bird walk. […]
Petals of Blood: Feminism in Post-Colonial Kenya
Another installment of ModernLove takes an African Lit class! This was one of the earlier books we read over the course of the…course, and it’s one that while I reading it, I didn’t like, but once I was done and able to look back at the story as a whole, I really appreciated. The story takes place in Kenya just after it’s liberation from British rule. It’s set mostly in a small village, and the four main characters are not natives of it. They’ve found […]