Petina Gappah’s The Book of Memory is a remarkable and taut exploration of prejudice, history, and of course, memory. The book’s narrator and namesake, Memory, is an albino woman on death row in a Zimbabwean prison who is encouraged by her new lawyer to write her story for an American journalist who may be able to help win her freedom. Memory writes of the stark everyday life in prison and of the circumstances that have brought her there. But to fully explain, she must begin […]
There Are Some Children Here
This book is one that I won’t easily forget; it tells one girl’s story across two different worlds–the first a shantytown in Zimbabwe and the second in suburban Detroit. The story begins as Darling and her friends explore their neighborhoods as well as wealthier enclaves that border them. They are poor and hungry and chock full of American cultural touchstones and attitude. They sometimes discuss the time before–when they went to school and lived in houses–before the military came–but mostly they play in the world […]
Your bangs are curled, your lashes whirled, but still the world is cruel.
This book was tough for me to rate. I didn’t really NOT like it, and the plot was good, and it was an easy read. But I have notes. I liked the plot: Vimbai, hairdresser in Harare, Zimbabwe, enjoys local fame as the best hairdresser around until an unknown (male!) hairdresser comes in and steals her thunder. Her old loyal customers are won over by this new hair magician and she, of course, is overcome with jealousy. Gradually, we learn her story: she’s a […]
We Need New Names
I recently moved to Malawi, so as part of this year’s Cannonball I’m going to include at least ten books by African writers. Last year I started with Chinua Achebe’s classic Things Fall Apart and then picked up Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and then the superb Half of a Yellow Sun, which was one of my favorite books of last year–seriously, go read it immediately. We Need New Names received a lot of praise (NPR’s Great Reads of 2013, NYTimes’ Notable Books of the Year, finalist for […]