Reading Nigeria at NigeriansTalk
(Many thanks again to Saratu Abiola for contacting me with this opportunity.)
Review: African Roar edited by Emmanuel Sigauke and Ivor W Hartmann
Title: African Roar: And Eclectic Anthology of African Authors
Editors: Sigauke, Emmanuel and Ivor W Hartmann
Length: 156 pages
Genre: Fiction, Short Stories
Publisher / Year: StoryTime / 2010
Source: Amazon.
Rating: 3.5/5
Why I Read It: Picked up after reading African Roar 2011.
Date Read: 26/01/12
After reading African Roar 2011 I decided to pick up this earlier anthology to see how it compared. Again it contains an eclectic mix of stories from a variety of authors. Besides the two editors, there was one more author, Ayodele Morocco-Clarke who appeared in both collections. The remaining authors were all new to me in this collection.
The stories range from a story of bugs (as with the second collection), a story about being tested for AIDS, one of a man running into the man who had tortured him under the previous government, a story about domestic violence, and more. Various themes are examined including courage, love, sorrow, and retribution. Each of the authors has his or her own style and each story was interesting and different. Sigauke’s tale ‘A Return to Moonlight’ was one of my favourites, dealing with family and the ways we try to hide from them and imagine life our own way instead of how others may see it.
Unfortunately this collection shared many of the same issues as the first. The collection contained stories from authors from only a small number of countries – in this case only Zimbabwe (6 stories), Nigeria (3 stories), and Ghana (2 stories) were represented. I would love to see in these collections a wider variety of countries being included, especially given the subtitle of ‘African Authors’. Also, sadly the ‘About’ sections on each author weren’t nearly as funny as they were in the second instalment. They gave just the facts without the added humour.
In all, I found this collection to be a mixed bag. If you want to know more about writing in Africa (or at least a few countries in Africa) and want to see what some of the new writers are doing, this is a good collection to pick up. If you’re not a fan of short stories or are looking for a more thematic collection, this may not be the one for you. That being said, I look forward to the next editions of this collection and will keep hoping for a wider variety of countries represented.
The Real Help: Living In, Living Out by Elizabeth Clark-Lewis
Note: This is a project initiated by Amanda and I to read the books recommended by the Association of Black Women Historians as alternatives to The Help. Please see the dedicated page I created for more information and for a schedule. We are hoping that more readers join us and we are also looking for others to host discussions.
I have a confession to make – I purchased this book for the project but somewhere in my travels I misplaced it. If you know where it is, please do let me know. I’m still hunting for it and when I get home I’m going to be pulling all the books off their shelves to see if it got mixed up somewhere. All this to say that I haven’t gotten the opportunity to read the book yet, unfortunately.
Marilyn, who joined Amanda and I recently in reading some of these books, did get a review and some discussion questions posted so please do go read her excellent post. Check out Amanda’s review as well for more information. I can’t wait to read the book myself, and will review it here when I do.
Blog Update and Survey Request
Hello to all of my lovely readers. I’m sure you’ve noticed that things have been much quieter around the blog this year. It really wasn’t my plan to be so quiet, and it still isn’t, I’ve just really hardly had time to read let alone be online on the blog, twitter, email, and etc. I would like to say that I will be back to normal soon, but that may not be true. Work is absolutely crazy and I have no idea when I’ll have any more free time.
Just wanted to post a quick note here to explain and beg your forgiveness 
I hope you’ll all stay around and still be here when I finally am back full-time! (If ever.)
While I’m here I’d like to take a minute to point you toward a survey that Thea of The Book Smugglers is doing for her thesis in grad school. She says on her post about it:
I’m in my final semester and working on my thesis – a hypothetical international publisher of SF/F ebooks and select high-quality print books. And this is where I throw myself on your mercy and beg! I need to gather data on book readers and book lovers – namely, YOU! I have prepared a survey that should take no longer than 10 minutes to complete. It’s completely anonymous (unless you want to identify yourself) and results will only be used in aggregate for data trend analysis in my thesis. This is NOT for the Book Smugglers, nor is it reflective of the blog in any way!
Review: Love InshAllah edited by Ayesha Mattu and Nura Maznavi
Title: Love InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women
Editors: Mattu, Ayesha and Nura Maznavi
Length: 320 pages
Genre: Non-Fiction, Religion, Love, GLBTQ
Publisher / Year: Soft Skull Press / 2012
Source: From the editor for review.
Rating: 4.5/5
Why I Read It: The themes and topics sounded really interesting.
Date Read: 18/01/12
This is one of those collections where I really just don’t feel that my attempt at a review can do it any kind of justice. The essays cover a wide variety of topics and experiences and is impressively inclusive. While it contains no transgender authors, it does include authors with varying personal interpretations of Islam, authors who have been married for years, authors who have been divorced, authors who have children, authors who don’t, and authors who identify as lesbian. (edited to add 2/16/12: The editor of this work, Ayesha Mattu, emailed me to let me know that they did reach out to the trans community but did receive any submissions. It is her hope that there will be more participation on the website and in the future. How awesome and inclusive is this collection??)
In the introduction the editors talk about how everyone has an opinion of Muslim women, especially those who haven’t met one. They talk about these ideas and misconceptions about how Islam oppresses women and all Muslim women are suffering and can’t live their lives as they wish. This collection was pulled together to directly confront these stereotypes and show some of the myriad lived experiences of Muslim women in America. I will say in advance that I think they met their challenge and no one reading this book could maintain any stereotypes they may have held – always great to get a few more people out of their bubbles!
Through the collection we have sections focusing on different types of love – love as a life changing event, first loves and experiences, international love, divorce and re-marriage, and the ways that social networking has affected dating and love. In each section we have essays from completely different lives and experiences and this really shows how generalizations and stereotypes are impossible and completely wrong.
In a collection like this, including writers ranging from full-time to first-time, there can often be some essays that aren’t quite as good as the others but in this case I really enjoyed all and found them all really well-written. Each essay really pulled me in and made me think. They made me believe in love in a way that many stories about love and relationships often don’t. I won’t talk about any individual stories because I really loved them all, but will direct you to A Muslimah Writes for a great and more complete review (which I’m really looking forward to reading myself now that I’ve written my own review!).
Given that stories about Muslim women, whether they live in America or elsewhere in the world, are rarely so full of life and love as these are, and so rarely show the full range of human experiences that they experience. I highly recommend this collection of true stories as a book to dip into to learn more about living as a Muslim, to learn more about living as a woman, or simply to read some really great stories.
Review: Living, Loving, and Lying Awake at Night by Sindiwe Magona
Title: Living, Loving, and Lying Awake at Night
Author: Magona, Sindiwe
Length: 155 pages
Genre: Fiction, Racism, Apartheid, Short Stories
Publisher / Year: Interlink Books / 1991
Source: Better World Books.
Rating: 3.5/5
Why I Read It: Magona was on a list somewhere of female African authors to read. She was also featured in the short story collection Opening Spaces, which I really enjoyed.
Date Read: 24/01/12
This work contains a novella and eight short stories. All of the works are set in South Africa and deal with the life and struggles of the black African people with apartheid. The stories highlight the unfairness of and struggles of the pass system, of the inability to get work, the inability to live on the meagre pay from what work existed, the racial differences in law enforcement, and much more. Magona has a talent for saying so much in her short stories so that we feel like we understand a bit of what life may have been like for these women.
The novella tells the story of Atini, a young mother with too many children she can’t feed, and a husband who never sends home money. She finally decides that to really be a mother she must leave and make money to support her children. She sneaks away to a small town, where the rest of the story takes place. After taking a job as a maid we hear about what life is like for maids in apartheid South Africa. Various chapters are told in the form of monologues by various other maids to Atini.
Through these conversations we get an idea of the importance of working for a good family, the struggles that come from even that, of feeling owned, and so much more. As with the various books in The Real Help project, this really showed what it was like. The struggles faced were often similar to those faced by African American maids and domestic help in the United States. It felt like we were finally getting a look at the real lives of these women. Magona has done a fantastic job of giving these women a voice through her fiction.
The short stories all deal with different characters and different situations, but all expand upon the same themes of the lives of women in apartheid South Africa. We see the poor with no options being shown dignity and rights in having their stories shown. Definitely an interesting and worthwhile read that I would recommend to anyone.
Review: Cereus Blooms at Night by Shani Mootoo
Title: Cereus Blooms at Night
Author: Mootoo, Shani
Length: 280 pages
Genre: Fiction, GLBTQ
Publisher / Year: Emblem Editions / 1996
Source: BookMooch, I think
Rating: 3.5/5
Why I Read It: I’d heard good things about it.
Date Read: 17/01/12
Mootoo was born to Trinidadian parents in Ireland before moving to Trinidad at the age of four where she grew up. She now lives in Canada. This book shows the influence of growing up on an island as well as in a tropical climate. The setting of this book is an island named Lantanacamara and the way it is described evokes a Caribbean island. The place is evocatively set with descriptions of the lush vegetation and the birds flying through, and with the people who populate it.
The island has a large Indian immigrant population who are struggling to truly fit in. Through the story we hear the various ways this has happened including the early attempts at conversion and the way that conversion was set as a prerequisite for children to attend school. This form of coercion and the overlay of Christian morality and traditions played into the other dramas of the book including the gender fluidity and other situations of abuse. We saw at once how harsh the traditions and morals could be to those who didn’t fit in, and also how they abandoned others to their fate because of shame and stigma. Rather than showing compassion, instead it was used to keep people outside the fold for perceived ‘sins’.
Magical realism plays a big part in the book, through Mala’s madness, both real and as it is perceived by others and through the way Ambrose is said to sleep all month and his wife never to sleep. These seemed unnecessary to me, as I felt the story could have held it’s own without these exaggerated additions, but at the same time it worked. It gave the story that air of almost unreliability or unbelievability and set it aside from something that you felt you could feel comfortable with and know. It was used, I felt, as a way to keep the mind on alert and working.
Madness and abandonment are shows as two sides of the same coin, and that we do what we must to survive.
I wonder at how many of us, feeling unsafe and unprotected, either end up running far away from everything we know and love, or staying and simply going mad. I have decided today that neither option is more or less noble than the other. They are merely different ways of coping, and we each must cope as best we can. (page 97)
Through the story we read of child abuse and incest in one family and of the fluidity of gender and sexual preference in other families. Putting those themes together can sometimes give the impression that the author feels they are somehow related, but that never seemed the case here. There was a clear demarcation and we knew that there was no abuse causing the gender fluidity, for example, because it was different families and story lines. With one character as transgender and the other hovering somewhere in the realm of indecision, knowing that he is gay and slowly deciding what it is that he wants, I felt Mootoo did a really good job in her portrayal of these characters.
A very interesting book that I would recommend to anyone looking to try a new author or just read an interesting and very different story.
Review: Tales of the Tikongs by Epeli Hau’ofa
Title: Tales of the Tikongs
Author: Hau’ofa, Epeli
Length: 93 pages
Genre: Fiction, Short Stories
Publisher / Year: Talanoa / 1994 originally published in 1983
Source: BookMooch
Rating: 5/5
Why I Read It: I’ve been working my way through the series.
Date Read: 22/01/12
Hau’ofa is of Tongan descent, though lives currently in Fiji. These interconnected short stories are at once hilarious and illuminating. Tiko is, as far as I can ascertain, a fictional South Pacific island but can work as a stand-in for any small island dealing with the drama that comes along with development and the efforts by outsiders to ‘improve’ the people and place.
The characters that populate these stories are the Tikongs, the inhabitants of the island of Tiko. Through the stories we come to know some of them intimately and others in passing, and the reasons behind what they do. Religion having been brought to Tiko first, the inhabitants are all devoutly religious and their interpretations of religious stories and customs are hilarious. As an example, they work so hard on Sunday in constantly worshipping and attending services that they must rest through the remainder of the week. All of the ways in which the religious customs are changed seem logical, no matter how extreme, when you read the reasons Hau’ofa has the characters giving for their beliefs and actions.
For anyone interested in development, aid, or helping others this collection speaks loudly to the pitfalls of these actions. They show the ways in which they detract from real progress, how they hurt people, and how they can be completely unproductive. One such example is that of the brain drain that is said to have occurred in Tiko as the newly educated youngsters returning home were pushed out as they had such crazy ideas. This could continue because foreign countries were willing to continually send foreigners in on their salary, and these people were only on short contracts and so didn’t have to enact any big changes. Thus the processes could continue as they were with no change necessary.
The ways in which Hau’ofa’s characters distort and disrupt processes and efforts were truly hilarious. I will certainly be searching for other works by this author in the future. I haven’t read much from the Oceanic countries so am glad to have found this collection to start rectifying that. Highly recommended to all.
January 2012 Reading Wrap-Up
Books Read: 12
Pages Read: 3020
Hours Listened To: 0
Books read:
- Hot Air: Meeting Canada’s Climate Change Challenge – Simpson, Jeffrey, Mark Jaccard and Nic Rivers
- To ‘Joy my Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labor After the Civil War – Hunter, Tera W
- Captivity - Noyes, Deborah
- Cereus Blooms at Night – Mootoo, Shani
- Love InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of North American Muslim Women – Mattu Ayesha and Nura Maznavi
- Tales of the Tikongs – Hau’ofa, Epeli
- Nefertiti: Unlocking the Mystery Surrounding Egypt’s Most Famous and Beautiful Queen – Tyldesley, Joyce
- Living, Loving, and Lying Awake at Night – Magona, Sindiwe
- Blanche on the Lam – Neely, Barbara
- Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them – Prose, Francine
- African Roar – Sigauke, Emmanuel and Ivor Hartmann
- Unruly Women: The Politics of Confinement and Resistance – Faith, Karlene
Bloggers visited: maphead, pens with cojones
Places visited through reading: Canada, Egypt, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Tonga, Trinidad, USA, and Zimbabwe
Places visited irl: Washington state, Portland, Alberta, Aruba
Book Purchases: I bought one book this month, Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooks. This was an allowable purchase in my roommate challenge because it is a part of the Year of Feminist Classics project. I also said yes to one review request, though I’m not sure if the book has arrived yet (I’ll arrive home in a week to check). In addition to these, publishers have been providing some of the books for the Indie Lit Award GLBTQ category shortlist which I have to read by the end of this month.
Snow storm in Chehalis, WA
Thoughts and ramblings:I managed to start the year off quite well with some really interesting reads this month. The stats on them are pretty accurate to my goals as well – 50% fiction, 75% female authors, 25% GLBTQ, 25% international authors, and 40% POC. (As a reminder, I count non-European / North American / British authors of color as international authors rather than POC as that is really a term that loses meaning outside of these places, in my mind.) Excitingly, all 12 reads were off my tbr pile (though only 2 count to the Roommate Challenge) and all 12 also contained new-to-me authors.
Although I took many days off this month, it was still fairly busy on the blog. I posted again on BAND, this month Joy asked how much of our reading is for projects and goals. I got to participate in The Book Smugglers Smugglivus. I joined the African Reading Challenge and pledged my support of the Birthday Party Pledge. I came up with a post series idea which I’ll be running monthly if I can, sharing some of the blogs and bloggers who really make me think. I also discussed an opera I went to, The Mikado.
I celebrated my birthday this month, and my second blogoversary. I hosted a celebration as part of this – and to celebrate how utterly fantastic last year was for me. After starting as the worst year ever, I managed to completely turn it around and I am still on a high from that. I’ve been slow in announcing winners so let me do that now:
Sonora, CA
- Leeswammes won Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
- Eva won In Dependence by Sarah Ladipo Manyika
- Amy won Rape New York by Jana Leo
- Zibilee won A Human Being Died that Night by Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela
- Emily Jane won The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
- Debbie Rodgers won African Love Stories edited by Ama Ata Aidoo
I really wasn’t trying to get a winner per book but it randomly turned out like that which I find really cool. Just a sign that I chose great books to give away I guess
Outside of reading this year has started off quite busy. I managed to get a working computer from work early in the month though I’m still having issues with it, attempting to get the programs I need installed and working. While I still feel ridiculously behind in work, blogging, blog reading, emails, and more, I’m slowly managing to catch up. I’ve cleared out the Google Reader (though with few comments I apologize) and I’m slowly trying to get through the inbox next.
I had a really great New Year, a fantastic birthday, and then left on travels. During my travels I got to meet my niece too which was really exciting, though I’m still not a fan overall of babies 
Beach in Aruba
Other than that, I’ve been planning more great trips – with work and for vacation. Egypt with Carina is coming up quickly, and to help prepare for that I made the ridiculously silly decision to try to learn Arabic. I know, I know, what was I thinking? I bought Rosetta Stone Arabic and have been at it for three weeks. I’m currently still on lesson 2… I also registered for Book Expo America, though I’m still waiting to see any kind of schedule for the Book Blogger Convention, and to see what changes there will be now that it’s been purchased by BEA. Who else is planning on going?
So that was my January, or what I remember of it anyway. February is starting off just as crazy but hopefully it will also be just as good Don’t forget in February to join us in reading Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooks with the Year of Feminist Classics!
Review: Captivity by Deborah Noyes
Title: Captivity
Author: Noyes, Deborah
Length: 340 pages
Genre: Fiction, Historical
Publisher / Year: Unbridled Books / 2010
Source: Book Expo American 2010
Rating: 4/5
Why I Read It: It’s been on my shelf for too long, so I threw it in my suitcase for the trip.
Date Read: 15/01/12
When I first started this book, I wasn’t sure I would be able to finish it. I almost abandoned it once, but for some reason decided to try a few more chapters. The chapters alternate back and forth between two different stories. We have the story of the Fox Sisters in 1848, who held much of New York and surrounding areas in thrall to their claims of speaking with the dead and we have the story of Clara Gill, a middle aged recluse who fears to leave her house, having long ago isolated herself. The way the story was told and the alternating back and forth didn’t always work for me. While the stories intertwined, sometimes the switches didn’t seem as natural as they could have been. Also, there was a few places that I felt incidents were alluded to or came up too forced in the writing.
Both main characters, Maggie Fox and Clara Gill, are forceful and stuck in their heads. One is naive and over-confident, the other lonely and self-punishing. They both have their faults and while by the end they have grown and changed somewhat, much of that growth seems forced by outside sources and not necessarily healthy. Some of this unhealthiness is due to the time in which the book is set, and the limited options available to both women at that time. Some of it is the cause of the drama in the story. We all live within our perceived limits and make choices that aren’t necessarily the best.
I feel the title states it all, for this book. The novel is, indeed, the story of captivity in many forms. Through the book Noyes lays out the various forms of captivity that can hold us and keep us, and the true difficulty we can have getting out, even when it is our own mind holding us. We have the captivity of family and friends, of their expectations of us. We have the captivity of our minds, not allowing us release from our inner torments. We have the captivity of love and affection, whether chosen or not. We have the captivity of propriety and culture, forcing us to act in proscribed ways and stick to set rules. Noyes forces us to see, in effect, the various forces holding us captive to which we rarely pay any attention. After reading it is hard to ignore culture, society, media, friends and relations, family, and the various other ties that keep us to a path we may or may not have chosen on our own.
“Why is it we some of us feel most alive,” Pratt muses, “most ourselves, when we are least in accord with what life expects of us?”
“Of which life do you speak?”
Pratt meets her gaze with a slow nod. “Precisely.” (page 162)
Another thread through the story is that of faith. the Fox Sisters of course are leading a new and growing religion, of sorts. They are attracting followers and leading seances, but at the same time they haven’t defined their own religion or system of belief but rather tack on to many. Maggie ultimately comes to understand that religion is often the simply the ties used to bind people together and set customs, and that without them she cannot feel comfortable and safe. Clara comes to find that perhaps belief is more important than rationale, if she chooses to believe.
Despite my minor issues with the way the story was told, I felt Noyes still managed to excel in making me think, as a reader. She forced me to confront my expectations and life and ponder the various forces holding me, and all of us, captive. She also got me thinking about belief and the force it still exerts on us all. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a different read.
