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Archive for the ‘Africa’ Category

Presenting Homegoing: Yaa Gyasi’s searing, profound, and highly anticipated debut novel

by Penguin Books on Jul 6th, 2016

 
HomegoingPenguin is proud to present Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, the novel that made headlines last year when it received a seven-figure deal at the London Book Fair:

Effia and Esi: two sisters with two very different destinies. One sold into slavery; one a slave trader’s wife. The consequences of their fate reverberate through the generations that follow. Taking us from the Gold Coast of Africa to the cotton-picking plantations of Mississippi; from the missionary schools of Ghana to the dive bars of Harlem, spanning three continents and seven generations, Gyasi has written a miraculous novel – the intimate, gripping story of a brilliantly vivid cast of characters and through their lives the very story of America itself.

Epic in its canvas and intimate in its portraits, Homegoing is a searing and profound debut from a masterly new writer.

About the author

Yaa Gyasi was born in Ghana and raised in Huntsville, Alabama. She holds a BA in English from Stanford University and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she held a Dean’s Graduate Research Fellowship. She lives in Berkeley, California.

 
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Image courtesy of Time


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Don’t miss the launch of The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso at Love Books, with Elinor Sisulu

by Penguin Books on May 4th, 2016
Coming soon: The Woman Next Door, the new novel from Yewande Omotoso

 
The Woman Next DoorLove Books and Penguin Random House invite you to the launch of The Woman Next Door, the new novel from Yewande Omotoso.

The event will take place at Love Books in Melville on Tuesday, 10 May. The author will be in conversation with Elinor Sisulu.

Omotoso won the South African Literary Award for First-Time Published Author and was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Fiction Prize. In 2013, she was a finalist in the inaugural, pan-African Etisalat Fiction Prize.

Don’t miss it!

Love thy neighbour? Easier said than done …

Event Details

  • Date: Tuesday, 10 May 2016
  • Time: 6:00 PM for 6:30 PM
  • Venue: Love Books
    The Bamboo Lifestyle Centre
    53 Rustenburg Road
    Melville
    Johannesburg | Map
  • Guest Speaker: Elinor Sisulu
  • Refreshments: Come and join us for a glass of wine
  • RSVP: Love Book, kate@lovebooks.co.za, 011 726 7408

 
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Author image: Yewande Omotoso on Facebook


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Coming soon: The Woman Next Door, the new novel from Yewande Omotoso

by Penguin Books on Apr 25th, 2016
Coming soon: The Woman Next Door, the new novel from Yewande Omotoso

 
The Woman Next DoorPenguin Random House is delighted to present The Woman Next Door, the new novel from award-winning novelist Yewande Omotoso:

Hortensia James and Marion Agostino are neighbours. One is black, one white. Both are successful women with impressive careers. Both have recently been widowed. And both are sworn enemies, sharing hedge and hostility which they prune with a zeal that belies the fact that they are both over 80.

But one day an unforeseen event forces the women together. And gradually the bickering and sniping softens into lively debate, and from there into memories shared. But could these sparks of connection ever transform into friendship? Or is it too late to expect these two to change?

About the author

Yewande Omotoso was born in Barbados and grew up in Nigeria, moving to South Africa with her family in 1992. She is the author of Bom Boy, published in South Africa in 2011. In 2012 she won the South African Literary Award for First-Time Published Author and was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Fiction Prize. In 2013, she was a finalist in the inaugural, pan-African Etisalat Fiction Prize. She lives in Johannesburg, where she writes and has her own architectural practice.

 
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Author image: Yewande Omotoso on Facebook


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“There is only fear and the possibility of dying” – Read two excerpts from Back to Angola by Paul Morris

by Penguin Books on Jan 12th, 2016

Back to AngolaBack to Angola is Paul Morris’ personal account of the filth of war.

Morris, now a counsellor and life coach, shares the story of the misadventure that took place when he was reluctantly conscripted as a soldier into the South African Defence Force in 1987 and sent to Angola where he had to face the terrors of the South African Border War at the tender age of 19.

25 years later, Morris returned to Angola to see the country from a different perspective. This trip is documented in Back to Angola, along with his fascinating and thoughtful reflections on childhood, masculinity, violence, memory, innocence and guilt.

For a taste of what you can expect from this brilliant memoir, read a short excerpt, originally shared on the book’s Facebook page:

 

* * * * * *

 

Suddenly there’s a light whip-crack overhead. Then another. Then: snap. Snap, snap. Like heavy raindrops on a plastic shelter, rifle fire from the AK-47s of the FAPLA forward observation posts starts to seek us out, the bullets crackling ever more fiercely as they break the sound barrier over our heads. It has started. My stomach is tight; blood pounds in my ears. There is a steady crackling of rifle fire overhead, accompanied by regular machinegun bursts that sound like so many strings of Chinese fireworks. The crack-bang of high explosives has started as FAPLA begins lobbing mortar and artillery shells at us, and now we hear the loud muzzle-bangs from cannons. It’s impossible to tell whether they’re from our Ratel 90s or from FAPLA tanks, but they indicate that we have now fully engaged in battle with the main body of the defending force. Our fire orders come through and I prime bombs, ripping charges from the tail fins and turning the nosepiece to ‘fire’ and passing them to John, our Number 2, who is chucking them down the barrel as fast as I can pass them to him. We’re firing more bombs than ever before. Ten bombs for effect. Twenty. We are on target and the enemy is taking a pounding. They’re well dug in and we keep hammering away, but they don’t budge. Shooting back gives me something to do. When I’m not priming bombs my mind has time to scream at me that this is fucking madness – get the hell out. Somewhere through the thick bush our lieutenant is racing to and fro along the front. He’s picking out targets and radioing them back to our fire group. High explosives are churning the sand and splintering trees and I can feel their percussion in my chest as if I’m a drum. The bush is thick. It’s hard to stay in formation. We’re attacking from two directions and our other force has wheeled around, disorientated. For a while we fire at each other without realising it. We pause in our advance, pull back, reorganise and have another go. It’s a long, intense day and time warps and bends in a fog of adrenaline and terror. Some moments feel like the minutes are hours while hours seem to have flashed by in seconds. We speak to one another in lulls and pauses in our firing as the battle ebbs and flows and crashes like angry surf on a jagged coast. In conversation we seek comfort, but there is no such thing in this place. There is only fear and the possibility of dying.

 

* * * * * *

 

For a longer read, here’s the thirteenth chapter from Back to Angola:

Excerpt from Back to Angola by Paul Morris

 

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I Will Probably Wrestle with the Notion of Being an African for the Rest of My Life – Ivan Vladislavic

by Amanda on Nov 25th, 2015
101 DetectivesThe FollyDouble NegativeThe Loss Library The Restless SupermarketPortrait with Keys

 
Ivan Vladislavić recently travelled to the US to launch the North American edition of The Folly and celebrate his 2015 Windham Campbell Prize for Fiction during the Windham Campbell Prize Festival at Yale University.

The esteemed South African writer stopped by Bard College for a special event where he read from his works and discussed his literature and all that it entails with novelist Nuruddin Farah and poet Robert Kelly. Literary Hub transcribed the conversation and have published it on their site.

Farah and Kelly asked a myriad questions, and led the conversation in many incredibly interesting directions. Read the edited transcript to see what Vladislavić said when asked by Farah, “When did you start to think of yourself as an African?”:

I grew up thinking of myself as a South African, with no real sense that this was an exclusionary category. Bear in mind that I was a child in the harshest period of apartheid. I was born in the late 1950s, so I was a child in the particularly repressive period of the 60s, when the opposition had been more or less shattered or forced underground, and people had been driven into exile. I grew up in Pretoria, which was the seat of government, in a very conservative, racist white environment. As I say, my family gave me a rather proud sense of being a South African. I guess the question is whether the “African” in that “South African” had a content that extended beyond the borders of the country, or beyond a narrowly conceived white identity. I certainly didn’t think I was a “European,” although the term was applied to white South Africans. I became conscientized about South Africa and its politics when I went to university in the mid-70s, where questions of identity were being discussed very intensely. There were programs of what we called “Africanization” among white students on some campuses and there were campaigns that drew attention to the fact that as white South Africans, we were not fully rooted in our own space, in our own country. Then I began to think about the idea of being an African —of actually being in Africa—in a different way. Living in a democratic society has given me a different, fuller sense of being an African, partly because our country is more open to seeing itself as part of Africa. Still, it’s not a simple notion for me, and I will probably wrestle with it for the rest of my life.

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Image courtesy of Windham Campbell Prize


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How Taiye Selasi’s Ghana Must Go is Changing the Literary Landscape in Ghana

by Penguin Books on Nov 18th, 2015

 
Ghana Must GoDaniel Neilson recently wrote an article for Time Out Accra on how Ghanaian fiction is taking the world by storm, “carving its way out of the ‘West African literature’ hold-all category”.

In the article, Neilson pays tribute to the wave of young authors who continue to place Ghana on the world map with their fresh new voices and ideas.

One of these authors who’ve contributed to Ghana’s literary revival moment is Taiye Selasi, whose novel Ghana Must Go has been met with critical acclaim.

Read the article:

Probably last year’s most talked about novel of this realm is Ghana Must Go, by Taiye Selasi. It leaves readers with plenty to chew on, with its unusual narrative style and complex characters. The intelligent Ms Selasi has certainly stepped into the literary world with a grand entrance (her fan base includes Toni Morrison and Salman Rushdie). The story revolves around a Boston family of six – the mother Nigerian, the father Ghanaian – whose mixed up lives repel and retract like a rubber band. Accra is referred to more as a backdrop to the storyline, however it is obvious the city and Ghana are familiar territory for Selasi with descriptions such as “lush Ghana, soft Ghana, verdant Ghana, where fragile things die” and “the smell of Ghana, a contradiction, a cracked clay pot: the smell of dryness, wetness, both, the damp of earth and dry of dust.” Selasi enjoys flitting between hot, slower paced Accra and crisp, snow covered Boston to contrast characters old and new/ past and present / child and adult.

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Image courtesy of Taiye Selasi’s Twitter page


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Burchell’s Travels by Susan Buchanan; Illustrated with over 100 Sketches and Paintings

by Penguin Books on Nov 11th, 2015

Burchell's TravelsNew from Penguin Books South Africa, Burchell’s Travels by Susan Buchanan:

Just over 200 years ago, in 1810, a 30-year-old Englishman named William Burchell landed in Cape Town after a four-year stint as a naturalist on St Helena island. The following year he embarked on an epic journey through the Cape Colony, which lasted four years and during which he covered 7 000 kilometres, mainly through unexplored terrain, and collected over 50 000 plant and animal specimens, as well as built up a vast collection of sketches and paintings. He went on to travel in Brazil, and after many years back in Britain, he committed suicide at the age of 82.

Burchell’s Travels tells the story of Burchell’s journeys, bringing to life an important figure who has faded into historical obscurity. It is a fascinating account of what travel was like 200 years ago – reconstructed from the rich source of Burchell’s own writings.

Beautifully illustrated with over 100 of Burchell’s sketches and paintings, this is a perfect book for anyone interested in history, art, nature and travel.

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Throwback Thursday: Watch Taiye Selasi’s Ever-relevant TED Talk, “Don’t Ask Where I’m From. Ask Where I’m Local”

by Penguin Books on Oct 8th, 2015

Ghana Must GoIn October 2014, Ghana Must Go author Taiye Selasi gave a fascinating TED Talk about the essential human question, “Where are you from?”

Selasi says the majority of people do not think about how loaded and complex that question is, and unpacks the implications of experience on identity.

Read Selasi’s opening remarks, and scroll down to watch her inspiring and insightful presentation:

Last year, I went on my first book tour. In 13 months, I flew to 14 countries and gave some hundred talks. Every talk in every country began with an introduction, and every introduction began, alas, with a lie: “Taiye Selasi comes from Ghana and Nigeria,” or “Taiye Selasi comes from England and the States.” Whenever I heard this opening sentence, no matter the country that concluded it — England, America, Ghana, Nigeria — I thought, “But that’s not true.” Yes, I was born in England and grew up in the United States. My mum, born in England, and raised in Nigeria, currently lives in Ghana. My father was born in Gold Coast, a British colony, raised in Ghana, and has lived for over 30 years in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. For this reason, my introducers also called me “multinational.” “But Nike is multinational,” I thought, “I’m a human being.”

Watch the video:

YouTube Preview Image

 
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"A Quiet But Determined Relevance": Green Lion and Tales of the Metric System Under the Microscope

by Amanda on Oct 7th, 2015

Green LionTales of the Metric SystemJeanne-Marie Jackson recently wrote an article for n+1 about the South African novel of ideas.

Jackson provides an overview of the African literary landscape, outlining the various arguments that encircle how we talk about African writing and singling out “two flawed literary heuristics”: “the universalist argument” and “the plea for infinite variety”. She argues that “another critical tack now might be to consider how African novelists imagine the significance of abstract or de-personified thought”.

Turning the focus to South African literature, Jackson explores the work of Henrietta Rose-Innes and Imraan Coovadia – two authors who have “skirted identity politics in favour of works that foreground how people interact with concepts that they take to exist outside them”.

“Taken in tandem, Coovadia’s Tales of the Metric System and Rose-Innes’s Green Lion amplify the external force of ideas themselves,” she writes.

Read the article:

Green Lion thus dovetails with Tales of the Metric System in its interest in a literal conservatism—an attempt to press pause on change for just long enough to come to grips with what’s before us—that in the wrong hands could be mistaken for withdrawing from South Africa’s social tumult. Neither novel is satisfied with the flaccid forms or politics of writing against categories, but both are wary of the social and psychic damage that a zeal for firm identities and positions might wreak. Rose-Innes and Coovadia are careful writers: in different ways, they interrogate exactly which practices, values, and objects we want to save or destroy. And in what terms, both ask, with what common metrics do we justify these choices? In light of such searching investigation into how people reconcile their ideas about the world with what it means to inhabit it together, these writers’ identities are the least interesting thing about them. For that, they achieve a quiet but determined relevance.

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This World Rhino Day, Meet Sudan – the Last Male Northern White Rhino in the World

by Amanda on Sep 22nd, 2015

 
Killing for Profit22 September is World Rhino Day, so take a minute to meet Sudan, the last male northern white rhinoceros in the world, and see what you can do to help his kind.

Sudan is kept at the Ol Pejeta reserve in northern Kenya, where five keepers give him round-the-clock care and protection from poachers.

Watch a video about Sudan, and find out what you can do to spread the word:

YouTube Preview Image
* * * * *

The average lifespan of a rhino is 35, meaning there is not much hope that 42-year-old Sudan will produce any offspring. However, a groundbreaking new breeding project is providing some hope for the northern white rhino.

There’s quite a lot of northern white rhino semen stored around the world, says Vigne, but “what there isn’t is a method of preserving female rhino eggs”, so if the females here, and one in a San Diego zoo die, so does the plan to perpetuate the sub-species.

“The really key thing here is that the females stay alive,” says Vigne – long enough for scientists to successfully extract their eggs.

If this pioneering process works, the northern white’s egg and frozen sperm would be implanted into a southern white rhino in South Africa or a European zoo.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, South African private game reserves are beginning to sell their rhinos, as it becomes more expensive to protect them from poachers. Julian Rademeyer, who recently won the prestigious Marjan-Marsh Award for his book Killing for Profit: Exposing the Illegal Rhino Horn Trade, says criminals are coming up with “incredibly ingenious schemes and scams”, a situation exacerbated by the slow bureaucratic processes that exist to fight them.

It took South Africa a decade to end “pseudo hunts” by mainly Asian poachers posing as tourists to exploit a legal loophole and export horn legally, says Rademeyer.

After the Ukrainian and Czech tourists that followed were stopped, gangs started bringing Asian prostitutes from Johannesburg to pose as hunters and export horn in their names.

Rademeyer describes it as “like the drugs war” with a trail of criminal elements stretching far across countries and continents, including neighbouring Mozambique whose poachers cross into Kruger and whom South Africa cannot extradite.

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Image: Kenyan Facts on Twitter


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