African Literature

As a depiction of South Africa, this novel is more revealing than a thousand news dispatches as it tells the story of a young woman cast in the role of a young revolutionary, trying to uphold a heritage handed on by martyred parents while carving out a sense of one's self.

A previously published edition of ISBN 9781616202415 can be found here.Fifteen-year-old Kambili and her older brother Jaja lead a privileged life in Enugu, Nigeria. They live in a beautiful house, with a caring family, and attend an exclusive missionary school. They're completely shielded from the troubles of the world. Yet, as Kambili reveals in her tender-voiced account, things are less perfect than they appear. Although her Papa is generous and well respected, he is fanatically religious and tyrannical at home—a home that is silent and suffocating. As the country begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili and Jaja are sent to their aunt, a university professor outside the city, where they discover a life beyond the confines of their father’s authority. Books cram the shelves, curry and nutmeg permeate the air, and their cousins’ laughter rings throughout the house. When they return home, tensions within the family escalate, and Kambili must find the strength to keep her loved ones together.Purple Hibiscus is an exquisite novel about the emotional turmoil of adolescence, the powerful bonds of family, and the bright promise of freedom.

Set in a beautifully rendered 1990s Cape Town, Zoë Wicomb’s celebrated novel revolves around Marion Campbell, who runs a travel agency but hates traveling, and who, in post-apartheid society, must negotiate the complexities of a knotty relationship with Brenda, her first black employee. As Alison McCulloch noted in the New York Times, “Wicomb deftly explores the ghastly soup of racism in all its unglory—denial, tradition, habit, stupidity, fear—and manages to do so without moralizing or becoming formulaic.”Caught in the narrow world of private interests and self-advancement, Marion eschews national politics until the Truth and Reconciliation Commission throws up information that brings into question not only her family’s past but her identity and her rightful place in contemporary South African society. “Stylistically nuanced and psychologically astute” (Kirkus), Playing in the Light is as powerful in its depiction of Marion’s personal journey as it is in its depiction of South Africa’s bizarre, brutal history.

مصابي جليل، والعزاء جميل، ...وظني بأن الله سوف يديلجراح وأسر، واشتياق، وغربة...أحمل إني، بعدها، لحمولوإني، في هذا الصباح، لصالح،...ولكن خطي في الظلام جليل إذا أردتَ أن تعلَمَ قسوةَ السجّان، وتواطؤ السجن عليك، فأسأل سجين، أو ذويهإذا أردتَ أن تتذوَق صِدق المعاناة، وتتذوّق طعمَ الحياة الآخَر، فرجاءً لا تقرأ رواية عن الحبّ السرمديّ، ولكِن إقرأ في أدبِ السجونرواية الطاهر بن جلّون هذه، مقتبسة عن الحقيقة، يروي لنا سجيننا معاناته، في الزنزانة "ب" مع 23 سجين غيره، ويقصّ علينا بأسلوب "باهِر" موتَ المعظم الساحِق من أصدقائه، وظروف موتهمسُجِنوا لمحاولتهم الإنقلاب على الملك المغربي الحسن الثاني، في إنقلاب الصخيرات الشهير في 10 آب 1971الكلمات لم تستعصِ على الطاهِر بن جلّون لوصف الحفرة -الحبس- الذي دفنوا فيهِ أحياء، على مدار 18 عاماًلم يفقدوا إيمانهم بالله، وبقيَت ألسنهم رطبى بالقرآن والحديثِ الحسنإرتقوا فوق عذاباتهم الجسمية، إرتقوا فوق الجوع، فوقَ التقتير، فوق الضيق، فوق العتمة، فوقَ العقارِب والصراصير، وفوقَ سخرية السجّانوفي النهايَة، يتواطؤ السجّان مع سجينه، ويبدأ نموّ أمل الحرية، بعدَ أن قتلوههيَ فعلاً رواية باهِرة، فوقَ الوصفجميلة، مؤلمة، ولا ترتوي منها

Booker Prize-winning novelist, and one of Britain's foremost poets, Ben Okri is a passionate advocate of the written word. In A Time for New Dreams he breaks new ground in an unusual collection of linked essays, which address such diverse themes as childhood, self-censorship, the role of beauty, the importance of education and the real significance of the recent economic meltdown.Proving that 'true literature tears up the script' of how we see ourselves, A Time for New Dreams is provocative and thought-provoking. In an intriguing marriage of style and content, the concise but perfectly formed essays in this collection push the parameters of writing whilst asking profound questions about who we are and the future that awaits us.

In his second novel, Eghosa Imasuen presents the everyday life of a Nigerian university student against the backdrop of the pro-democracy riots of the 1980s and ‘90s, the lost hopes of June 12th, and the terror of the Abacha years.