African Interest

Brief Summary Set against the backdrop of a current South African black township, Hamba Sugar Daddy unfolds the tortuous journey of Rolivhuwa, an 18-year-old 'born-free' whose financial difficulties are exploited and influenced by her group of chomis into being a sugar baby. Rolivhowa's whole lifestyle changes after meeting Bigvy, the sugar daddy; she no longer eats the same food as other financially challenged students and is now able to afford expensive clothing and wave around the latest costly smartphone. ISBN:9781431424221 Author:Napea Motana

Brief Summary More than any other part of the globe, Africa has become associated with conflict, insecurity and human rights atrocities. In the popular imagination and the media, overpopulation, environmental degradation and ethnic hatred dominate accounts of African violence, while in academic and policy-making circles, conflict and insecurity have also come to occupy centre stage, with resource-hungry warlords and notions of 'greed' and 'grievance' playing key explanatory roles. Since the attacks of 9/11, there has also been mounting concern that the continent's so-called 'ungoverned spaces' will provide safe havens for terrorists intent on destroying Western civilization. The Review of African Political Economy has engaged extensively with issues of conflict and security, both analysing on-going conflicts and often challenging predominant modes of explanation and interpretation. This Review of African Political Economy Reader provides a timely, comprehensive and critical contribution to contemporary debates about conflict and security on the continent. The first section, covers some of the continent's main post-Cold War conflicts and demonstrates their global connections. The articles also discuss the so-called 'resource curse', as well as the global arms trade, and reveal the complexities of the relationship between the economic and the political. The second section focuses on security as part of post-Cold War global governance, and discusses the effects of liberal peace-building as well as the link between development assistance and the 'war on terror'. The final section examines life as it continues in conditions of war and shows how insecurity reconfigures urban space, transforms social order, identities and authority. ISBN:9781847010780 Author:Rita Abrahamsen

Brief Summary Be warned not to miss your lunch or flight because the story is so enthralling that when you open the book it becomes hard to close it until you complete it! And we are sure you will read the book again and again! The fiction blend with facts in this book makes it the only book of its kind in the world for the world! But in essence, it is a truth and accountability quest of a person who survived a terrorist attack because of a flat tyre that delayed him to the venue of the 7/11/2010 Kampala bombings. This attack was handiwork of Al-Qaeda linked Al-shabaab group. Like it is with most attacks, the leaders of the terrorists celebrated the attack and called their suicide bombers martyrs! This attitude of terrorists lived to confront Francis Tucungwirwe’s conscience as a survivor-Imagine somebody attacks and kills people and believes that in front of his God, he will be a martyr; that he will be rewarded with prizes and will be welcomed by angels after his death. But is this true? The book seeks for some actual answers and accountability through an alien process in some Africa societies called Rutangaaza that was used to hold the dead accountable or consult them. The main episode in the book is the Rutangaaza Global Peace Conference. Where some answers and accountability are derived and felt when one sees Osama bin Laden expressing apology to the world for his terror deeds and for misrepresenting Islam. And you see him crying and promising that if he got chance to come back on earth he would be a leading demobiliser of terrorists in the world. But also some moments at the conference piss you off like when you see him (Osama bin Laden) saying that he misses his family especially his mother and children then you ask yourself where were these feelings when he was executing plots to kill people in masses. And indeed at the conference some participants heckled at him and when you as the reader you are about to burst with questions for him and possibly contemplating to attack him at the conference screen, then he tells you that terrorism ideology and propaganda is powerful because it deludes people of such normal feelings and makes them objects of terror. Then when you analyse his response you realize that the world could have spent over $ 5 trillion since 9/11 fighting terrorists yet the problem is terrorism- indeed it is a fact that you can shoot a terrorist and kill him like Osama bin Laden but miss terrorism. So what can we do to shoot terrorism? Osama bin Laden, 9/11 victims and the global delegates made suggestions to the world. Indeed the Rutangaaza conference ends well with a communiqué from the 9/11 victims, Osama bin Laden and the global witnesses. In the end you realize this is a book that could end terrorists and terrorism and save the world billions of dollars that are spent on terror related wars every year. Finally If you have lost a loved one like the 9/11 victim families or any other person in the world has who lost loved ones to terrorists, at the glance of this title you probably feel like no this book is an insult to me-how can the killer of my loved one meet them like in case of 9/11 families, but when you realise the fact that the author of the book was meters away to a devastating terrorist attack of Al-Qaeda mentored Al-shabaab then you are comforted that you are in safe hands because the writer took care of any emotions and ethics relating to terrorist victims and their families in the book. ISBN:9789970994106 Author:Francis Tucungwirwe

Brief Summary Crossing the Heart of Africa: An Odyssey of Love and Adventure The spellbinding true story of retracing the extraordinary trek of Ewart "the Leopard" Grogan—the legendary British explorer who, in order to win the woman he loved, attempted to become the first person to cross Africa In 1898 the dashing British adventurer Ewart Grogan fell head-over-heels in love—but before he could marry, he needed the approval of his beloved's skeptical, aristocratic stepfather. Grogan, seeking to prove his worth and earn his love's hand, then set out on an epic quest to become the first man to cross the entire length of Africa, from Cape Town to Cairo, "a feat hitherto thought by many explorers to be impossible" (New York Times). A little more than a century later, American journalist Julian Smith also found himself madly in love with his girlfriend of seven years... but he was terrified by the prospect of marraige. Inspired by Grogan's story, which he discovered by chance, Smith decided to face his fears of commitment by retracing the explorer's amazing—but now forgotten—4,500-mile journey for love and glory through Africa. Crossing the Heart of Africa is the unforgettable account of these twin adventures, as Smith beautifully ineterweaves his own contemporary journey with Grogan's larger-than-life tale of cannibal attacks, charging elephants, deadly jungles, and romantic triumph. ISBN:9780062030610 Author:Julian Smith

Brief Summary War Destroys: Peace Nurtures presents selected papers form the 8th Somali Studies International Association congress held in Hargeisa in July 2001. This volume focuses on finding tools, solutions, and policies that speak to the need for building peace, establishing equitable and stable governance, and achieving reconciliation. The papers are of value not only to Somalis throughout the Horn of Africa but also to other African states that have suffered horrific disasters over the last few decades including Liberia, Sierra Leone, Angola, Zaire/DRC, Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, and others. Contributors describe the role of women's groups in reconciliation, peace-building, and economic development; potential linkages between traditional and modern governance models; alternative modes of decentralization; the role of language, poetry, and proverbs in cultural reconciliation; techniques of community participation for building peace at the community level; overcoming health concerns, especially HIV/AIDS and FGM; the role of local institutions in sustaining environmental resources; and ways in which Islam is compatible with democracy and can be an effective tool for building peace. The book opens with a section on the poetry of peace and reconciliation, written in Somali. ISBN:9781569021866 Author:Richard Ford, Hussein M Adam and Edna Adan Ismail

Brief Summary Using oral histories to tell the stories of 15 uprisings instigated by Kenyan women during the 20th century, Land, Food, Freedom reveals Kenyan women's determination to get back their stolen land from the British colonial power. Local men who collaborated with British colonial officials and settlers found themselves repeatedly challenged by the organisations and actions of these women. In acting against their dispossession, they inspired a different set of men to stand in alliance with them to defend the gendered commons'.' ISBN:9781592216918 Author:Leigh Brownhill

Brief Summary Félix Ventura trades in an unusual commodity; he is a dealer in memories, clandestinely selling new pasts to people whose futures are secure and who lack only a good lineage to complete their lives. In this completely original murder mystery, where people are not who they seem and the briefest of connections leads to the forging of entirely new histories, a bookish albino, a beautiful woman, a mysterious foreigner, and a witty talking lizard come together to discover the truth of their lives. Set in Angola, Agualusa's tale darts from tormented past to dream-filled present with a lightness that belies the savage history of a country in which many have something to forget -- and to hide. A brilliant American debut by one of the most lauded writers in the Portuguese-speaking world, this is a beautifully written and always surprising tale of race, truth, and the transformative power of creativity. ISBN:9781905147151 Author:Jose Eduardo Agualusa

Brief Summary In her accomplished new story collection, Petina Gappah crosses the barriers of class, race, gender and sexual politics in Zimbabwe to explore the causes and effects of crime, and to meditate on the nature of justice. Rotten Row represents a leap in artistry and achievement from the award-winning author of An Elegy for Easterly and The Book of Memory. With compassion and humour, Petina Gappah paints portraits of lives aching for meaning to produce a moving and universal tableau. ISBN:9780571324187 Author:Petina Gappah