QUICK DELIVERY
Swift dispatch
The Politics of Betrayal: Diary of a ...
Brief Summary
The Politics of Betrayal: Diary of a Kenyan Legislator
In this provocative treatise, author Joe Khamisi catalogues the events that took place during one of Kenya's most important periods in history. This period began in 2002, when Daniel Arap Moi stepped down after twenty-four years as president of Kenya.
Khamisi reviews events up to the time when the country exploded in post-election violence in 2007 and the subsequent formation of the Grand Coalition Government between President Mwai Kibaki and Raila Amolo Odinga the following year.
Khamisi explores the leadership betrayals that he believes are responsible for the political, social, and economic rot that are pervasive in Kenya. He recounts how he helped a presidential poll loser in the 2007 elections, Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka, capture the coveted role of vice president.
He also presents an in-depth analysis of Senator Barack Obama's visit to Kenya in 2006, as well as his own personal experiences with Barack's late father, who he describes as a person who "chain-smoked contentedly, drank copiously, and partied spiritedly." The Politics of Betrayal is critical reading for anyone who is interested in the transformation of Kenya from a one-party dictatorship to a pluralistic nation.
Welcome to Lagos by Chibundu Onuzo
Deep in the Niger Delta, Officer Chike Ameobi deserts the army and sets out on the road to Lagos. He is soon joined by a wayward private, a naive militant, a vulnerable young woman and a runaway middle-class wife. The shared goals of this unlikely group: freedom and new life.
As they strive to find their places in the city, they become embroiled in a political scandal. Ahmed Bakare, editor of the failing Nigerian Journal, is determined to report the truth. Yet government minister Chief Sandayo will do anything to maintain his position. Trapped between the two, they are forced to make a life-changing decision.
Full of shimmering detail, Welcome to Lagos is a stunning portrayal of an extraordinary city, and of seven lives that intersect in a breathless story of courage and survival.
Beneath the Lions Gaze by Maaza Mengiste
An epic tale of a father and two sons, of betrayals and loyalties, of a family unraveling in the wake of Ethiopia’s revolution.
This memorable, heartbreaking story opens in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 1974, on the eve of a revolution. Yonas kneels in his mother’s prayer room, pleading to his god for an end to the violence that has wracked his family and country.
His father, Hailu, a prominent doctor, has been ordered to report to jail after helping a victim of state-sanctioned torture to die. And Dawit, Hailu’s youngest son, has joined an underground resistance movement—a choice that will lead to more upheaval and bloodshed across a ravaged Ethiopia.
Beneath the Lion’s Gaze tells a gripping story of family, of the bonds of love and friendship set in a time and place that has rarely been explored in fiction. It is a story about the lengths human beings will go in pursuit of freedom and the human price of a national revolution. Emotionally gripping, poetic, and indelibly tragic, Beneath the Lion’s Gaze is a transcendent and powerful debut.
Season of Crimson Blossoms by Abubaka...
Brief summary
An affair between 55-year-old widow Binta Zubairu and 25-year-old weed dealer Reza was bound to provoke condemnation in conservative Northern Nigeria. Brought together in unusual circumstances, Binta and Reza faced a need they could only satisfy in each other.
Binta - previously reconciled with God - now yearns for intimacy after the sexual repression of her marriage, the pain of losing her first son and the privations of widowhood.
Meanwhile, Reza's heart lies empty and waiting to be filled due to the absence of a mother. The situation comes to a head when Binta's wealthy son confronts Reza, with disastrous consequences. This story of love and longing - set against undercurrents of political violence - unfurls gently, revealing layers of emotion that defy age, class and religion.
The Hairdresser of Harare by Tendai H...
Brief summary
Voted an Observer Top Ten Contemporary African Book 2012 and nominated for The Guardian's Not the Booker Prize 2011. Vimbai is the star hairdresser of her salon, the smartest in Harare, Zimbabwe, until the enigmatic Dumisani appears.
Losing many of her best customers to this good-looking, smooth-talking young man, Vimbai fears for her job, vital if she's to provide for her young child. But in a remarkable reversal the two becomes allies, Dumi renting a room from Vimbai, then inviting her to a family wedding, where to her surprise, he introduces her to his rich parents as his 'girlfriend'.
Soon they are running their own Harare salon, attracting the wealthiest and most powerful clients in the city. But disaster is near, as Vimbai soon uncovers Dumi's secret, a discovery that will result in brutality and tragedy, testing their relationship to the very limit. The Hairdresser of Harare is a stylish, funny and sophisticated first-hand account of life today in Zimbabwe's capital city, confounding stereotypes and challenging injustice with equal fearlessness.
This is an upbeat, charming, but at times heart breaking, story of friendship, prejudice and forgiveness from the heart of contemporary Africa.
The Wretched Africans: A Study of Rab...
Brief summary
The Wretched Africans: A Study of Rabai and Freretown Slave Settlements.
This book is about the 19th century slave trade in Eastern and Central Africa. No one in the history of humankind has suffered the indignity, abuse and pain of slavery than the African. Over many centuries, millions of Africans were uprooted from their quaint villages in the interior of the "Dark Continent" and taken into slavery.
They were exported to the Americas, Asia, Arabia and a dozen other countries around the globe, to work in plantations, in the pearl industry, and as soldiers and domestic workers. Boys were castrated and made eunuchs and girls were sexually abused and forced into harems. Unfortunately, the African slave narrative - written mostly by Western historians and missionaries - has been contemptibly distorted to portray Europeans as the gallant saviors, the notorious slave traders as swaggering heroes, and the African captives as wretched victims of a horrible but regrettably inevitable human phenomenon of the time.
The truth has been loftily garbled or masked and the role of liberated Africans vastly under-represented. The Wretched Africans peels of what is beneath the Arab slave trade, unravels the racism and abuse meted against Africans by European explorers and missionaries, and lays bare the heroism and resilience of the African captives. It memorializes Africans who died in caravan trails, at sea and those who found freedom in slave settlements around the world. It is a must read for historians, researchers, students and the general public wanting to understand the truth about what happened to an estimated eleven million people taken captive from the east coast of Africa to the new world and beyond.
We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo
An exciting literary debut: the unflinching and powerful story of a young girl's journey out of Zimbabwe and to America.
Darling is only ten years old, and yet she must navigate a fragile and violent world. In Zimbabwe, Darling and her friends steal guavas, try to get the baby out of young Chipo's belly, and grasp at memories of Before. Before their homes were destroyed by paramilitary policemen, before the school closed, before the fathers left for dangerous jobs abroad.
But Darling has a chance to escape: she has an aunt in America. She travels to this new land in search of America's famous abundance only to find that her options as an immigrant are perilously few. NoViolet Bulawayo's debut calls to mind the great storytellers of displacement and arrival who have come before her-from Junot Diaz to Zadie Smith to J.M. Coetzee-while she tells a vivid, raw story all her own.
Walking the Nile by Levison Wood
His journey is 4,250 miles long.
He is walking every step of the way, camping in the wild, foraging for food, fending for himself against multiple dangers. He is passing through rainforest, savannah, swamp, desert and lush delta oasis.
He will cross seven, very different countries. No one has ever made this journey on foot.
In this detailed, thoughtful, inspiring and dramatic book, recounting Levison Wood's walk the length of the Nile, he will uncover the history of the Nile, yet through the people he meets and who will help him with his journey, he will come face to face with the great story of a modern Africa emerging out of the past.
Exploration and Africa are two of his great passions - they drive him on and motivate his inquisitiveness and resolution not to fail, yet the challenges of the terrain, the climate, the animals, the people and his own psychological resolution will throw at him are immense.
The dangers are very real, but so is the motivation for this ex-army officer. If he can overcome the mental and physical challenges, he will be walking into history.
Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe
Set in the Igbo heartland of eastern Nigeria, one of Africa's best-known writers describes the conflict between old and new in its most poignant aspect: the personal struggle between father and son.
Ezeulu, the headstrong chief priest of the god Ulu, is worshipped by the six villages of Umuaro. But his authority is increasingly under threat—from rivals within his tribe, from functionaries of the colonial government, and even from his own family members.
Yet he believes himself to be untouchable: surely he is an arrow in the bow of his God? Armed with this belief, he is prepared to lead his people, even if it is towards their own destruction. But his people will not be dominated so easily.
Spare and powerful, Arrow of God is an unforgettable portrayal of the loss of faith, and the downfall of a man in a society forever altered by colonialism.
Desert Flower by Waris Dirie
Waris Dirie (the name means desert flower) lives a double life - by day she is a famous model and UN spokeswoman on women's rights in Africa, at night she dreams of her native Somalia.
Waris, one of 12 children, was born into a traditional family of desert nomads in East Africa. She remembers her early childhood as carefree- racing camels and moving on with her family to the next grazing spot - until it came her turn to meet the old woman who administered the ancient custom imposed on most Somalian girls: circumcision.
Waris suffered this torture when she was just five years old. Then, aged 12, when her father attempted to arrange a marriage with a 60 year old stranger in exchange for five camels - she took flight. After an extraordinary escape through the dangerous desert she made her way to London and worked as a maid for the Somalian ambassador until that family returned home.
Penniless and speaking little English, she became a janitor in McDonalds where she was famously discovered by a fashion photographer.
Her story is a truly inspirational and extraordinary self-portrait of a remarkable woman whose spirit is as breathtaking as her beauty.
Emmas War by Deborah Scroggins
Tall, striking, and adventurous to a fault, young British relief worker Emma McCune came to Sudan determined to make a difference in a country decimated by the longest-running civil war in Africa.
She became a near legend in the bullet-scarred, famine-ridden country, but her eventual marriage to a rebel warlord made international headlines—and spelled disastrous consequences for her ideals.
Enriched by Deborah Scroggins’s firsthand experience as an award-winning journalist in Sudan, this unforgettable account of Emma McCune’s tragically short life also provides an up-close look at the volatile politics in the region.
It’s a world where international aid fuels armies as well as the starving population, and where the northern-based Islamic government—with ties to Osama bin Laden—is locked in a war with the Christian and pagan south over religion, oil and slaves.
Tying together these vastly disparate forces as well as Emma’s own role in the problems of the region, Emma’s War is at once a disturbing love story and a fascinating exploration of the moral quandaries behind humanitarian aid.
Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote b...
Ahmadou Kourouma's remarkable novel is narrated by Bingo, a West African sora - storyteller and king's fool. Over the course of five nights he tells the life story of Koyaga, President and Dictator of the Gulf Coast.
Orphaned at the age of seven, Koyaga grows up to be a terrible hunter; he fights mythical beasts, and is a shape-shifter, capable of changing himself into beasts and birds.
He fights in the French colonial armies, in Vietnam and Algeria, but on his return he mounts a coup and becomes ruler and dictator of the Gulf Coast.
For thirty years he runs a corrupt but 'clean' state, surviving repeated assassination attempts and gaining support and investment from abroad. But when the 'First World' decides it no longer want to support dictatorships and call for democracy, he needs another ruse to maintain himself in power...Part magic, part history, part savage satire, Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote is nothing less than a history of post-colonial Africa itself.
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
From the award-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun, a dazzling new novel: a story of love and race centered around a young man and woman from Nigeria who face difficult choices and challenges in the countries they come to call home.As teenagers in a Lagos secondary school, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love.
Their Nigeria is under military dictatorship, and people are leaving the country if they can. Ifemelu—beautiful, self-assured—departs for America to study. She suffers defeats and triumphs, finds and loses relationships and friendships, all the while feeling the weight of something she never thought of back home: race. Obinze—the quiet, thoughtful son of a professor—had hoped to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London.Years later, Obinze is a wealthy man in a newly democratic Nigeria, while Ifemelu has achieved success as a writer of an eye-opening blog about race in America.
But when Ifemelu returns to Nigeria, and she and Obinze reignite their shared passion—for their homeland and for each other—they will face the toughest decisions of their lives.Fearless, gripping, at once darkly funny and tender, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story set in today’s globalized world: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s most powerful and astonishing novel yet.
The Kindness of Enemies by Leila Abou...
It’s 2010 and Natasha, a half Russian, half Sudanese professor of history, is researching the life of Imam Shamil, the 19th century Muslim leader who led the anti-Russian resistance in the Caucasian War.
When shy, single Natasha discovers that her star student, Oz, is not only descended from the warrior but also possesses Shamil’s priceless sword, the Imam’s story comes vividly to life. As Natasha’s relationship with Oz and his alluring actress mother intensifies, Natasha is forced to confront issues she had long tried to avoid—that of her Muslim heritage.
When Oz is suddenly arrested at his home one morning, Natasha realizes that everything she values stands in jeopardy. Told with Aboulela’s inimitable elegance and narrated from the point of view of both Natasha and the historical characters she is researching, The Kindness of Enemies is both an engrossing story of a provocative period in history and an important examination of what it is to be a Muslim in a post 9/11 world.
We Should All Be Feminists by Chimama...
What does "feminism” mean today? That is the question at the heart of We Should All Be Feminists, a personal, eloquently-argued essay—adapted from her much-viewed TEDx talk of the same name—by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the award-winning author of Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun.
With humor and levity, here Adichie offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first century—one rooted in inclusion and awareness. She shines a light not only on blatant discrimination, but also the more insidious, institutional behaviors that marginalize women around the world, in order to help readers of all walks of life better understand the often masked realities of sexual politics.
Throughout, she draws extensively on her own experiences—in the U.S., in her native Nigeria, and abroad—offering an artfully nuanced explanation of why the gender divide is harmful for women and men, alike.
Argued in the same observant, witty and clever prose that has made Adichie a bestselling novelist, here is one remarkable author’s exploration of what it means to be a woman today—and an of-the-moment rallying cry for why we should all be feminists.
"
"
Led by Faith by Immaculee Ilibagiza
For three months in the spring of 1994, the African nation of Rwanda descended into one of the most vicious and bloody genocides the world has ever seen. Immaculée Ilibagiza, a young university student, miraculously survived the savage killing spree that left most of her family, friends, and a million of her fellow citizens dead.
Immaculée’s remarkable story of survival was documented in her first book, Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust.
In Led By Faith, Immaculée takes us with her as her remarkable journey continues. Through her simple and eloquent voice, we experience her hardships and heartache as she struggles to survive and to find meaning and purpose in the aftermath of the holocaust.
It is the story of a naïve and vulnerable young woman, orphaned and alone, navigating through a bleak and dangerously hostile world with only an abiding faith in God to guide and protect her. Immaculée fends off sinister new predators, seeks out and comforts scores of children orphaned by the genocide, and searches for love and companionship in a land where hatred still flourishes.
Then, fearing again for her safety as Rwanda’s war-crime trials begin, Immaculée flees to America to begin a new chapter of her life as a refugee and immigrant—a stranger in a strange land.
With the same courage and faith in God that led her through the darkness of genocide, Immaculée discovers a new life that was beyond her wildest dreams as a small girl in a tiny village in one of Africa’s poorest countries.
It is in the United States, her adopted country, where Immaculée can finally look back at all that has happened to her and truly understand why God spared her life . . . so that she would be left to tell her story to the world.
Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo
In Dead Aid, Dambisa Moyo describes the state of postwar development policy in Africa today and unflinchingly confronts one of the greatest myths of our time: that billions of dollars in aid sent from wealthy countries to developing African nations has helped to reduce poverty and increase growth. In fact, poverty levels continue to escalate and growth rates have steadily declined—and millions continue to suffer.
Provocatively drawing a sharp contrast between African countries that have rejected the aid route and prospered and others that have become aid-dependent and seen poverty increase, Moyo illuminates the way in which overreliance on aid has trapped developing nations in a vicious circle of aid dependency, corruption, market distortion, and further poverty, leaving them with nothing but the "need” for more aid.
Debunking the current model of international aid promoted by both Hollywood celebrities and policy makers, Moyo offers a bold new road map for financing development of the world’s poorest countries that guarantees economic growth and a significant decline in poverty—without reliance on foreign aid or aid-related assistance.Dead Aid is an unsettling yet optimistic work, a powerful challenge to the assumptions and arguments that support a profoundly misguided development policy in Africa. And it is a clarion call to a new, more hopeful vision of how to address the desperate poverty that plagues millions.
Dinner With Mugabe by Heidi Holland
This penetrating, timely portrait of Robert Mugabe is the psycho-biography of a man whose once-brilliant career has ruined Zimbabwe and cast shame on the African continent.
Heidi Holland's tireless investigation begins with her having dinner with Mugabe, the freedom fighter, and ends in a searching interview with Zimbabwe's president more than 30 years later.
The author charts Mugabe's gradual self-destruction, and uncovers the complicity of some of the most respectable international players in the Zimbabwe tragedy. Probing the mystery of Africa's loyalty to one of its worst dictators, Holland explores the contradictions that cloud the life of a man who had embodied the continent's promise.
Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed
Longlisted for the Orange Prize and winner of the Betty Trask Award. For fans of Half of a Yellow Sun, a stunning novel set in 1930s Somalia spanning a decade of war and upheaval, all seen through the eyes of a small boy alone in the world. Aden, Yemen, 1935; a city vibrant, alive, and full of hidden dangers.
And home to Jama, a ten year-old boy. But then his mother dies unexpectedly and he finds himself alone in the world.
Jama is forced home to his native Somalia, the land of his nomadic ancestors. War is on the horizon and the fascist Italian forces who control parts of East Africa are preparing for battle. Yet Jama cannot rest until he discovers whether his father, who has been absent from his life since he was a baby, is alive somewhere. And so begins an epic journey which will take Jama north through Djibouti, war-torn Eritrea and Sudan, to Egypt.
And from there, aboard a ship transporting Jewish refugees just released from German concentration camps, across the seas to Britain and freedom. This story of one boy's long walk to freedom is also the story of how the Second World War affected Africa and its people; a story of displacement and family
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
THINGS FALL APART tells two overlapping, intertwining stories, both of which center around Okonkwo, a "strong man” of an Ibo village in Nigeria. The first of these stories traces Okonkwo's fall from grace with the tribal world in which he lives, and in its classical purity of line and economical beauty it provides us with a powerful fable about the immemorial conflict between the individual and society.
The second story, which is as modern as the first is ancient, and which elevates the book to a tragic plane, concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo's world through the arrival of aggressive, proselytizing European missionaries.
These twin dramas are perfectly harmonized, and they are modulated by an awareness capable of encompassing at once the life of nature, human history, and the mysterious compulsions of the soul. THINGS FALL APART is the most illuminating and permanent monument we have to the modern African experience as seen from within. "