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Imali Abala’s The Dreamer is a book-length poem; a poetic novella, an unrelenting meditation upon the abuse of women that centres upon the unfortunate path of the dreamer. En route, the links between madness and dreams are explored, a mythical explanation for inheritable insanities, the devastating impacts of culture change and social fragmentation, and the breathlessness of having a tight fist of possibilities and a palette of advisors who all turn the dreamer away, or inward, with no path found for her self-expressive flourishing in the world.
What Others Say
Touching upon historic and contemporary challenges, this work calls upon all who are in contact with girls and women, in any capacity, to open the world and make room, to clear a space for upcoming generations, on a path strewn with good guidance and marked by the freedom to explore, to walk along a path made solid with life-affirmations.” – Joanne Arnott, Canada, author of A Night for the Lady, Mother Time, Wiles of Girlhood, and Breasting the Waves: On Writing & Healing.
“Imali Abala’s The Dreamer is a must read for those seeking to understand female condition in post-colonial Africa. … What stands out in this story is that women have choices in redefining and repackaging their image in a male dominated world.” – Iddah Aoko Otieno, Editor of East African Anthology of Short Stories.
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Beyond tribal Lines
Beyond Tribal Lines: Reimagining Communities and Boundaries in Africa is about the perceptions, understandings, and experiences of difference between selves and communities in Africa and beyond. It focuses on the nature of difference in its many manifestations – social and communal, local and national – and the fundamental bases and typical consequences of such difference. Further, it explains the importance of difference between individuals, communities and societies; affirming that difference is natural to human social and individual existence.
Critically, it takes up the challenge of how – given the many differences between us – a society may achieve peaceful co-existence and harmony among its members. The book makes the case that being different doesn’t necessitate being enemies, antagonists or subjects of contestation.
To address and live with said difference, the authors present thoughtful ideas on realizing social harmony through individual and community reflection and understanding.
What Others Say
“Lawyers engaging transformative constitutions in Africa will find the book useful in interrogating these constitutions’ implementation which calls for a multi-disciplinary approach to their interpretation and implementation. The various insights of this book necessarily engage the burning issue of the people’s sovereign power. Political scientists interrogating the politics of division and the quest for alternative forms of political leadership in Africa will find the book’s theoretical and practical reflections useful.”
- Dr. Willy Mutunga, EGH, former Chief Justice, Kenyan lawyer, intellectual, reform activist, and former Commonwealth Special Envoy to the Maldives.
The Return of the Sun by Kevin Omwanza
The Return of the Sun explores the immorality of slavery with partakers offering excuses in support of the brutal practice. The author elicits questions on how to end the practice: by supplanting the captors or forging a new, more inclusive, path.
The islands, home to most African communities, are breeding grounds for pirates who defend against invaders or are out to enslave others. An African king and slave trader, Jabari, is cruel to neighbouring communities, as a result of which his son and heir to the throne, Shaka, is abducted. Shaka's mother later flees on account of her husband's callousness.Zola, while searching for her brother, gets abducted by Charlie's pirates.
Charlie falls in love with her, but she promises to marry him when Charlie frees Shaka. Enchanted, Charlie agrees. Shaka leaves, planning to return and save all his people. Meanwhile, Tendai, a slave who grew up in Jabari's palace, realizes that the king orphaned him at an early age.
He joins Black Caesar, a black pirate focused on ending slavery. Caesar desires to entrench African civilization through the revival of Egyptian civilization. He has an island where he settles freed Africans and maintains a critical attitude towards Shaka who, though perceived as saviour by his people, practices slavery.
In a party that paves way for Charlie's marriage to Zola, Caesar lays siege that portends uncertainties!
The Trial of the GODS
The Trial of the Gods is the story of a man and his people who live in the Kalahari Desert. They believe that the land they occupy belongs to the Gods hence cannot be owned by anyone else, least of all Government. The book takes the reader through human rights Bushman activism in an environment they are considered uncivilized and stigmatized as scavengers; the wretched of earth, in the words of Franz Fanon.
As the government plans relocation and integration of Bushmen into "mainstream society" one man, Jay, and his people vehemently resist. It becomes a quest for justice, truth and conservation. They cannot listen to anyone, or get instructions from the Government, lawyers or judges. Only instructions from the Gods will do as to whether they should embrace the "dangerous" world of development and civilization. It becomes a matter of life and death as the man and his people realize that the Gods alone cannot help fight one of the richest governments in Africa. In the process their claims and demands reverberate across the land and the world, touching many human rights organizations and supporters.
Will they manage to fight a government financed by the most precious diamonds in the world?
Here is what others say:
"The Trial of the Gods is a gripping tale of conflict between modernity and tradition, old and new conventions, conservation and human rights." - Anonymous
"The Trial of the Gods is more than just a story. It's a commentary about how determination, courage and love will ultimately defeat greed. It is definitely a must-read." - Olopeng Rabasimane, Columnist, The Botswana Gazette
Sabina the Rain Girl
Smiles in Pathos and Other Poems
miles in Pathos and Other Poems is a collection of selected poems by Khainga O'Okwemba. The poet stands on the opposite ends of his contemporaries because of his faith and reverence in the traditional forms of poetry. He is intimately Augustan in craft and romantic in idealizing the poetic forms. The poems are written in three models divided into separate books, with each book sub-themed.
In Book One we have the celebratory short poems called Poems of Homage which are inspired by the poet's admiration of canonical African writers: Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Chris Wanjala, Peter Abrahams, Leopold Sedar Senghor, Ayi Kwei Amah, Denis Brutus, Christopher Okigbo, among others.
The Incidental poems in Book Two called Poems of Known Tradition , adopt identifiable forms; rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, repetition, stanza, terza rima, sonnet, and which take on socio-political themes.
In Book Three we find the mock epic narrative poetry with the title Pearls of Laughter. The narrative poem needs first to be enjoyed as a love story, and as a satire. Every piece has a life of its own. However, the work is well appreciated when the fragmented pieces are united into one, a feat generally admired by the poet
An Ethnopharmacological Investigation of Plants used by Abagusii Traditional Medical Practitioners
Before the arrival of Western medical practices in Africa, indigenous communities had many ways of treating various illnesses. Some, like the Abagusii of Kenya, even had advanced medical practices (given the time) such as head surgery which they conducted routinely with success. Western religion and medicine dealt a blow to these proven medical practices and stunted their development. Nonetheless, because of its effectiveness, traditional healing survives alongside Western medical practices that have taken root worldwide. Some estimates suggest that approximately 60% of the world’s population depends solely on plants for medication. As such, in Africa, it is common to find a Western-educated who professes the Christian faith under modern hospital treatment alongside prescriptions by traditional healers.
Indigenous healing relied on a clear selection of specific plants, elaborate preparation and administration. Typically, the administration of the treatment relied on the plants’ medicinal potency, the associated diet (nutrition) and spiritual beliefs. William Nyang’ate Gisesa set out to test the efficacy of some of the plants used for treatment in Gusii with the results presented herein.
The work, An Ethnopharmacological Investigation of Plants Used by Abagusii Traditional Medical Practitioners, relied on interviews with herbal medicine practitioners, their claims and testing the effectiveness of the plants in a laboratory environment. The work, originally completed for doctoral studies, examines (using modern scientific methods) the authenticity of traditional headers’ claims on the efficacy of their treatment.
The results point to the potential for an indigenous, plant-based, pharmaceutical industry to complement the established medicinal drug production. At a time when pathogens rapidly acquire resistance to medications, indigenous plants offer fresh options.
The work focused on practitioners from Gusii region: Nyamira and Kisii counties. Considering that all communities had similar practices, the task of examining plants used by all Kenyan peoples is colossal.
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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.
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Brief Summary
The Politics of Betrayal: Diary of a Kenyan Legislator
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Brief summary
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He will cross seven, very different countries. No one has ever made this journey on foot.
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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.
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