Author: afrikanseries

Nedima

Nedjma is a masterpiece of North African writing. Its intricate plot involves four men in love with the beautiful woman whose name serves as the title of the novel. Nedjma is the central figure of this disorienting novel, but more than the unfortunate wife of a man she does not love, more than the unwilling cause of rivalry among many suitors, Nedjma is the symbol of Algeria. Kateb has crafted a novel that is the saga of the founding ancestors of Algeria through the conquest of Numidia by the Romans, the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, and French colonial conquest. Nedjma is symbolic of the rich and sometimes bloody past of Algeria, of its passions, of its tenderness; it is the epic story of a human quest for freedom and happiness.

Butterfly Burning

Butterfly Burning brings the brilliantly poetic voice of Zimbabwean writer Yvonne Vera to American readers for the first time. Set in Makokoba, a black township, in the late l940s, the novel is an intensely bittersweet love story. When Fumbatha, a construction worker, meets the much younger Phephelaphi, he”wants her like the land beneath his feet from which birth had severed him.” He in turn fills her “with hope larger than memory.” But Phephelaphi is not satisfied with their “one-room” love alone. The qualities that drew Fumbatha to her, her sense of independence and freedom, end up separating them. And the closely woven fabric of township life, where everyone knows everyone else, has a mesh too tight and too intricate to allow her to escape her circumstances on her own.

Vera exploits language to peel away the skin of public and private lives. In Butterfly Burning she captures the ebullience and the bitterness of township life, as well as the strength and courage of her unforgettable heroine.

Death and the King’s Horseman: A Play

Post author By afrikanseries
Post date June 30, 2020
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Based on events that took place in Oyo, an ancient Yoruba city of Nigeria, in 1946, Wole Soyinka’s powerful play concerns the intertwined lives of Elesin Oba, the king’s chief horseman; his son, Olunde, now studying medicine in England; and Simon Pilkings, the colonial district officer. The king has died and Elesin, his chief horseman, is expected by law and custom to commit suicide and accompany his ruler to heaven. The stage is set for a dramatic climax when Pilkings learns of the ritual and decides to intervene and Elesin’s son arrives home.

The Palm-wine Drinkard and His Dead Palm-wine Tapster in the Dead’s Town

Post author By afrikanseries
Post date June 30, 2020
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This classic novel tells the phantasmagorical story of an alcoholic man and his search for his dead palm-wine tapster. As he travels through the land of the dead, he encounters a host of supernatural and often terrifying beings – among them the complete gentleman who returns his body parts to their owners and the insatiable hungry-creature

Third World Express

Come and hope with me

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Reading African

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Reading African

Season of Migration to the North

Post author By afrikanseries
Post date June 29, 2020
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Salih’s shocking and beautiful novel reveals much about the people on each side of a cultural divide. A brilliant Sudanese student takes his mix of anger and obsession with the West to London, where he has affairs with women who are similarly obsessed with the mysterious East. Life, ecstasy, and death share the same moment in time.

Egypt Most Popular

Woman at point zero

All the men I did get to know, every single one of them, has filled me with but one desire: to lift my hand and bring it smashing down on his face. But because I am a woman, I have never had the courage to lift my hand. And because I am a prostitute, I hid my fear under layers of make-up.’
So begins Firdaus’ story, leading to her grimy Cairo prison cell, where she welcomes her death sentence as a relief from her pain and suffering. Born to a peasant family in the Egyptian countryside, Firdaus suffered a childhood of cruelty and neglect. Her passion for education was ignored by her family, and on leaving school she was forced to marry a much older man.
Following her escapes from violent relationships, she finally met Sharifa, who told her that ‘a man does not know a woman’s value; the higher you price yourself, the more he will realise what you are really worth’ and led her into a life of prostitution. Desperate and alone, she took drastic action.

Nigeria South Africa

Cry, the beloved Country

Cry, the Beloved Country is the deeply moving story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son, Absalom, set against the background of a land and a people riven by racial injustice. Remarkable for its lyricism, unforgettable for character and incident, Cry, the Beloved Country is a classic work of love and hope, courage and endurance, born of the dignity of man