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Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran - A Memoir in Books (Random House, 2003; 347) tells stories of the lives of the author and seven of her students between the period when the Shah was overthrown and the 'Islamic Republic' was instituted to the period where the author finally left the country, in 1997. Through her narrative, she unfolds how civil liberties, especially of women and more generally of liberals, were drastically and suddenly parred down after the revolution.  Azar Nafisi's decision to use the stories of other books to tell her story, drawing comparisons, analogies, and association, was fascinating; it was enlightening how one word - like poshlust - used by an author could have a reverberating effects on the lives of people far away from the centre of origin. In this way, Nafisi provided a deeper understanding of these books, of which Nabokov's Lolita  is but just one. Azar compares life under the secular government and life under the Islamic...

IPods in Accra  (Piccadilly, 2009; 185) by Sophia Acheampong continues the story of young Makeeda as she searches for her root. In this story, Makeeda is a bit older, is studying to write her GCSE exams and (un)working on her relationship with Nelson. It has all the ingredients of a good chicklit and a YA. The love is not steamy but juvenile, like we all do. The questions that Makeeda has to find answers to are everyone's problem. Her relationship with Nelson isn't work; meanwhile she has found that there is something between her and her Maths home-tutor, Nick. Now, she must go through all the burdens of breaking up safely with Nelson and work her way into Nick's heart. As if this isn't complicated enough, Nick, himself, is now 'going-out' with an eye-popping belle. The situation is now tensed and her friends, with whom she would have shared her problems, are now also dealing with similar matters, some of them becoming distant as a result. If combinin...

Though the year is more than a month away from ending, I've been dreaming of books to read in the new year, 2013. Like every reader, I have a pile of unread books on my new, bigger, bookshelf. However, what the Book Community on the blogosphere does to the reader is an expansion of his wishlist, an introduction to new authors and, unfortunately, sadly, the greedy accumulation of books. Every true reader has experienced this and I'm no different. Consequently, regardless of the unread books on my bookshelf, I've come across certain authors and books - those I've known for a long time but have not read and those I got to know from friends - that I feel I should read. For instance, how absurd it is not to have read Dostoevsky, or Nabokov and still call yourself a reader? How sad it is to have avoided these great Russo-literatti? What about Mikhail Bulgakov? In 2013, I seek to read Russian authors and others whom I've only heard and read reviews of like Gabri...

Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss  (Grove Press, 2006; 356), winner of the 2006 Man Booker Prize, is a story about impotence and poverty and how they influence each other. Everybody in this story, rich or poor, religious or non-religious, Hindu or Muslim, Indian or Nepali, is a victim in one form or the other. They, the characters, have relinquished control and decisions to act to an invisible authority; they have made this authority more potent by their willingness to succumb and their unwillingness to take any action to change anything in their lives. Perhaps to them, to think of change is to risk worsening an already worst situation. They have thus accepted their victim-hood. This lethargic acceptance, borne not out of ignorance or pleasure of poverty and which is not on a particular romanticism of a past bucolic life, is something one can describe of Developing Countries. Thus, Kiran's characters are like developing countries - things happen to them; decisions are ma...

Diplomatic Pounds and Other Stories (Ayebia Clarke 2012; 170) by Ama Ata Aidoo is a collection of twelve beautifully written short stories, which confirms the author’s position as a foremost writer in Africa and beyond. Treating everyday subject with unique perspectives and a delicate style that she alone possesses, Aidoo opens up old traditions and questions long-held views with fresh views. Whether it is about the story of a woman who leaves the country of her birth swearing never to return or the story of a group of girls trapped in an alien culture where issues of feminine proportions are at variance with what they had grown up with, Aidoo shows that her sense of observation is as sharp as ever and that there is tradition in every situation that could be questioned. New Lessons , the first story in the collection, provided the platform to question, subtly as in most of the stories, the idea of home and the motive of migration. Most at times, people who leave the shores of th...

From Blaft Publications: Beginning in the late 1980s, northern Nigeria saw a boom in popular fiction written in the Hausa language. Known as littattafa soyyaya ("love literature"), the books are often inspired by Hindi films - which have been hugely popular among Hausa speakers for decades - and are primarily written by women. They have sparked a craze among young adult readers as well as a backlash from government censors and book-burning conservatives. Balaraba Ramat Yakubu  has been one of the best-known authors in the genre since she published her first novel in 1987. She has also written, directed, and produced films for Kannywood, the Hausa-language film industry based in Kano, Nigeria.  Sin is a Puppy that Follows You Home  is an Islamic soap opera complete with polygamous households, virtuous women, scheming harlots, and black magic. It's the first full-length novel ever translated from Hausa to English. And it's quite unlike anything you've ev...

Winners of the Golden Baobab Prize for 2012 have been announced. The GB Prize is divided into three categories: The Senior Category, The Junior Category, and the Rising Writer Category. The goal of the GB Prize is "to inspire the creation of African stories that children and young adults the world over will love!" And this is long overdue since the focus of most novelist on the continent is not on this class of people. Joy Nwiyi from Nigeria won the Senior Category with her story  Something for Next Time . Joy is a graduate of the University of Calabar and also holds an M.A. from the University of Nigeria. The Senior category is aimed at readers between 12 and 15 years. Jenny Robson from Botswana and South Africa won the Junior Category with her story Wha-Zup Dude? . Robson is a music teacher who lives and works in Maun, Botswana, on the edge of the Okavango Delta. This category is aimed at readers between 8 and 11 years. Finally, Rutendo Chabikwa , from Zimbab...

Ian McEwan is a minimalist. More of a novella-ist than an novelist. The Telegraph quoted him saying ' if I could write a perfect novella I would die happy '. In that same article he was described as 'lucky to be allowed to publish novellas.' If not for the lack of temerity one could say - in finality, in absoluteness - that he is the best novella-ist, for it isn't often that one comes across an author who pares down his words, weighs and analyses them before applying them, cutting out all unnecessary words just to arrive at the precise meaning of what he is carrying across. Such detailed work of cutting out, cleaning, paring, has often been associated with visual artists and poets. And now McEwan. Ewan's style is intense, absorbing, concentrated and focussed. His writings hardly entertain lateral stories, and even when they do they are an integral part of the main and contributes to the strength of the whole, like in Atonement . With his style and structu...

Devil May Care  (Double Day, 2008; 278) by Sebastian Faulks (writing as Ian Fleming) was written to celebrate the centenary birthday celebration of Ian Fleming - the creator of the James Bond Character. I took this book because I wanted a light read to clear my mind after a difficult read. Yet, I was somewhat disappointed. Though I knew that James Bond is super-smart, I was still bored with his success rate. Things, though seemed to be difficult, intelligence and serendipity always worked together to extricate him from the most difficult of situations.  In this particular novel, James Bond was called out from his sabbatical leave to track and and learn more about the work of a mysterious Dr Julius Gorner. In tracking Gorner, he discovered, through the help of an equally mysterious young woman, that Dr Gorner is on to something extremely sinister. Something that could possibly lead to another world war. From Italy to England to France to Iran, expect 007 to bring you some ...

Joseph Heller's Portrait of the Artist, as an Old Man  (Scribner, 2000; 233) has been described as a semi-autobiographical story of the author. In this story, Eugene Pota an author in the twilight of his career and of his life, is struggling to write a story that will make him popular and be better than his first book. He is struggling with subjects to write about and the writing style to adopt as almost every theme or subject has already been covered by another writer or by the writer himself. But Eugene is not willing to give up; after all, writing is the only thing he knows how to do. He discusses his works with his agents who are all his age-groups and therefore are in the same 'dying-out' boat as he is. One of the working titles of Pota was The Sexual Biography of My Wife. The parallelism between Eugene Pota and the author, Joseph Heller, is vivid. Just like Joseph Heller, Eugene had had success with his book Catch-22  and no other work of his - Heller's - e...

from Cassava Republic: 25 artists, 4 art collectives and 6 writer push the boundaries of contemporary African art. This collector's item is available in limited edition only in Nigeria. Contemporary African Art has been on the brink of rebirth for a while. With artists such as El Anatsui, Victor Ekpuk, Ndidi Dike, Romuald Hazoume and Owusu Ankomah,and galleries like the Centre for Contemporary Art in Lagos, art from West Africa is reaching far beyond decorative confines to explore new forms of expression. Meanwhile, art from South Africa is already an explosion of provocation and considered reflection on the experiences of our collective present. Pieter Hugo’s gothic photographs on Nollywood a few years ago were a signal that South was eager to consider West. It is therefore fitting that the continent begins a more in-depth conversation with itself about the future of art in Africa. In celebration of contemporary art across th...

Sun Tzu's The Art of War  (Oxford University Press, 1963; 197 (Originally written in 500 BCE and translated by Samuel B. Griffiths)) is one book that has inspired several other books. It's been applied to various fields from business to friendship and more. In this book, Sun Tzu discusses what a good General should do if he is to win wars. The discusses almost everything that one needs to do and know about war and its effects from war-induced inflation to food shortages that accompanies it. According to Sun Tzu [1] War is a matter of vital importance to the State; the province of life or death; the road to survival or ruin. It is mandatory that it be thorougly studied. [63] Regardless of this, Sun Tzu puts premium taking enemies and their state whole with as minimum a damage as possible. He writes [1] Generally in war the best policy is to take a state intact; to ruin it is inferior to this. [Page 77] He goes on further to explain [3] For  to win one hundred v...

On October 6, 2012 I set out to create a database of banned African books. This action stems from my belief that it is the reader who has the ultimate control of what books should be read or not. Anytime a government takes up that responsibility, it means that it has something to hide, doing something it doesn't want anyone to know, or becoming (or has become) autocratic. Though I don't have the data (the reason why I'm creating one) I believed several books have been banned for several reasons. It is funny when a book that had been banned before for sexual content suddenly reads like it contains none at all. However, this quest of developing a database has received less patronage. It makes me want to question if my belief was right. I am therefore sharing with you banned African books that readers have shared with me.   Fiction: Matsayin Lover  by Khamisu Bature Makwarari . [Nigeria]. Banned by the Kano Association of Nigerian Writers for lesbian ...

On November 1, 2012, Chika Ungiwe's On Black Sisters' Street  has won the NLNG awards. Unigwe's book was shortlisted alongside ten other books including such heavyweights as Jude Dibia's Blackbird , Adaobi Tricia's I do not Come to you by Chance  and Lola Shoneyin 's The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives.  The award, the largest in monetary terms, comes with a US$ 100,000. The NLNG rotates yearly among four literary genres: prose fiction, poetry, drama and children's literature. Last year, Adeleke Adeyemi, writing as Mai Nasara , won the story for his work Missing Clock (children's literature).  The Chairman of the Advisory Board said the book 'is a work of outstanding merit'. According to the Chair of Judges 'what is striking about Chika Unigwe's novel is the compassion that informs it.'  On Black Sisters Street tells a gripping story of the lives of four African migrants working the Red Light District of Antwerp in B...

This month was somewhat okay. What it implies is that I'm getting back to my usual levels. Out of the total 7 books I read in October - including the Best Short Stories of 2004 edited by Lorrie Moore (which I'm still reading), four were on the list of six books I projected to read . In all I read a total of 1749 pages or 56.42 pages per day. The following were the books I read: Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks . I didn't enjoy this as much as I have enjoyed all the James Bond movies. In this book, Sebastian Faulks, writing as Ian Fleming to celebrate the latter's birthday, took the reader on a seemingly cliffhanger adventure. Perhaps, I was expecting too much and therefore remained unsatisfied. Amsterdam by Ian McEwan . There is nothing much to say about McEwan than that he is the perfect person to trust when you want a short intense reading. His writing is on-point and he wastes not words. This story is about two men who attended an ex-lover's funeral...