ImageNations

Nowadays, when the strong fight the weak, it's called a Liberation War to free the weak from oppression. [8] Nowadays, in the new world, it is suicide to be weak. [8] I ask you- without a shrine, without worshippers, what is a god? [9] Some words are such that when we hear them, all the light inside us dies at once, and our smiling daylight turns into the bleakness of night. [27] I lit the torch so I will not have to grope my way to the camp where I shall be married to my enemy, that handsome butcher of our people. [27-8] The gods! Which gods! Do you still trust any of them after this? Or have you quickly forgotten what they told us about Anlugbua just now? No, women, there is no shelter anywhere but in ourselves! Each of us has become our own god. [33] Happiness is a fake. The gods employ it as a mask to trick us each time they are about to plunge us into grief. [37] Don't speak like that, my child. Death is sweet, we think. But it is easier to tal...

Writing about a Jane Austen novel, here on this blog, is like spitting into the Atlantic Ocean. There are Austen fans, Austen die-hards, Austen-scholars, Austen Societies, Austen-spawned novels and movies and anything one could imagine. However, what I take from Austen novels - I haven't read many - is that the society they lived in was not much different from other societies. In Persuasion (Penguin Classics, 1965 (FP: 1818); 264)*, as in the other two novels of hers I have read - Northanger Abbey and Pride and Prejudice - the theme is marriage and society's rules, obligations, and expectations surrounding that institution. Right from the beginning of this book, Austen - with her keen insight into life and the dynamics family life - exposed the biases and patriarchy of the society of the time; a society that ranked individuals of the two genders differently and further ranked people within each gender group according to their wealth, occupation, family status, name, ma...

Edzordzi G. Agbozo is a budding poet, writer and blogger and won the University of Ghana Community Excellence Award (Creative Arts category) in 2012. He was the convener of the Book and Discussion Club of the Writers Project of Ghana. Edzordzi's poem  The Hippo turned our Canoe  dedicated to Prof Awonoor was published on this blog. He blogs at edordzi.blogspot.com and ghanavoice.wordpress.com . Edzordzi shares with us his Top Ten African books. The only rule in this is that the books be written by an African; the person submitting the list has to define this for himself or herself. I have linked some of the titles to posts within ImageNations, where such reviews are available. Note that my views on these books may drastically differ from Edzordzi's views and so this must be borne in mind when reading those reviews. The Poor Christ of Bomba by Mongo Beti It is a cross-cultural evangelism and feminist sociological novel. The Reverend Father Superior Drumont is a lov...

This is a popular book and so I did not set out to mark out every possible quote; they could be obtained at several outlets. However, there were those I just couldn't skip. How quick come the reasons for approving what we like! [46] There's hardly any personal defect, which an agreeable manner might not gradually reconcile to. [63] I think very differently, an agreeable manner may set off handsome features, but can never alter plain ones. [63] Personal size and mental sorrow have certainly no necessary proportions. A large bulky figure has as good a right to be in deep affliction, as the most graceful set of limbs in the world. But, fair or not fair, there are unbecoming conjunctions, which reason will patronize in vain, - which taste cannot tolerate, - which ridicule will seize. [92] [W]hen pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure. [193] You should not have suspected me now; the case so different, and my age so different. If I was w...

Manu Herbstein is a civil and structural engineer by profession. He was born in Muizenberg, near Cape Town, in 1936 and educated at the University of Cape Town. Manu is the author of  Ama - a Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade , winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize for First Book, and  Brave Music of a Distant Drum ,  a sequel. Manu Herbstein has lived and worked in England, Nigeria, India, Zambia, and Scotland, and now lives in Ghana. Today Manu shares with us his Top Ten+ African Books. I have linked some of them to reviews and other information within the blog and outside of it. Note that reviews, where they are, are my personal opinion and do not reflect Manu's. _____________________________ Dear God, Since You have a reputation for omniscience, You will surely know that I’ve been an atheist since my teens and expect and intend to remain one until my dying day. My dying day. I need to talk to You about that. At 77 I’ve already received a 10% bonus on t...

Divorce and separation have become part of the natural phases of family life in the Twenty-first Century. It is almost as if any couple on the verge of marriage know that the next phase of this knot-tying ceremony will be the extrication of the one from the other, and are prepared for it. It is as commonplace as marriage itself. However, whereas divorce, usually but not always, satisfies the wishes of the two consenting adults, its effects on the children are hardly examined. The children who had nothing to do with the choices their parents made become their ultimate victims. Their views are hardly sought or considered in the making of the divorce-separation decision. Rather, all they are told, to assuage its psychological impact, is that limp and trite phrase 'sometimes things just don't work between people'. And with this egocentric statement, delivered with trembling voice by each of the parents at different times, they presume their work done, believing that with thi...

Caveat: These are untested hypothesis, or more specifically the sample size that has proved this is n=1, which is not enough to make statistical inferences of rejection or non-rejection. However, I have often been asked to state what I think could be done to improve or spark up people's interest in reading. And I have often pretended that what I used when I began blogging in 2009 will work for everyone. I must add that I was a reader even before 2009 but book blogging requires a much higher dedication to reading and a much more careful reading. Whether this will work for another individual aside myself remains to be seen, but how else will I know this than to share it with others. To begin with, I believe everybody reads. We read inscriptions, letters, manuals, directions, road-signs, Christian literature, novels, plays, poetry. We form and read sentences within our minds. The problem therefore is not that people do not read at all. It is the frequency and type of reading d...

Golden Baobab has announced the winners of its 2013 Prizes. One hundred and eighty (180) stories were submitted to this year's Golden Baobab Prizes. Of these, 25 made it onto the the longlist and 8 to the shortlist .  Liza Esterhuyse , winner of the 2013 Golden Baobab Prize for Picture Book . Liza is a qualified occupational therapist who has a Masters Degree in Early Childhood Intervention. Liza is many things: a daydreamer, a book junkie, a red wine drinker, a world lover, a tree hugger, a dog enthusiast, a horse admirer and a Capetonian.  The Little Hippo: Faraway in the savannah a little hippo sighed. The rains were late and the hippo-pool was getting very crowded. Then he notices the wildebeest, zebras and antelope gathering for their annual migration and he decides to join them. However, the little hippo quickly realises, that the journey is not as esy as he thought and it's filled with danger. Luckily, he meets friends along the way who help and guide him t...

Permit for Survival (Educational Press and Manufacturers Ltd, 1981; 120) by Bill Marshall is a humorous book that captures the socioeconomic life of Ghanaians in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It acts as an aperture through which the reader could observe the sights and sounds of a city bourgeoning with hope, opportunities, aspirations, struggles, squashed dreams, and unsurmountable challenges. The book has recently been released under the title Brother Man. The story opens with twenty-six year old clerk Joseph Jonathan Kofi Kuma, or Jojo as he was affectionately called, faced with the arduous task of preventing his own burial at Anoati, his hometown, after he saw his obituary and funeral announcement in the newspaper. The story tells of the misfortunes that befell him on his journey and after. After the success of this unimaginable quest - similar to some of those embarked upon by Tutuola's Palm Wine Tapster, though not in its mysteriousness - Jojo had to prove to his bureauc...

What I am trying to tell you is that the world is not small. It is a big thing with many people who are not the same. They are all different. And you will have to treat each one differently. That's the way to stay alive. You have to know the rules and apply them when needed. Otherwise, you will be a walking corpse, you will be living in a vacuum. That's the way life is; there are big fishes and small fishes. The big fish eats the small fish and the small fish feed on something else but they have to run faster to avoid being eaten by the big fish. [18] Africans should eat good food to keep the nation healthy. And when the doctors said that folks must drink milk and eat eggs, nobody blamed them because they had never heard of inflation and the ordinary man. [26] Some people had to die a little to re-emerge as better human beings. And come to think of it in much deeper perspective, some people die completely so that other people can become better human beings. That was wh...

An Enemy of the People  (1882; translated by Farquharson Sharp) by Henrik Ibsen is a play that critically examines society's role in its political and ideological enslavement and the elements that prevent or impede its progress. The questions: whether 'the government of the people by the people for the people' is a concept that exists or is even possible; the 'rightness' of the majority, which is the basis of democracy; and the end result of unquestioned liberalism, are all answered in this stupendous play. It critiques society's choices, and the factors that influence those choices: are the choices leaders make made in the interest of the people or are they made in the interest of a few who, armed with the tools given them by the people, make the people believe the reverse? Or is society deceived to choose the very option that is counter to its interest, serving instead the interest of the privilege minority, as in this story? In this story, set in a Nor...