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God Dies by the Nile*  (Zed Books, FP: 1976; 175) by Nawal El Saadawi is a compendium of political, cultural, social, and religious oppression of a people by a demagogue through a supposed ruling class whom he gets to do what he wants. In this book, Nawal El Saadawi, whose subject of interest revolves around [religious] oppression in a patriarchal society, discusses how a people blinded by religion could become delusional in their depravity and even deemed it the will of God. In this story, set in the village of Kafr El Teen, the Mayor is God, his word is law, and his passions reign supreme. And when this lascivious Mayor set his eyes on the children of an old woman, Zakeya, there was nothing anyone could do but to submit, even if it had to take the Sheikh to turn the words of Allah around to deceive the masses and an unfortunate and helpless woman. Everyone was blinded to the Mayor's deeds and all worked to not only protect him but also praise him to the hilt so that in gro...

Title: Burger's Daughter Author: Nadine Gordimer Genre: Fiction/Race/Struggle Publisher: Penguin Pages: 361 Year of First Publication: 1979 Country: South Africa Read for the Top 100 Books Reading Challenge and the Africa Reading Challenge Nadine Gordimer's Burger's Daughter is not an easy read. The author, probably mirrored the lives of the people: natives and the whites who were against the apartheid system at the time, in her prose. For reading this seemingly melancholic novel, the reader would feel the desolation, the destruction, the emotional torture, the emasculation of ideas and of works, the impotency of one filled with verve without a vent or valve. The reader would go through several tortuous moments, reflecting the lives of a people who would not bend to division, destruction and death no matter how well it is shrouded and how white the shroud is. And these feeling of pain, emanating from the book, does not result from the use of verbose ...

Title: Madmen and Specialists Author: Wole Soyinka Genre: Play/Political Publisher: University Press PLC Pages: 77 Year of First Publication: 1971 Country: Nigeria Read for the Africa Reading Challenge Wole Soyinka's play Madmen and Specialists  have made me think twice about this genre. This is the first book I can boldly say 'it went over my head. I never got it.' Perhaps it was the mentality I carried into the book: I went into the book knowing that Soyinka's plays have deeper meanings other than its superficial mirth he creates with verve, which burdened me so that after three days of labouring through a 77-page book, finally turning over the last page, I still could not put the various issues together to create one coherent idea. This play, which was written when the author was in prison during Nigeria's Civil War, is sad and gloom, unlike The Lion and the Jewel .  The story opens with a quartet of mendicants: Aafa, an arrogant, sarcast...

Title: Maru Author: Bessie Head Genre: Fiction Publisher: AWS Classics Pages: 103 Year of First Publication: 1971 Country: Botswana/South Africa In this book Bessie Head tackled an incipient but dangerous problem that Africans are not eager to confront but which had been the bane of the continent, stalling every development and fomenting and precipitating civil wars. Almost every crisis in Africa is either caused by this or act as a catalyst. It led to the electoral crisis in Kenya, the genocide in Rwanda, the Liberian war, the Ivorian crisis and more. Racism has been amongst us and has retarded our progress so much so that had it being eliminated a larger portion of our problems would have been solved concomitantly. For instance, if there were no internal racism (mostly referred to as tribalism or ethnicism) most forms of corruptions would be no more. Today in every country, there are those who think the country belongs to them and look upon all others (tribes) a...

Title: I Write What I Like Author: Steve Biko Genre: Non-Fiction/Essays/Letters Publishers: Picador Africa Pages: 244 Year of First Publication: 1978 Country: South Africa On January 8, 2012, the African National Congress, the ruling party of South Africa marked its centenary and to celebrate that I decided to read this book. Though Steve Biko ran parallel organisations, The Black Conscious Movement, which was basically to empower blacks to stand for themselves and fight for what they believe in and its political wing the Black Peoples Convention, he has come to symbolise the South Africa's fight against the barbaric and inhuman attitudes meted by the white minority, Boers and even in his writings recognised the ANC has the main group for the old guards like Mandela, Sisulu and others. Thus, instead of talking about Mandela, who is already known, I chose to talk about Steve Biko. I Write What I Like is a compendium of articles, essays, letters and memoranda ...

Title: The Conservationist Author: Nadine Gordimer Genre: Fiction/Race Publishers: Penguin Books Pages: 267 Year of First Publication: 1974 Country: South Africa Mehring is rich, divorced and somewhat frustrated and, though he has a lot of highly-placed friends, he feels alienated. He also deals in pig-iron, so he doesn't classify himself as part of the oppressors regarding the use of cheap black labour in the mines. But Mehring has a farm as most rich South Africans do. In the context and setting of the story, rich is synonymous to white. Though Mehring has a farm, he does not run it for profit. He sees the farm as a place to escape to from the city and he knows nothing about farming so that blacks like Jacobus and Solomon and others are the ones who run the farm and these individuals were living on the land before it was purchased from the previous owner. One day, the body of a black man was found on the farm. Mehring was called and he in turn called the po...

Title: So Long a Letter* Author: Mariama  Bâ Translator: Madupe Bode-Thomas Genre: Fiction Publishers: African Writers Series Classics Original Language: French Pages: 97 Year of First Publication: 1979 Country: Senegal Mariama  Bâ's epistolary novella,  So Long a Letter , voted as one of the best African books in the twentieth Century , is a commentary on Senegal's, and by extension Africa's, patriarchal society and the role of tradition and customs in maintaining and perpetuating the status quo. To some extent, the novella also portrays certain inherent weaknesses in some women when faced with the opportunity to finally take flight.  It also opens up such feminist topics as polygamy, providing a different angle to the old story from a woman's perspective. Consequently, it has been described in some quarters as the first African feminist book and the author's overt use of 'New African Woman', 'Independence', 'Liberation'...

Title: Death and the King's Horseman Author: Wole Soyinka Genre: Play/Tragedy Publishers: Spectrum Books Limited Pages: 77 Year of First Publication: 1975 Country: Nigeria For   Amy's Nigeria Independence Day Reading/Reviewing Project and for the Top 100 Books Reading Challenge . Death and the King's Horseman is one of Soyinka's best known plays. Voted as one of Africa's Best Books of the Twentieth Century, it has been more admired than it has been performed , according to a 2009 Guardian article. This play, according to the Author's Note, 'is based on real events which took place in Oyo, ancient Yoruba city of Nigeria, in 1946', though certain changes have been made in 'matters of detail, sequence and ... characterisation [and the setting taking back] two or three years... for minor reasons of dramaturgy.' An important note, before present readers make the same mistake, sounded by the author was that this work should not be...

Title: The Gods are not to Blame Author: Ola Rotimi Genre: Play/Tragedy Publishers: University Press PLC Pages: 72 Year of First Performance: 1968 Place of First Performance: Ife Festival of Arts, Nigeria Year of First Publication: 1971 (this edition, 1990) Country: Nigeria In this play, Sophocle's Oedipus Rex , is given a Nigerian treatment and having not read Sophocle's, I really enjoyed Ola Rotimi 's rendition. The gods are not to blame  is a play that questions destiny: are we in control of our destiny or we are the product of our destiny? Can we escape it? At the end of the play, the question is still not answered as an individual can argue both for or against this theme. The play opens with someone narrating the events surrounding the birth of King Adetusa's first son. Queen Ojuola, King Adetusa's wife, has just delivered her first son and the soothsayer has been summoned to foretell the future of this newly born son. The soothsayer,...

Author: Bessie Head Genre: Fiction Publishers: Heinemann African Writers Series Pages: 206 Year of Publication: 1974 Country: South Africa/Botswana For the Top 100 Challenge  and the Africa Reading Challenge It seemed almost incidental that he was an African. So vast had his inner perceptions grown over the years that he preferred an identification with mankind to an identification with a particular environment. And yet, as an African, he seemed to have made one of the most perfect statements: 'I am just anyone.' (Page 11) This is the statement that introduces us to the bizarre world of Bessie Head 's A Question of Power. This novel runs parallel with the author's life and perhaps documents the tragic and traumatic life of one of Africa's unrequited and most ill-treated author: leaving South African on an exit visa with the clause of never to return, it took about fifteen of years of being stateless in Botswana before Bessie was granted citizenshi...