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Title: The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born Author: Ayi Kwei Armah Genre: Novel Publishers: Heinemann Pages: 183 ISBN: 978-0-435-90540-8 Year of Publication: 1968 (this edition, 1988) Country: Ghana The Beautyful Ones are not yet Born is the fourth of Ayi Kwei Armah 's novels that I have read and reviewed and I must say I have not as yet been disappointed by this great writer of our times. There is something I have realised and it is that his books are gradually being republished, not only by his publishing press Per Ankh, but also by other publishing houses. The Beautyful Ones are not yet Born is set in the latter stages of Nkrumah's reign, in the country Ghana, and ended just after the first coup. It talks about 'the man' who, pure in heart and spirit, saw no reason to amass wealth through bribery, which, of course, has become the in-thing. It talks about the personal and emotional struggles 'the man' went through as he tried to convince ...

Profile Blogging is going to be difficult for this season. I don't know the end of the season but its beginning I know of. Work is piling up in a certain geometric progression I cannot explain. Less of the excuses. We continue with what was started last week concerning the profiling of the Laureates of African Literature. Today we profile Wole Soyinka , full name Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka. Soyinka, born on 13th July 1934, is a Nigerian Writer, Poet and Playwright. After preparatory university studies in 1954 at Government College in Ibadan, he continued at the University of Leeds, where later in 1973, he took his doctorate. Soyinka has played an active role in Nigeria's political history. In 1965, he made a broadcast demanding the cancellation of the rigged Western Nigeria Regional Elections following his seizure of the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio. He was arrested, arraigned but freed on a technicality. In 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War, he w...

This is just a quick one. This wouldn't be the main blog of the day. The Nobel Laureate for 2010 would soon be announced and I am happy to inform you that amongst the Atwoods, Byatts, Roths Oates, Cormacs, Pynchon, is Ngugi wa Thiong'o. No one knows yet, but at least by the mention of his name amongst the likely candidates we can only hope. Ngugi wa Thiong'o is the author of several books including Weep Not Child, Wizard and Crow, A Grain of Wheat, Decolonising the Mind. Meet the author here . Check out the list of likely candidates here .

Albert Camus, Nobel Laureate 1957 Beginning today, I would profiling Nobel Laureates of African descent every Monday. Since there aren't many of them this postings would last all through October, unless new events come in.  Profile Today we talk about Albert Camus . Camus (November 7, 1913 to January 4, 1960) is the first Nobel Laureate in Literature of African descent. He is a French Algerian Author, Philosopher and Journalist. His biography at the Nobel website states that he was a representative of non-metropolitan French literature. His origin in Algeria and his experiences there in the thirties were dominating influences in his thought and work. Of semi-proletarian parents, early attached to intellectual circles of strongly revolutionary tendencies, with a deep interest in Philosophy (only chance prevented him from pursuing a university career in that field), he came to France at the age of twenty-five.  Camus joined the resistance movement during the occup...

This blog is aimed at promoting African Literature. Consequently, all interviews, reviews, events, and profiles concern African authors, published or unpublished. However, a suggestion was made that once a while I let others in on non-African authored books I have been reading and so to resolve this, I tried conducting a poll. Unfortunately, the question got lost in the dark background of the blog and there was no way I could edit it. What I am doing today is to also solicit your views concerning the inclusion of non-African authored books. The reasoning behind this blog is simple. I have read a lot of book blogs and almost always, about ninety-nine percent of what they read, reviewed or talked about were Western books. Only a few book bloggers profiled  authored by Africans and even then the usual authors comprising Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Ben Okri and recently Chimamanda were the most discussed books. So I decided to use this blog to fill that gap, bl...

The Criterion: An International Journal in English, ISSN (0976-8165) invites academic articles, poetry, short fiction, book reviews, interviews with author or critic for its forthcoming issue, Vol. I, Issue III (December 2010). Deadline  is 1st November 2010. Send your submission(s) to Editor-in-Chief Dr. Vishwanath Bite to this email: vishwanathbite@gmail.com.  Visit their homepage for details.

Today, I interview Dr. Ngozi Achebe , a Medical Practitioner, a mother and an author. Dr Achebe's novelist first novel, The Blacksmith Daughter has just been published.   This interview is the last of six-interviews I scheduled with six new authors from three different countries. It started with Tendai Huchu  (Zimbabwe), Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond (Ghana), Osundolire Ifelanwa , Myne Whitman (both from Nigeria) and Bryony Rheams (Zimbabwe). However, I also interviewed Fred McBagonluri (Ghana) along the line. Can you tell us something about yourself? I'm a medical doctor and a mother of two. I currently live in the States where I practice medicine and also write. Onaedo is my first published book. When did you begin your literary writings? As a child, especially growing up around people that wrote a lot and read a lot. Which books did you find yourself reading whilst growing up and which are you currently reading? I read quite a variety of books growing up. ...