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The Golden Baobab Prizes for African children’s literature have revealed the 14 stories that made it onto their longlist for 2014. Selected from a total of 210 stories received from 13 countries across the continent, this longlist showcases some of the finest African writers and African children’s stories today. With four writers each, Ghana and South Africa are the four most represented nationalities on the longlist. Other countries that had writers on the list were Egypt, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Nigeria. The longlist represents stories submitted to the Golden Baobab Prize for Picture Books and the Golden Baobab Prize for Early Chapter Books. No story from the Golden Baobab Prize for Rising Writers made it onto the 2014 longlist. Speaking on the prizes’ evaluation and selection processes, the Prize Coordinator, Delali Kumapley commented, “Stories submitted to the Golden Baobab Prizes go through an incredibly exhaustive evaluation process. We have a team of about thirty people fro...

Last year, it was announced that books by Americans would be allowed entry into the Man Booker Prize. Whereas some readers and fans saw this as an unwanted deviation and a loss of focus for the renowned Prize, others saw it as the correction of a long-drawn anomaly by accepting all English-speaking countries. Prior to this announcement the Man Booker only allowed entries from British, Irish and Commonwealth authors. British authors lead this year's longlist of 13 books with five nominations. This is followed by American authors who enter the Prize for the first time with four nominations. The rest of the nominations is held by two Irish writers and one Australian writer. Below is the list: Joshua Ferris (US) – To Rise Again at a Decent Hour Richard Flanagan (Australia) – The Narrow Road to the Deep North Karen Joy Fowler (US) – We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves Siri Hustvedt (US) – The Blazing World Howard Jacobson (Britain) – J Paul Kingsnorth (Britain) – The Wake...

The first Faulks' novel I read was Devil May Care , a story written to mark the centenary celebration of he creator of the James Bond character, Ian Fleming. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy the book. Perhaps, I would have liked the movie better. This is due to the different demands I place on movies and books. I expect more intellectual discourse from books, and more action (though I hate war movies) from movies. Consequently, this book stayed on my bookshelf for almost three and half years. I was scared of opening it, until I ran-out of books to read. This is one of those books you read and begin to wonder why you have not read it all this while, especially when it has been staring you in the face for years, begging you to pick it up and at least read the first line. According to the blurb ' ...Sebastian Faulks creates a work of fiction that is as tragic as A Farewell to Arms  and as sensuous as The English Patient .' And having read both books I should more than agr...

The Caine Prize for African Writing 2014 brings together the five shortlisted authors' stories along with 12 other stories from the best new writers. Insightful, arresting and entertaining - this collection reflects the richness and range of current African writing.  Caine Prize 2014 Shortlisted Stories : Phosphorescence Diane Awerbuck (South Africa) Chicken Efemia Chela (Ghana/Zambia) The Intervention Tendai Huchu (Zimbabwe) The Gorilla’s Apprentice Billy Kahora (Kenya) My Father’s Head Okwiri Oduor (Nigeria) The Caine Prize African Writers’ Workshop Stories 2014: The Lifebloom Gift Abdul Adan (Somalia/Kenya) The Gonjon Pin Martin Egblewogbe (Ghana) As A Wolf Sweating Your Mother’s Body   Clifton Gachagua (Kenya) Pam Pam Lawrence Hoba (Zimbabwe) Lily in the Moonlight Abubakar Adam Ibrahim (Nigeria) Running Elnathan John (Nigeria) The Murder of Ernestine Masilo Violet Masilo (Zimbabwe) All the Parts of Mi Isabella Matambanadzo (Zimbabwe) Blood Wor...

Jeane had once said that men were not like women, that once they had possessed a woman it was as thought nothing had happened and they just wanted to move on to another. [64] The difference between living and dying was not one of quality, only of time. [67] Constant shelling is a cure for impure thoughts. I never think of women. They belong to a different existence. [146] Men are such timid creatures, really, You have to be gentle with them. Make them feel safe. To begin with, anyway. [235] They boasted in a mocking way of what they had seen and done; but in their sad faces wrapped in rags he saw the burden of their unwanted knowledge. [270] It's better to have a malign providence than an indifferent one. [278] I heard a voice. There was something beyond me. All my life I had lived on the presumption that there was no existence beyond...flesh, the moment of being alive...then nothing. I had searched in superstition... Rats. But there was nothing. Then I h...

Testament of the Seasons  (2013) is an anthology of poems in fourteen segments by Mawuli Adzei collected over a period of three decades. The poems cover wide ranging issues: from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the bombing of the World Trade Centre; from the Arab Springs to the Cold War and Holocaust; from love to identity and race and death. Mawuli's anthology consist of poems about issues that has affected his world views. He talks about the hegemony of the West as wells as the tribalism at home and his love for his people. Mawuli would not be bolted to a single place; he is  'neither a signifyin' monkey/ Nor a simulating chameleon'.  Yet, he is a member of his clan; their mirror image for if you  just touch my face/ You touch a clan. The anthology opens with  Winds of Change  - a collection of poems about the recent seemingly stochastic uprisings that swept large parts of North Africa and Middle East. The segment opens with  Springtime , a poe...

There comes a time when even a hobby suffers from a person's silences and inactivity. Sometimes it becomes pronounced that going back to what we love becomes a tortuous task in itself. I have suffered this, though not to the tortuous end. This year has been like no other year. It has taken me to the extremes of events. I have lost a job and found one. I have known fear and I have been rescued. It is in my moments of desperation that I realise I could not muster the necessary energy to read as many books as I used to read. I discovered that I am not one of those who could lose themselves and seek solace in books when faced with obstacles. In such situations, my mind takes control over me and does its own thinking, unaided, uncontrolled. It is for this reason that my reading in April was highly affected with only two books . I just could not bring myself to read. It is like a writer suffering from a writer's block. May in Review This block entered May. I thought that...