English, 
Francais, Bilingual,
Xuma faces the complexities of urban life in Johannesburg. This was
one of the first books to draw attention to the condition of black South
Africans under apartheid. Top of Form | African Literature
Index | African Writers Index | E-mail us! Poetical and powerful, Wounding Words is a vivid autobiographical exploration
of women's issues in the political turmoil of contemporary Tunisia. The
personal her is very much the political. Hayate is Lebanese, living and
working for a year in Tunisia; she meets women who realize that there is
more to breaking the bonds of traditional strictures than high-flown rhetoric.
There are also practical considerations--how can a wife who has been abandoned
by her husband support herself and an ill daughter on 50 dinars a month?
This is the reality of their lives, and their struggle is to find a way
to make the dream fit into the reality. Above all, this book is aobut the
stunning revelation that feminism is the radical notion that women are
human. Top of Form | African Literature
Index | African Writers Index | E-mail us! Commonwealth Poetry Prize 1972 Chinua Achebe is best known as a novelist but the civil war in Nigeria
was not a time for writing full-length books. He found poetry a means of
expressing his distress, even though few of the poems speak directly of
the war. Top of Form | African Literature
Index | African Writers Index | E-mail us! Part of the Classics
in Context Series "Things Fall Apart has become the most famous novel written
in English by an African" Chinua Achebe's first novel portrays the collision of African and European
cultures in human terms. Okonkwo, a great man in Igbo traditional society,
cannot adapt to the profound changes brought by British colonial rule.
Yet as in classic tragedy, Okonkwo's downfall results from his own character
as well as from external challenges. "Achebe is the man who invented African literature because he was
able to show ... that the future of African writing did not lie in simple
imitation of European forms but in the fusion of such forms with oral traditions" This expanded edition includes new illustrations, maps, additional essays
on history, culture, and literature, and reference material to place Achebe's
classic in its social and historical context, and to understand its place
in world literature. Top of Form | African Literature
Index | African Writers Index | E-mail us!
This anthology represents the variety, talent and scope to be found
in contemporary African writing. Kojo Laing and Mia Couto's magical realism
contrast powerfully with the styles of Nadine Gordimer, Ben Okri, and Moyez
Vassanji. Top of Form | African Literature
Index | African Writers Index | E-mail us! "This collection of 20 stories forms an invaluable introduction
to the wealth of short fiction currently being written in Africa...Highly
recommended for both African and short story collections." -- Library Journal "...a useful vantage point from which to remind ourselves of the
importance of the [African Writers] series." -- The New York Times Book Review Chinua Achebe has joined with C.L. Innes, co-editor of Okike, to select
stories of excellence from the writings of the last twenty-five years.
While many of the established names such as Sembene Ousmane, Ngugi, and
Bessie Head are to be found, the collection is refreshing for the inclusion
of work by the wide range of writers who have made the emerging field of
African fiction something to follow. Top of Form | African Literature
Index | African Writers Index | E-mail us! Eddie and his friend Hussein make a living of a kind washing cars in
the slums of Nairobi. And because the big people come to Majengo to have
their cars washed, Eddy is taken up and taken out to the other Nairobi
by the attractive Zakia. Thomas Akare is a writer who speaks from the center
of the slums. His picture is hard, realistic, and unsentimental. Top of Form | African Literature
Index | African Writers Index | E-mail us! Orimili takes his name from the great river that flows through
his hometown of Kokocha -- but while the river flows on to the wider world
beyond, Orimili is anchored to his home, and yearns to strengthen those
ties further. His ambition is to be accepted in the company of elders,
to wear the thick white thread of office around his ankle. In this first novel, Amechi Akwanya has created a complex community
at the point of irrevocable change. With masterly precision and acute insight
he delineates the forces that animate human relationships -- that bind
them and destroy them, and define society. Top of Form | African Literature
Index | African Writers Index | E-mail us! "Mr. Amadi writes with...shapeliness and exhilaration ...a lovely
and dignified picture of a society, not only still ruled by gods, but governed
by a great delicacy in human relationships, full of respect for others."
--The Guardian Top of Form | African Literature
Index | African Writers Index | E-mail us! "On the evidence of this second novel, Elechi Amadi is a very clever
writer indeed ...His story tells of the ruinous feud between two villages
in Eastern Nigeria...if there is something of Homer and Virgil in the physical
descriptions of battles and parlays...there is still more in the powerful
sense of what it is like to be ruled by supernatural forces." -- The Spectator Top of Form | African Literature
Index | African Writers Index | E-mail us! A railway freight clerk in Ghana tries to hold out against the pressures
both in his family and his country which impel him towards corruption.
Top of Form | African Literature
Index | African Writers Index | E-mail us! An exciting story of a man's struggle against a conservative fetishist
priest to bring a better life to his people. It is set on an island off
East Africa, though written by a Ghanaian. Top of Form | African Literature
Index | African Writers Index | E-mail us!
Send comments & questions to: africanwriters@yahoo.com
This page has had,
Latest Books!
Peter ABRAHAMS
Mine Boy
Chinua ACHEBE
Beware Soul Brother
Things
Fall Apart -new expanded edition
--Donald Herdeck, African Authors
--from the literary introduction by Simon Gikandi
Edited by Chinua ACHEBE and Lynn INNES
The Heinemann Book of Contemporary African
Short Stories
African Short Stories
Thomas AKARE The Slums
Amechi AKWANYA Orimili
Elechi AMADI The Concubine
The Great Ponds
Ayi Kwei ARMAH The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born
Bediako ASARE Rebel
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