***REGION 1: Eastern Africa I

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***REGION 1: Eastern Africa I

1avaland
Editado: Dic 25, 2010, 5:05 pm

If you have not read the information on the master thread regarding the intent of these regional threads, please do this first.

***1. Eastern Africa I: Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritus, Mayotte, Mozambique, Reunion, Rwanda, Seychelles, Tanzania (includes Zanzibar), Zambia, Zimbabwe.

2rebeccanyc
Dic 25, 2010, 10:34 pm

The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah 2010 Mauritus

In this beautiful novel, a 70-year-old Mauritian looks back at a particularly tormented time in his childhood: after a terrible tragedy, he comes to meet a Jewish boy his own age (around 10) who has been "interned"/imprisoned as part of a little known World War 2 episode in which a group of refugee Jews who attempted to land by ship in British-run Haifa were turned away and held on Mauritius, then a British colony. The descriptions of the forest, the often drastic weather, and the ways a boy explores and comes to know this natural environment inside out are breath-taking, and the psychological insight into loss, despair, memory, and hope compelling. I read this book in almost one sitting.

3kidzdoc
Ene 6, 2011, 9:44 am

An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah (Zimbabwe, read in 2010):

This debut collection of short stories about contemporary Zimbabweans within and outside of their home country won the Guardian First Book Award in 2009. I reviewed it in Belletrista last year:

http://www.belletrista.com/2010/issue5/reviews_3.php

4akeela
Ene 8, 2011, 3:57 am

One of my all-time favorite reads: By the Sea by Abdulrazak Gurnah. Tanzania

This is an expertly crafted novel. Two men – one a furnituremaker, business- and family man, the other a poet and professor – find themselves refugees in England and as they tell the story of their lives, a compelling tale emerges. Though they're in a cold and bleak environment in England, the backdrop to their stories is the warm east coast of Africa in Zanzibar – where traders descend seasonally with the musim winds, bringing perfumes, spices and exotic pieces of furniture.

The tales hark back to the oral storytelling tradition, and captivate one from the first pages that draw you in with the masterful storytelling and hold you in its grip, until the final pages as the story draws to a close. Most intriguing is the brilliant intertwining of events and the effect it has on each of the men and their families as well as the greater society. The stories tell of realised dreams, friendships forged, love found, passion, seduction, deception, disillusionment and ultimately the unexpected displacement of individuals in a bid to survive.

Gurnah's writing is absorbing and profound. Highly recommended.

5kidzdoc
Ene 9, 2011, 7:51 am

I agree you, Akeela; I loved that book.

6GlebtheDancer
Ene 9, 2011, 7:56 pm

->3 kidzdoc:
Hi Darryl,
I just finished Elegy for Easterly. I've got to admit to not getting on with it that well though, slightly paradoxically, I agree with your Belletrista review whole-heartedly. I think the overwhelming grimness, possibly combined with the overwhelming grimness of a small pile of Zimbabwean literature I just finished, wore me down a little. I was desperate for a glint in the eye, or the odd wink from Gappah. Not because her tone wasn't appropriate for her subject, but because I think I needed some more positive human moments to cling to.

7eairo
Ene 11, 2011, 8:35 am

I also read Elegy for Easterly a couple of weeks ago, and while I agree the stories were nearly depressing, I sort of liked it.

I thought there was some absurd humour present most of the time; or that the attitude of the characters was somehow optimistic, even when there was no reason for that in their circumstances.

Another good read set in Zimbabwe:The Boy Next Door, an improbable love story and the story of the country's downfall during the two first decades of Zimbabwe's independence. A good read, but not much more positive that the stories by Gappah.

Zenzele looks further back in time. It was published in the mid 1990s, and probably written before the troubles in Zimbabwe escalated, it feels very smoothed out and idealistic compared to both the Elegy... and The Boy Next Door.

8GlebtheDancer
Ene 11, 2011, 5:03 pm

-->7 eairo:
I agree about the absurd humour. That was definitely evident. I felt that it just lacked a bit of warmth. As I said, this may be because it was the last of a big pile of similarly themed books. I like the sound of The Boy Next Door though (I just read the description on your thread). I will put it on a mental list for the time being.

9eairo
Ene 14, 2011, 3:51 pm

>8 GlebtheDancer:: The time of reading, or after what other books you read something definately has an effect on how you feel about it or how you read it.

I just finished Under the Frangipani which is set in an old fortress turned into an old-folks home on the coast of Mozambique. The story is narrated by a ghost, and superficially this is a story about a police officer and a murder. Every suspect -- who are the residents of the fortress -- in his or her turn confesses the crime. Their confessions become their life-stories, and each of them tells something about the post-colonial, post-civil-war Mozambique.

Lyrical, playful, fantastic ... all qualities I like, but so very different from the previous books I had read, it was hard to get into this one ... and then it was over, as it was a small book.

10avaland
Ene 16, 2011, 7:53 am

>9 eairo: I enjoyed Mia Couto's Under the Frangipani but I think I enjoyed more Sleepwalking Land more, though they are very different books.

>4 akeela:, 5 By the Sea made me a Gurnah fan, and although I don't think any of his others that I have read have been quite as good as that one, his works have all been worthy reads. I think I just have Paradise left to read. He has a new book coming out in May, btw.

11eairo
Ene 19, 2011, 7:19 am

I had both Under the Frangipani and Sleepwalking Land at hand, and I chose Under the Frangipani because it seemed a little easier and lighter read, which I preferred at the moment. It was also in Finnish (Plumeriaveranta), and I prefer to read translated books in my own language.

I am now 70 pages into Paradise, and I see what you all mean praising Gurnah's works: fascinating story and good writing, a touch of old fashioned story-telling.

12rebeccanyc
Ene 20, 2011, 11:30 am

I had mixed feelings about Sleepwalking Land; as I said when I read it a couple of years ago, "A haunting but, for me, difficult to absorb, book about the total disruption in families and cultures caused by war, specifically the civil war in Mozambique. Couto, who is the descendant of Portuguese colonists, seems to have a deep understanding of the myths and culture of native Mozambicans, but he relies so heavily on magical realism that I felt I was really missing most of the symbolism."

13deebee1
Ene 27, 2011, 2:42 pm

#10-12 I've not read any of Mia Couto's books but just a few days ago saw a film adaptation of Sleepwalking Land. In Portuguese, the title is Terra Somnambula. I think magic-realism is very much enhanced by the visual imagery that a film makes, although of course it has to be done convincingly. And I think in this case it was very well done, exceptional even. I was sad when the film ended.

14rebeccanyc
Ene 27, 2011, 2:58 pm

That sounds fascinating, deebee. Unfortunately, Netflix doesn't know when it will be getting it, but I added it anyway.

15eairo
Mar 15, 2011, 2:14 am

My last three books from or about these countries were Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah (Tanzania) and Baking Cakes in Kigali and A Sunday at the Pool In Kigali (Rwanda).

Paradise was a magical novel. Storytelling so fine it was a joy to read from the page one to the end, so subtle about its subject matter you nearly forgot at times you were reading an account on slavery, abuse, colonialism and other not so nice things.

A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali chronicles the last few weeks leading to the Rwandan genocide (with brief historical sections on the background) and the three months of murder. It is narrated from the point of a Canadian journalist who is, among other things, in love with a young Rwandan woman. A love story in the middle of madness. And one more testimony about the powerlessness (or hypocrisy?) of the White Western World when it comes to saving lives and protecting democracy.

I thought the writing was clumsy, but I may be the translation (to Finnish), as I have not seen such comments from others, and that Valcourt the main character was a cliché. Other than that this was an good book about dark stuff.

Baking Cakes in Kigali was set in time after the genocide. The people are trying to begin to live normally again, and international helpers from near and far have returned (to take their share, might the protagonist of the previous books say), Angel, the protagonist of this book, among them. Angel makes cakes and talks ... and listens ... and helps people by doing so. The aftermaths of genocide: orphans, lost families, AIDS etc etc are all discussed in the spirit Mma Ramotswe.

This book's literary quality may be questioned, but it is a good hearted one.

16kidzdoc
Editado: Mar 19, 2011, 11:38 am

Memory of Departure by Abdulrazak Gurnah

Gurnah's first novel is set in a squalid coastal city in an East African country that resembles the author's native Tanzania, in the years following its independence from Great Britain. The narrator (Hassan) is a teenage boy who seeks to escape from his drunken and depraved father, who is a local government official, and the prejudice that limits opportunities of Arabs like himself. He finishes high school and awaits the result of the examination that will determine his future, but months have passed by without notification. His mother encourages him to visit her brother, who has become a wealthy businessman in Nairobi. There the wise if not worldly Hassan is exposed to a life he can only dream of, an opulent home with rich food, all the luxuries of modern life, and a beautiful cousin that seems to favor him. However, the veneer of this idyllic life is quickly uncovered by Hassan, as he learns more about his uncle and his past, and as he sees the rampant corruption and hypocrisy that infests this modern African city.

Memory of Departure is a well written debut effort that lightly touches on the problems of postcolonial African societies, but it lacks the impact of his later novels By the Sea and Desertion.

17avaland
mayo 13, 2011, 5:25 pm

The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah (also mentioned in #2 by rebeccanyc)

The Last Brother begins with an old man rising from a vivid dream of someone named David, and then traveling with his son to visit a grave in a Jewish cemetery on the island of Mauritius:

"And suddenly, brutally, it takes my breath away. O David!"

The grave is the last resting place of David Stein, a ten year boy whom Raj (the old man) once had a very brief, intense friendship with. And here Raj begins to tell the story from the beginning: from his early memories of living with his family in breathtaking poverty on a sugar plantation in the north of Mauritius to somewhat later when the family moves unexpectedly south and father manages to get a job as a prison guard.

It is here that Raj meets David.

"I cannot remember the precise moment when I noticed David. Perhaps it was when he walked toward the barbed wire. What I saw first was his hair, that magnificent mop of it, which floated around his head but which was certainly his and his alone, in a way that nothing has ever belonged to me, those curls hiding his brow, and his way of advancing stiffly, not limping, for all the world as if he were made of wood and iron and his machinery had not been oiled for quite some while."

I do not want to give away too much of the story, but suffice it to say, it is thoroughly engaging and carries one along as on a raft on a river, and builds in intensity. It's a powerful 164 pages, a beautiful novel of loss, longing and friendship.

I also read this almost in one sitting. Unfortunately the train pulled into PENN station and I had to close the book and get off!

18wandering_star
mayo 17, 2011, 10:58 pm

Post 15 reminds me to mention Jean Hatzfeld's three books of reportage, Into The Quick Of Life (based on interviews with victims/survivors), A Time For Machetes (interviews with a group of the killers, from the same area as the victims interviewed in the first book) and The Strategy Of Antelopes, in which he returns to the area a dozen years later to see how the process of reconciliation is progressing.

19kidzdoc
Jul 7, 2011, 10:47 am

MAURITIUS

The Prospector by J. M. G. Le Clézio

This novel about a man's search for a lost treasure and personal fulfillment begins on the island of Mauritius in 1892, where the eight year old Alexis L'Estang lives with his parents and beloved older sister Laure in an isolated house, surrounded by rich foliage and close to the sea, which nurtures and draws him in every night. His older friend Denis, the son of the black cook who lives nearby, teaches him about the mysteries of the sea and the local flora in the mountainous forest above it. His father also passes on to him his dream to find the hidden treasure of the Unknown Corsair, through maps and stories.

The family's idyllic existence is disrupted by tragedy, causing it to sink into poverty, and Alexis is forced to take on responsibilities in advance of his years. However, he does not abandon his father's dream, and he eventually travels to the island of Rodrigues to seek the treasure that will ensure his family's good standing. There he meets Ouma, the love of his life, but his search is disrupted by the onset of the Great War, and he must abandon his search, and Ouma. Eventually he is able to return, as an older man whose dream and love have not been diminished by time, but his family's continued poverty and changes in the region cause his dual goals to become more distant and seemingly unachievable.

The Prospector is filled with evocative descriptions of the sea and island life, which was its main strength, along with the love that Alexis and Ouma shared for each other, and the description of the horrors of trench warfare. However, the other characters, especially Laure and Alexis' mother, were not portrayed as richly, and I had some difficulty in understanding Alexis' motivations and actions. Despite this, I thoroughly enjoyed, and would highly recommend, this beautifully told story.

20rebeccanyc
Jul 7, 2011, 1:46 pm

I didn't think of posting my review of The Prospector here since the author is French, but since he's spent a lot of time in Mauritius and since Darryl posted his, I will add mine.

The Prospector by J. M. G. Le Clezio Mauritius

For the most part I found this book riveting and hauntingly beautiful, but at times I just wanted to shake the narrator and tell him to stop mooning around. The novel starts with the narrator, Alexis L'Etang, reflecting on his idyllic childhood, particularly in the year 1892 when he was 8, on the island of Mauritius. With his mother and sister, he reads and becomes engrossed in mythic tales; with his father he learns about the stars and the Unknown Corsair, who left clues to a treasure buried on a nearby island; with his childhood friend, Denis, from a family of freed slaves, he explores the amazingly beautiful natural wonders of the island and goes out on a boat for the first time. Of course, such a paradise cannot last, and Alexis spends the remainder of the book trying to recapture it, first by compulsively continuing his father's obsession with finding the treasure of the Unknown Corsair and then through his own obsession with Ouma, a beautiful and mysterious member of an isolated indigenous group. The spell is broken when Alexis serves in the first world war, a world utterly different from Mauritius in every respect, but of course he returns.

But the book is not really about this plot. It is really a paean to the natural world -- unspoiled landscapes, the stars, birds and plants, weather, and above all the sea -- and an exploration of how we search for meaning and purpose. Le Clézio is a wonderful writer who drew me in with his language and the images of this almost mythic tropical world; the section depicting the power of a hurricane is dramatic, and the many portraits of the sea and its power over humans are compelling. The book also examines, mostly subtly, the impact of colonialism and racism.

For most of the book, I was completely drawn in to Alexis's world and his quest (and I must agree with the other LT reviewer who said that the English title is not a good reflection of what Alexis is doing, that he is much more a searcher as in the French title than a prospector as in the English). But the World War I section, the ambiguous character of Ouma (who at times seems real and at times doesn't), and the novel's conclusion all left me puzzled as to how they fit with the rest of the book. In the end, the novel made me think, and that's good.

21labfs39
Jul 29, 2011, 5:48 pm

I'm new to Reading Globally, and I'm not sure what the protocol is about posting a review about a book that has already been reviewed. This was such a great book that I want to add to the glowing reviews of Rebecca (rebeccanyc) and Lois (avaland). Let me know if this is a faux pas.



61. The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah (translated by Geoffrey Strachan)

Nine-year-old Raj knows little of the world beyond his tiny dirt-poor village on the edge of a sugar plantation. Life revolves around his family: his brutal, abusive father; his mother who can cure with her herbs; and, most importantly, his two beloved brothers. When tragedy strikes the family, they move so that his father can take a position as a prison guard. Raj deals with his trauma by becoming increasingly withdrawn and takes to lying motionless in holes and muttering to himself. One day, as he is lying under a bush watching the mysterious prison courtyard below him where his father works, a boy wanders near and, hunched into his knees, begins to cry. The simple act of wordlessly sharing grief creates a bond between the two boys. When Raj and David both end up in the prison hospital, they become inseparable friends, and they find the joy of childhood amidst the chaotic adult world. When the Jewish internees revolt and force a standoff with their guards, Raj vows to save David, and the two run away, heading for Raj’s old village. But with only the vaguest of ideas as to where his village is, the two wander in circles until it is too late, and tragedy strikes again.

The book’s plot is vaguely reminiscent of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas: a boy on each side of a fence becoming friends and coming-of-age in a violent and chaotic time. But there the similarities end. Raj is a beautiful character faced with tragedy after tragedy in his life, but resilient as only a child can be. His grave innocence is not only believable, but compelling. Based on the true story of a boatload of Jews fleeing the Holocaust, which ends up marooned on Mauritius, the book is a Holocaust story writ small, far from the Nazis and the war. I loved the story’s gentle tone and matter-of-fact depiction of hard lives. By telling the story in flashbacks, the author is able to show the persistence of grief and love despite the passage of time and the continuation of life. I highly recommend this book for its story and its writing, but especially so that you, too, can meet brave and loving Raj.

22rebeccanyc
Jul 29, 2011, 9:48 pm

Lisa, it is perfectly OK and in fact great to add your review even if a book has already been reviewed! It is always interesting to read everyone's opinions about a book: they can differ in interesting ways and also add insights that one person has that another didn't. The more the merrier!

23rebeccanyc
Sep 14, 2012, 9:50 am

ZIMBABWE

Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga, 1988
Cross-posted from my Club Read and 75 Books threads



This book grew on me as I came to see the richness of the world Dangarembga has created. Much more than a coming-of-age story (although it is one), much more than a wonderful evocation of a time and a place (although it is), this novel illuminates the conflicts of colonialism and feminism: the desire for (English) education versus loyalty to one's village, family, and culture; the struggle for autonomy while remaining connected to people who don't understand; issues of (relative) wealth and poverty; issues of women's roles and patriarchy; issues of Christianity versus the local religion; issues of English versus Shona. Despite these weighty topics, the closest Nervous Conditions comes to being a polemic is in Dangarembga's choice of epigraph: "The condition of native is a nervous condition," from Franz Fanon. It is above all an absorbing novel with compelling characters.

Tambu, short for Tambudzai, is about 14, living with her family in an impoverished Rhodesian (not yet Zimbabwean) village; she is the narrator, but she is clearly telling the story from a more advanced age. Her uncle, the head of the extended family, who has studied in England and is the headmaster of the nearby mission school, has taken his nephew, Tambu's brother, to study there. Tambu longs for an education herself, and dislikes the way her brother has adopted "English" ways and turns his nose up at the village. When her brother dies, she talks her way into going to the mission school herself (despite the family being unsure whether education is necessary, or appropriate, for a girl), and goes to live in her uncle's home. There, she rebuilds her friendship with her cousin Nyasha, a brilliant but troubled girl who can't find her place in the world after having lived in England while her parents were studying there.

Much of the novel involves the interaction of Tambu with Nyasha and her family, and with her own extended family back in the village. The reader sees the sloth of Tambu's father, the sorrow of Tambu's mother, the uncle's power as the relatively wealthy head of the family and the family's traditional devotion to him, the unexpressed frustration of Tambu's aunt, just as educated as her uncle, but subservient to him, the evolving strength of another aunt (her mother's sister, who first appears to be just a pleasure seeker), and much more, as Dangarembga creates complex distinct characters and as Tambu constantly thinks about her actions and reactions, as well as those of others.

Despite the fact that this novel takes place during the late 1960s and into 1970, when the white residents of Rhodesia, under the leadership of Ian Smith, declared their independence from England, leading to a brutal civil war, there are no signs of war in this novel. The white people in it are largely missionaries, and so are though of as "holy" but nonetheless foreign and strange. They can also be extremely condescending and racist without realizing it, as when Tambu is accepted into a prestigious convent school and has to sleep in a crowded room with five other African students (even though the white students sleep four to a room) because, as the nun says proudly, they have so many African students this year.

This book has been on my TBR for a while; I'm happy I finally read it and have already ordered another novel by Dangarembga.

24kidzdoc
Ago 19, 2013, 9:47 am

MAURITIUS

The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah, translated from the French by Geoffrey Strachan

  

We very rarely notice changes within ourselves at the time, we perceive them later, in the light of events and our reactions to them, but, sitting there as I did, motionless in the dark, I sensed it, a change in myself, I felt as if I were getting bigger, growing, like the trees around me, and it seemed to me that the exhalation of the green, dark forest had something to do with it.

This gorgeous and deeply touching novel is set on the island nation of Mauritius off the coast of east Africa, which is isolated from the horrors of World War II but not from the harshness of life under British colonial rule. It is narrated by Raj, a nine year old boy whose family was among the thousands of Indians that were brought to the island decades before to work in its sugar cane fields for subsistence wages. After a tragic accident he and his parents have moved to a safer town, where his father finds work in a prison that supposedly houses hardened convicts. Raj is a sickly and stick thin boy, who is loved dearly by his mother but is not immune from his father's frequent wrathful and violent outbursts after he returns from his demeaning job. He is bored and lonely in his new home, with no close friends and little to occupy his fertile mind.

One day Raj watches the prison from nearby woods out of curiosity of the men who are housed there, and he is surprised to see a boy who is similar to him in age and size, although his blond hair and blue eyes set him apart. The two make eye contact, and later meet in a local hospital, where they quickly become friends despite their language differences. Raj learns that David is part of a group of approximately 1500 Jewish émigrés who attempted to travel from Eastern Europe to Palestine to escape the Nazis in 1940, but were refused admission because they did not have proper immigration documents. The British government determined that they were illegal immigrants, and condemned them to internment in the prison.

David is returned to the prison after his hospitalization, and Raj continues to observe his new friend from the woods. He escapes after a skirmish within the compound, and Raj helps him to flee from his pursuers. Unfortunately David is not well, and the two boys struggle to find food and shelter, as David's health rapidly declines.

The Last Brother is a wonderful coming of age novel, narrated by Raj as he nears the end of his life, which also highlights a little known chapter of Jewish history. The love and friendship that the two boys share rivals that of the most intimate couples, and these two characters will stay close to my heart for a long time to come.

25Nickelini
Abr 13, 2015, 1:11 pm

ZIMBABWE (Rhodesia)

The Grass is Singing, Doris Lessing, 1950 -- officially, Lessing is a British citizen, however, she grew up in Rhodesia and when this book was published she had never lived in the UK.


Cover comments: an understated approach that I rather like.

Comments: The Grass is Singing starts at the end--Mary Turner, a farmer's wife in Rhodesia, has been murdered and their houseboy has been arrested. The novel then tells Mary's story of how she ended up there.

After a horrid childhood, Mary makes a comfortable life for herself, living in a city that she likes, working at a job she enjoys, and hanging out with friends. Unfortunately, she bowed to peer pressure and got married to a man she didn't love. Dick Turner is a hard working farmer who has little success to show for his efforts. Away on the African veld, Mary soon finds herself trapped in a loop of oppressive heat and dust, boredom, grinding poverty, Dick's recurrent bouts of malaria, hatred for the Africans, classism, sexism, and mental illness. Mary is not a likeable person and is one of the worst racists I've come across in literature, but despite this the reader still feels empathy for her suffering.

The Grass is Singing is Novel Prize Laureate Lessing's first novel. Aside from the interesting events and characters, the writing itself is masterful, especially in how she structures the story.

Rating & Recommended for: The Grass is Singing is understandably a 20th century classic, and is on both the Guardian 1000 and the 1001 Books lists. I particularly recommend it to aspiring writers as an example to emulate. Four and a half stars.

26klarusu
Oct 12, 2015, 6:01 am

ZIMBABWE

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

This is a novel where character voice positively sings - with such a rich selection of characters (young and old), that makes for a hugely engaging story. From the monetary poverty of the shanty town called Paradise to the cultural poverty of an immigrant's life in America, Darling comes alive and opens a window into a world we rarely see for what it is in the current political and financial climate: the life of a migrant child separated from her family and culture in the hope that it would give her a 'better' life. It's a novel of otherness - the choices made by Darling's family for her security and well-being ultimately separate her from her birth culture and family but never quite manage to integrate her into the new life she inhabits. This is a really worthwhile read. I'd highly recommend it.

27thorold
Dic 2, 2018, 3:24 pm

I managed to clear a few African books from my TBR shelf in 2018. Those relevant for this thread are both covered in full in my Q1 thread, http://www.librarything.com/topic/278102

African laughter : four visits to Zimbabwe (1992) by Doris Lessing (UK, 1919-2013) - Lessing's non-fiction account of going back to Zimbabwe after independence

Mr. Myombekere and his wife Bugonoka, their son Ntulanalwo and daughter Bulihwali : the story of an ancient African community (1946) by Aniceti Kitereza (Tanzania, 1896-1981) - crazy but oddly fascinating novel set on Ukerewe island, Tanzania, written in Kikerewe and not translated to English until 2002.

28kidzdoc
Jul 9, 2021, 12:28 pm

MOZAMBIQUE/MOÇAMBIQUE

The Tuner of Silences by Mia Couto

  

My rating:

Family, school, other people, they all elect some spark of promise in us, some area in which we may shine. Some are born to sing, others to dance, others are born merely to be someone else. I was born to keep quiet. My only vocation is silence. It was my father who explained this to me: I have an inclination to remain speechless, a talent for perfecting silences.

I was eleven years old when I saw a woman for the first time, and I was seized by such sudden surprise that I burst into tears.

Mwanito is an 11 year old boy whose father, Silvestre Vitalício, has taken him and his older brother Ntunzi to live in Jezoosalem, the ruins of an abandoned game preserve in the countryside of Moçambique after the mysterious and sudden death of his beloved wife. Silvestre's brother in law and friend make a community of five, and the domineering Silvestre insists that Jezoosalem is the last remaining civilized place on Earth. He loves his sons, especially Mwanito, whose gift as a "tuner of silences" helps mitigate Silvestre's tortured mind and most violent instincts, especially towards his rebellious older son, who rejects his father's incredulous claims and beliefs.

Life in Jezoosalem is suddenly transformed by the appearance of Marta, a Portuguese woman who befriends Mwanito and sets Ntunzi's hormones raging, but she is a dire threat to Silvestre and what he has taught his sons. Tension steadily builds in the altered community, and the increasingly unstable Silvestre boldly vows to remove the stranger by force if she does not leave willingly.

The Tuner of Silences is a lyrical, captivating and unforgettable novel filled with damaged souls who struggle to find meaning and happiness in lives permanently altered by the deaths of those they love the most. Mia Couto is one of Africa's most celebrated contemporary writers, and after reading The Tuner of Silences, one of my favorite novels of 2021 to date, it is easy to see why.

29kidzdoc
Feb 2, 2022, 5:35 pm

TANZANIA

Book #3: Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah

  

My rating:

The latest novel by last year's winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature is set in the former colony of German East Africa, or Deutsch-Ostafrika, beginning in the immediate aftermath of the Maji Maji Rebellion (1905-07), in which an armed insurrection by local residents against harsh demands and working conditions imposed on them by the colonists was met with brutal and overwhelming force, and the resultant genocide by the Germans cost approximately 300,000 Africans their lives.

Khalifa is a half African, half Indian young man who is hired as a bookkeeper by a cunning and largely unscrupulous merchant in a port city in German East Africa. After he agrees to marry the niece of the merchant, a match which benefitted the merchant but did not bring happiness to Khalifa or his new wife, he meets and befriends a younger man, Ilyas, who enters town with a letter of recommendation by his German overseer. Ilyas was orphaned at a young age and rescued from bondage by his master, who taught him both the language and the customs of the mother country. Once he is settled Ilyas returns to his home village and rescues his beautiful younger sister, Afiya, from the family who has kept her as little more than a house servant. After the two settle in a peaceful existence in town Ilyas suddenly decides to enlist as a soldier in the schutztruppe, the colonial troops which were tasked to crush any rebellious activities or behaviors by the resentful and downtrodden subjects of the Germans. Afiya is left unprotected, but is rescued from a life of abuse and bondage by Khalifa and his wife Asha.

The schutztruppe in German East Africa is used to fight against the askari, Africans of other countries who were often forcibly recruited to engage in war against enemy colonies during the First World War, under inhuman conditions and with heavy loss of life. One survivor of the war is Hamza, who returns to the port city that he escaped from by joining the schutztruppe. He is hired by the son of the merchant who employed Khalifa, and he gradually gets to know, and ultimately fall in love with, Afiya, who remains unmarried and available.

The primary focus of Afterlives is the growing relationship between Afiya and Hamza, and their story is beautifully conveyed by the author, with rich portrayals of the young lovers and the other major characters in the novel. The brutality of colonial rule under the Germans between the end of the Maji Maji Rebellion and the end of World War I is also compelling and evocative, particularly Hamza’s often harsh treatment by his commanding officers. However, the end of the book is quite rushed, underdeveloped and somewhat unconvincing, as if Gurnah wanted to be done with the book. As a result I knocked down my rating of Afterlives by half a star to four stars, but it is still a superb novel and one well worth reading.

30Gypsy_Boy
Nov 1, 2022, 10:17 am

Just finished Binwell Sinyangwe's A Cowrie of Hope and found it an impressive novel. I had not heard of the author but bought the book anyway since it is part of the Heinemann’s African Writers Series. I have been variously disappointed and impressed by authors whose work is included in this series and this was one of the best of those I’ve read. Sinyangwe was obsessed here with the economic crisis in Zambia in the 1990s and its pervasive effect on society. The story is simple: an illiterate, widowed mother in the depths of poverty is desperate to find a way to pay for her daughter’s continuing education. The story itself is nothing special but his depiction of the mother’s struggles, of the place and problems of women in society is quite moving, despite the often disappointingly stereotypical portrayals of good and evil. I am very disappointed to know that the author has published only one other book.

31labfs39
Feb 12, 2023, 1:24 pm

MOZAMBIQUE



The Tuner of Silences by Mia Couto, translated from the Portuguese by David Brookshaw
Originally published 2009, English translation 2012, Biblioasis, 230 p.

Mwanito was three when his mother died, and his father takes him and his older brother off-the-grid. Mwanito's maternal uncle drives them to a deserted game preserve, where his father declares the nation of Jezoosalem and gives them new names. The boys are never to speak of the past or life outside Jezoosalem, which their father declares no longer exists. Their only companions are the ex-soldier, Zachary, and the occasional resupply visits from their uncle. One day, when Mwanito is eleven, a woman arrives in Jezoosalem, and life is never the same for any of them.

Although the plot line is interesting, it is Couto's writing which made reading this book such a delight. I read once that Couto considers himself a poet who writes novels, and that's a wonderful way to put it. Here are a few quotes out of the many lines that struck me as beautiful:

Describing uncle: He was timid, bowing formally and respectfully as if confronted by a low doorway whichever way he turned. Aproximado would speak without ever abandoning his modest ways, as it he were always mistaken, as if his very existence were no more than an indiscretion.

Describing father: He who loses hope, runs away. He who loses confidence, hides away. And he wanted to do both things: to run away and to hide away. Nevertheless, we should never doubt Silvestre's capacity to love.

—Your father is a good man. His goodness is that of an angel who doesn't know where God is. That's all.

His whole life had been devoted to one task: to be a father. And any good father faces the same temptation: to keep his children for himself, away from the world, far from time.

Describing Zachary: ...he slept like a guinea-fowl. On the branch of a tree for fear of the ground. But on the lowest branch, in case he fell.

The woman's thoughts: This is how I grow old: dispersed within me, a veil abandoned on a church pew.

And again: This is my conflict: when you're here, I don't exist, I'm ignored. When you're not here, I don't know myself, I'm ignorant. I only exist in your presence. And I am only myself in your absence. Now, I know. I'm no more than a name. A name that only comes to life when uttered by you.

32labfs39
Feb 19, 2023, 8:44 am

MOZAMBIQUE



The First Wife: A Tale of Polygamy by Paulina Chiziane, translated from the Portuguese by David Brookshaw
Originally published 2002, English translation 2016, Archipelago Press, 494 p.

Rami and Tony have been married for twenty years and have five children. He is a senior police officer, and they live comfortably, if not extravagantly, in Maputo, Mozambique. Lately he has been working late and is often absent when Rami needs him. Soon she discovers that he has a mistress of long-standing, and she goes to confront this other woman. Julieta also has five children with Tony and is pregnant with her sixth. At first the women come to fisticuffs, but eventually realize that they have both been betrayed, for Tony has more families stashed around the city. Rami, as first wife, decides to bring the women together for mutual support and to organize this haphazard polygamous marriage into a more traditional form that grants the women some rights.

Although it took me a while to get used to the author's writing style, the plot was a page-turner from the beginning. Rami's struggle to come to terms with her husband's infidelity, and her fight for not only her rights, but the rights of all her husband's wives, is at once universal and unique. The author writes from a strong feminist perspective, but with an acknowledgment of regional differences, the influence of tradition, and the legacy of colonialism. Recommended for anyone interested in gender politics, the lives of women in Mozambique, or simply a poignant, funny satire set in Africa.