Africa Reading Challenge: List & Reviews

A log of my books read for the Africa Reading Challenge. The reviews are here.

The Challenge:

“Participants commit to read – in the course of 2008 – six books that either were written by African writers, take place in Africa, or deal significantly with Africans and African issues. ” Then you post a review of each and they’ll link to it from the Siphoning blog.

The List:

#1. West With the Night by Beryl Markham. (Review)
Brought it with me to Kenya after owning and ignoring it for a few years. This was the right time to read it, since not only can I better relate to the geography and place names, but can scratch the surface of understanding what it must have been like to grow up here. And then there’s the whole celebrated-woman-pilot bit! Romance galore, and not the boy-girl kind.

#2. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. (Review)
As posted about. I’ve since learned that there is a “vibrant used book trade” in Kenya, so the shocked look I got for my 1000-shilling paperback might simply have been pity for the idiot woman who paid too much.

#3. No Picnic on Mt. Kenya by Felice Benuzzi. The story of the 1st ascent of the mountain in 1943 by Italian prisoners of war who broke out of PoW Camp 354, climbed the thing in style, and broke back into camp! National Geographic Adventure did a story on it last year, and our friend Alex guided the author and photographer. Reading a precious 1960 edition borrowed from Sam’s dad, who was kind enough to loan it.

#4. North of South: An African Journey by Shiva Naipaul. Bought it shortly after arriving and realizing I knew nothing about Kenya. I’m a sucker for rear view mirror pictures like the one on the cover, but this description sealed it: “Naipaul shares with Evelyn Waugh the same eye for the ridiculous, the same dark humour, the same ultimate cynicism about the human race.” Expecting a fair share of kooks.

#5. Livingstone’s Tribe: A Journey from Zanzibar to the Cape by Stephen Taylor. A white South African liberal expatriate travels along the paths of explorers and missionaries to see how whites fare in post-independence East and South Africa: “…a melancholy collection of white misfits and failures…as well as a heroic, dwindling clutch of missionaries still holding the line… The catalogue of theft, corruption, murder and superstition that Taylor chronicles makes appalling, fascinating reading.” (A birthday present!)

#6. The Famished Road by Ben Okri. At nearly 600 pages (followed by a sequel! talk about commitments…), it’s the fattest in the stack. About a spirit child who decides to remain in the mortal world. African magic realism. I can’t wait! (A birthday present!)

#7. The Wizard of The Nile: The Hunt for Africa’s Most Wanted by Matt Green about Joseph Kony. All I really know about Uganda, besides the documentary on Idi Amin I saw recently on Al Jazeera (part of their “I Knew [insert dictator here]” series), is that it always seems to be in bloody turmoil. And yet this is the direction many Kenyans in the Western Province fled when little civil wars started in their towns. Uganda’s 21-year-old civil war might be over at the end of this month, with Kony avoiding prosecution for war crimes, but he’s on the move again. This story’s definitely not over. (Bumped to the bottom because I don’t own it yet.)

Recommendations from Friends:

The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton
-from Kate

The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence by Martin Meredith.
“It looks like a weighty tome — but it is actually a great read that is written by a journalist/historian so it is a very engaging.

also by Meredith: The Fate of Africa: From the Hopes of Freedom to the Heart of Despair

My Traitor’s Heart: A South African Exile returns to face his country, his tribe, and his conscience by Rian Malan”
- both from Petra

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah
- from Andrea

Dorris Lessing’s Nobel Prize Speech

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2007/lessing-lecture_en.html

What is the What?, by Dave Eggers
- both from Barbee’