Best of
Africa
2006
Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust
Immaculée Ilibagiza - 2006
But in 1994 her idyllic world was ripped apart as Rwanda descended into a bloody genocide. Immaculee’s family was brutally murdered during a killing spree that lasted three months and claimed the lives of nearly a million Rwandans.Incredibly, Immaculee survived the slaughter. For 91 days, she and seven other women huddled silently together in the cramped bathroom of a local pastor while hundreds of machete-wielding killers hunted for them. It was during those endless hours of unspeakable terror that Immaculee discovered the power of prayer, eventually shedding her fear of death and forging a profound and lasting relationship with God. She emerged from her bathroom hideout having discovered the meaning of truly unconditional love—a love so strong she was able seek out and forgive her family’s killers.The triumphant story of this remarkable young woman’s journey through the darkness of genocide will inspire anyone whose life has been touched by fear, suffering, and loss.
Half of a Yellow Sun
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - 2006
With astonishing empathy and the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie weaves together the lives of three characters swept up in the turbulence of the decade. Thirteen-year-old Ugwu is employed as a houseboy for a university professor full of revolutionary zeal. Olanna is the professor’s beautiful mistress, who has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos for a dusty university town and the charisma of her new lover. And Richard is a shy young Englishman in thrall to Olanna’s twin sister, an enigmatic figure who refuses to belong to anyone. As Nigerian troops advance and the three must run for their lives, their ideals are severely tested, as are their loyalties to one another. Epic, ambitious, and triumphantly realized, Half of a Yellow Sun is a remarkable novel about moral responsibility, about the end of colonialism, about ethnic allegiances, about class and race—and the ways in which love can complicate them all. Adichie brilliantly evokes the promise and the devastating disappointments that marked this time and place, bringing us one of the most powerful, dramatic, and intensely emotional pictures of modern Africa that we have ever had.
There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Africa's Children
Melissa Fay Greene - 2006
When Haregwoin Teferra’s husband and daughter died within a few years of each other, her life is shattered and she becomes a recluse. But then a priest delivers an orphan to her door. The another, and another... and together they thrive.The distinguished author of Praying for Sheetrock and two-time National Book award finalist puts a human face on the AIDS crisis in Africa. When Haregwoin Teferra’s husband and 23-year-old daughter died within a few years of each other, her middle-class life in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, was shattered. Bereft and with little to live for, Haregwoin became a recluse. Her self-imposed exile to a hut near her daughter’s grave was interrupted when a priest delivered first one, then another, orphaned teenager into her care. To everyone’s surprise, the children thrived, and so did Haregwoin. As word spread, children of all ages began to appear at her modest home: an infant brought by a dying mother, an orphaned brother and sister whose grandfather was too poor to feed them, a baby left on her doorstep. Haregwoin’s small compound became known as the rare place where ailing parents and impoverished families could safely leave their children. Soon Haregwoin was caring for sixty children, running an unofficial orphanage and day school, and learning first-hand about her country’s and her continent’s greatest challenge: the AIDS pandemic that is leaving millions of children without parents to care for them. With the flair and grace of a novelist and the reportorial instincts of a seasoned journalist, Melissa Fay Greene gets to the heart of the AIDS crisis, in a story that is nevertheless one of hope. There Is No Me Without You is the story of Haregwoin and her children: a story of struggle and despair, but also of the triumph of saved lives, and the renewed happiness of children welcomed by adoptive parents in Ethiopia, America, and around the world. Haregewoin’s remarkable story convinces us that the crisis in Africa touches every one of us in some fundamental way. At heart, this book is about children and the parents they need to care for them.
An Ordinary Man: An Autobiography
Paul Rusesabagina - 2006
Confronting killers with a combination of diplomacy, flattery, and deception, he offered shelter to more than twelve thousand members of the Tutsi clan and Hutu moderates, while homicidal mobs raged outside with machetes.An Ordinary Man explores what the Academy Award-nominated film Hotel Rwanda could not: the inner life of the man who became one of the most prominent public faces of that terrible conflict. Rusesabagina tells for the first time the full story of his life - growing up as the son of a rural farmer, the child of a mixed marriage, his extraordinary career path which led him to become the first Rwandan manager of the Belgian-owned Hotel Milles Collines - all of which contributed to his heroic actions in the face of such horror. He will also bring the reader inside the hotel for those one hundred terrible days depicted in the film, relating the anguish of those who watched as their loved ones were hacked to pieces and the betrayal that he felt as a result of the UN’s refusal to help at this time of crisis.Including never-before-reported details of the Rwandan genocide, An Ordinary Man is sure to become a classic of tolerance literature, joining such books as Thomas Keneally’s Schindler’s List, Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom, and Elie Wiesel’s Night. Paul Rusesabagina’s autobiography is the story of one man who did not let fear get the better of him—a man who found within himself a vast reserve of courage and bravery, and showed the world how one 'ordinary man' can become a hero.
Cockroaches
Scholastique Mukasonga - 2006
Imagine being thousands of miles away while your family and friends are brutally and methodically slaughtered. Imagine being entrusted by your parents with the mission of leaving everything you know and finding some way to survive, in the name of your family and your people.Scholastique Mukasonga's Cockroaches is the story of growing up a Tutsi in Hutu-dominated Rwanda--the story of a happy child, a loving family, all wiped out in the genocide of 1994. A vivid, bitterwsweet depiction of family life and bond in a time of immense hardship, it is also a story of incredible endurance, and the duty to remember that loss and those lost while somehow carrying on. Sweet, funny, wrenching, and deeply moving, Cockroaches is a window onto an unforgettable world of love, grief, and horror.
When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa
Peter Godwin - 2006
On these frequent visits to check on his elderly parents, he bore witness to Zimbabwe's dramatic spiral downwards into thejaws of violent chaos, presided over by an increasingly enraged dictator. And yet long after their comfortable lifestyle had been shattered and millions were fleeing, his parents refuse to leave, steadfast in their allegiance to the failed state that has been their adopted home for 50 years.Then Godwin discovered a shocking family secret that helped explain their loyalty. Africa was his father's sanctuary from another identity, another world.WHEN A CROCODILE EATS THE SUN is a stirring memoir of the disintegration of a family set against the collapse of a country. But it is also a vivid portrait of the profound strength of the human spirit and the enduring power of love.
Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years with a Midwife in Mali
Kris Holloway - 2006
Monique Dembele saved lives and dispensed hope in a place where childbirth is a life-and-death matter. This book tells of her unquenchable passion to better the lives of women and children in the face of poverty, unhappy marriages, and endless backbreaking work. Monique's buoyant humor and willingness to defy tradition were uniquely hers. In the course of this deeply personal narrative, as readers immerse themselves in the rhythms of West African village life, they come to know Monique as friend, mother, and inspired woman.
What Is the What
Dave Eggers - 2006
When he finally is resettled in the United States, he finds a life full of promise, but also heartache and myriad new challenges. Moving, suspenseful, and unexpectedly funny, What Is the What is an astonishing novel that illuminates the lives of millions through one extraordinary man.-back cover
How to Write about Africa
Binyavanga Wainaina - 2006
In 'How to Write About Africa', Wainaina dissects the cliché of Africa and the preconceptions dear to western writers and readers with ruthless precision. In the same fashion, ‘My Clan KC’ undresses the layers of meaning shrouding the identity of the infamous Kenya Cowboy, while ‘Power of Love’ bemusedly recollects the advent of the celebrities-for-Africa phenomenon, heralded by the mid-eighties hit song ‘We Are The World’. It also scrutinizes the international NGO circuit and the transactions between ‘dollar-a-day people’ and $5000-a-month United Nations consultants whose started off as ‘$5-dollar-a-day’, 25-year-old backpackers full of ‘love and compassion’ for the continent.
The Old Way: A Story of the First People
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas - 2006
Thomas wound up writing about their world in a seminal work, The Harmless People (1959). It has never gone out of print.Back then, this was uncharted territory and little was known about our human origins. Today, our beginnings are better understood. And after a lifetime of interest in the bushmen, Thomas has come to see that their lifestyle reveals great, hidden truths about human evolution.As she displayed in her bestseller, The Hidden Life of Dogs, Thomas has a rare gift for giving voice to the voices we don't usually listen to, and helps us see the path that we have taken in our human journey. In The Old Way, she shows how the skills and customs of the hunter-gatherer share much in common with the survival tactics of our animal predecessors. And since it is "knowledge, not objects, that endure" over time, Thomas vividly brings us to see how linked we are to our origins in the animal kingdom.The history of mankind that most of us know is only the tip of the iceberg, a brief stint compared to fifteen thousand centuries of life as roving clans that seldom settled down adapted every day to changes in environment and food supply, and lived for the most part like the animal ancestors from which they evolved. Those origins are not so easily abandoned, Thomas suggests, and our wired, documented, and market-driven society has plenty to learn from the Bushmen of the Kalahari about human evolution. As she displayed in The Hidden Life of Dogs, Thomas helps us see the path that we have taken in our human journey. In The Old Way, she shows how the skills and customs of the hunter-gatherer share much in common with the survival tactics of our animal predecessors. And since it is "knowledge, not objects, that endure" over time, Thomas brings us to see how linked we are to our origins in the animal kingdom.
This Voice in My Heart: A Runner's Memoir of Genocide, Faith, and Forgiveness
Gilbert Tuhabonye - 2006
More than ten years ago, he lay buried under a pile of burning bodies. The centuries–old battle between Hutu and Tutsi tribes had come to Gilbert's school. Fueled by hatred, the Hutus forced more than a hundred Tutsi children and teachers into a small room and used machetes to beat most of them to death. The unfortunate ones who survived the beating were doused with gasoline and set on fire. After hiding under burning bodies for over eight hours, Gilbert heard a voice inside saying, "You will be all right; you will survive." He knows it was God speaking to him. Gilbert was the lone survivor of the genocide, and thanks his enduring faith in God for his survival.Today, having forgiven his enemies and moved forward with his life, he is a world–class athlete, running coach and celebrity in his new hometown of Austin, Texas. The road to this point has been a tough one, but Gilbert uses his survival instincts to spur him on to the goal of qualifying for the 2008 Olympic Summer Games. This Voice in my Heart will portray not only the horrific event itself, but will be a catalyst for people to understand real forgiveness and the gift of faith in God.
When We Ruled: The Ancient and Medieval History of Black Civilisations
Robin Oliver Walker - 2006
It recounts the fascinating story of the origin and development of indigenous civilisations across the vast panorama of the African continent.In particular, the author answers the key question in Black history: How much documented history is there beyond the Slave Trade, Mary Seacole, and Malcolm X? In 713 pages that question is answered again and again with a vast array of evidence that explodes the widely held view that Africans were without historical distinctions. In particular, there are ancient and medieval monuments that are still standing all over Africa. In addition, there are Black families and institutions that still possess their medieval manuscripts.The history of Black people cannot be divorced from the history of peoples on other continents particularly Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Topic areas that have traditionally been ignored, such as Black Women's history, early African science and technology, and the two-way influences between Africa and Europe, are also discussed.What is remarkable about this work is that for the first time it dares to connect Egypt, and its cultural affinities, with Africa and its chronological timeline within the vast chronology (nearly 90,000 years) of African achievement. It is now untenable for Egyptologists to consider themselves to be experts on Egypt without understanding the African cultural signature embedded within Ancient Egypt and its long history.Faculty, students and parents interested in a comprehensive, critical and balanced overview of African or Black history will find no better book.
Secrets of the Savanna: Twenty-three Years in the African Wilderness Unraveling the Mysteries of Elephants and People
Mark Owens - 2006
The award-winning zoologists and pioneering conservationists describe their work in the remote and ruggedly beautiful Luangwa Valley, in northeastern Zambia. There they studied the mysteries of the elephant population’s recovery after poaching, discovering remarkable similarities between humans and elephants. A young elephant named Gift provided the clue to help them crack the animals’ secret of survival. A stirring portrait of life in Africa, Secrets of the Savanna is a remarkable record of the Owenses' unique passions.
Gogo Mama
Sally Sara - 2006
They include a genocide survivor from Rwanda; a pygmy who lives in a grass hut at the base of a volcano in the Congo; Zanzibar's most famous living diva; a former child soldier from Liberia; a grandmother fighting AIDS in South Africa; a freed slave from Ghana, who as a child was given to a priest as a sacrifice for crimes committed by an ancestor; a famous Egyptian belly dancer turned movie star; and a pioneering midwife from Timbuktu. The women speak frankly about their astonishing lives, past and present, in some of the most hostile and exotic parts of the continent.This book is a journey across Africa, in all its complexity – from the townships of Johannesburg, to the back alleys of Zanzibar; from the frontline of the war in the Sudan, to the nightclubs of Cairo. It is a vivid, illuminating and often haunting composite picture of an extraordinary continent, in the words of the people who know it best.
Eve out of Her Ruins
Ananda Devi - 2006
Awarded the prestigious Prix des cinq continents upon publication as the best book written in French outside of France, Eve Out of her Ruins is a harrowing account of the violent reality of life in her native country by the figurehead of Mauritian literature.The book featurues an original introduction by Nobel Prize winner J.M.G. Le Clézio, who declares Devi "a truly great writer."Ananda Devi (b. 1957, Trois-Boutiques, Mauritius) is a novelist and scholar. She has published eight novels as well as short stories and poetry, and was featured at the PEN World Voices Festival in New York in 2015. She was made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government in 2010.
Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe
Gérard Prunier - 2006
In this extraordinary history of the recent wars in Central Africa, Gerard Prunier offers a gripping account of how one grisly episode laid the groundwork for a sweeping and disastrous upheaval. Prunier vividly describes the grisly aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, when some two million refugees--a third of Rwanda's population--fled to exile in Zaire in 1996. The new Rwandan regime then crossed into Zaire and attacked the refugees, slaughtering upwards of 400,000 people. The Rwandan forces then turned on Zaire's despotic President Mobutu and, with the help of a number of allied African countries, overthrew him. But as Prunier shows, the collapse of the Mobutu regime and the ascension of the corrupt and erratic Laurent-D�sir� Kabila created a power vacuum that drew Rwanda, Uganda, Angola, Zimbabwe, Sudan, and other African nations into an extended and chaotic war. The heart of the book documents how the whole core of the African continent became engulfed in an intractible and bloody conflict after 1998, a devastating war that only wound down following the assassination of Kabila in 2001. Prunier not only captures all this in his riveting narrative, but he also indicts the international community for its utter lack of interest in what was then the largest conflict in the world.Praise for the hardcover: The most ambitious of several remarkable new books that reexamine the extraordinary tragedy of Congo and Central Africa since the Rwandan genocide of 1994.--New York Review of BooksOne of the first books to lay bare the complex dynamic between Rwanda and Congo that has been driving this disaster.--Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times Book ReviewLucid, meticulously researched and incisive, Prunier's will likely become the standard account of this under-reported tragedy.--Publishers Weekly
Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order
James Ferguson - 2006
What, though, is really at stake in discussions about Africa, its problems, and its place in the world? And what should be the response of those scholars who have sought to understand not the “Africa” portrayed in broad strokes in journalistic accounts and policy papers but rather specific places and social realities within Africa?In Global Shadows the renowned anthropologist James Ferguson moves beyond the traditional anthropological focus on local communities to explore more general questions about Africa and its place in the contemporary world. Ferguson develops his argument through a series of provocative essays which open—as he shows they must—into interrogations of globalization, modernity, worldwide inequality, and social justice. He maintains that Africans in a variety of social and geographical locations increasingly seek to make claims of membership within a global community, claims that contest the marginalization that has so far been the principal fruit of “globalization” for Africa. Ferguson contends that such claims demand new understandings of the global, centered less on transnational flows and images of unfettered connection than on the social relations that selectively constitute global society and on the rights and obligations that characterize it.Ferguson points out that anthropologists and others who have refused the category of Africa as empirically problematic have, in their devotion to particularity, allowed themselves to remain bystanders in the broader conversations about Africa. In Global Shadows, he urges fellow scholars into the arena, encouraging them to find a way to speak beyond the academy about Africa’s position within an egregiously imbalanced world order.
Agaat
Marlene van Niekerk - 2006
As she struggles to communicate with her maidservant turned caretaker, Agaat, the complicated history of their relationship is revealed.Life for white farmers in 1950s South Africa was full of promise. Young and newly married, Milla carved her own farm out of a swathe of Cape mountainside. She earned the respect of the male farmers in her community and raised a son. But forty years later all she has left are memories and the proud, contrary Agaat. With punishing precision, yet infinite tenderness, Agaat performs her duties, balancing anger with loyalty. As Milla’s white world and its certainties recede and Agaat faces the prospect of freedom, the shift of power between them mirrors the historic changes happening around them. Marlene van Niekerk’s epic masterpiece portrays how two women—and, perhaps, a nation—can forge a path toward understanding and reconciliation.
Unbowed
Wangari Maathai - 2006
Born in a rural village in 1940, Wangari Maathai was already an iconoclast as a child, determined to get an education even though most girls were uneducated. We see her studying with Catholic missionaries, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the United States, and becoming the first woman both to earn a PhD in East and Central Africa and to head a university department in Kenya. We witness her numerous run-ins with the brutal Moi government. She makes clear the political and personal reasons that compelled her, in 1977, to establish the Green Belt Movement, which spread from Kenya across Africa and which helps restore indigenous forests while assisting rural women by paying them to plant trees in their villages. We see how Maathai’s extraordinary courage and determination helped transform Kenya’s government into the democracy in which she now serves as assistant minister for the environment and as a member of Parliament. And we are with her as she accepts the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded in recognition of her “contribution to sustainable development, human rights, and peace.” In Unbowed, Wangari Maathai offers an inspiring message of hope and prosperity through self-sufficiency.
He Gave Us a Valley
Helen Roseveare - 2006
During the war Helen was brutally beaten and raped and left with no choice but to return to Britain (this story is told in 'Give Me This Mountain').She quickly returned to the Congo in 1966 to assist in the rebuilding of the nation. She helped establish a new medical school and hospital (for the other hospitals that she built were destroyed) and served there until 1973. In the eight years following the war, despite endless frustrations, again and again God showed his unfailing guidance and unstinting provision for her needs. This book is the story of the joys and adventures of re-establishing the medical work, the church building programme and the work of forgiveness, necessary after the destruction of the civil war.
African Sky
Tony Park - 2006
Paul Bryant hasn't been able to get back in a plane since a fatal bombing mission over Germany. So, instead, the Squadron Leader is flying a desk at a pilot training school at Kumalo Air Base. But one of his trainees has just been reported missing.
Hope in the Dark
Jeremy Cowart - 2006
Today it's overwhelmingly the continent's biggest killer. In Hope in the Dark, photojournalist Jeremy Cowart documents the hope and pain of Africa's AIDS generation - a generation beset by poverty and fear, a generation in which children in some countries are more likely to die of AIDS than not. But despite the sickening odds, Cowart captures brief glipses of beauty, optimism and joy as he makes his way accross the continent. Through this collection of startling, remarkable images, his lens uncovers not just the magnitude of the problem, but also the places where God is undeniably present in the midst of it.
Africa
Leni Riefenstahl - 2006
Her favorite destination was in Sudan, where she lived with and photographed the Nuba tribespeople, learning their language and becoming their friend. The Nuba were a loving and peaceful people who welcomed Riefenstahl as one of their own. Her images of the Nuba, as well as of the Dinka, Shilluk, Masai, and other tribes, are gathered in this monumental book. Riefenstahl remembers her experiences in Africa as the happiest moments in her life. Her beautiful, skilled photographs represent a landmark in the extraordinary career of the 20th century's most unforgettable artistic pioneer. * Interview by Kevin Brownlow * Extensive bibliography and biography section
The Order Of Genocide: Race, Power, And War In Rwanda
Scott Straus - 2006
Yet a number of key questions about this tragedy remain unanswered: How did the violence spread from community to community and so rapidly engulf the nation? Why did individuals make decisions that led them to take up machetes against their neighbors? And what was the logic that drove the campaign of extermination?According to Scott Straus, a social scientist and former journalist in East Africa for several years (who received a Pulitzer Prize nomination for his reporting for the Houston Chronicle), many of the widely held beliefs about the causes and course of genocide in Rwanda are incomplete. They focus largely on the actions of the ruling elite or the inaction of the international community. Considerably less is known about how and why elite decisions became widespread exterminatory violence.Challenging the prevailing wisdom, Straus provides substantial new evidence about local patterns of violence, using original research--including the most comprehensive surveys yet undertaken among convicted perpetrators--to assess competing theories about the causes and dynamics of the genocide. Current interpretations stress three main causes for the genocide: ethnic identity, ideology, and mass-media indoctrination (in particular the influence of hate radio). Straus's research does not deny the importance of ethnicity, but he finds that it operated more as a background condition. Instead, Straus emphasizes fear and intra-ethnic intimidation as the primary drivers of the violence. A defensive civil war and the assassination of a president created a feeling of acute insecurity. Rwanda's unusually effective state was also central, as was the country's geography and population density, which limited the number of exit options for both victims and perpetrators.In conclusion, Straus steps back from the particulars of the Rwandan genocide to offer a new, dynamic model for understanding other instances of genocide in recent history--the Holocaust, Armenia, Cambodia, the Balkans--and assessing the future likelihood of such events.
Ryan and Jimmy: And the Well in Africa That Brought Them Together
Herb Shoveller - 2006
Still, the six year old kept doing chores around his parents' house, even after he learned it could take him years to earn enough money. Then a friend of the family wrote an article in the local newspaper about Ryan's wish to build a well to supply people with safe, clean water. Before long, ripples of goodwill began spreading. People started sending money to help pay for Ryan's well. Ryan was interviewed on television. His dream of a well became an international news story. In Agweo, Uganda, villagers were used to walking a long way every day in search of water. What they found was often brown and smelly and made a lot of people sick. But when Ryan's well was built, life in the village changed for the better. A young orphan named Akana Jimmy longed for a chance to thank Ryan in person for this gift of life --- clean water.When they finally meet, an unbreakable bond unites these boys from very different backgrounds, and a long and sometimes life-threatening journey begins. Ryan and Jimmy is part of CitizenKid: A collection of books that inform children about the world and inspire them to be better global citizens.
The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca
Tahir Shah - 2006
By turns hilarious and harrowing, here is the story of his family’s move from the gray skies of London to the sun-drenched city of Casablanca, where Islamic tradition and African folklore converge–and nothing is as easy as it seems….Inspired by the Moroccan vacations of his childhood, Tahir Shah dreamed of making a home in that astonishing country. At age thirty-six he got his chance. Investing what money he and his wife, Rachana, had, Tahir packed up his growing family and bought Dar Khalifa, a crumbling ruin of a mansion by the sea in Casablanca that once belonged to the city’s caliph, or spiritual leader.With its lush grounds, cool, secluded courtyards, and relaxed pace, life at Dar Khalifa seems sure to fulfill Tahir’s fantasy–until he discovers that in many ways he is farther from home than he imagined. For in Morocco an empty house is thought to attract jinns, invisible spirits unique to the Islamic world. The ardent belief in their presence greatly hampers sleep and renovation plans, but that is just the beginning. From elaborate exorcism rituals involving sacrificial goats to dealing with gangster neighbors intent on stealing their property, the Shahs must cope with a new culture and all that comes with it. Endlessly enthralling, The Caliph’s House charts a year in the life of one family who takes a tremendous gamble. As we follow Tahir on his travels throughout the kingdom, from Tangier to Marrakech to the Sahara, we discover a world of fierce contrasts that any true adventurer would be thrilled to call home.From the Hardcover edition.See for an interview: http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/vide...
Wisteria: Poems From The Swamp Country
Kwame Dawes - 2006
Here the voices of women who lived through most of the twentieth century teachers, beauticians, seamstresses, domestic workers and farming folk unfold with the raw honesty of people who have waited for a long time to finally speak their mind. The poems move with the narrative of stories long repeated but told with fresh emotion each time, with the lyrical depth of a blues threnody or a negro spiritual, and with the flame and shock of a prophet forced to speak the hardest truths. These are poems of beauty and insight that pay homage to the women who told Dawes their stories, and that, at the same time, find a path beyond these specific narratives to something embracingly human. Few poets have managed to enter the horror of Jim Crow America with the fresh insight and sharply honed detail that we see in Dawes s writing. With all good southern songs of spiritual and emotional truth, Dawes understands that redemption is essential and he finds it in the pure music of his art. Dawes, the Ghanaian-born, Jamaican poet is not an interloper here, but a man who reminds us of the power of the most human and civilizing gift of empathy and the shared memory of the Middle Passage and its aftermath across the black diaspora. These are essential poems.
You Must Set Forth at Dawn
Wole Soyinka - 2006
Soyinka not only recounts his exile and the terrible reign of General Sani Abacha, but shares vivid memories and playful anecdotes–including his improbable friendship with a prominent Nigerian businessman and the time he smuggled a frozen wildcat into America so that his students could experience a proper Nigerian barbecue.More than a major figure in the world of literature, Wole Soyinka is a courageous voice for human rights, democracy, and freedom. You Must Set Forth at Dawn is an intimate chronicle of his thrilling public life, a meditation on justice and tyranny, and a mesmerizing testament to a ravaged yet hopeful land.From the Hardcover edition.
Rabble-Rouser for Peace: The Authorized Biography of Desmond Tutu
John Allen - 2006
And yet it is the perfect description for Desmond Tutu, Nobel laureate and spiritual father of a democratic South Africa. Tutu understood that justice -- a genuine regard for human rights -- is the only real foundation for peace. And so he stirred up trouble, courageously engaging in heated face-to-face confrontations with South Africa's leaders; he stirred up trouble in the streets, leading peaceful demonstrations amid the barely controlled fury of police battalions; he stirred up trouble on the world stage, seeking international disinvestment in the apartheid economy.Tutu has led one of the great lives of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and to read his story in full is to be reminded of the power of one inspired man to change history. In this authorized biography, written by John Allen, a distinguished journalist and longtime associate of Tutu, we are witnesses to courage, stirring oratory, and a demonstration of the power of faith to transform the seemingly intransigent.We know in retrospect that the apartheid resistance movement was successful and that South Africa, though not without its problems, today faces an infinitely brighter future than it might if it had not been for the efforts of Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, and other leaders.But no such outcome was ever a certainty. Through the author's personal experiences, total access to the Tutu family and their papers, and considerable research, including the use of new archival material, Allen tells the story of a barefoot schoolboy from a deprived black township who became an international symbol of the democratic spirit and of religious faith.Allen personally observed how Tutu, at genuine risk to his own safety, repeatedly intervened between armed soldiers and stone-throwing students to keep the peace, how he faced constant death threats and angrily stood up to the leaders of the cruel apartheid system. Using his own faith as a cudgel, Tutu asked those officials to confront their own Christian background and made them reconcile their actions with their own professions of belief.Often through the sheer power of moral example and with a lyrical command of the English language, Tutu was able to appeal to the conscience of the world and to the emotions of an angry crowd in the streets. And then, when the battle for South African rights was finally won, it was Tutu who insisted on finding a path to forgive the former oppressors by strongly backing and serving on the unprecedented Truth and Reconciliation Commission.Today, the archbishop continues to appeal to the world's conscience by opposing the continuance of war and the inadequacy of the international response to the AIDS/HIV crisis sweeping Africa. He has led a life of commitment, one that continues to matter.John Allen has movingly captured the flavor and details of that life and marshaled them into a commanding story, one that sheds light on the struggles and triumphs of our times.
Rediscovery of the Ordinary: Essays on South African Literature and Culture
Njabulo S. Ndebele - 2006
Ndebele's essays on South African literature and culture initially appeared in various publications in the 1980s. They encompass a period of trauma, defiance, and change - the decade of the collapse of apartheid and the challenge of reconstructing a future. In 1991, the essays were collected under the current title of Rediscovery of the Ordinary: Essays on South African Literature and Culture. Here, this collection is reprinted without revision, together with an interview provoked by Albie Sachs' paper Preparing Ourselves for Freedom. That it is possible to republish the essays without revision so many years after their first appearance is a tribute to Ndebele's prescience. The issues that he raises and the questions that he poses remain key to a people who, after apartheid, have started to rediscover the complex ordinariness of living in a civil society.
Serious Adverse Events: An Uncensored History of AIDS
Celia Farber - 2006
Many scientists, including two Nobel winners, said it wasn't possible. But they were quickly drowned out by the ecstatic response from activists, government-funded researchers, a relieved public and, especially, the pharmaceutical industry, which quickly offered a treatment for HIV--a drug called called AZT. Within four years, the entire first group of AZT test subjects was dead. But the idea that HIV caused AIDS became so entrenched that international policy was being based on it, while big pharma raked in billions. Scientists who disagreed found themselves ostracized, their funding cut off. Journalist who raised questions were subject to vicious attacks from politicians and activists. Celia Farber has covered the tumultuous story in all its facets for over 20 years, including: disastrous National Institutes of Health drug tests on mothers and children in Africa, Tennessee and New York City; extensive interviews with blacklisted researchers and scientific dissidents such as Berkeley's Peter Duseberg and NIH renegade Jonathan Fishbein; and reporting from South Africa on the influence of pharmaceutical companies on foreign aid and policy. It is an astonishing and largely unknown story, and in Serious Adverse Events, Farber chronicles the entire history of AIDS, its triumphs and its failures, with astonishing research and mind-opening candor.
Profiling Serial Killers: and other Crimes in South Africa
Micki Pistorius - 2006
It took another twenty years of development and refinement before it was recognised as a valid investigative tool in the apprehension of criminals.Profiling can be described as an 'educated attempt to provide investigative agencies with specific information about the type of individual who could have committed a particular crime.' Today it is used in conjunction with other investigative techniques.Profiling Serial Killers and other crimes in South Africa contains a comprehensive introduction to the subject, followed by chapters on serial killers, pyromaniacs, rapists, child molesters, stalkers, and white collar crime and intelligence profiling.
The Complete Oom Schalk Lourens Stories
Herman Charles Bosman - 2006
Edited from authoritative sources, and accompanied by original illustrations, this gathering represents a feast of South Africa's best-loved tales. The sixty pieces include all-time favourites like "In the Withaak's Shade", "Makapan's Caves" and "Willem Prinsloo's Peach Brandy", the Boer War classics "Mafeking Road" and "The Rooinek", as well as several lesser-known treasures.
Dry Water Diving Headfirst Into Africa
Tammie Matson - 2006
I'm not sure what that is, but perhaps part of the reason is to tell this story.Aged fifteen, Tammie Matson travelled to Zimbabwe with her father. That journey changed her forever. On her return to Australia, Tammie turned her life upside-down in order to find a way to build a future for herself in Africa.During her next visit, a year spent in Zimbabwe, Tammie played with a semi-tame cheetah, got taught the meaning of respect by elephants, dealt with poachers, saw a witchdoctor strike fear into his victims' hearts and took on a class of students - many twice her age - without a day's training.After being held at gun point by the war vets in her friends' home in Zimbabwe, Tammie moved north to Namibia and settled in Etosha National Park, where she worked as a researcher from 2000 on. In that harsh, dry, devastatingly beautiful land, Tammie braved the language barrier, the male-dominated society, and the physical hardships to create a life for herself.
The Saffron Pear Tree: And Other Kitchen Memories
Zuretha Roos - 2006
Zuretha Roos draws on the memories of the abundant farm kitchens of her Hex River Valley childhood, happy Stellenbosch student days and the, sometimes challenging, world of marriage and young motherhood in seventies' Johannesburg to become an accomplished cook and magazine food editor. In amongst the pots and pans, busy city life is pleasantly interrupted by holidays in Hermanus, idyllic sojourns at Keurboomstrand and weekends on an isolated farm in the Waterberg. All is blissful, if not a little chaotic, until immense tragedy strikes and her once happy family has to come to terms with a brutal twist of fate... Woven together with trusted family recipes, these tales bring to mind a time when history was shaped over strong cups of coffee and food came from the earth, the ocean and a mother's heart.
Rwanda Means the Universe: A Native's Memoir of Blood and Bloodlines
Louise Mushikiwabo - 2006
First comes shock, then aftershock, three months of it, during which her worst fears are confirmed: The same state apparatus has duped millions of Rwandans into butchering nearly a million of their neighbors.Years earlier, her brother Lando wrote her a letter she never got until now. Urged on by it, she rummages into their farm childhood, and into family corners alternately dark, loving, and humorous. She searches for stray mementos of the lost, then for their roots. What she finds is that and more---hints, roots, of the 1994 crime that killed her family. Her narrative takes the reader on a journey from the days the world and Rwanda discovered each other back to colonial period when pseudoscientific ideas about race put the nation on a highway bound for the 1994 genocide. Seven years of full-time collaboration by two writers---and the faith of family and friends---went into this emotionally charged work. Rwanda Means the Universe is at once a celebration of the lives of the lost and homage to their past, but it's no comfortable tribute. It's an expression of dogged hope in the face of modern evil.
Fire and Sword in the Sudan
Rudolf C. von Slatin - 2006
Under the leadership of their leader known as the Mahdi, a vast native army arose to throw off their Egyptian overlords and cast out its foreign governors. Suddenly what had seemed to Slatin like a well-ordered military career in a quiet back water became a savage struggle of survival between natives and foreigners. Slatin was captured and enslaved. Gordon was surrounded at his capital in Khartoum and beheaded. England eventually arose in outrage and sent out an army to retaliate. But it did not arrive before the young Austrian had undergone a series of adventures, survived cruelties too numerous to mention and escaped across the desert one step ahead of his enraged captors. Fire and Sword in the Sudan records the life story of one of the 19th century's most gallant soldiers, a man who after escaping from brutal slavery, was awarded military honours by Queen Victoria and returned to the Sudan to assist the very people who had held him in captivity. Amply illustrated, this timeless account remains one of the most important and captivating tales of the Sudan ever written.
Hands Washing Water
Chris Abani - 2006
The central section, “Buffalo Women,” is a Civil War correspondence between lovers that plays on our assumptions about war, gender, morality, and politics. Abani’s writing is ruthless, boldly engages with trauma, and is filled with surprising twists and turns.
Genocide in Darfur: Investigating the Atrocities in the Sudan
Samuel Totten - 2006
Based on their investigation, US Secretary of State Colin Powell formally announced that 'genocide has occurred in Darfur and may still be occurring.' The United States officially accused the government of Sudan of perpetrating genocide - the first time that any government has officially and publicly accused another government of genocide. As a result the United States played a key role in pressuring the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution calling for several measures, including an official UN Commission of Inquiry to conduct a genocide investigation in Sudan itself. This was the first time that any signatory of the Genocide Convention actually triggered provisions of the Convention requiring a UN Security Council response while genocide was occurring.This book is comprised of essays from contributors who were involved in designing the project and hiring and training investigators, interpreters, and support personnel; US government and nongovernmental organization (NGO) officials involved in the genesis of the project as well as the analysis of the data; and numerous scholars, not all of whom were directly involved with the project, who critique aspects of the documentation project as well as its significance.
Men of Salt: Crossing the Sahara on the Caravan of White Gold
Michael Benanav - 2006
New
Drumbeat in Our Feet
Patricia A. Keeler - 2006
Readers of all ages will delight in this drum-beating, hand-clapping, foot-stomping celebration of culture and tradition.Come along as we explore the fascinating origins of African dance, as rich and diverse as the continent itself. Discover unique rituals, colorful costumes, and rhythmic instruments. Learn about dances that have been passed from generation to generation through the ages. See those very same dances come alive with a new generation of dancers. In captivating detail Drumbeat In Our Feet captures the beauty, history, and energy of African dance. Readers of all ages will delight in this drum-beating, hand-clapping, foot-stomping celebration of culture and tradition.
Relentless Enemies: Lions and Buffalo
Dereck Joubert - 2006
It's a scene as old as Africa itself, yet its sudden, violent drama is always new.Dereck and Beverly Joubert know it well. For decades they've lived among lions, winning international acclaim for their unique photographs and pioneering documentaries, which record lions' previously unknown behavior such as nocturnal forays and a willingness to stalk their quarry through water. Of all their long experience, the Jouberts consider their two years with the lions of Duba the most exciting, important research they have done-here presented in fascinating text and 100 gripping images.Month after month, they battled floods, hardship, and danger to capture these spectacular shots of the relentless blood rivalry played out on the Okavanga Delta every day as three separate lion prides harry a huge herd of buffalo. These massive beasts are challenging prey; they fight back fiercely, aggressively seeking out the big cats and attacking them with deadly thrusts of their sharp, sweeping horns. The lions leap and dodge, but not always swiftly enough to escape-and so the ancient struggle goes on.The companion volume to a new National Geographic film airing in 2006, this is an unforgettable once-in-a-lifetime glimpse of the world's most awe-inspiring hunters, the lethal and beautiful lions of Duba.
Diasporic Africa: A Reader
Michael A. Gomez - 2006
By incorporating Europe and North Africa as well as North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean, this reader shifts the discourse on the African diaspora away from its focus solely on the Americas, underscoring the fact that much of the movement of people of African descent took place in Old World contexts. This broader view allows for a more comprehensive approach to the study of the African diaspora.The volume provides an overview of African diaspora studies and features as a major concern a rigorous interrogation of identity. Other primary themes include contributions to western civilization, from religion, music, and sports to agricultural production and medicine, as well as the way in which our understanding of the African diaspora fits into larger studies of transnational phenomena.
Count Your Way Through South Africa
James Haskins - 2006
Learn about many of South Africas unique features, from one gold nugget to the six colors on the South African flag. Colorful illustrations bring South Africa to life.
The Rough Guide to World Music: Volume 1
Rough Guides - 2006
This third edition is more comprehensive than ever - updated and expanded throughout and with a number of new countries added. Volume 1: Africa & Middle East has full coverage of genres from Afrobeat to Arabesque, and artists from Amadou & Mariam to Umm Kulthum. The book includes articles on more than 60 countries written by expert contributors, discographies for each article with biographical notes on thousands of musicians and reviews of their best CDs.
Dhegdheer: A Scary Somali Folktale
Marian A. Hassan - 2006
A widow and her young son try to escape her. Will they be Dhegdheer's next meal or will their virtue save them and help bring an end to Dhegdheer's reign of terror?
Cats of Africa: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation
Luke Hunter - 2006
Alongside the big three -- lion, leopard, and cheetah -- Africa is home to another seven species of cats: the caracal, serval, African wildcat, black-footed cat, African golden cat, jungle cat, and sand cat.With photographer Gerald Hinde's stunning, crisp, graphic images, Luke Hunter presents a comprehensive overview of the entire cat family in Africa -- the only place on Earth where sightings of wild cats are a regular occurrence. He discusses in detail feline anatomy, predation and hunting strategies, social systems, competition and conflict, and conservation and threats, offering the reader the most current research and findings. From the famous and popular African parks with their celebrated, safari-friendly felines, to the few remaining places on the continent uninhabited by humans, Cats of Africa offers superb and exciting images of the animals from a variety of locations, depicting rare and interesting behavior, some of which has never before been recorded.
Democracy and Elections in Africa
Staffan I. Lindberg - 2006
Political scientist Staffan I. Lindberg gathers data from every nationally contested election in Africa from 1989 to 2003, covering 232 elections in 44 countries. He argues that democratizing nations learn to become democratic through repeated democratic behavior, even if their elections are often flawed.Refuting a number of established hypotheses, Lindberg finds no general negative trend in either the frequency or the quality of African elections. Rather, elections in Africa, based on his findings, are more than just the goal of a transition toward democracy or merely a formal procedure. The inception of multiparty elections usually initiates liberalization, and repeated electoral activities create incentives for political actors, fostering the expansion and deepening of democratic values. In addition to improving the democratic qualities of political regimes, a sequence of elections tends to expand and solidify de facto civil liberties in society.Drawing on a wealth of data, Lindberg makes the case that repetitive elections are an important causal factor in the development of democracy. He thus extends Rustow's (1970) theory that democratic behavior produces democratic values.
First Victory: Britain's Forgotten Struggle in the Middle East, 1941
Robert Lyman - 2006
However, Robert Lyman reveals here how in the summer of 1941, beleaguered British forces put together a series of largely forgotten victories in Iraq, Syria and Iran that secured crucial supplies of oil and curbed dangerous German expansion in the region. It's an exciting story of victories achieved against the odds - fraught negotiations between London, Cairo and New Delhi, hastily assembled troops and campaigns fought and won in harsh desert conditions. The siege of the RAF base at Lake Habbaniya in Iraq is a brilliant example of this, and forms one of the most exciting passages in the book. 1941 could have been the year in which Britain lost the war - Lyman reveals here how close we came.
Afrikan Alphabets: The Story of Writing in Africa
Saki Mafundikwa - 2006
Many continue to be used today. Their story is little known, however, due largely to their suppression by colonial powers. This book sets the record straight." Afrikan Alphabets describes a 20-year journey to collect information on the highly graphical and inspiring symbols that go to make up the over 20 alphabets featured in this book. Writing systems (pictographs, mnemonic devices, syllabaries and alphabets) across the African continent and the Diaspora are displayed and described. This is an extensively illustrated and informative visual journey through an aspect of African culture and art.
Granta 92: The View from Africa
Ian Jack - 2006
It has fifty-four nations, five time zones, at least seven climates, more than 800 million people and, according to the latest diligent research, maybe fourteen million proverbs. South Africa and Burkina Faso have as much in common as Spain and Uzbekistan. And yet people do generalize; Africa has become the continent of moral concern.This issue of Granta contains fresh voices from Africa, in all their differences, as well as memoir and reportage which reflect the past and present of its people.In this issue:John Ryle: Introduction: The Many Voices of AfricaChimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The MasterMoses Isegawa: The War of the EarsKwame Dawes: Passport ControlSegun Afolabi: GiftedBinyavanga Wainaina: How to write about AfricaGeert van Kesteren: The OgiekIvan Vladislavic: JoburgAdewale Maja-Pearce: LegaciesNadine Gordimer: Beethoven Was One Sixteenth BlackHelon Habila: The Witch’s DogDaniel Bergner: Policeman to the WorldSantu Mofokeng: The Black AlbumsLindsey Hilsum: We Love ChinaJohn Biguenet: Antediluvian
Court of Remorse: Inside the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
Thierry Cruvellier - 2006
Late that year, in an effort to redeem itself, the United Nations Security Council created the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to seek accountability for some of the worst atrocities since World War II: the genocide suffered by the Tutsi and crimes against humanity suffered by the Hutu. But faced with competing claims, the prosecution focused exclusively on the crimes of Hutu extremists. No charges would be brought against the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front, which ultimately won control of the country. The UN, as if racked by guilt for its past inaction, gave in to pressure by Rwanda’s new leadership. With the Hutu effectively silenced, and the RPF constantly reminding the international community of its failure to protect the Tutsi during the war, the Tribunal pursued an unusual form of one-sided justice, born out of contrition. Fascinated by the Tribunal’s rich complexities, journalist Thierry Cruvellier came back day after day to watch the proceedings, spending more time there than any other outside observer. Gradually he gained the confidence of the victims, defendants, lawyers, and judges. Drawing on interviews with these protagonists and his close observations of their interactions, Cruvellier takes readers inside the courtroom to witness the motivations, mechanisms, and manipulations of justice as it unfolded on the stage of high-stakes, global politics. It is this ground-level view that makes his account so valuable—and so absorbing. A must-read for those who want to understand the dynamics of international criminal tribunals, Court of Remorse reveals both the possibilities and the challenges of prosecuting human rights violations. A Choice Outstanding Academic Book Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association for School Libraries and the Public Library AssociationBest Books for High Schools, selected by the American Association for School Libraries
The Long Road to Hope
Jennie G. Dangers - 2006
This book is the ongoing story of God bringing glory to His Name in the middle of the African bush and in the aftermath of a civil war. It is a story of sacrifice and suffering, joy and harvest a story of God changing countless lives; a story of the fatherless being placed in families; a story of hope where there once was none. It is the story of a vision, seen only with the eyes of faith, unfolding into reality; an example of what God will do when one does not despise the day of small beginnings...
Pursuing Giraffe: A 1950s Adventure
Anne Innis Dagg - 2006
Based on her extensive journals and letters home, Pursuing Giraffe vividly chronicles Dagg's realization of that dream and the year she spent studying and documenting giraffe behaviour. Her memoir captures her youthful enthusiasm for her journeys--from Zanzibar to Victoria Falls to Mount Kilimanjaro--as well as her naivet� about the complex social and political issues in Africa.Once in the field, Dagg recorded the complexities of giraffe social relationships but also learned about human relationships in the context of apartheid in South Africa and colonialism in Tanganyika (Tanzania) and Kenya. Hospitality and friendship were readily extended to her as a white woman, but she was shocked by the racism of the colonial whites in Africa.Reflecting the twenty-three-year-old author's response to an "exotic" world far removed from her home in Toronto, Pursuing Giraffe is a fascinating account that has much to say about the status of women in the mid-twentieth century, and the book's foreword by South African novelist Mark Behr (author of The Smell of Apples and Embrace) provides further context for and insights into Dagg's narrative.
The Forgotten Frontier: Colonist and Khoisan on the Cape's Northern Frontier in the 18th Century
Nigel Penn - 2006
But there was an earlier frontier in which the conflict between Dutch colonists and these indigenous herders and hunters was in many ways more decisive in its outcome, more brutal and violent in its manner, and just as significant in its effects on later South African history. This was the frontier north of Cape Town, where Dutch settlers began advancing into the interior. By the end of the eighteenth century, the frontier had reached the Orange (Gariep) River. The indigenous Khoisan people, after initial resistance, had been defeated and absorbed as an underclass into the colonial world or else expelled beyond it, to regions where new creole communities emerged. Nigel Penn is a master storyteller who brings a novelist’s sensitivity to plot and character and a command of the archival record to bear in recovering this epic and forgotten story. Filled with extraordinary personalities and memorable episodes, and set in the often harsh landscape of the Western and Northern Cape, The Forgotten Frontier will appeal both to the general reader and to the student of history.
Barbary Pirate: The Life and Crimes of John Ward, the Most Infamous Privateer of His Time
Greg Bak - 2006
From there, his unbridled and brutal piracy saw him become the most infamous and feared privateer of his time, revelling in ill-gotten wealth ashore and finally—in the ultimate rejection of his native land—embracing Islam. Seen as a Judas bent on undermining all Christendom, he became a prize with a price on his head and was pursued by pirate-hunters across the Mediterranean. While to his contemporaries Ward was the blackest of villains, to later generations his exploits are the stuff of legend. Greg Bak uncovers the truth and tells the compelling story of a man who rose from nothing to become a brilliant naval commander and a spectacularly successful, if amoral, entrepreneur.
Moving the Maasai: A Colonial Misadventure
Lotte Hughes - 2006
Drawing upon unique oral testimony and extensive archival research, she describes the many intrigues surrounding two enforced moves that cleared the highlands for European settlers, and a 1913 lawsuit in which the Maasai attempted to reclaim their former territory, and explains why recent events have brought the story full circle.
Documenting Domestication: New Genetic and Archaeological Paradigms
Melinda A. Zeder - 2006
In the last decade, significant technological and methodological advances in both molecular biology and archaeology have revolutionized the study of plant and animal domestication and are reshaping our understanding of the transition from foraging to farming, one of the major turning points in human history. This groundbreaking volume for the first time brings together leading archaeologists and biologists working on the domestication of both plants and animals to consider a wide variety of archaeological and genetic approaches to tracing the origin and dispersal of domesticates. It provides a comprehensive overview of the state of the art in this quickly changing field as well as reviews of recent findings on specific crop and livestock species in the Americas, Eurasia, and Africa. Offering a unique global perspective, it explores common challenges and potential avenues for future progress in documenting domestication.
Africa
Olivier Föllmi - 2006
This new book is a journey across Africa through Follmi's eyes. Similar in format and mood to his Homage to the Himalayas, he has written the captions and provided the context for each of the images. Together, word and image reveal Africa as a mosaic of cultures and peoples, each more beautiful and splendid than the one before.
Africa's Hidden Histories: Everyday Literacy and Making the Self
Karin Barber - 2006
The ability to read and write was considered essential for educated persons, and Africans from all walks of life strove to participate in the new literary culture. Karin Barber and an international group of Africanist scholars have uncovered a trove of personal diaries, letters, obituaries, pamphlets, and booklets stored away in tin-trunks, suitcases, and cabinets that reveal individuals involved in the new occupation of the colonial era--putting pen to paper. Africa's Hidden Histories taps into rare primary sources and considers the profusion of literary culture, the propensity to collect and archive text, and the significance attached to reading as a form of self-improvement. As it explores the innovative, intense, and sociable interest in reading and writing, this book opens new avenues for understanding a rich and hidden history of Africa's creative expression.
Never Give Up: Vignettes from Sub-Saharan Africa in the Age of AIDS
Kevin Winge - 2006
In his role as executive director of Open Arms of Minnesota, a nonprofit organization that provides meals and related services to people with HIV/AIDS, Kevin Winge shares his firsthand knowledge of the realities and challenges facing people living with the disease. While earning his master's degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Winge traveled to the townships outside of Cape Town, South Africa, where he lived and worked with AIDS workers for six months. He chronicled his daily activities by telling stories about the people he came in contact with, accounts that are included here. Emotional and highly personal, the lives and conditions depicted in Never Give Up are a strong call to action for all of us to respond to this devastating disease with compassion and determination.
The Lion's Share/Qayb Libaax: A Somali Folktale
Said Salah Ahmed - 2006
The furious lion attacks the hyena, and the other animals then give the ruler so much that there is little left for them. "The lion's share is not fair," is the stark message.
Practicing Ethnohistory: Mining Archives, Hearing Testimony, Constructing Narrative
Patricia Kay Galloway - 2006
The essays, preceded by a contextualizing introduction, are organized under four topical heads: textual historiography, positive analytic methods using nontextual physical evidence, ethnohistorical synthesis, and the ethical-contextual issues of ethnohistory. Part 1 focuses on issues such as concerns over the editing of ethnohistorical materials, the limitations of direct historical analogy in archaeology, and the use of archaeological evidence to deconstruct colonialist history when real events are obscured by the bias of historical accounts. Part 2 explores relations across space and time, covering such topics as interpreting change in Choctaw settlement patterns through analysis of narrative evidence for the early French period, GIS applications to historical maps, and the reflection of sociopolitical structure in Choctaw personal names and their historical contexts. Part 3 focuses on communication between Native peoples and European colonists and includes essays on the Mobilian lingua franca in colonial Louisiana, British negotiations with the Choctaw Confederacy in 1765, and eighteenth-century French commissions to Native chiefs. The final part discusses the ethics of ethnohistorical research.Drawing on years of ethnohistorical research in the southeastern United States, Patricia Galloway has produced an essential reader on the practice of ethnohistory.
The Political Management of HIV and AIDS in South Africa: One Burden Too Many?
Pieter Fourie - 2006
This book analyzes successive governments' management (and mismanagement) of the AIDS epidemic in South Africa. The book covers the years 1982-2005, using expert thinking regarding public policy making to identify gaps in the public sector's handling of the epidemic. The book highlights critical lessons for policy makers and other public health managers.
SuperZero
Darrel Bristow-Bovey - 2006
Yet some things seem to run in the blood. For when Zed discovers an old wooden box half-filled with comics in the garage, he falls upon them with such abandon that his mother is filled with dismay and foreboding. “Don’t tell me you’re going the same way as your father!” she laments. “Don’t tell me I have to cope with another deluded male who thinks he’s a superhero!“And indeed: Zed has become convinced that his destiny is to be a “superhero”, in the comic book tradition of Batman, Spiderman and all the others, and this is confirmed by his grandmother – who, ironically, has been commissioned by Zed’s mother to help him get rid of this delusion!He learns the burden of ethical responsibility that goes with this lonely role and finds himself thrust into battle against a “supervillain” in the form of another 12-year-old schoolboy.Super Zero presents an extremely engaging and moving story of an unlikely blunderer's modest belief in himself, and his idealism and courage in doing what he knows to be his duty to others.
The Sad Story of Burton, Speke, and the Nile; or, Was John Hanning Speke a Cad: Looking at the Evidence
W.B. Carnochan - 2006
Speke died of a gunshot wound, probably accidental, the day before a scheduled debate with Burton in 1864. Burton has had the upper hand in subsequent accounts. Speke has been called a “cad.” In light of new evidence and after a careful reading of duelling texts, Carnochan concludes that the case against Speke remains unproven-and that the story, as normally told, displays the inescapable uncertainty of historical narrative.All was fair in this love-war.
Informal Institutions and Citizenship in Rural Africa: Risk and Reciprocity in Ghana and C�te d'Ivoire
Lauren M. MacLean - 2006
Prior to European colonial rule, these Akan villages had very similar political and cultural institutions. By the late 1990s, however, Lauren M. MacLean found puzzling differences in the informal institutions of reciprocity and indigenous notions of citizenship. Drawing on extensive village-based fieldwork and archival research, MacLean argues that divergent histories of state formation not only shape how villagers help each other but also influence how local groups and communities define citizenship and then choose to engage with the state on an everyday basis. She examines the historical construction of the state role in mediating risk at the local level across three policy areas: political administration, social service delivery, and agriculture, highlighting the importance of the colonial and post-colonial state in transforming informal institutions.
The Silence of Great Zimbabwe: CONTESTED LANDSCAPES AND THE POWER OF HERITAGE
Joost Fontein - 2006
The controversy that surrounded the site in the early part of the 20th century, between colonial antiquarians and professional archaeologists, is well reported in the published literature. Based on long term ethnographic field work around Great Zimbabwe, as well as archival research in NMMZ, in the National Archives of Zimbabwe, and several months of research at the World Heritage Centre in Paris, this new book represents an important step beyond that controversy over origins, to focus on the site's position in local contests between, and among individuals within, the Nemanwa, Charumbira and Mugabe clans over land, power and authority. To justify their claims, chiefs, spirit mediums and elders of each clan make appeals to different, but related, constructions of the past. Emphasising the disappearance of the 'Voice' that used to speak there, these narratives also describe the destruction, alienation and desecration of Great Zimbabwe that occurred, and continues, through the international and national, archaeological and heritage processes and practices by which Great Zimbabwe has become a national and world heritage site today.
Apartheid and Beyond: South African Writers and the Politics of Place
Rita Barnard - 2006
It also explores the way apartheid functioned in its day-to-day operations as a geographical system of control, exerting its power through such spatial mechanisms as residential segregation, bantustans, passes, and prisons. Throughout the study, Rita Barnard provides historical context by highlighting key events such as colonial occupation, the creation of black townships, migration, forced removals, the emergence of informal settlements, and the gradual integration of white cities. Apartheid and Beyond is both an innovative account of an important body of politically inflected literature and an imaginative reflection on the socio-spatial aspects of the transition from apartheid to democracy.
Burkina Faso: The Bradt Travel Guide
Katrina Manson - 2006
The authors help visitors discover dramatic mask festivals, Fulani horse-dancing, and both the pan-African film festival in Siao and the craft fair in Fespaco, two of the largest events of their kind on the continent. The romance of the Sahel desert can also be explored and information on desert markets, camel safaris, and secret dune encampments is covered for the intrepid traveler.Features include:>Africa's most exciting cultural celebrations>Best wildlife experiences--from lion-tracking in Arly to close encounters with crocodiles in Bazolé>Varied history, architecture, and stunning artisanship>Visiting villages: animist rituals, millet beer, and market days
The African Knights: The Armies of Sokotu, Bornu & Bagirmi in the Nineteenth Century
Conrad Cairns - 2006
During this period warfare among the peoples of the eastern Savannah, and in particular the three most significant native states - the Sokoto Caliphate, the ancient kingdom of Bornu, and the somewhat less ancient state of Bagirmi - was largely dominated by cavalry, and a significant proportion of these mounted troops were armored.This groundbreaking book covers the period that began with the Sokoto jihad in 1804 and ended with the extinction of the Savannah states by the European colonial powers at the turn of the 20th century. In addition to providing a brief outline history of the three states, it examines in detail the arms, equipment and methods of warfare used by their armored 'knights' and infantry, and includes in addition sections on their horses, artillery, flags, fortifications, and clothing. It is illustrated throughout with contemporary photographs and engravings.
Avoiding Conflict in the Horn of Africa: U.S. Policy Toward Ethiopia and Eritrea
Terrence Lyons - 2006
It argues that Washington should pressure Ethiopia to demarcate the border and Eritrea to lift restrictions on the UN peacekeeping mission that monitors the border. Washington must also make clear to both countries the costs of continuing to suppress internal dissent --and highlight the benefits of initiating real internal reform and regional cooperation. In addition, the administration should be prepared to cut bilateral assistance programs and enact sanctions if political conditions deteriorate further. Finally, the United States, international donors, and organizations should support long-term peace-building initiatives.
Berber Carpets of Morocco. The Symbols. Origin and Meaning
Bruno Barbatti - 2006
This book reveals a new slant on the origins of Berber carpets and on the sources and meanings of its motifs. Genuine Berber carpets are not the successors of well known Oriental carpets dating from the Islamic era but similarities in knotting techniques and certain motifs point to common roots harking back to the Neolithic period in Asia Minor. Because textiles wear out over time and a sequence of carpets across millennia no longer exists to prove the point, it is here that an author, for the very first time, presents the results of some in-depth, comparative research initiatives. He links the motifs of Berber carpets to rock art symbols and artefacts created by the first human civilizations, demonstrating that Berber carpets employ the same rules when using symbols and shapes and that there is a stunning similarity of correlation even with the characteristics evident during the Upper Palaeolithic period in Europe or the Neolithic Orient with the Mediterranean basin. The Berber carpet can therefore be considered as a definitive, genuine testimony of this archaic world. The book will speak volumes to anyone who is captivated by the origins of art and for whom the deciphering of symbolic language leads to a deeper knowledge and understanding of true meaning.
Divergent Paths in Post-Communist Transformation: Capitalism for All or Capitalism for the Few?
Oleh Havrylyshyn - 2006
Looking at life after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, the book examines and contrasts why some countries have virtually completed their transformation to a liberal polity and economy, while others lag behind. Those that followed a strategy of early and steady reforms on economic, political, institutional and social dimensions have exhibited impressive results in economic performance, attracting foreign direct investment, dealing with the social costs of the transformation and establishing a liberal democracy. Unlike those that have moved gradually, with some countries in a frozen transition after being captured by powerful oligarch groups who have drained considerable state assets.
Intimate Enemy: Images and Voices of the Rwandan Genocide
Robert Lyons - 2006
At the time, Rwanda's genocide went largely unnoticed by the outside world. Today there is growing interest in the Rwandan experience as many discover the horror that took place and seek to understand how and why violence of this character and magnitude could have happened in our time.Intimate Enemy is a rare entree into the logic, language, and imagery of Rwanda's violence. The book presents perpetrator testimony along with photographs of Rwandans, both perpetrators and survivors. The images and words are raw and unanalyzed; the reader is left to make sense of the killers and their would-be victims. Intimate Enemy challenges our assumptions about the genocide and about those who perpetrated it. It also prods us to consider how to represent and imagine violence on the scale of Rwanda.
The Hidden Star
K. Sello Duiker - 2006
When Nolitye finds a magical stone on the dusty streets of Phola, her granny's words take on a new meaning. Along with her two friends - the somewhat pampered Bheki, and Four Eyes, a reformed member of the Spoilers gang led by Rotten Nellie - Nolitye puts the powers of the stone to good use: for the first time the threesome can stand up to the Spoilers; Nolitye can save the life of Rex, the leader of a pack of talking township mutts; and dare to look scary MaMtonga with her living brown-and-green snake necklace in the eye. But soon Nolitye finds out that the purplish-blue magic stone is but five stones needed to put right things that started to go wrong the day her father died in a mining accident when she was five years old. Or so she was told by her mother... By merging a cast of characters straight out of African myth folklore with everyday township life, K. Sello Duiker created a magical world and a truly wondrous quest, a timeless tale that will appeal to an ageless audience.
Witches, Westerners, and HIV: AIDS and Cultures of Blame in Africa
Alexander Rodlach - 2006
From small villages to the international system, explanations of where it comes from, who gets it, and who dies are tied to political agendas, religious beliefs, and the psychology of devastating grief. Frequently these explanations conflict with science and clash with prevention and treatment programs. In Witches, Westerners, and HIV Alexander Rödlach draws on a decade of research and work in Zimbabwe to compare beliefs about witchcraft and conspiracy theories surrounding HIV/AIDS in Africa. He shows how both types of beliefs are part of a process of blaming others for AIDS, a process that occurs around the globe but takes on local, culturally specific forms. He also demonstrates the impact of these beliefs on public health and advocacy programs, arguing that cultural misunderstandings contribute to the failure of many well-intentioned efforts. This insightful book provides a cultural perspective essential for everyone interested in AIDS and cross-cultural health issues.
In Search of Africa
Frank Coates - 2006
As the country struggles towards independence, Kip also struggles to understand his mother's vindictive hatred of the father he has never met - and resolves to uncover the mystery of his parentage. In Uganda, Rose Nasonga, a girl at risk after her idyllic village life becomes a nightmare of civil war, uses her beauty to escape into the world of fashion, but learns that her new life can be equally destructive Out of the horrors of war, across the boundaries of time and race, Kip and Rose discover that their lives are mysteriously linked. And that the paths they travel alone, and ultimately together, lead them inexorably to their greatest discovery.
Limpopo Lullaby
Jane Jolly - 2006
The media spotlight fell on one tiny village where a woman, stuck with her family in a tree, was about to give birth. The remarkable story of this woman and her miraculous child is the inspiration for Limpopo Lullaby. Jane Jolly's lyrical prose captures the rhythms of village life while Dee Huxley's vibrant pastels portray nature in all her moods, ranging from brooding skies to swirling floodwaters to a glimpse of sun.
Niger: The Bradt Travel Guide
Jolijn Geels - 2006
Transport options for travelers are a particular feature of the guide--including long-distance connections to neighboring countries, river trips on the River Niger and camel trekking in the Massif de Aïr and Ténéré desert regions, home to the nomadic Tuareg people. As more independent travelers are finding their way to Niger, this guide will focus on both ends of the market: the upmarket traveler looking for background information and the budget traveler with a need to know all the practicalities.Features include:>Full range of travel and accommodation options>Present-day peoples and ethnic groups, including the Hausa, the Peul, and the Tuareg, including vocabulary and phrases>Niger culture and religion>Wildlife and ecosystems
best meal ever!
Sindiwe Magona - 2006
One Africa! One Nation!
Omali Yeshitela - 2006
and the African world. How did the promise of the 1960s degenerate into the dismal reality that Africa and the majority of African people everywhere are confronted with now? What can we learn about the struggles of the period represented by the 1960s that can help us to liberate and unite Africa and African people today? One Africa! One Nation! addresses these questions. Since the 1970s the African People's Socialist Party has worked to complete the Black Revolution of the Sixties. In 1981 they began the work to build the African Socialist International, to unite and liberate Africa and African people everywhere. Featuring over 30 presentations by African organizers from Africa, Europe, the U.S., Caribbean, and elsewhere in the African world, this book is about the realization of the goal to build the African Socialist International as it becomes a powerful moving force.
A Far Cry from Plymouth Rock: A Personal Narrative
Kwame Dawes - 2006
With the immediacy of a man thinking aloud and the careful structure of art that recalls the places that have molded his life—from Ghana and Jamaica to Canada and America—Dawes explores the nearly universal conditions of migrants. Ultimately about the joys of personal differences, this autobiography is a touching look into the life of a son, husband, and father.
Big Bishop Roko and the Altar Gangsters
Kojo Laing - 2006
He is a poet, but best known as a novelist, original and imaginative. His writing is described as fundamentally African, and specifically Ghanaian in source. Witty narrative and dark humour dominate this novel in which an Anglican Bishop works scientifically and doctrinally with different types of sharks, an ecumenically-minded Pope loves boxing over the telephone, and the Archbishop of Canterbury is powerless to stop genetic experiments which make the interaction between rich and poor countries almost impossible. Kojo Laing is the author of Search Sweet Country, Women of the Aeroplanes, and Major Gentl and the Achimota Wars.
Transnational Nomads: How Somalis Cope with Refugee Life in the Dadaab Camps of Kenya
Cindy Horst - 2006
The author focuses on the ways in which Somalis are able to adapt their 'nomadic' heritage in order to cope with camp life; a heritage that includes a high degree of mobility and strong social networks that reach beyond the confines of the camp as far as the U.S. and Europe.