The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano


Olaudah Equiano - 1789
    The second edition reproduces the original London printing, supervised by Equiano in 1789. Robert J. Allison's introduction, which places Equiano's narrative in the context of the Atlantic slave trade, has been revised and updated to reflect the heated controversy surrounding Equiano's birthplace, as well as the latest scholarship on Atlantic history and the history of slavery. Improved pedagogical features include contemporary illustrations with expanded captions and a map showing Equiano's travels in greater detail. Helpful footnotes provide guidance throughout the eighteenth-century text, and a chronology and an up-to-date bibliography aid students in their study of this thought-provoking narrative.

Happiness, Like Water


Chinelo Okparanta - 2012
    Here are characters faced with dangerous decisions, children slick with oil from the river, a woman in love with another despite the penalties. Here is a world marked by electricity outages, lush landscapes, folktales, buses that break down and never start up again. Here is a portrait of Nigerians that is surprising, shocking, heartrending, loving, and across social strata, dealing in every kind of change. Here are stories filled with language to make your eyes pause and your throat catch. Happiness, Like Water introduces a true talent, a young writer with a beautiful heart and a capacious imagination.

So Long a Letter


Mariama Bâ - 1980
    It is the winner of the Noma Award.

Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone


Minna Salami - 2020
    She also examines larger subjects, such as Afrofuturism, radical Black feminism, and gender politics, all with a historical outlook that is also future oriented. Combining a storyteller’s narrative playfulness and a social critic’s intellectual rigor, Salami draws upon a range of traditions and ideologies, feminist theory, popular culture—including insights from Ms. Lauryn Hill, Beyoncé, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, and others—science, philosophy, African myths and origin stories, and her own bold personal narrative to establish a language for change and self-liberation.Sensuous Knowledge inspires reflection and challenge us to formulate or own views. Using ancestral knowledge to steer us toward freedom, Salami reveals the ways that women have protested over the years in large and small ways—models that inspire and empower us to define our own sense of womanhood today.In this riveting meditation, Salami ask women to break free of the prison made by ingrained male centric biases, and build a house themselves—a home that can nurture us all.

The Holmes Brothers


Farrah Rochon - 2011
    Special bundle edition contains Deliver Me (Book #1), Release Me (Book #2) and Rescue Me (Book #3). These titles were originally published in paperback by Dorchester Publishing. DELIVER ME (Approximately 91,000 words, originally published March 2007)After being dumped by her boyfriend and passed over for yet another promotion, Monica Gardner moves to New Orleans, determined to make a name for herself as the new attending ER physician at Methodist Memorial Hospital. As for men--she's through with them. But when given the chance to chair the hospital's annual charity banquet, Monica must elicit the help of gorgeous Ob-gyn Elijah Holmes.Eli will do anything to thwart his matchmaking Mama's plan to reunite him with his high school girlfriend. So, when the sexy new ER doc asks for his help in planning this year's charity banquet, Eli devises the perfect scheme: He'll help put on the best banquet the hospital has ever seen, if Monica poses as his new girlfriend. But when Eli finds himself falling in love, he realizes convincing Monica of his true feelings may be his greatest delivery yet.RELEASE ME (Approximately 101,000 words, originally published June 2008) Tobias "Toby" Holmes was destined for NBA stardom. But when an SUV crashed into his car during his rookie year, his dreams of playing pro-basketball, along with his spine, were shattered. After floundering from one job to another, Toby has finally found his niche in the music business. And when the singing sensation he discovered is pegged to star in a new reality TV show, Toby finally sees light at the end of what has been a very dark tunnel.Sienna Culpepper has loved her childhood best friend forever, though he has never seen anything other than the girl with skinny legs, cornrows, and mad skills on the basketball court. When Toby returns to their hometown of New Orleans to start his career as a record producer/manager, Sienna is resigned to loving him from afar. However, when Sienna and Toby find themselves working together, feelings arise that has them both rethinking their friendship. RESCUE ME (Approximately 98,000 words, originally published February 2009)In a few months, Alexander Holmes saw both of his younger brothers find love, but the hardworking owner of Holmes Construction has no desire to follow in their footsteps. Alex had his chance at wedded bliss, and all he ended up with was a whole lot of heartache...and a precious baby girl. Unfortunately, his sweet little pumpkin has turned into a little monster at school. Suddenly, Alex finds himself in a brand new role: parent volunteer.Renee Moore moved to New Orleans to help her aunt rebuild after her home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. When she accepts a job as the new Special Projects Coordinator at St. Katherine's School, Renee looks forward to molding all those young minds. What she doesn't expect is to fall for the sexy single father of one of her students. When Alex Holmes offers to help in rebuilding her aunt's home, Renee knows she's found a man worth his weight in gold. All she has to do is convince him to open his heart to love again.

The Grove Centenary Editions of Samuel Beckett (4 Volumes)


Samuel Beckett - 2006
    Available individually, as well as in a boxed set, the four hardcover volumes have been specially bound with covers featuring images central to Beckett's works. Typographical errors that remained uncorrected in the various prior editions have now been corrected in consultation with Beckett scholars C. J. Ackerley and S. E. Gontarski."Poet, novelist, short–story writer, playwright, translator, and critic, Samuel Beckett created one of the most brilliant and enduring bodies of work in twentieth–century literature. In celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of his birth, the four volumes of this new edition bring together nearly every word Beckett published during his lifetime. Open anywhere and begin reading. It is an experience unequaled anywhere in the universe of words." — Paul Auster, from his Series Notes

Too Black Too Strong


Benjamin Zephaniah - 2001
    This work includes poems written, while the author was working with Michael Mansfield QC on the Stephen Lawrence case and other high profile political trails. It is hard hitting and blackly funny.

The Granta Book of the African Short Story


Helon HabilaLeila Aboulela - 2011
    Presenting a diverse and dazzling collection from all over the continent - from Morocco to Zimbabwe, Uganda to Kenya - Habila has focused on younger, newer writers, contrasted with some of their older, more established peers, to give a fascinating picture of a new and more liberated Africa.Disdaining the narrowly nationalist and political preoccupations of previous generations, these writers are characterized by their engagement with the wider world and the opportunities offered by the internet, the end of apartheid, the end of civil wars and dictatorships, and the possibilities of free movement around the world. Many of them live outside Africa. Their work is inspired by travel and exile. They are liberated, global and expansive. As Dambudzo Marechera wrote: 'If you're a writer for a specific nation or specific race, then f*** you." These are the stories of a new Africa, punchy, self-confident and defiant.Includes stories by:Rachida el-Charni; Henrietta Rose-Innes; George Makana Clark; Ivan Vladislavic; Mansoura Ez-Eldin; Fatou Diome; Aminatta Forna; Manuel Rui; Patrice Nganang; Leila Aboulela; Zoe Wicomb; Alaa Al Aswany; Doreen Baingana; E.C. Osondu

Moses, Man of the Mountain


Zora Neale Hurston - 1939
    Narrated in a mixture of biblical rhetoric, black dialect, and colloquial English, Hurston traces Moses' life from the day he Is launched into the Nile river in a reed basket, to his development as a great magician, to his transformation into the heroic rebel leader, the Great Emancipator. From his dramatic confrontations with Pharaoh to his fragile negotiations with the wary Hebrews, this very human story is told with great humor, passion, and psychological insight--the hallmarks of Hurston as a writer and champion of black culture.

Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers: Elephant Song / Hungry as the Sea / Wild Justice (Three Books in One Collection)


Wilbur Smith - 2013
    Meanwhile in London, anthropologist Kelly Kinnear is forced into violent confrontation with the shareholders of the most powerful conglomerate in the City of London, warning them of the destruction of an African country. Now the time has come to act. Together, Armstrong and Kinnear forge a passionate alliance – and begin the fight against the forces of greed, evil and corruption attacking a land they would both give their lives to save . . .Hungry as the Sea: Nick Berg - robbed of his wife and ousted from his huge shipping empire - is hell-bent on vengeance. It is the sea which gives him his opportunity. When his arch-rival's luxury liner is trapped in the tempestuous Antarctic, Nick stakes all to pit his powerful salvage tug, the Warlock, in a desperate race against time and the elements . . .Wild Justice: The hijacking of a jumbo jet off the Seychelles galvanizes anti-terrorist chief Peter Stride into the action for which he has spent a lifetime training. But in the hail of bullets which follows, he knows that this is only the beginning of a nightmare. Stride is the one man who might find the twisted genius who holds the world hostage – if only his every move were not anticipated by the enemy . . .

Gulliver's Travels / Atomised


Michel Houellebecq - 1998
    Each twin consists of two books: a specially designed limited edition of one modern classic title and one established classic work. The books in each pair have been carefully selected to provide a thought-provoking combination.Gulliver's Travels: In the course of his famous travels, Gulliver is captured by miniature people who wage war on each other because of religious disagreement over how to crack eggs, is sexually assaulted by giants, visits a floating island, and decides that the society of horses is better than that of his fellow man. Swift's tough, filthy and incisive satire has much to say about the state of the world today and is presented here in its unexpurgated entirety.Atomised: Half-brothers Michel and Bruno have a mother in common but little else. Michel is a molecular biologist, a thinker and idealist, a man with no erotic life to speak of and little in the way of human society. Bruno, by contrast, is a libertine, though more in theory than in practice, his endless lust is all too rarely reciprocated. Both are symptomatic members of our atomised society, where religion has given way to shallow 'new age' philosophies and love to meaningless sexual connections. A dissection of modern lives and loves, it is by turns funny, acid, infuriating, didactic, touching and visceral.

The Palm-Wine Drinkard


Amos Tutuola - 1952
    Drawing on the West African (Nigeria) Yoruba oral folktale tradition, Tutuola described the odyssey of a devoted palm-wine drinker through a nightmare of fantastic adventure. Since then, The Palm-Wine Drinkard has been translated into more than 15 languages and has come to be regarded as a masterwork of one of Africa's most influential writers.

Black Mamba Boy


Nadifa Mohamed - 2010
    And home to Jama, a ten year-old boy. But then his mother dies unexpectedly and he finds himself alone in the world.Jama is forced home to his native Somalia, the land of his nomadic ancestors. War is on the horizon and the fascist Italian forces who control parts of East Africa are preparing for battle. Yet Jama cannot rest until he discovers whether his father, who has been absent from his life since he was a baby, is alive somewhere.And so begins an epic journey which will take Jama north through Djibouti, war-torn Eritrea and Sudan, to Egypt. And from there, aboard a ship transporting Jewish refugees just released from German concentration camps, across the seas to Britain and freedom.This story of one boy's long walk to freedom is also the story of how the Second World War affected Africa and its people; a story of displacement and family.

The Book of Echoes


Rosanna Amaka - 2020
    The Book of Echoes is filled with beauty, devastation and the power of ancestral connections that ripple through the ages' IRENOSEN OKOJIE'So bewitching I almost felt like I time-travelled back into Brixton 1981. A gorgeous book – totally recommended.' ALEX WHEATLE A sweeping, uplifting story of how a boy from Brixton and a girl from Lagos escape their dark past to find themselves a bright future. 1981: England looks forward to a new decade. But on the streets of Brixton, it’s hard to hold onto your dreams, especially if you are a young black man. Racial tensions rumble, and now Michael Watson might land in jail for a crime he did not commit.Thousands of miles away, village girl Ngozi abandons her orange stall for the chance to work as a maid. Alone in a big city, Ngozi’s fortunes turn dark and soon both her heart and hopes are shattered.From dusty roads to gritty pavements, Ngozi and Michael’s journey towards a better life is strewn with heartache and injustice. When they finally collide, their lives will be transformed for ever.With irresistible joy and grace, Rosanna Amaka writes of people moving between worlds, and asks how we can heal and help each other. Humming with beauty and horror, tragedy and triumph, THE BOOK OF ECHOES is a powerful debut from an authentic new voice in British fiction.

Die boek van toeval en toeverlaat


Ingrid Winterbach - 2006
    Shortly after her arrival, her apartment is burglarized, and her collection of precious shells, shells that she had been collecting for a lifetime, is stolen. Meeting with indifference from the local police, she decides to investigate the crime on her own, with the help of her new friend from the Museum of Natural History, Sof. While investigating the crime, Helena reflects on the life she’s lived—her ex-husband, her daughter, her lovers, her childhood—and begins to fall in love with her married boss, Theo Verway.An alternately sublime and satirical meditation on love, loss, and obsession, Ingrid Winterbach's The Book of Happenstance is an emotionally affecting masterpiece from one of South Africa’s most exciting authors.