Each night, Sisi, Ama, Efe, and Joyce stand in the windows of Antwerp’s red-light district, promising to make men’s desires come true—if only for half an hour. Pledged to the fierce Madam and a mysterious pimp named Dele, the girls share an apartment but little else—they keep their heads down, knowing that one step out of line could cost them a week’s wages. They open their bodies to strangers but their hearts to no one, each focused on earning enough to get herself free, to send money home or save up for her own future.Then, suddenly, a murder shatters the still surface of their lives. Drawn together by tragedy and the loss of one of their own, the women realize that they must choose between their secrets and their safety. As they begin to tell their stories, their confessions reveal the face in Efe’s hidden photograph, Ama’s lifelong search for a father, Joyce’s true name, and Sisi’s deepest secrets—-and all their tales of fear, displacement, and love, concluding in a chance meeting with a powerful, sinister stranger.On Black Sisters Street marks the U.S. publication debut of Chika Unigwe, a brilliant new writer and a standout voice among contemporary African authors. Raw, vivid, unforgettable, and inspired by a powerful oral storytelling tradition, this novel illuminates the dream of the West—and that dream’s illusion and annihilation—as seen through African eyes. It is a story of courage, unity, and hope, of women’s friendships and of bonds that, once forged, cannot be broken.

    He has gone on to become one of the most powerful voices for cultural freedom on the whole of the African continent today. Ndebele evokes township life with humor and subtlety, rejecting the image of black South Africans as victims and focusing on the complexity and fierce energy of their lives. "Our literature," says Ndebele, "ought to seek to move away from an easy preoccupation with demonstrating the obvious existence of oppression. It exists. The task is to explore how and why people can survive under such harsh conditions." About Njabulo Ndebele: now Chancellor of Witwatersrand University in South Africa. Ndebele began publishing these stories from exile in Lesotho during the 1980s. Ndebele is now recognised as a major voice in South Africa's cultural life. This is his only fiction collection available in Europe or North America. Ndebele's stories first began appearing in Staffrider magazine, an innovative publishing venture linked to the Soweto branch of South African PEN. Founded after the bloody Soweto riots of the mid-1970s, the magazine took as its symbol the staffriders, un-ticketed commuters from the black townships who every day clung onto or balanced on top of buses and trains to get into the cities to work. Staffrider magazine, and in particular Ndebele's stories, helped define a new tone in black South African literature that went beyond and finally overcame apartheid.

    From Zaita the cripple-maker to Kirsha the café owner with a taste for young boys and drugs, to Abbas the barber who mistakes greed for love, to Hamida who sells her soul to escape the alley, these characters vividly evoke the sights, sounds and smells of Cairo. Long after one finishes reading, the smell of fresh bread lingers, as does the image of the men gathering at the café for their nightly ritual. The universality and timelessness of this book cannot be denied.

    They have only one desire: to make a fortune by exploiting the mineral wealths of the country. They work during the day in mining concession and, as soon as night falls, they go out to get drunk, dance, eat and abandon themselves in Tram 83, the only night-club of the city, the den of all the outlaws: ex children-soldiers, prostitutes, blank students, unmarried mothers, sorcerers' apprentices …Lucien, a professional writer, fleeing the exactions and the censorship, finds refuge in the city thanks to Requiem, a youth friend. Requiem lives mainly on theft and on swindle while Lucien only thinks of writing and living honestly. Around them gravitate gangsters and young girls, retired or runaway men, profit-seeking tourists and federal agents of a non-existent State.Tram 83 plunges the reader into the atmosphere of a gold rush as cynical as, sometimes, comic and colorfully exotic. It's an observation of human relationships in a world that has become a global village. It could be described as an African-rap or rhapsody novel or puzzle-novel hammered by rhythms of jazz.

    Césaire’s rich and insightful adaptation of The Tempest draws on contemporary Caribbean society, the African-American experience and African mythology to raise questions about colonialism, racism and their lasting effects.

    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.

    This volume presents a comprehensive critical study of Samuel Beckett's first and most renowned dramatic work. Lawrence Graver discusses the play's background and provides a detailed analysis of its originality and distinction as a landmark of modern theatrical art. He also reviews some of the differences between Beckett's original French version and his English translation.

    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.

    Drug dealers from Nigeria, Zimbabwean wire-workers, immigrants from Rwanda and Sudan, a Mozambican refugee - all escaping the ruins of war in the peace of the new South Africa - bear down on her fragile world, then scoop her into theirs. "Skyline" is an unflinching look at one girl's coming of age in the colourful and violent streets of a city waking up to the rest of Africa.

    However, her early adult life is marred by childlessness in a society that places a great premium on children and motherhood as the ultimate mark of womanhood. Worldreader presents this e-book in a new series showcasing fiction from Sub-Saharan Africa. Are you a worldreader? Read more about this not-for-profit social enterprise at worldreader.org.

    Odidi Oganda, running for his life, is gunned down in the streets of Nairobi. His grief-stricken sister, Ajany, just returned from Brazil, and their father bring his body back to their crumbling home in the Kenyan drylands, seeking some comfort and peace. But the murder has stirred memories long left untouched and unleashed a series of unexpected events: Odidi and Ajany’s mercurial mother flees in a fit of rage; a young Englishman arrives at the Ogandas’ house, seeking his missing father; a hardened policeman who has borne witness to unspeakable acts reopens a cold case; and an all-seeing Trader with a murky identity plots an overdue revenge. In scenes stretching from the violent upheaval of contemporary Kenya back through a shocking political assassination in 1969 and the Mau Mau uprisings against British colonial rule in the 1950s, we come to learn the secrets held by this parched landscape, buried deep within the shared past of the family and of a conflicted nation. Here is a spellbinding novel about a brother and sister who have lost their way; about how myths come to pass, history is written, and war stains us forever.

    Each guide also offers students fresh critical insights and provides a practical introduction to close reading and to analysing literary language and form. They provide up-to-date, authoritative but accessible guides to the most commonly studied classic texts.Chinua Achebe's remarkable novel Things Fall Apart (1958) is probably the best known African novel and has become one of the world's most influential literary masterpieces. Since publication, a total of nearly 12 million copies have been sold, with translations into more than 50 languages. Despite its undoubted success, its apparent simplicity has tended to blind readers to the dazzling storytelling resources and the inventive language, plot, setting, and characterization which first draw them to the novel and keep them reading. This is the ideal guide to the text, setting Things Fall Apart in its historical, intellectual and cultural contexts, offering analyses of its themes, style and structure, providing exemplary close readings, presenting an up-to-date account of its critical reception and examining its afterlife in literature, film and popular culture. It includes points for discussion, suggestions for further study and an annotated guide to relevant reading.

    Through the skillfully disarming use of clichéd language and homilies, the play explores with subtle grace and depth the way the death of a child tears one family apart, while showcasing the talents of a promising young playwright who "in [a] very modern way [is] making a rather old-fashioned case for the power of the written word" (Jason Zinoman, The New York Times).Fresh from its critically acclaimed off-off-Broadway run this past spring, God's Ear moves off-Broadway to the Vineyard Theatre in April 2008.

    Less than two years thereafter when Mugabe rose to power in the new Zimbabwe, it signaled the begining of brutal civil unrest that would last nearly a half decade more.With The Stone Virgins Yvonne Vera examines the dissident movement from the perspective of two sisters living in a small township outside of Bulawayo. In a portrait painted in successive impressions of life before and after the liberation, Vera explores the quest for dignity and a centered existence against a backdrop of unimaginable violence; the twin instincts of survival and love; the rival pulls of township and city life; and mankind's capacity for terror, beauty, and sacrifice. One sister will find a reason for hope. One will not make it through alive.Weaving historical fact within a story of grand passions and striking endurance, Vera has gifted us with a powerful and provocative testament to the resilience of the Zimbabwean people.

    Marubini is a young woman who has an enviable life in Cape Town, working at a wine farm and spending idyllic days with her friends ... until her past starts spilling into her present. Something dark has been lurking in the shadows of Marubini’s life from as far back as she can remember. It’s only a matter of time before it reaches out and grabs at her. The Yearning is a memorable exploration of the ripple effects of the past, of personal strength and courage, and of the shadowy intersections of traditional and modern worlds.‘A bewitching addition to the current South African literary boom. MohaleMashigo tells her story with charming lucidity, disarmingcharacterisation, subversive wisdom and subtle humour.’ – ZAKES MDA