Collected Fiction


Ruskin Bond
    

In the Blue Light of African Dreams


Paul Watkins - 1990
    Disfigured and demoralized, he deserts from France's famed Lafayette Escadrille, only to be captured, convicted, and sentenced to twenty years in the Foreigh Legion. He serves in Africa, where, along with a motley group of convicts and outcasts, Halifax is forced to fly illegal arms shipments to the very tribesmen they have been sent to fight. But a dream keeps Halifax alive even as his companions fall to harm or misery-the relentless determination to become the first pilot to fly nonstop from Paris to New York.

Cutting for Stone


Abraham Verghese - 2009
    Orphaned by their mother’s death in childbirth and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Yet it will be love, not politics—their passion for the same woman—that will tear them apart and force Marion, fresh out of medical school, to flee his homeland. He makes his way to America, finding refuge in his work as an intern at an underfunded, overcrowded New York City hospital. When the past catches up to him—nearly destroying him—Marion must entrust his life to the two men he thought he trusted least in the world: the surgeon father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him.An unforgettable journey into one man’s remarkable life, and an epic story about the power, intimacy, and curious beauty of the work of healing others.(front flap)

No Other Lover Will Do


Cheris Hodges - 2010
    At a North Carolina resort, a sultry workaholic and a quintessential bad boy develop an intense attraction to each other.

This House Has Fallen: Nigeria In Crisis


Karl Maier - 2000
    This House Has Fallen is a bracing and disturbing report on the state of Africa's most populous, potentially richest, and most dangerously dysfunctional nation. Each year, with depressing consistency, Nigeria is declared the most corrupt state in the entire world. Though Nigeria is a nation into which billions of dollars of oil money flow, its per capita income has fallen dramatically in the past two decades. Military coup follows military coup. A bellwether for Africa, it is a country of rising ethnic tensions and falling standards of living, very possibly on the verge of utter collapse -- a collapse that could dramatically overshadow even the massacres in Rwanda. A brilliant piece of reportage and travel writing, This House Has Fallenlooks into the Nigerian abyss and comes away with insight, profound conclusions, and even some hope. Updated with a new preface by the author.

Granta 138: Journeys


Sigrid Rausing - 2017
    What are the ethics of writing about a place you may visit only briefly and view with the eyes of an outsider? With Granta's long tradition of travel writing in mind, we ask some of the world's best writers: is travel writing dead in 2016?Plus: Will Atkins investigates a killing across the US-Mexico borderXan Rice goes back to school in South AfricaEdna O'Brien: 'Chekhov's Ladies'David Flusfeder visits record factories in Detroit and CaliforniaAll the way up London's Holloway Road with Tim AdamsLaura Vapynar: 'Vladimir in Love'

Paradise Postponed


John Mortimer - 1985
    As Mortimer recounts the gossip and dastardly goings-on in Rapstone Fanner, he creates a wickedly funny, totally absorbing portrait of British life from the austerity of World War II to the dubious prosperity of the eighties. This delightful social comedy was adapted by Mortimer into an eleven-part series for Masterpiece Theatre.

Collected Plays 2 {The Lion and the Jewel; Kongi's Harvest; The Trials of Brother Jero; Jero's Metamorphosis; Madmen and Specialists}


Wole Soyinka - 1975
    This second volume of Wole Soyinka's plays traces the ironic development and consequences of 'progress'.

Wench


Dolen Perkins-Valdez - 2009
    from Middle English "wenchel," 1 a: a girl, maid, young woman; a female child.Tawawa House in many respects is like any other American resort before the Civil War. Situated in Ohio, this idyllic retreat is particularly nice in the summer when the Southern humidity is too much to bear. The main building, with its luxurious finishes, is loftier than the white cottages that flank it, but then again, the smaller structures are better positioned to catch any breeze that may come off the pond. And they provide more privacy, which best suits the needs of the Southern white men who vacation there every summer with their black, enslaved mistresses. It's their open secret.Lizzie, Reenie, and Sweet are regulars at Tawawa House. They have become friends over the years as they reunite and share developments in their own lives and on their respective plantations. They don't bother too much with questions of freedom, though the resort is situated in free territory–but when truth-telling Mawu comes to the resort and starts talking of running away, things change.To run is to leave behind everything these women value most–friends and families still down South–and for some it also means escaping from the emotional and psychological bonds that bind them to their masters. When a fire on the resort sets off a string of tragedies, the women of Tawawa House soon learn that triumph and dehumanization are inseparable and that love exists even in the most inhuman, brutal of circumstances–all while they are bearing witness to the end of an era.An engaging, page-turning, and wholly original novel, Wench explores, with an unflinching eye, the moral complexities of slavery.

In a Cardboard Belt!: Essays Personal, Literary, and Savage


Joseph Epstein - 2007
    Taking his title from the wounded cry of the once great Max Bialystock in The Producers -- “Look at me now! Look at me now! I’m wearing a cardboard belt!” -- Epstein gives us his largest and most comprehensive collection to date.Writing as a memoirist, polemicist, literary critic, and amused observer of contemporary culture, he uses to deft and devastating effect his signature gifts: wide-ranging erudition, sparkling humor, and a penetrating intelligence. In personally revealing essays about his father and about his years as a teacher, in deeply considered examinations of writers from Paul Valery to Truman Capote, and in incisive take-downs of such cultural pooh-bahs as Harold Bloom and George Steiner, this remarkable collection presents us with the best work of our country’s most singular talent, engaged with the richness and variety of life, witty in his response to the world, and always entertaining.

The Warmest December


Bernice L. McFadden - 2001
    Moving fluidly between the past and the present - between a young girl choosing which belt she'll be whipped with each night and her older self at the bedside of her dying father - it is an ultimately cathartic tale of hope, healing and forgiveness.

When the Sun Goes Down and other stories from Africa and beyond


Emilia Ilieva - 2011
    16 stories by international writers.

Lickin' License: From Lust to Love to Deception and Death


Intelligent Allah - 2011
    But the romances happening inside of it are even hotter!Candy has the body of a goddess, the most expensive cars and exclusive fashion that money can buy, Her business is the envy of every woman she knows-and the ones she doesn't, too. It should be enough, but Candy wants more than money, and more than lust.She wants love.When Rich one of Harlem's most powerful drug dealers becomes a fixture in Candy's shop, he ignites a fire inside her salon that might just burn it all down-because he and Candy have their eye on the same woman, a beautiful bohemian stylist named Vanessa. And just outside of their three-way battle, the other stylists of Candy's Shop are taking sides and setting their sights on their own prey. This hurricane of sex lust and love might just destroy everything Candy's worked so hard to build. It might even take her life.When jealousy, anger, and lust combine, it's more flammable than a match and a can of hairspray. Will Candy be able to win over the lesbian lover of her dreams? Will Vanessa succumb to Rich's slick-talking ways? And what happens if all three of them try to find their own Harlem happily-ever-after together?Fans of lesbian romance, LGBTQ+ romance, and menage romances hot enough to melt the pages will love this. If you crave drama, romance and lovers who have to fight for their happy-ever-afters, you won't be able to put this one down!One-Click to start reading Lickin' License today!

Secret Son


Laila Lalami - 2009
    Suddenly his dreams are within reach when he discovers that his father whom he d been led to believe was dead is very much alive. A wealthy businessman, he seems eager to give his son a new start. Youssef leaves his mother behind to live a life of luxury, until a reversal of fortune sends him back to the streets and his childhood friends. Trapped once again by his class and painfully aware of the limitations of his prospects, he becomes easy prey for a fringe Islamic group. In the spirit of "The Inheritance of Loss "and "The Reluctant Fundamentalist," Laila Lalami s debut novel looks at the struggle for identity, the need for love and family, and the desperation that grips ordinary lives in a world divided by class, politics, and religion. "

Voice of America


E.C. Osondu - 2009
    Many of the characters here have a relationship of sorts with the US, be it the refugee children who dream of being adopted by US parents or the mother who writes to her son who has emigrated to the US asking why his Western Union payments to her have dried up.He casts a pitiless eye on Nigeria: brutally artless on the commodification of women and young girls in much of Nigerian society, the wastrel dreams of many of its young men, and the savagery of the police force.