Africa Books

In a speech before the Organization of American Historians, scholar Jacquelyn Dowd Hall offered a window onto "the long civil rights movement" -- a struggle for human rights, economic and social citizenship, and human dignity that began long before Brown v. Board of Education and continued long after the assassination of Martin Luther King.

In her pathbreaking book, Defying Dixie, professor Glenda Gilmore gives texture and character to the long civil rights movement, using indigenous southern activists, black and white, to give her story shape. These activists, from the fearless and foolhardy Lovett Fort-Whiteman to the brilliant and indomitable Pauli Murray, all faced the demon of American white supremacy and did their best to slay it. They did not always prevail with strategies they dreamed up and pursued, but their vision and dedication bequeathed us a social movement, more expansive than the classic civil rights movement, that still informs drives for justice and equity.

Gilmore's book moves beyond the tired debates of Cold War historiography and the simple hagiography of civil rights heroes to give us a dynamic movement filled with complex characters. In giving these people their due, and rooting them in American soil, Defying Dixie helps us to understand the promise and possibilities of American politics, and to contend with the present in which we live.

Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore's DEFYING DIXIE: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919 - 1950 is the history of the civil rights movement from that time until the early 1950s. It gives inside history, interviews and information on how the Civil Rights movement that we are aware of today, came about. In the beginning, the Communist party was deeply involved. Their plan was to get the workers of America - black and white - to fight for better salaries from the companies they worked for. The only way to accomplish that was to get the two groups to work together. Naturally, the South, with its legacy of slavery, wasn't too happy with the mixing of the races. The companies, to keep their profits high, wanted to continue to pay blacks less than they paid whites and the only way to do that was to keep them separate. Many residents of the South didn't want blacks involved in the job market because they felt it would reduce their ability to have those jobs. There were, however, many people, of both races, who were determined that segregation/Jim Crow, would end. They were brave enough to defy the system and as a result, they frequently ended up in jail or worse.

During the Second World War, as Stalin took power, the involvement of the Communist party began to lose its appeal. The House Un-American Activities became concerned and the FBI spied on Communist and suspects. Any contact with a Communist could cause problems. It didn't stop those who were determined to force America to honor what it claimed it went to war for, from pushing their agenda for social and economic equality for all, even though many of them suffered for it.

Gilmore has written a heart rending account that covers history that is either missing or glossed over in our history books. So often we don't know the brutal history that brought us where we are today and Gilmore lets us know in no uncertain terms. Some of the unfair situations that blacks face will break your heart. It is a book every American should read in order to understand where we have come from and where we are going. It should be required reading for both high school and college students.

Reviewed by Alice Holman
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

Sven Lindqvist hails from Sweden, where is love for weight lifting, and literature are an odd combination. His fascination with the Sahara and the desolate landscape are captivating. Desert Divers is a brief look at Colonialism in present day Morocco through the eyes of various literary figures.

Lindqvist unobtrusively weaves into his travel narrative a subtle polemic tone regarding liberty, economy, and personal freedom. He links the various dreams he records in the text to the outlying situation in Morocco.

Antoine de Saint-Exubery and Isabelle Eberhardt are two of the writers he reflects on when faced with the far reaches of the Sahara. Lindqvist juggles a multitude of variables in the text; history, colonialism, personal memoir, economic polemic, yet still manages to entwine the themes together to create a beaituful portrait of a barren land.

One hundred terse chapters in not many more pages. Lindqvist has packed a memoir together as challenging as the desert itself. It presents in much the same manner as its companion piece, 'Exterminate All The Brutes,'in a pace rather like air stirring from the baked sand soon after the sun has set. It's a deceptive pace,as it has been slowly generated from a sustained meditation on the literature of French colonialisation, mostly in nineteenth century North Africa, and the way it issued a romanticism with the place (from the 19thC, via Pierre Loti, Isabelle Eberhardt, Andre Gide, de Saint-Exupery, & the author's own confessed romanticism). Lindqvist's research is as poetically pithy as his intermittent memoirs,and the direct, present-day observations during the field work as he traces his literary heroes. His own probing dreams unite the book until the final sentence, when he finds himself firmly gripping empty air. This tension between the received evidence of the literati,his research, and the evidence of his senses, is suitably chastening(though not as diabolically disturbing as colonial violence during the study of Joseph Conrad in 'Exterminate the Brutes'). He recognises that the writer's were, each in their own way, able to live out everything not socially accepted in their own countries & that spiritually, 'the colonies functioned as a vent, as an escape, a place to misbehave.'

A mellifluous rendering of lives stunted by isolation and despair is rare. Yet Anne Landsman deftly accomplishes this in her transfixing debut novel The Devil's Chimney. Set in turn of the century South Africa, Ms. Landsman's narrative shimmers with scenes of windswept agrarian beauty and sizzles with the erotic as she describes passion run amok during the days of apartheid when Coloureds and women were disposable.

Poignantly related by Connie, an older woman who has sought release in alcohol, this is the tale of two women from dissimilar backgrounds. Their commonality, as Ms. Landsman skillfully reveals, is found in the loss of an only child.

With her feckless and abusive husband, Jack, Connie now oversees a dog kennel not far from Canga Caves, the area's major tourist attraction and home of Devil's Chimney, an aperture so narrow that you have to crawl through it on your stomach. Pregnant and afraid of being sent to Magdalena Tehuis, where they give your baby away and "make the girls wear maids' dresses and scrub the floors," Connie married Jack when she was 18. Two months later their child was stillborn, then buried in the yard beneath a lemon tree.

As Connie reflects upon her life, she interweaves the story of Miss Beatrice and Mr. Henry, a well-to-do English couple who came to Oudtshoorn in 1910 to run an ostrich ranch. Although "An ostrich can split you in half with the nail on his big toe," at that time their exquisite feathers - prime whites, tipped whites, spadonas, blacks - brought a high price.

During Mr. Henry's mysterious disappearance into the mountains, Miss Beatrice determines to find out all she can about ostrich farms from Mr. Jacobs, the Jewish owner of a neighboring ranch who is successful enough to be known as the Ostrich King. Society's cruel divisions are underscored as she thinks of meeting him: "Was there garlic in his pockets and a black beard covering his whole face?.......Your neighbors aren't Jews. The Boers are bad enough, and so are the Poor Whites but the Jews."

As Miss Beatrice learns about the care and raising of the valuable birds, we, too, are privy to a lost skill practiced in a culture rife with superstition and medicinal potions. Herding the graceful birds into pens or kraals to be brutally plucked mirrors the narrowly circumscribed lives of Connie and Miss Beatrice, both bound to the veld by time and circumstance.

Eventually, Miss Beatrice and Mr. Jacobs become lovers, lying together in a cave's ebony darkness. She also has a physical relationship with September, her native servant. Thus, when Miss Beatrice discovers she is pregnant she is unsure of the baby's father, and is left to bear the child alone with only Nomsa, September's wife, to assist her.

As Connie recreates the final tragedy in Miss Beatrice's life she does, to a degree, come to terms with the adversity she has endured.

With scenes as clearly drawn as a stereoscope's slide, Ms. Landsman carries readers to the story's tragic culmination. It is perhaps the only finale for lives lost in unchecked physical desire and emotional deprivation.

A native of South Africa, Ms. Landsman writes of her homeland with fluid grace; she describes human foibles with perceptive compassion. The Devil's Chimney is a meritorious debut.

- Gail Cooke

Another impulse buy (despite the convenience of Amazon, the ability to browse the occassional page will forever more keep me loyal to old-fashioned bookshops). South Africa is the scene, and the story of two women gently unfolds, narrated by a middle-aged member of the boer white trash community. She tells the story of a local myth, of a certain english woman who once ran an ostrich farm, way back when whites were whites and blacks were trash, when ostrich feathers were in fashion, when africa was still the dark continent. Its a moving story about the schizoprenia of society, where racial lines were as strong as sexual ones, where women and men had clearly identifiable roles. Our turn-of-the century rule-breaker is a little like the female lead from'the god of small things'. Very much so. Our narrators story also evolves, and the mythical woman takes on a fantastic journey as the personalities of the narrator and narrated get all jumbled up into one raging ball of unspent emotion, frustration, alcoholic stupor, forsaken love, misplaced feelings and confused identities. I'd say this is a good book, although its similarities in many ways to Arundhati Roy's work prevents it from being a great book. There are some disadvantages of being a second, even though its a damn good read, and probably written in parrallel to Roy's.

I wonder why the english speaking world have suddenly fallen head over heels with books about the indian subcontinent - witness the irrational admiration for soap opera's extraordinaire such as 'a suitable boy' and 'a fine balance'. I think africa or latin america, (for that matter) could do with a little more attention, and are equally fascinating.

For anyone out there who also worships Kaethe Kollwitz and her extraordinary work, this book is a must-read. Edited by the son that lived--Hans--"The Diary and Letters of Kaethe Kollwitz" provides an intimate portrait of the woman who lived behind the drawings in her own words. This book breathed life and personality into somebody who has been one of my greatest artistic influences. I found it exceptionally moving to be able to share her emotions, thoughts and tragedies in this way.

Kaethe Kollwitz created some of the most moving drawings and lithos I have ever seen. Many are dark and sorrowful. Even so, many have an indestructible kernel of hope in them kept alive through sheer personal will.

Now that I've read these extracts from her diaries and correspondence, I can understand better the woman who made that art. Above all, she was a woman founded on her emotions. I don't means twittering sentimentality. I mean the kind of love that kept her one marriage strong for 49 years, until she was widowed. I mean the kind of devotion that kept her at work for fifteen years on the memorial to her son, fallen in the first World War. I mean the kind of dedication that led her to teach master classes, even though she grew up when women were almost forbidden to attend advanced schooling.

Despite her losses in the two World Wars, her life had much in it to bolster her strength. Her family supported her childhood interest in art, and her father was willing to get her what training he could. She married young, and somewhat against her parents' wishes. Her husband, however, supported her art, and she remained close to her parents. She fully accepted motherhood; her sons and later her grandchildren were bulwarks of her adult life. She engendered lifelong affection in her friends and her family. Her surviving son compiled this tribute to her life, and her grand-daughter added a few pages about Kaethe's last days.

There are a few dozen samples of her drawings, sculpture, lithos and woodcut at the end of this book. (Given her tendency towards transfer lithos, the distinction between litho and drawing isn't always clear.) The reproductions aren't great, just enough to indicate the structure and feeling of each piece. The set is nicely bracketed, however, by an early self-portait and her last one. The face is the same handsome woman in both, but the later Kaethe is wizened and wisened by her years.

This is a wonderful book. I am truly glad to know more about this woman. If you want just reproductions of her art, this is likely to disappoint. If you want her herself, you've found it.

//wiredweird

This book is a gem. Eschewing the conventional historical narrative/survey approach, the author weaves a tapestry of anecdotes and vignettes tied to events and artifacts, thus creating a fascinating historical pastiche of the Caspian region. This book is a particular achievement in how it manages to reveal Iran's (Persia's) view of itself -- its role and relationships with other players in the region's power politics through the centuries. Mirfendereski, in an erudite but engaging writing style, provides not only interesting information but a nuanced glimpse into a world view.

This is a good read. For those who know the Caucasus and Central Asia, it is a fascinating look at the rivalry betwwen the Tsars of Russia and the Shahs of Iran over almost three centuries. For international oilmen concerned with petroleum development in the Caspian, it is must reading. Furthermore it is timely because of the discussion of Afghanistan in the history of Iran. And finally, for those who lived and travelled in Iran, it is a return to a beautiful nostalgia that is, alas, no more.

I thought Elizabeth Hull's research was timely, thorough and informing.
For anyone interested in the effects of Felon Disenfranchisement on mondern day politics, this is a must-read.

HULL DOES IT AGAIN *****

Elizabeth Hull's books have always displayed her natural literary gifts and passion for her subjects (whose life wasn't changed by "Taking Liberties"), but her latest is a work of such scholarly brilliance that I strongly beleive every student interested in politics, government, or even journalism should be required to read it. With the startling statistics Hull uncovers about how many ordinary Americans have lost their constitutional right to vote it is amazing that this hugely relevant issue is given no attention in Congress! "The Disenfrachisement of Ex-Felons" is at times hilarious: (i.e. the Representative from Florida's feeble attempt to ratioanlize hypocritical state laws which ban voting rights for life for petty theft, but not for a single white-collar crime!) The book is at times frightening: ( millions of people, who pay taxes and obey the law, are left without the ability to participate in their governemnt because of minor infractions during their youth.) All in all, the text inspires such a catastrophic force of supreme emotion that readers will feel like they've experinced a mega-rollercoster ride in and out of the depths of modern political debate by the time it comes to its climactic, but magnificent, end. My opinion, the ride is well worth it. *****

As a published and award winning author, I take my hat off to this wonderful woman who has taken such a great film and adapted it so well for children.
However, there is a problem with this singular novelization.
Its short length does present a problem.
The Lion King is an epic film, and needs to be novelized in an epic novel, not some childrens storybook.
What I mean by novelized, is that the story is written down, expanded, and shown in the light that it was originally meant to be. A short childrens "novel" wont cut it unfortunately.
What needs to be done, is a full-length novel needs to be written, along the lines of say the length of Carrie or something of that nature. This would allow the author to expand the universe of the Lion King, explore subplots and motives, really flesh out the characters and have some fun with creating the history of some of our most cherished characters as well as new scenes, locales, and events, making it appeal not only to children, but to the adult and senior audiences as well.
Luckily, this is already in progress. I happen to be working on a manuscript for this novel, and it will be finished sometime in 2006-07. Hopefully, it will restore what the Lion King has lost ( or could not put into a childrens movie or book due to violence, and motivation) and reclaim this epic for a new literary age.

This book is great. When the Lion King came out, I loved it, so I got this book for Christmas. I had my mom read it over and over and when she couldn't, I'd read it myself! This is a terrific book so if you loved the movie, don't miss out on this beautiful adaptation

This book is really the story of a life in Africa - a foreigner's life, and the lives of those he meets and learns from. I couldn't put it down.

A collection of short stories should be like a good record album (okay, a CD; maybe I'm old). The individual stories (or songs) should be successful in their own right, and when you've experienced the whole thing you should feel that every one of them belonged and that the whole is, in itself, also a successful creation. Peter Chilson's first short fiction collection achieves this hoped-for quality and cohesiveness.

The stories themselves are compelling. Set in either West Africa or the northwestern U.S. (as the author's life has been for years), they traffic in culture clash and hard realities, and the prevailing mood is tense and often grim. ("American Food" provides a nicely modulated counterpoint as it serves up some nearly absurdist humor along with the familiar cultural tension.) Chilson's clear, unadorned narrative voice ties the collection together well, bringing to mind George Orwell's aesthetic preference for language that allows the reader to focus on the story rather than the way it is told. And these stories, tough and humane and probing in their exploration of human relationships across a cultural divide, do reward the reader's attention.

This book is a worthy complement to Coetzee's Disgrace. Breytenbach is a writer and poet with a fine delicate sensibility. Not an easy read, the book is nonetheless fascinating, beautiful and horrifying in turn. He meditates on his childhood in the Boland area of the Cape, and the history of his Afrikaans speaking family in the area. He describes the brutality that happened in SA in the past and that happens in present day SA frankly and bluntly. He tells it how it is and and sometimes as I read it my blood just ran cold. He also describes the beauty of the country, the land and its animals, plants and trees, the night sky, the clouds etc. The subject matter is very interesting and the quality of his writing is superb. I have never read anything by this writer before and I was surprised by the brilliance of it. I found it very moving and profound. It is a stunning book.

This book is a worthy complement to Coetzee's Disgrace. Breytenbach is a writer and poet with a fine delicate sensibility. Not an easy read, the book is nonetheless fascinating, beautiful and horrifying in turn. He meditates on his childhood in the Boland area of the Cape, and the history of his Afrikaans speaking family in the area. He describes the brutality that happened in SA in the past and that happens in present day SA frankly and bluntly. He tells it how it is and and sometimes as I read it my blood just ran cold. He also describes the beauty of the country, the land and its animals, plants and trees, the night sky, the clouds etc. The subject matter is very interesting and the quality of his writing is superb. I have never read anything by this writer before and I was surprised by the brilliance of it. I found it very moving and profound. It is a stunning book.

i possess already a important collection of africa books and i can say this is a collector's item very good Patrick dauwe Belgium

I ordered this blind, generally liking Don McC's work. I ordered a dozen used photo books and this was the one I was most indifferent to BEFORE it arrived. As a lover of fine art landscape, still life, street/reportage I doubted that this work would really hold me. WOW!!!! The book is beautifully made and the image reproduction absolutely spot on (better than the vast majority of quality photo books I own). The shots are first rate from cover to cover and the mood conveyed throughout truly captivating and constant. The cohesion is amazing, yet the images for me did not become repetitive. For those with experience of Africa or the desire to go and get beyond the tourist trail, this book will resonate strongly. I got mine for $29 used mint. That has to be a steal for a book that leaves a permanent mark. The image on the front cover in no way conveys the far better quality of the content. This sort of stuff has been done time an time again and i thought that it would be typical of the work done by a 'retired' reportage guy, ie lacking in purpose and true insight. I am blown away.....