Karen King-Aribisala is an exceptional talent. She won the Commonwealth Prize (African Region) for the Best First Book in 1990 for Our Wife and Other Stories, and the 2008 Commonwealth Prize (Africa region) for the Best Book for The Hangman’s Game.
I had interviewed her several years ago, about Clicking Tongues, which she modelled on Chaucer’s Canterbury’s Tales. As well as writing brilliant, offbeat, poetic prose, King is a performer, and declaims her work with stunning effect.
In an interview in Johannesburg last year we spoke about The Hangman’s Game (Peepal Press), an affecting novel, which observes parallels in the slavery imposed by General Sani Abacha’s military regime in the 1980s and the conditions that led to the Demarara slave revolt in 1823.
“In the book, Nigerians are as enslaved as are the blacks in Demarara. There is a connection between the hanging of the narrator’s friend (a Ken Saro-Wiwa-like figure) by Sani Abacha and the hanging of the missionary, John Smith, who went to Demarara.
To enter a Sunday Independent draw to win one of three complete sets of the initial Penguin African Writers Series publications, follow these instructions, published in yesterday’s paper:
To enter: SMS the letters TSI (space) followed by your name and surname to 34110. SMSes cost R2 each. General competition rules apply. The lines will be open from 6am [Sunday] until 11pm [Monday 19 Oct]. Winners will be notified telephonically.
Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is a classic, must-read, perspective-altering book. Achebe wrote it over fifty years ago and it’s as provocative today as it was then.
In February, Achebe latest work will arrive in South Africa: The Education of a British-Protected Child, a “collection of old and recent essays that piece together the arc of his literary life”.
The new book has already attracted notice in many parts of the world; here’s a great summarizing story from Reuters:
Chinua Achebe, the grandfather of modern African literature, first began telling stories as a means to reaching the truth. Fiction, he knew, could sometimes strike deeper than real life.
More than 50 years ago Achebe wrote “Things Fall Apart,” a novel about an African tribe's fatal brush with British colonialism in the 1800s that told the story of colonialism for the first time from an African perspective.
Written in English, “Things Fall Apart” told a world audience about the upheaval that Africa had endured. It was translated into 50 languages and sold more than 8 million copies worldwide.
The next titles to appear in the series are: A Question of Power by Bessie Head, From a Crooked Rib by Nuruddin Farah, Voices Made Night by Mia Couto and The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born by Ayi Kwei Armah. The competition closes on 28 September, and the artist whose work is chosen will be paid R1200.
For details of the books that have already appeared in the series, see below. Meanwhile, here’s the complete cover art brief:
The Penguin African Writers series, launched in 2009, showcases writing from a diverse range of writers from Africa for contemporary readers in Africa and the rest of the world. The series launched with works from Chinua Achebe, Dambudzo Marechera, Véronique Tadjo, Lília Momplé, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and Karen King-Aribisala.
In 2010 we will be expanding the series and this is a call for submissions for artwork to be used on the covers of these forthcoming titles. It is a wonderful opportunity for both established and new artists, with assured international exposure and the support of the Penguin Group.
Every book in the Penguin African Writers series is distinctly African and the illustrations should reflect a theme central to Africa. We are looking for creative representations of “African”, contemporary and/or traditional. The artwork’s connection to the title and content of the book does not necessarily have to be literal as the messages and themes are open to interpretation.
A detailed brief will be available from 7 September 2009. Artists who would like to submit artwork for possible inclusion in one of the upcoming Penguin African Writers books should contact Reneé Naudé at renee.naude@za.penguingroup.com for more information.
Penguin Books is delighted to announce that the first six titles in the new Penguin African Writers Series are now available at bookstores across the country.
Literary titan Chinua Achebe is the Penguin AWS’s Editorial Adviser – and the great writer’s book of short stories, Girls at War and Other Stories, comprises part of the initial list.
We’re immensely proud to present six must-have African reads:
Black Sunlight by Dambudzo Marechera (Zimbabwe): In an unspecified setting the narrative traces the fortunes of a group of anarchists in revolt against a military-fascist-capitalist opposition. The central character is a press photographer, Chris, whose camera lens becomes the device through which Marechera cleverly unravels the story’s incidents. Marechera said the book was influenced by the Baader-Meinhof story about German terrorists: “I really tried to put terrorism into a historical perspective, neither applauding their acts nor condemning them. The photographer does not take sides, he just takes the press photographs.”
Hangman’s Game by Karen King-Aribisala (Guyana): The narrative interweaves two storylines: a bloody revolt in Demerara, Guyana, in 1823 and a military coup in Nigeria in the late 1990s. The latter focuses on the terrifying experiences of a pregnant writer, her minister husband and their housekeeper during the murderous era of a ‘military democracy’, where the tyrant is known only as “Butcher Boy”.
The second storyline is the basis of the woman’s novel, set in her native Guyana, with historical characters who mirror their counterparts in the real world. Insecurities about her marriage begin to spiral out of control and paranoia sets in as the woman is unable to distinguish between real-life threats and the constructions of her imagination. The hangman’s noose from the simple spelling guessing game and the children’s nursery rhyme Three Blind Mice pervade in this studiously plotted and subtly told story.
Neighbours: The story of a murder by Lília Momplé (Mozambique): On the eve of the festival of Eid, Narguiss, who ‘never wanted anything to do with politics’, is more preoccupied with family problems than with the radio news of kidnappings and murders. Before dawn, however, she and other innocent people seeking to lead peaceful lives are caught up in a vicious conspiracy to infiltrate and destabilise Mozambique.
Skilfully weaving together present events and past memories, Lília Momplé gives us, in the drama of a few short hours, an insight into the consequences of Mozambique’s complex history. Beautifully written. Snapshots into different homes on the eve of a major religious festival. Contrast between the past and age-old traditions and a new way of life.
Weep Not, Child by Ngugi wa Thiong’o (Kenya): Two boys stand on a rubbish heap and look into the future. One boy is excited, he is beginning school; the other, his brother, is an apprentice carpenter. Together they will serve their country – the teacher and the craftsman. But this is Kenya and the times are against them. In the forests, the Mau Mau are waging war against the white government, and the two brothers, Njoroge and Kamau, and the rest of their family, need to decide where their loyalties lie. For the practical man the choice is simple, but for Njoroge the scholar, the dream of progress through learning is a hard one to give up.
A powerful, moving story that details the effects of the Mau Mau war on the lives of ordinary men and women.
As the Crow Flies by Véronique Tadjo (Ivory Coast): Véronique Tadjo weaves together a rich tapestry of voices to tell stories of parting and return, suffering, healing and desire in a lyrical and moving exploration of the human heart. Like a bird in flight, the reader travels across a borderless landscape composed of tales of everyday existence, news reports, allegories and ancestral myths, becoming aware in the course of the journey of the interconnection of individual lives.
Tadjo’s prose is so ephemeral that it’s difficult to remember that she is writing about heartache and pain. The narrative is presented as a series of chapters in varying length, with characters who are nameless and faceless, representing everyman and everywoman.
Girls at War and Other Stories by Chinua Achebe (Nigeria): A collection of 13 short stories Achebe wrote over 20 years, with the earliest dating back to his student days at Ibadan, Nigeria, and the latest to stories of the Nigerian civil war. This was the first collection of Achebe short stories to be made available to a wide public. “Girls at War”, the title story, is about the tragic effects of war on the civilian population, in particular on one girl, who starts with high ideals, which vanish as the war drags on and the need for food replaces the need for ideals.
