In the Collective We Trust

In the past few weeks, I finished a new piece for Wild River Review on an Umberto Eco lecture I attended in New York City (to be published in their June 4th issue); I wrapped up the Haiti gig; I also took some time to look for a novel by a contemporary African writer that I could possibly review for a prestigious literary journal. The search for the novel proved tedious, especially since requirements were quite stringent -- not by a mainstream publisher, not overly reviewed in the American press, and also published within the past year or forthcoming in 2009. There were times I felt hopeless, in a sense, and angry because I am fully aware of the literary talent coming out of Africa. I concluded that you have to be an insider to know where to go. Otherwise, you may very well find yourself unable to locate RECENT fiction by important African novelists.  But fret not. African Books Collective (www.africanbookscollective.com) is a resourceful conduit --  it showcases worthy titles that are being published by a handful of publishers in Africa and markets them to a much wider readership. You can, as it turns out, get most of these titles on Amazon or through a national distributor.

Brava to collective action.

Keeping the Embers Alive

About a month ago, Africa World Press published a book on musicians from Zimbabwe -- a collection of raw interviews with some of the best of the best from Zimbabwe.   

In addition, the black and white photos by Kristin Capp not only capture the musicians in true physical form, but they are also quite beautiful.

In a time when almost all incoming news on Zimbabwe tries one's human capacity for hope, Keeping the Embers Alive sheds some much-needed light on what some of us can still absolutely love about the country--and Africa--itself.

See www.africaworldpressbooks.com for more details on the book.

[Cover by Sam Saverance; photos on cover by Kristin Capp]

Heidi Holland's Dinner with Mugabe

Increasingly, I enjoy the critical and timely reviews of Percy Zvomuya in South Africa's Mail & Guardian. Thus, for this May 1 post, I select a few choice paragraphs from his March 2008 article on Holland's latest book:

Dinner with Mugabe (Penguin South Africa) is in equal measures touching and enthralling, damning and well-researched, reflective and pacily written. It's a psychological biography of the hero of the 1970s independence war against Ian Smith's government.

And then this, with revealing observation:

The difficulty with this kind of book is obvious: how do you get people to talk about the subject as honestly and truthfully as possibly -- and to a white woman? For, after all, even Mugabe's grip on power grows more tenuous while he still retains that power. I found, for instance, the account by Patricia Bekele, Sally Mugabe's niece, to be fluffy and idealistic. She obviously can't say anything really damning, even though Sally's last days were not particularly rosy especially when Grace Mugabe, then part of Mugabe's secretarial pool, became his mistress. The same criticism could be valid in the parts Holland interviews Donato.

The picture of the early Mugabe is that of a loner, an unambitious person, who is thrust into the leadership of a violent organisation, very much against his will. Tekere says he found Mugabe exasperating, indeed, infuriating whenever Mugabe blocked moves to purge leadership -- even in cases in which Mugabe stood to benefit. "At no stage do you find him doing anything to promote himself to a position of leadership. It's very strange. Even in Mozambique and at Lancaster House he seemed to be almost unambitious."

How little one knows or assumes...sometimes.

Read more at: www.mg.co.za