We wrap up book news for our readers in our regular Book Digest segment with books from Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, Richard Oduor Oduku, Sindiwe Magona, and Frances Mensah Williams.
A Spell of Good Things by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Date: February 7, 2023
Genre: Fiction
Language: English
Where to find it: Click here.
Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀
Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ was born in Lagos, Nigeria. Her debut novel, Stay with Me, won the 9mobile Prize for Literature, was shortlisted for the Baileys Prize for Women’s Fiction, the Wellcome Book Prize, and the Kwani? Manuscript Prize. It has been translated into twenty languages and the French translation was awarded the Prix Les Afriques. Longlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award, Stay with Me was a New York Times, Guardian, Chicago Tribune, and NPR Best Book of the Year.
A Spell of Good Things
A dazzling story of modern Nigeria and two families caught in the riptides of wealth, power, romantic obsession, and political corruption from the celebrated author of Stay with Me, “in the lineage of great works by Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie” (The New York Times).
Eniola is tall for his age, a boy who looks like a man. Because his father has lost his job, Eniola spends his days running errands for the local tailor, collecting newspapers, begging when he must, dreaming of a big future.
Wuraola is a golden girl, the perfect child of a wealthy family. Now an exhausted young doctor in her first year of practice, she is beloved by Kunle, the volatile son of an ascendant politician.
When a local politician takes an interest in Eniola and sudden violence shatters a family party, Wuraola’s and Eniola’s lives become intertwined. In her breathtaking second novel, Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ shines her light on Nigeria, on the gaping divide between the haves and the have-nots, and the shared humanity that lives in between.
Slave, Interpreter, & Commissioner-General by Richard Oduor Oduku
Publisher: Sisi Afrika Books
Date: June 12, 2023
Genre: Nonfiction, biography
Language: English
Where to find it: Click here.
Richard Oduor Oduku
Richard Oduor Oduku is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief at Sisi Afrika Magazine. He is also a Founding Member of Jalada Africa Trust – a Pan-African collective. He was longlisted for the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) Awards 2015 and shortlisted for the 2016 Brunel International African Poetry Prize as well as the 2017 Brittle Paper Award for Essays/ Think Pieces.
Slave, Interpreter, & Commissioner-General
Slave, Interpreter, & Commissioner-General is an authorized biography of Edgar Manasseh, the first KRA Commissioner General. The story starts nearly 200 years ago with the kidnapping of Songoro by slave-catchers — a 12-year-old boy from Ngindo in present-day Malawi. His journey across distant lands began in the mid-1800s as a captive of Salim bin Abdullah, a Swahili-Arab slave trader and the progenitor of the Nkhotakota Slave Route, with a thousand other captives, herded across thousands of kilometers to Kilwa in present-day Tanzania, to be loaded as cargo in slave ships headed for Zanzibar. Many did not survive the cold, cruel, crowded conditions of the cargo hold. Out of 300 slaves loaded on a slave ship at Kilwa, sometimes only a mere 20 arrived in Zanzibar. Sick, dying, and dead slaves were thrown overboard to feed the fishes. The ship carrying Songoro did not reach the slave market in Zanzibar. It was intercepted in the high seas by the British Navy, the slaves freed, and settled in Frere Town, in Kenya.
I write the yawning void by Sindiwe Magona (compiled by Renée Schatteman)
Publisher: NYU Press, Wits University Press
Date: July 1, 2023
Genre: Nonfiction, essays
Language: English
Where to find it: Wits University Press, NYU Press
Sindiwe Magona
Sindiwe Magona is an internationally renowned South African writer who has received many awards and widespread recognition for her writing, her activism and humanitarian work. She has written novels, children’s books, short stories, poetry, biographies, autobiographies, essays, radio plays, and a screenplay. Magona was awarded the Order of iKhamanga by the President of the Republic of South Africa in 2011. She is Senior Research Fellow at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa.
Renée Schatteman is Associate Professor at Georgia State University (USA) specialising in postcolonial literature. Among other books she is the co-author of Voices from the Continent, a three-volume curriculum guide to African literature and co-editor of Five Points: Special Issue on the Writing and Art of South Africa.
I write the yawning void
Sindiwe Magona is a celebrated South African writer, storyteller, and motivational speaker known mainly for her autobiographies, biographies, novels, short stories, poetry and children’s books. I Write the Yawning Void is a collection of essays that highlight her engagement with writing that span the transition from apartheid to the post-apartheid period and addresses themes such as HIV/Aids, language and culture, home and belonging. Magona worked as a teacher, domestic worker and spent two decades working for the United Nations in the United States of America. She has received many awards for her fearless writing ‘truth to power’. Her written work is often informed by her lived experience of being a black woman resisting subjugation and poverty. These essays bring to life many facets of Magona’s personal history as well as her deepest convictions, her love for her country and despair at the problems that continue to plague it, and her belief in her ability to activate change. They demonstrate Magona’s engaging storytelling and mastery of the essay form which serve as meaningful supplements to her fictional works, while simultaneously offering insightful responses to the conditions that inspired them.
Strictly Friends by Frances Mensah Williams
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Date: March 16, 2023
Genre: Fiction
Language: English
Where to find it: Amazon.
Frances Mensah Williams
Frances Mensah Williams spent her early childhood between the USA, Austria, and Ghana before settling in the UK. Her acclaimed first novel From Pasta to Pigfoot was published in 2015 and the sequel From Pasta to Pigfoot: Second Helpings in 2016. Her third novel Imperfect Arrangements (2020) was followed by the Marula Heights series of standalone novellas, RiverWild and Sweet Mercy, set in contemporary Ghana.
Strictly Friends
When Ruby Lamont’s young son Jake starts telling tall tales about the dad who walked out on them six years ago, she realises that, for her son’s sake, it’s time to find out the truth. It’s not that she wants Kenny back in her life—her best friend, charming commitment-phobe Griffin, has always been more of a father-figure to Jake—but if she can understand why Kenny broke her heart by leaving her, perhaps she and Jake can finally move on.
Their journey takes them to heart-shaped Sorrel Island, a Caribbean paradise that according to legend was created as an enchanted refuge for lovers. For no-nonsense Ruby, romance is the last thing on her mind. Spoiling for a fight, she confronts her runaway ex, who claims he’s a changed man. Just as Ruby’s starting to remember what she saw in Kenny, gorgeous American portrait artist Mac propositions her for a role as his muse, or more … and when Griffin shows up out of the blue, seemingly with more on his mind than friendly moral support, the tropical heat builds to an inferno.
With sparks of lust and jealousy flying in all directions, Ruby has to wonder whether the magic of Sorrel Island is more than just a legend. Shaken out of her state of romantic limbo, she must discover whether people really can change or if paradise has been on her doorstep all along.
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