In our regular Book Digest segment, we spotlight new books from Chido Muchemwa, Lynda Chouiten, Tomilola Coco Adeyemo, and Dreda Say Mitchell.
Who Will Bury You by Chido Muchemwa
Publisher: House of Anansi Press Inc
Date: October 8, 2024
Genre: Fiction
Language: English
Where to find it: House of Anansi Press Inc
Chido Muchemwa
Chido Muchemwa is a Zimbabwean writer living in Toronto. Her work has appeared in Lolwe, Augur, Catapult, Baltimore Review, and PRISM international, among others. She has been shortlisted twice for the Short Story Day Africa Prize, and she was the winner of the 2022 Bridge Prize.
Who Will Bury You
Intimate stories about Zimbabweans in moments of transition that force them to decide who they really are and choose the people they call their own.
Set in Toronto and Zimbabwe, the twelve elegant stories in Who Will Bury You? touch on themes of loss, identity, and inequality as they follow the lives of Zimbabweans who often feel like they are on the outside looking in. A mother and daughter navigate new relationship dynamics when the daughter comes out as a lesbian. Two sisters wonder what will hold them together after their grandmother’s death. A daughter tries to tell her father she loves him as she prepares to leave home for the first time. A journalist takes her grieving mother on a trip to report on girls who are allegedly being abducted by mermaids. A girl born to be the river god’s wife becomes a hero when chaos breaks out in the mighty Zambezi. A group of mothers discover just how far they are willing to go to protect their children during wartime.
Ephemeral yet beautifully satisfying, the stories in Chido Muchemwa’s debut collection ask what makes people leave home, what makes them come back, and what keeps them there.
Les Blattes Orgueilleuses by Lynda Chouiten
Publisher: Casbah Editions
Date: October 7, 2024
Genre: Fiction
Language: French
Where to find it: Casbah Editions, Booxium
Lynda Chouiten
Lynda Chouiten holds a PhD awarded by the National University of Ireland, Galway, and is Professor of Anglophone literature at the University of Boumerdes (Algeria). She is the author of several articles on literary criticism and two academic books, published respectively in the USA and the UK: a study of the work of Isabelle Eberhardt and a collective volume on authority. Lynda Chouiten has also published two novels: Le Roman des Pôv’Cheveux (Algiers: El Kalima, 2017) was a finalist for the Mohamed Dib and L’Escale d’Alger literary prizes, and Une Valse (Algiers: Casbah, 2022) won the Grand Prix Assia Djebar in December of the same year. In March 2022, Chouiten published Des Rêves à them reach, her first short story collection.
Les Blattes orgueilleuses (English: The proud cockroaches)
Having lost her fiancé in obscure circumstances in which she suspects her father was involved, Nora Bordji has only one obsession: to get married before she is thirty-six – the age Marilyn Monroe, with whom she identifies, was when she committed suicide. Meanwhile, her colleague Akli Signa and his three friends debate the history of the country while being intrigued by the frail and disconcerting Rosa Dey. This takes place in 2019, the year when grandiose marches shake Algeria, affecting the lives of these six characters in unexpected ways.
A Very Gidi Christmas By Tomilola Coco Adeyemo
Publisher: Masobe Books
Date: October 28, 2024
Genre: Fiction
Language: English
Where to find it: Masobe Books
Tomilola Coco Adeyemo
Tomilola Coco Adeyemo grew up in Ibadan. She attended the Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Dramatic Arts and the sheer audacity to pursue writing as a career. She found early success in Nollywood with credits on hit TV shows, documentaries and Nigeria’s first feature-length animation. Tomilola lives in Lagos Nigeria and her interests include but are not limited to old music, sitcoms, coffee, amala & ewedu and all things romance. A Very Gidi Christmas is her debut novel.
A Very Gidi Christmas
Biodun ‘BG’ Gomez faces a bleak Christmas season in Lagos. Her rent is months overdue. Her job as an OAP at Reel FM is precarious. Her co-host who she has a crush on, sees her as a friend. Instead of romance, she gets an unsolicited wink from a bus conductor at Ketu Bus Stop. She needs a Christmas miracle.
Kunle Bakare was indifferent about his reputation as a lady-killer: sometimes, he played into it. But he worked hard to stop being that man five years ago. Now, he wants to be seen as a C-suite executive who earned his seat without his family’s influence. So, he must win enough votes with Falcon PLC’s board to succeed his mother as the CEO.
Biodun and Kunle are haunted by a secret from twelve years ago that shames them both. Now, mutual enemies hidden in plain sight, reveal that secret to the world: it becomes a scandal that threatens the future of Reel FM, the growth of Falcon, their career aspirations, and fates they don’t know are intertwined.
A Very Gidi Christmas is a gift of resilience, ambition, and forgotten love wrapped in a sexy bow.
Play Dirty by Dreda Say Mitchell
Publisher: Mitchell and Joseph Ltd
Date: November 7, 2024
Genre: Fiction
Language: English
Where to find it: Fanstatic Fiction, Amazon
Dreda Say Mitchell
Louise Emma Joseph MBE, known professionally as Dreda Say Mitchell, is a British novelist, broadcaster, journalist, and campaigner. She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2020 for her services to literature and educational work in prison.
Play Dirty
IN GANGLAND MEN REIGN BUT IT’S THE WOMEN WHO RULE
THE ELECTRIFYING AND GRITTY FINALE TO THE BIG MO GANGLAND THRILLER SERIES
When an explosive incident shakes Big Mo to the core, she realises that gangland is no place to raise her young son. She wants out – for good. But when a ruthless enemy emerges, threatening to topple her empire and loved ones, Mo is forced to confront the dark crimes and secrets from her criminal family’s past.
Ducking and diving through a world of betrayal and vengeance, Mo is drawn back into the arms of old flame, Nico Sinclair, once one of London’s most notorious gangsters.
From Mayfair’s glitter to the East End’s grit, can Mo escape the underworld alive? In a game where family ties strangle and playing fair was never an option, there’s only one rule for survival: PLAY DIRTY.
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