Our regular Book Digest segment spotlights new books from Jessica Horn, Ivana Akotowaa Ofori, Maaza Mengiste, and Tinga Maluvana.
African Feminist Praxis by Jessica Horn
Publisher: Sage Publications
Date: December 19, 2024
Genre: Nonfiction
Language: English
Where to find it: Sage Publications
Jessica Horn
Jessica Horn is a feminist writer and inter-disciplinary practitioner. Grounded in work around body politics she has spent over two decades bridging policy, resourcing, research, organising and creative production for transformative feminist change in Africa and globally. A thought leader in the social justice field, Jessica′s research and analysis has been published in a range of academic, media and popular platforms. She pioneered the first regional African feminist futures initiative while at the African Women’s Development Fund and is the author of the Cutting Edge Pack on Gender and Social Movements (BRIDGE/Institute for Development Studies). Jessica is a founding member of the African Feminist Forum and served on The Lancet Commission on Gender and Global Health. She lives in Nairobi, Kenya.
African Feminist Praxis
So much of the story of African resistance has been told in the masculine, tracing the history of spectacle: great struggles, great speeches, the grand displays of nation building. This book adds to the literature that reverses this, exploring the flesh and breadth of contemporary African feminist politics as articulated across the African continent. It is structured around the key principles of kinship, courage, pleasure, care and memory, and draws on the African feminist academic canon, the “grey literature” of practitioner knowledge and narratives of feminists activists themselves. Through this it evidences the argument that African feminist praxis is fundamentally a politics of proposition, a mode of liberatory worldmaking.
The Social Science for Social Justice series challenges the Ivory Tower of academia, providing a platform for academics, journalists, and activists of color to respond to pressing social issues.
Anansi: New & Ancient African Tales (Myths, Gods & Immortals) by Ivana Akotowaa Ofori
Publisher: Flame Tree Press
Date: February 11, 2025
Genre: Fiction
Language: English
Where to find it: Flame Tree Press, Simon & Schuster
Ivana Akotowaa Ofori
Ivana Akotowaa Ofori is a Ghanaian storyteller. She is a weaver of words in many forms, including fiction, non-fiction, and spoken-word poetry. A 2023 alumna of the Clarion West Six-Week Writing Workshop, Akotowaa has been nominated and shortlisted for various awards, including the Miles Morland Writing Fellowship and the Nommo Awards. Her work has appeared in anthologies such as Tor.com’s Africa Risen (2022), and Clinamen Editions’ Daring Shifts (2023) and in online magazines such as Jalada Africa and AFREADA. Her debut novella, The Year of Return was published in 2024 by Android Press. She lives in Accra, Ghana.
Anansi: New & Ancient African Tales (Myths, Gods & Immortals)
Building on the popularity of mythological retellings, here’s a new book, with new stories and a fascinating introduction to the enigmatic Anansi.
A beautiful collectable edition. Gorgeous collectable edition. Anansi is at once a creator god, a trickster folk hero, a wily spider and a heroic symbol of resistance. From his origins in West African folklore, to his lauded status in Jamaican culture, Anansi is a versatile immortal whose many stories reflect the early world of his origins, and the potential for re-imagination. Sometimes dark and chilling, occasionally light-hearted, but always lively and clever, Anansi appears in the lives of everyday folk, pricks the pomposity of the mighty and in this collection of new stories, appears in the modern and the ancient world, a symbol still of individuality and resilience, adapting to city life, with the undertow of ancient lore ever-present. Introductory essay by Ivana Akotowaa Ofori, and foreword by Emily Zobel Marshall. The modern authors whose stories feature in this book are: Ian Ableson, Benjamin Cyril Arthur, Bernice Arthur, Emmanuel Blavo, Bryoni Campbell, Sara Chisolm, Yazeed Dele-Azeez, A.L. Dawn French, Yeayi Kobina, Alina Mereșescu, Ella N’Diaye, Florence Onyango, Frances Pauli, Shruti Ramesh, Peter K. Rothe, and Chisom Umeh.
Servil by Tinga Maluvana
Publisher: Catalogus
Date: February 20, 2025
Genre: Fiction
Language: Portuguese
Where to find it: Catalogus
Tinga Maluvana
Tinga Maluvana is a Mozambican writer who had texts, in an anthology alongside two other colleagues 15 passos 100 10 contos. He also had poems published in the now defunct weekly newspaper Dumbanengue. His debut novel was Eco do Pedestre Oco (2022).
Servil
“SerVil” takes us on a trailer-style dive into the lives and journeys involved in the slavery process, one of the darkest periods in human history, approaching this era not only as a historical fact, but as a profound and painful human experience. And it is in Mozambique, from the Port of Quelimane that a journey of disappointments and unlikely loves takes place.
Sotto Lo Sguardo Del Leone by Maaza Mengiste
Publisher: Einaudi
Date: February 25, 2025
Genre: Fiction
Language: Italian (Translated from English by Anna Nadotti)
Where to find it: Einaudi
Maaza Mengiste
Maaza Mengiste is an Ethiopian-American writer. Her novels include Beneath the Lion’s Gaze (2010) and The Shadow King (2019), which was shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize.
Sotto Lo Sguardo Del Leone
Mentre per le strade dell’Addis Abeba del 1974 si rovescia la rabbia verso le politiche dell’impero, Hailu estrae un proiettile dalla schiena di un ragazzo ferito a un corteo. Muove il bisturi con le mani autorevoli di chi è abituato a curare. La medicina gli impone efficienza, rigore, distacco. Eppure in quella sala operatoria Hailu pensa a suo figlio Dawit, forse coe- taneo del paziente a cui cerca di salvare la vita. Forse anche lui tra i dimostranti furiosi che sfidano la milizia di Hailé Selassié impegnata a sedare i disordini. In quei giorni Hailu si preoccupa per Dawit: come tanti etiopi, il giovane è convinto che la ribellione possa cambiare le sorti del paese destinato al declino sotto la guida di un sovrano vecchio e stanco, ma non considera i rischi. Benché incrollabili, gli ideali non potrebbero fargli da scudo contro le armi dell’esercito. Se solo sua moglie Selam non fosse imprigionata in un letto d’ospedale in balía di un cuore debole, magari riuscirebbe a placare Dawit, perché il loro è un legame speciale. Del resto la malattia di Selam ha incrinato l’equilibrio di tutta la famiglia, e nella casa sulle alture intorno alla città ognuno declina il dolore a modo suo. Hailu, sopraffatto dalla paura di un futuro senza l’amata sposa, cerca nella scienza un conforto impossibile; Yonas, il figlio maggiore, si inginocchia nella stanza di preghiera, chiuso nel silenzio di un senso di colpa; Sara, sua moglie, attinge la forza da un passato difficile anche per la loro figlia, la piccola Tizita; Dawit spesso riversa nei veloci movimenti della danza insegnatagli dalla madre l’inquietudine che si agita dentro di lui e nel mondo che lo circonda. A sconvolgere le loro vite, e l’Etiopia intera, arriva la Storia: il 12 settembre 1974 con il colpo di stato del Derg viene deposto Hailé Selassié, ultimo imperatore. È l’inizio di un tempo scandito dalla violenza, in cui tutti sono chiamati a scegliere: ubbidire o tenere fede ai propri principî, consegnarsi a una facile salvezza o abbracciare il coraggio di lottare.
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