We wrap up book news for our readers in our regular Book Digest segment with books from Magogodi Dingalo, Kossi Efoui, Chukwuebuka Ibeh, and Reem Gaafar.
Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh
Publisher: Masobe Books
Date: March 7, 2024
Genre: Poetry
Language: English
Where to find it: Masobe Books
Chukwuebuka Ibeh
Chukwuebuka Ibeh is a writer from Port Harcourt, Nigeria, born in 2000. His writing has appeared in McSweeneys, The New England Review of Books and Lolwe, amongst others, and he is a staff writer at BrittlePaper. He was the Runner-up for the 2021 J.F Powers Prize for Fiction, a finalist for the Gerald Kraak Award and Morland Foundation Scholarship, and was profiled as one of the “Most Promising New Voices of Nigerian Fiction” in Electric Literature. He has studied creative writing under Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Dave Eggers, and Tash Aw. He is currently a student on a fully funded MFA program at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
Blessings
When Obiefuna’s father witnesses an intimate moment between his teenage son and the family’s apprentice, newly arrived from the nearby village, he banishes Obiefuna to a Christian boarding school marked by strict hierarchy and routine, and devastating violence. Utterly alienated from the people he loves, Obiefuna begins a journey of self-discovery and blossoming desire, while his mother Uzoamaka grapples to hold onto her favourite son, and truest friend. Interweaving the perspectives of Obiefuna and his mother Uzoamaka, as they reach towards a future that will hold them both, BLESSINGS is an elegant and exquisitely moving story of love and loneliness. Asking how we can live freely when politics reaches into our hearts and lives, as well as deep into our consciousness, it is a stunning, searing debut.
Lost Soul by Magogodi Dingalo
Publisher: Europe Books
Date: February 22, 2024
Genre: Poetry
Language: English
Where to find it: Europe Books
Magogodi Dingalo
Magogodi Dingalo from South Africa has a bachelor’s in Literature and Diploma in Media Techniques, where she graduated with best producer for a pilot Telenovela episode, best TV promotional video and a high achiever award. Her love for writing was sparked by the iconic Drum Magazine writers in South Africa. When not writing Magogodi often finds solace in capturing moments in photography or walking the beach and reflecting on the ever-changing nature of life. In her collection she invites readers to take a jump into the unknown, further exploring the emotional complexities of our mental states. She is currently a freelancer in the film and television industry and avid volunteer for an NGO focusing on Medical Photography.
Lost Soul
Lost Soul is a work that touches the deepest chords of the human soul. Through the author’s words, we are led to reflect on life, love, loneliness and the search for the meaning of existence. The metaphors used are powerful and engaging, taking us on an emotional journey. The writing is intense and moving and leaves us with a sense of deep reflection and contemplation.
This collection is a work of art that deserves to be read and reread and will surely leave a lasting impression on the minds and hearts of those who read it.
Une magie ordinaire by Kossi Efoui
Publisher: Seuil
Date: March 3, 2023
Genre: Fiction
Language: French
Where to find it: Seuil
Kossi Efoui
Kossi Efoui, born in the Gulf of Guinea, currently lives in Nantes where he devotes himself partly to theater. An Ordinary Magic is his sixth novel, after Solo d’un revenant (2008, Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie), The Shadow of Things to Come (2011) and Cantique de l’acacia (2017).
Une magie ordinaire
There is a moment in life when the writer lays down his cards, overcome by a sort of emergency. The trigger for this moving story is a phone call from a long-lost brother, announcing that their mother is in the worst condition, in Lomé hospital. The mother who told him twenty years earlier: “Go live. Go live somewhere else and don’t come back. Who moves with a basin on his hip, hawking pieces of bread, until the day when soldiers intercept his small business, and when what must happen happens. The mother who sings to exorcise “the hard things”. Who carried him on her back well beyond the usual age, claiming that her boy had “brittle bones”. Which gave him, finally, a taste for finery, clothing and jewelry, transgressing the boundaries of genres. “The older I get, the more I look like my mother. » From this portrait of a joyful, inspired and loving woman, of a courageous mother in a world of absolute deprivation, emerges a mysterious grace which merges with the genesis of a vocation as a writer.
A Mouth Full of Salt by Reem Gaafar
Publisher: Saqi Books
Date: April 9, 2024
Genre: Fiction
Language: English
Where to find it: Saqi Books
Reem Gaafar
Reem Gaafar is a writer, physician, and filmmaker. Her writing has appeared in African Arguments, African Feminism, Teakisi Magazine, Andariya and 500 Words Magazine, among others. Her short story ‘Light of the Desert’ was published in I Know Two Sudans (Gipping Press UK, 2014) where it was awarded an Honourable Mention. Her short story ‘Finding Descartes’ was published in Relations: An Anthology of African and Diaspora Voices (HarperVia, 2023). A Mouth Full of Salt is her debut novel and Winner of the Island Prize 2023. Gaafar lives in Canada with her husband and three sons.
A Mouth Full of Salt
The Nile brought them life, but the Nile was not their friend.
A small farming village in North Sudan wakes up one morning to the news that a little boy has drowned. Soon after, the animals die of a mysterious illness and the date gardens catch fire and burn to the ground. The villagers whisper of a sorceress who dwells at the foot of the mountains. It is the dry season. The men have places to go, the women have work to do, the children play at the place where the river runs over its own banks. Sixteen-year-old Fatima yearns to leave the village for Khartoum.
In Khartoum, a single mother makes her way in a world that wants to keep girls and women back. As civil war swells, the political intrudes into the personal and her position in the capital becomes untenable. She must return to the village.
A Mouth Full of Salt uncovers a country on the brink of seismic change as its women decide for themselves which traditions are fit for purpose – and which prophecies it’s time to rewrite.
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