We wrap up book news for our readers in our regular Book Digest segment with books from Percival Everett, Efua Traore, Ayi Renaud Dossavi, and Khadejatou Sall.
James by Percival Everett
Publisher: Doubleday
Date: March 19, 2024
Genre: Fiction
Language: English
Where to find it: Penguin Random House
Percival Everett
Percival Everett is a Distinguished Professor of English at USC. His most recent books include Dr. No (finalist for the NBCC Award for Fiction and winner of the PEN/ Jean Stein Book Award), The Trees (finalist for the Booker Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction), Telephone (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), So Much Blue, Erasure, and I Am Not Sidney Poitier. He has received the NBCC Ivan Sandrof Life Achievement Award and The Windham Campbell Prize from Yale University. American Fiction, the feature film based on his novel Erasure, was released in 2023 and was awarded the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, the writer Danzy Senna, and their children
James
When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.
While many narrative set pieces of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river’s banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin…), Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.
Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a “literary icon” (Oprah Daily), and one of the most decorated writers of our lifetime, James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature.
Sister Sister by Efua Traore
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Date: April 11, 2024
Genre: Young Adult, Fiction
Language: English
Where to find it: Bloomsbury Publishing,
Efua Traore
Efua Traoré is a Nigerian-German story writer. She won the regional Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2018 and was nominated for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize in 2022.
Sister Sister
A supernatural thriller, blending African myth, friendship, romance and self-discovery from prize-winning author, Efua Traoré.
Sixteen-year-old adopted Tara has questions – about who she is, where she belongs, why she dreams…
When her nightmares darken, fears swarm like a flock of ravens and she traces her visions to the ancient Olumo Rock in Nigeria. It is a sacred place, full of magic, myth, and where whispers of the past linger.
Travelling from England and enrolling in a boarding school at the foot of Olumo, Tara begins a journey to seek the truth of her roots and the spirits that pursue her.
Pour Les Beaux Yeux Du Monde by Ayi Renaud Dossavi
Publisher: Editions Agau
Genre: Poetry
Language: French
Where to find it: Click here.
Ayi Renaud Dossavi
Ayi Renaud Dossavi is a young Togolese writer. A biologist by training, he is the author of 6 works; and winner of numerous writing prizes (including the 2019 Blog4Dev Prize from the World Bank for Togo, and the 1st Prize in the “Africa of my Dreams” Competition, from the African Development Bank). He is also distinguished in his country, Officer of the Order of National Merit. His previous collection of poems “Chants de sable” notably won the “France Togo” literary prize in 2018, and the Komlan Messan Nubukpo Literary Prize in 2021.
Pour Les Beaux Yeux Du Monde
Pour Les Beaux Yeux Du Monde (English: For the Beautiful Eyes of the World) is a song to life, beauty and hope, from the shores of the Gulf of Guinea. An ode to all the hearts of the Earth. The book recounts the life and a half of the inhabitants of Lomé and elsewhere, valiant guardians of a piece of paradise, who fight every day to keep hell away. What each word of this collection sings about is the fierce beauty of things that know they must fight to live. Fighting against oblivion, against hunger, against silence and despair. Life is Struggle, Poetry tells this war. And why always fight, despite the stifling heat of the sand, the burn of the whip and the slap of refusal? …because life, all life, deserves to be lived to the end, from Lomé to Cinkassé, from Dakar to Djibouti, from New Delhi to New York. Why fight, against all odds? “ For the beautiful people of the world”, replies the poet!
Chroniques d’un des sables by Khadijetou Sall
Publisher: Harmattan Senegal
Date: April 24, 2024
Genre: Fiction
Language: French
Where to find it: Editions Harmattan
Khadijetou Sall
Khadijetou Sall, born in Dakar and of Mauritanian origin, began her career as a social worker after her studies at the Institute of Labour and Social Service of Tunis in 1975. She joined the Mauritanian civil service in 1976, working at the Ministry of Family Protection and Social Affairs. She also held various positions in the departments of Women, Health, and Social Affairs. Since her retirement in 2012, she has devoted herself to her passions for reading and writing.
Chroniques d’un des sables
Oumar, thirsty for a future in Europe, pushes Maimouna, his mother, to sell all her jewelry to finance his trip to El Dorado. Mouna and Oumou, her mother, consider marriage with a rich man as an escape from poverty. Begging ravages society, even exploiting children, like Hedou, mistreated by his aunt Lehniya. Alassane, qualified and competent, discovers that professional success is not guaranteed. Assiyatou, working in the administration, witnesses reprehensible behavior tolerated by society. Ramla, a Bedouin confronted with modernity, feels sadness and bitterness. Thierno Yéro, corrupt marabout, exploits his followers. Chronicles of a Land of Sands offers a fictional immersion into “Nouakchottoise” life with dramatic and comical scenes, describing sometimes bygone places.
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