In our regular Book Digest segment, we spotlight new books from Tunde Leye, Albrin Junior, Gloria Blizzard, and Kim Robinson-Walcott.
You Have to Harden Your Heart by Kim Robinson-Walcott
Publisher: Blouse & Skirt Books
Date: December 1, 2024
Genre: Fiction
Language: English
Where to find it: Blue Banyan Books
Kim Robinson-Walcott
Kim Robinson-Walcott is editor/head of Caribbean Quarterly, University of the West Indies, Mona. She is also the editor of Jamaica Journal, published by the Institute of Jamaica. Her publications include the scholarly work Out of Order! Anthony Winkler and White West Indian Writing (UWI Press, 2006), Jamaican Art (Kingston Publishers, 1989, 2011) which she co-authored, The How to Be Jamaican Handbook (Jamrite Publications, 1988) which she co-authored and illustrated, and the children’s book Dale’s Mango Tree (Kingston Publishers, 1992), which she also illustrated. Her scholarly articles, book chapters, short stories, and poems have been published in a number of journals and anthologies.
You Have to Harden Your Heart
You Have to Harden Your Heart is an immersion into the vibrant, raw, and dynamic heart of Kingston’s urban sprawl. This collection of Jamaican short stories move from among those who live in and on the edge of gullies – the arteries of the city – to the sprawling mansions with their manicured lawns on its outskirts. These often visceral stories are unflinching as they expose the taut, turbulent dynamics pulsing beneath the surface of the city’s complex human tapestry.
Masterfully crafted, the stories in this thematically eclectic collection are a potent literary journey awash in the primal energy coursing through Kingston – the poignant and evocative, the depraved and transcendent and always, the flawed.
Fireflies on the Lagoon Novel By Tunde Leye
Publisher: Masobe Books
Date: November 25, 2024
Genre: Fiction, Historical
Language: English
Where to find it: Masobe Books, Amazon
Tunde Leye
Tunde Leye is the author of several books, including the critically acclaimed Afonja The Rise and Afonja The Fall, as well as children’s books Aganju and The Rat Race. He is a storyteller, who has told stories in prose, stage, film and documentaries. His work has been featured on various platforms including streaming, festivals within and outside Africa and in cinema. He currently divides his time between his native Nigeria and the United Kingdom.
Fireflies on the Lagoon
Lagos 1834
The royals maintain a stranglehold on the city’s lucrative slave trade, and battle foes with vested interests in its affairs—until now . . .
Prince Kosoko’s life as a spare who would never sit on the throne as the Oba of Lagos comes with undeniable perks. Like boat loads of slaves docking on the busiest trading coast on the West African shoreline and the baskets laden with cowries, gold, trinkets and the finest of fabrics. Like the thrill of seducing a beautiful, forbidden woman betrothed to a powerful man.
In Badagry, Adele, an exiled king and Kosoko’s uncle, is plotting with his newly married wife, Iyaoba Efunroye and the embittered kingmaker Eletu Odibo to disrupt the kingship of Idewu Ojulari, Kosoko’s brother, the unpopular king whose reign has been marred by an economic downturn. With the British eyeing ownership of Lagos, and pressure mounting from the Benin Kingdom, Idewu’s throne is sitting on a powder keg; and a single spark could lead to a cascade of events that would bring it all tumbling down.
Inspired by true events, Fireflies on the Lagoon is a tale of ambition and betrayal, where the destinies of a princess, a prince, an exiled king and an embittered kingmaker collide in a struggle for the soul of Lagos. Their lives intertwine and unravel as the city is smothered by colonial interference, culminating in a climax that would forever alter the course of history.
From Glasgow Without Love: A Collection Beyond Fiction by Albrin Junior
Publisher: Brown Dog Books
Date: December 19, 2024
Genre: Fiction, short stories
Language: English
Where to find it: Brown Dog Books, Waterstones
Albrin Junior
Albrin Junior is an award-winning author, poet, scriptwriter, and director.
From Glasgow Without Love: A Collection Beyond Fiction
From Glasgow Without Love is an evocative collection of ten compelling stories that encapsulate the intricate tapestry of human experience, inspired by a cold shivering night the author slept at the Buchanan bus station, Glasgow. This work explores themes of love, immigration, and identity through the lens of diverse characters navigating their realities. From the heart-wrenching journey of a black immigrant facing deportation in the titular story to the tragic aftermath of a queer one-night stand in ‘One Gay Night’, each narrative delves deeply into the struggles and triumphs of its protagonists. Set between Nigeria and Glasgow, the characters in the collection reveal the chaotic vibrancy of modern life by bringing a vivid context to these poignant tales. Interweaving humour and heartache, this collection masterfully captures the essence of resilience and the universal quest for connection, ultimately illuminating the beauty and complexity of the human spirit.
Black Cake, Turtle Soup, and Other Dilemmas by Gloria Blizzard
Publisher: Dundurn Press
Date: July 2, 2024
Genre: Nonfiction
Language: English
Where to find it: Dundurn Press
Gloria Blizzard
Gloria Blizzard a Black Canadian woman of multiple heritages, is an award-winning writer and poet. Her work has received the Malahat Review Open Season Creative Non Fiction prize, has been nominated for the Queen Mary Wasafiri Life Writing prize, the Pushcart prize, and the National Magazine Award, Personal Journalism. Gloria holds a Master of Fine Arts in creative nonfiction from the University of King’s College, Canada. Black Cake, Turtle Soup, and Other Dilemmas is her first book of essays.
Black Cake, Turtle Soup, and Other Dilemmas
A diasporic collection of essays on music, memory, and motion. In this powerful and deeply personal essay collection, Gloria Blizzard, in an international diasporic quest, moves up and down an urban subway line; between Canada and Trinidad; to and from a hospital emergency room; back and forth in time ― and as a descendent of Africa living in the Americas, negotiates the complexities of culture, geography, race, and language. Through food, music, dance, and family history, Blizzard explores the art of belonging ― to a family, a neighbourhood, a group, or a country. Using traditional narrative and the tools of poetry, Blizzard’s essays hover at the crossroads, in the spaces where art, science, and spirit collide. The intimate becomes universal, the questions are all relevant, and the answers of our times require a sleight of hand ― the holding of simultaneous and overlapping worlds.
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