African - Literature    -   Book News

From Africa Research International www.africaresearch.org

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Why We Write: Conversations with African Canadian Poets and Novelists

In this volume, African Canadian creative writers discuss the complexities of the writing experience. Most of the writers interviewed here are humanists:  they see their work as serious depictions of the human condition, admit that their works are informed by an African Canadian ontology, and adhere to the notion that their books must delight and instruct. These interviews, therefore, are valuable additions to the creative process of the individual writers. Apart from identifying how the writers’ geographical and social origins have influenced their work, these writers also respond to the exigencies of craft, the manipulations of publishers, the criticism of readers, and the absence of a clearly identifiable market for their works. The writers include Austin Clarke, Bernadette Dyer, Althea Prince, Afua Cooper, M. Nourbese Philip, Cecil Foster, Lawrence Hill, David Woods, George Elliot Clarke, Wayde Compton, Robert Sandiford, Suzette Mayr, Claire Harris, Pamela Mordecai, and Ayanna Black.

   Publishers: Tsar Books   

Songs of the Fireplace

In Songs of the Fireplace Onwudinjo focuses on the tribulations and triumphs of the childless woman in an African patriarchy. Structured as ballads, these poems tenderly evoke the plight of an Igbo housewife and her struggles to hold her ground in the face of domestic and societal aggression towards her childlessness situation. It is said that with these ballads, which lure the reader to their wealth of ideation, the Ugandan poet Okot p'Bitek  has finally begotten a literary son in Nigeria's Peter Onwudinjo.

Publishers: Wusen Ltd.

Eclipse in Rwanda

Eclipse in Rwanda is a metaphor for the litany of conflicts ravaging Africa, from the backstreets of villages through the cities and corridors of political power. Joe Ushie, the poet, brings freshness and maturity to enliven his metaphors and neologisms. Puns and sounds create new levels of meaning. Ecipse in Rwanda is a remarkable addition to Africa's search for peace and a new dawn since colonialism and imperialism.

Publishers: Kraftgriots Ltd.

Millennial

Chin Ce's recent volume of poetry since two decades of Full Moon and African Eclipse. It is, in the words of the poet, 'the product of additional years of travel and sojourn through the lands of, rightly, my mothers and fathers. These journeys,' he notes, 'are both physical and, even more importantly, ...spiritual --the latter bordering on aspects of a heritage that transcends spatial and temporal dimensions of reality at least for us all in the human family.' In lucid viewpoints and gentle rebukes, the poet makes these memories blossom in a new awareness of  reality that is as much present here as in his Visitor tale.

Publishers: Handel Books.