I've been reading TELLING TALES edited by Nadine Gordimer, a collection of short stories by 21 writers from around the globe who gave their pieces without fees so that "profits from the sale of the book could go to HIV/AIDS preventative education and ... medical treatment." It is quite a line-up of literary luminaries, but I've just focused on the African writers.

Down the Quiet Street by Es'kia Mphahlele describes an amusing tale of a police officer who discovers criminal activities (or not) taking place under his nose in the form of funeral processions. He, and we, are left guessing. Charming. Mphahlele's famous DOWN SECOND AVENUE describes people I knew as a teen, so I have a soft spot for him, and am very sorry to hear that he died on Monday.

The far darker Death of a Son by Njabulo S. Ndebele follows a couple dealing with grief and its effect on their relationship when their young child is shot by patrolling soldiers. Now, I should have felt a connection to this story. Military vehicles patrolled our township in exactly the same manner, and in fact I remember a baby killed by a stray bullet while his mother did nothing more sinister than sit on her verandah. And yet, I felt the heart was lacking from this story - it was hard to make a connection with the characters. For me, flawed by slightly stilted writing.

Chinua Achebe's Sugar Baby was wonderful! I have only read his novels, rather than his short stories, but on the basis of this offering will search out the book from which it is extracted: GIRLS AT WAR AND OTHER STORIES. It surprises with subtle humour in the rather unlikely subject of food scarcity during the Biafran War - what do you do in these circumstances if you have a sweet tooth and feel deprived?!

Cletus and I made the journey on the following Saturday and found Father Doherty in a reasonably good mood for a man who had just spent six nights running at the airport unloading relief planes in pitch darkness under fairly constant air bombardment...

I spoke up first. I had a problem with hay fever and would like some antihistamine tablets if he had any in stock. "Certainly," he said, "most certainly. I have the very thing for you. Father Joseph has the same complaint, so I always keep some." He disappeared again and I could hear him saying: "Hay fever, hay fever, hay fever" like a man looking for a title in a well-stocked bookshelf, and then: "There we are!" Soon he emerged with a small bottle. "Everything here is in German," he said, studying the label with a squint. "Do you read German?"
"No."
"Nor do I. Try taking one thrice daily and see how you feel."
"Thank you, Father."
"Next!" he said jovially... (pp.139-140)

As to the obsession with sugar (or the lack of it) you'll have to find a copy for yourselves!

Gordimer's own offering, The Ultimate Safari, threw me for a loop and therefore warrants its own post. More later.

It is hard to feel sympathy for Isa ad-Dabbagh, as it is always hard to feel sympathy over an extended period for anyone who feels relentlessly sorry for themselves. Naguib Mahfouz's AUTUMN QUAIL begins with Egypt's 1952 Revolution. Isa is dismissed from government on corruption charges and arrives home to his mother's questions:

Fortunately she did not know anything. Walking slowly around the house, he thought about how expensive it was. He couldn't possibly keep it now. Two years' salary, even added to what was left in the bank of the umdas' gifts, wouldn't last longer than two years. All those objects decorating the entrance, the reception room, and the library were "gifts" too. Certainly the crooks outnumbered the people who had been dismissed for crookedness. He was guilty, though, and so were his friends: what had happened to the good old days? Gifts were forbidden, after all, a mark of corruption. But this sudden loss of everything, just when he was on the threshold of a senior position, which would have led to the minister's chair! How could you live in a world where people forgot or pretended to forget, where there were so many others who gloated over the whole thing with unfeeling malice, where hard-won honors were being stripped away and vices trundled out and exposed, unfurled like so many flags? (p.60)

And so he goes one: whinge, whinge whinge through page after page. Don't get me started on corrupt and bullying (or worse) officials, South African history is littered with them. I have no time for the oft repeated excuses of "I didn't know" or "It wasn't me." Isa describes it as "...the harsh circumstances which often forced us to do things we didn't like doing" and pointing out that everyone around him did the same.

As his life spirals out of control, mirrored by political events in the country (the nationalization of the Suez Canal; the invasion of Egypt), Isa slouches from gambling table, to drinking den, using up his savings and in the process treating women abominably and generally irritating friends and family who are baffled by his behaviour. He is unable to make decisions about his future because he is so mired in the past and his perceived unjust dismissal (even though he is the first to admit the corruption charges are justified) both from work, but also by his fiancee's family. Just as we begin to lose patience, Mahfouz delivers an understated masterstroke to the plot. It would spoil the book for anyone who might read it (nor, to be honest, am I sure I could adequately describe it) so I won't discuss it here. Let's just say that instead of feeling I'd like to deposit the book at the first charity shop I came to, I now want to read it again. Immediately.

Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988 and died in 2006. Hisham Matar recalls attending a soiree with Mahfouz here.

I selected this book for the Africa Reading Challenge.

Thanks to the Africa Reading Challenge hosted over at siphoning off a few thoughts, I've finally managed to prioritize reading the fantastically named MY MERCEDES IS BIGGER THAN YOURS by Nkem Nwankwo. Onuma in fact swans around in a gold Jaguar, rather than a Mercedes, but that's just nit-picking - the Mercedes appears several times throughout the book in the hands of other drivers as a status symbol. At one point Onuma, sans Jaguar, refuses to take public transport because of the drop in status he feels this shows, and a lift he is offered in an aquaintance's Mercedes rankles hugely. Nwankwo's satirical take on changes in Nigerian civil life was published in 1975 and is long out of print. It has a couple of psychedelically orange-coloured ladies on the cover looking heavenwards towards a floating Mercedes emblem (if I can ever figure out how to scan and upload images, I'll be sure to show you this one!). Nwankwo produced two books of stories for teens and his first novel DANDA (1964) before this title. His third novel THE SCAPEGOAT (1984) was, I understand his last. All of these books are now out of print.

I must admit the opening page nearly put me off the entire experience, and is frankly well deserving of the Bad Sex in Fiction Award (look away now if you think you might be offended!):

Once upon a time a young man was savouring the pleasures of a new car. He was thinking that there were really occasions when a car seemed to drive itself as it were, seemed to respond to some remote stimulus independent of the driver. It had its moments of cursedness, of course, when it whined and snorted for no particular reason, then there were moments of heavenly smoothness when it floated on the crest of some intangible wave.
It was like when you have gone into a woman. Some of the time is taken up with clumsy flopping about; trying futilely to find the perfect position and rhythm. Then there are moments of complete synchronization of limbs which seem to come about without effort. There is then an access of energy and the two bodies seem to fuse into one through some mysterious alchemy of blood. Desire and the explosions of joy in tidal waves originating from impulses as mysterious as they are arbitrary. (p.1)

Okaaaay. A little over the top! Judicious editing would have helped this book along - unfortunately for the reader there are similar passages dotted about throughout the book although I suppose these serve to remind us that all Onuma is interested in (other than accruing wealth and status) are cars and women. The quotation above continues:

He would soon be home. Already familiar landmarks were flashing by: occasional clusters of giant trees, the scene of childhood escapades, wooden stores and brothels that stood where once, in his memory, had been wide lawns and friendly trees. Hard-boiled as the young man was, or thought he was, the prospect of the clearing in the forest he knew as home never failed to move him deeply. Involuntarily he broke into a song of praise to home.The song and the exhilaration of spirits and the effortless drive through the balmy twilight almost brought tears to his eyes. He waved to a number of naked children who were grubbing about by the wayside. He failed to notice their nakedness and squalor. He saw them only through the haze of his happiness. My people! My country! he thought. His sense of well-being seemed an augury of a happy return. (p.2)

Why not have left out the first sexed-up bit and simply opened with the second quotation? The latter quotation illustrates why the book is worth reading, capturing homecoming after years of living elsewhere perfectly.

So it is that Onuma, having made some money in the urban metropolis, returns to his home village after a fifteen year absence, to prove how well he has done to both the family and the extended community. Pride (as always) comes before a fall, however, and the story follows what happens as Onuma gets caught up in showing off rather than simply enjoying the pleasures of home. Nwankwo's descriptions of rural village life are grittily observed and make the book worth reading. Local politics rears its ugly head, as do issues related to family ties, and of course all of this is tied up with the fate of the golden jaguar...

A month ago I gave birth to a daughter - at 8lb 15oz and 54cm, a not so very little person! She is delightful and now that I am extracting the matchsticks keeping my eyes open and properly enjoying her, it is much more of a pleasure. I intend to indoctrinate her in the art of reading as soon as possible; in the meantime she is in staring-intently-at-everything mode.

This experience has of course made me reflect somewhat on motherhood, so I revisited J.M.Coetzee's fabulous BOYHOOD. As a memoir rather than autobiography it is of course not entirely clear how much is truth and how much fictionalized, but what I recalled starkly was the boy Coetzee's relationship with his parents, and particularly with his mother:

Her blinding, overwhelming, self-sacrificial love, for both him and his brother but for him in particular, disturbs him. He wishes she did not love him so much. She loves him absolutely, therefore he must love her absolutely: that is the logic she compels upon him. Never will he be able to pay back all the love she pours out upon him. The thought of a lifetime bowed under a debt of love baffles and infuriates him to the point where he will not kiss her, refuses to be touched by her. When she turns away in silent hurt, he deliberately hardens his heart against her, refusing to give in (p. 47).

It is as I remember, a strange love-hate relationship on his part, because his love for her is of course also immense and the closing parts of the book recount his defence of his mother and breakdown of his relationship with a father he has come to despise as much as he feels trapped by his mother. All very strange to me, yet fascinating. Whatever happened to love as a gift, rather than obligation?

Perhaps it is a boy thing. Cornflower is hosting a reading group and a recent title selected there, William Maxwell's THEY CAME LIKE SWALLOWS, had this wonderful passage which made me laugh:

When Bunny was very small he used to wake in the night sometimes with a parched throat and call for a drink of water. Then he would hear stumbling and lurching, and the sound of water running in the bathroom. The side of a glass struck his teeth. He drank thirstily and fell back into sleep.... Until one night across the intervening darkness, from the room directly across the hall, a voice said, Oh, get it yourself! For the first time in his life Bunny was made aware of the fact that he had a father. And thoroughly shocked, he did as he was told. (pp.15-16)

Are little boys really so mother-centric, and should one assume that contrast little girls are equally father-centric? I can't tell you just yet, but perhaps I will learn something of that in the coming years with a determined little person in the house.

I was very pleased with the announcement just before Christmas that the winner of The Guardian First Book Award 2007 is Dinaw Mengestu for CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION (in America the title is THE BEAUTIFUL THINGS THAT HEAVEN BEARS). It is a beautifully written book, and especially as a first novel, is worth reading. Aida Edemariam interviewed Mengestu, regarding writing the book:

He had already written most of a novel about "farmers in the Midwest, and a flood. It was very cerebral, full of memories without any characters ... it was terrible", when, one day, he was walking down 18th Street in Washington and "I saw this Ethiopian standing behind the counter of a very small shop. It was late at night and there was nobody in the store, and I went home and wrote, 'Almost nobody comes into this store any more'. And that's really where the story began." Sepha Stephanos, the character at the centre of Children of the Revolution, left Ethiopia at 16, 17 years ago; he has worked as a porter, now owns a small, failing shop, has never quite arrived in this new country, feels increasingly lost. (Full article in The Guardian here.)

I heard Mengestu speaking at the Hay Festival 2007, and one point he made in particular stuck with me, especially as it relates really well to the novel. He stressed the importance of needing to connect with other people. CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION is a terribly sad and lonely story. Sepha Stephanos runs a tiny shop just off Logan Circle in Washington, D.C. He is isolated in the way that so many immigrants are. With no immediate family living with him, his developing friendship with the neighbour Judith, and her small daughter Naomi takes on increasing significance.

''I did not come to America to find a better life...I came here running and screaming with the ghosts of an old one firmly attached to my back. My goal since then has always been a simple one: to persist unnoticed through the days, to do no more harm.''

Sepha worked his first job on arrival in the US as a valet at the Capitol Hotel, where he made friends with the Congolese Joseph (now working as a waiter) and Kenyan Kenneth (now an engineer). They are a constant backdrop to Sepha's story, as foils to his own. How each of them is learning to cope with immigrant life fills out the rougher edges of the plot, but both are achingly isolated, each in his own way.

There has been some discussion over the difference in titles (a really interesting example is over on dovegreyreader's blog, do take a look). Personally, I find the UK title the most appropriate in terms of the subject matter of the book. The African characters have all fled difficult situations and, while trying to make a new way, are still haunted by what has gone before, isolating them in their new lives. Mengestu tries to make this explicit near the start, setting the scene with a game the three men play together, trying to name every revolution across the continent and testing each other for details over rounds of drinks. You can find a longer extract of this scene on The Guardian website (also includes a brief Q&A and link to a podcast), but here is a taster:

Joseph is short and stout like a tree stump. He has a large round face that looks like a moon pie. Kenneth used to tell him he looked Ghanaian.
"You have a typical Ghanaian face, Joe. Round eyes. Round face. Round nose. You're Ghanaian through and through. Admit it and let's move on."
Joe would stand up then and theatrically slam his fist into the table, or into his palm, or against the wall. "I am from Zaire," he would yell out. "And you are an ass." Or, more recently, and in a much more subdued tone: "I am from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Next week it may be something different. I admit that. Perhaps tomorrow I'll be from the Liberated Land of Laurent Kabila. But today, as far as I know, I am from the Democratic Republic of the Congo."
(pp.5-6)

This is my favourite part of the scene, for the ability to capture so much of the confusion and regret in parts of the the continent.

My only significant criticism of the book is that it is written with no reflection of the speech patterns of the various characters. On the one hand, this makes for successful reading because the reader is not distracted by dialects or accents on the page. On the other hand, I am used to reading African titles which do reflect where people are from - Helon Habila and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie being excellent examples of writers working in this way (even well-known and perhaps more mainstream writers like Michael Ondaatje and Alexander McCall Smith do this successfully). But perhaps this is a small and petty criticism.

This is not a book where much dramatic happens. As Logan Circle begins to gentrify, Sepha spirals slowly out of control with his life. It is the sense of loss, which is palpable and poignant here, and for that it is highly recommended reading.

See Dinaw at a reading on youtube.

Thanks to Ex Libris for drawing my attention to an Africa Reading Challenge being hosted over on Siphoning Off a Few Thoughts. Admittedly, this is the area in which I tend to focus most of my reading anyway, but I'm only too happy to sign up - it will force me to pay a little more attention to some of the titles in my TBR pile that have come my way over the past year. I've chosen (as always, descriptions taken from cover blurbs):

AUTUMN QUAIL - Naguib Mahfouz (Egypt)
...a tale of moral responsibility, alienation, and political downfall featuring a corrupt young bureaucrat, Isa ad-Dabbagh, who is one of the early victims of the purge after the 1952 Revolution in Egypt. The conflict between his emotional instincts and his gradual intellectual acceptance of the Revolution forms the framework for a remarkable portrait of the clash between past and present...

BURN MY HEART - Beverley Naidoo (South African author/Kenyan setting)
Two boys living on the same Kenyan farm but they share an uneasy friendship. They live in a time when white and black means rich and poor - and a secret society, called the Mau Mau, want their land and freedom back.

COCONUT - Kopano Matlwa (South Africa)
...about growing up black in white suburbs, where the cost of fitting in can be your very identity...

MARU - Bessie Head (South African author/Botswanan setting)
Margaret Cadmore, an orphaned Basarwa girl, comes to Dilepe to teach, only to discover that in this remote Botswanan village her own people are treated as outcasts. Her presence divides the village...

MY MERCEDES IS BIGGER THAN YOURS - Nkem Nwankwo (Nigeria)
Onuma returns to his village after fifteen years. He makes a big hit, especially with the girls, in a Jaguar the colour of gold...

THE SUNS OF INDEPENDENCE - Ahmadou Kourouma (Cote d'Ivoire)
Fama is the last of the Dumbuya, the ruling dynasty of Horodugu. The colonial era deprived him of the chiefdom; the 'suns of independence' have reduced him to living on alms, and the toil of his much-enduring wife Salimata, in the teeming capital city of the Ebony Coast.

Go on over and sign up for the Africa Reading Challenge yourself - you know you want to!

Much of Buchi Emecheta's work explores both British and Nigerian life, a reflection of her arrival in Britain in the 1960s and struggling to reconcile herself and her writing with the contrasts between both cultures. In THE NEW TRIBE the Rev. Arthur Arlington and his wife Ginny adopt a baby girl left in a Tesco shopping bag in a phone booth. A Nigerian woman reading the resultant publicity asks them to take in her son Chester too.

This book would be well suited to a class of high school teenagers, as it raises plenty of important issues about family and identity. Chester is adopted and raised in a small English coastal town, clergy household. While he loves his family, he gradually becomes aware that he looks different from them, beginning a process of exploring for himself what that means.

There's a lovely song by Youssou N'Dour and Neneh Cherry called 7 Seconds, from the album THE GUIDE (WOMMAT) containing the lyrics: "When a child is born into this world, it has no concept of the tone of skin its living in." This book reminds me of that:

"You're a real African king!" exclaimed Ginny. "Now try on your crown." She had made the crown of cardboard, and covered it in gold paper. It was a little big, but Chester was happy to wear it.
"What do you think, Arthur?"
"Oh yes, Chester, you look grand." Chester looked at his parents admiring him, and felt excited.
On the day of the play, he enjoyed himself enormously in his purple velvet robe and shiny crown. After the play there were hot mince pies and different kinds of juice. Many of the parents congratulated him on being such a good king. As they left the school hall, Chester ran up to say goodbye to Ray who was dressed as a shepherd, with a crook in his hand. His father laughed and said jovially, "Chester, King of the Orient!"
On his way home in the dark with his parents, Chester slipped his hand into Ginny's and asked, "What's the Orient, Mummy?"
"It means the East, where the wise men came from," she responded.
"What's the East?" he pursued. Ginny was silent for a moment, then she said, "Africa's in the East. Where your people came from."
In bed that night, he thought about her words. "Your people." He thought the Arlingtons were his people. The sense of unbelonging strengthened." (pp.11-12)

I did find the "surprise explanation" behind the driving force in Chester's life to be no surprise at all as it appeared (to me at least) as obvious from the start. However, the book is still well worth a look for the description of a teenage search for identity. Particularly successful is Emecheta's portrayal of friendships (especially those with Mr Egwu and his sons, the first black family Chester encounters), and her descriptions of Nigeria when Chester returns there to search out his roots are highly evocative.

I've just had a browse through the always impressively long IMPAC/Dublin Award longlist for 2008. One of the judges this year is the excellent Helon Habila. The following are titles on the list either by Africans or set in African countries:

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Half of a Yellow Sun
José Eduardo Agualusa - The Book of Chameleons
Vassilis Alexakis - Foreign Words
Tahar Ben Jelloun - The Last Friend
Juan Bonilla - The Nubian Prince
Yvette Christianse - Unconfessed
Dave Eggers - What is the What
Aminatta Forna - Ancestor Stones
Pamela Gien - The Syringa Tree
Faiza Guene - Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow
Yasmina Khadra - The Attack
Hisham Matar - In the Country of Men
Marlene van Niekerk - Agaat
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o - Wizard of the Crow

Now, where was I?! I was about to blog about my trip to the Africa Book Centre, and indeed here are the titles I rooted out while there:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAMELA! by Niki Daly
I have a genuine soft spot for Daly's work, and if you have a child under the age of 10 so should you. His illustrations are a delight. Jamela is now established as a real character with several books to her name. All stand alone, but try and read them in order if possible (she looks like she's grown ever so slightly since the first book!). Jamela's birthday looms and what she really wants is a pair of sparkly shoes to go with her party dress. Her shoes need to be serviceable for school use however, but she has an idea... The look on her face in Daly's illustration as she comes up with her crafty plan is priceless!

A WOMAN ALONE by Bessie Head
Heinemann has re-issued this title, edited and with a new introduction by Craig MacKenzie. It is one of the African Writers Series, but strangely they don't have it listed on their site, so just go straight to the Africa Book Centre if you want it. Bessie Head is a wonderful writer, one of the finest ever to have come from Southern Africa. If you have enjoyed Alexander McCall Smith's Mma Ramotswe series then try Bessie Head's WHEN RAIN CLOUDS GATHER as the grittier side of rural Botswanan life. It is captivating reading. From the cover blurb:

A Woman Alone is a collection of autobiographical writings, sketches and essays which covers the entire span of Bessie Head's creative life, up to her death in 1986 at the age of 49. It reveals a woman of great sensitivity and vitality, inspired through her knowledge of suffering in a 'reverence for ordinary people' and finding some healing for her own anguish in a quiet corner of Africa.

'I need a quiet backwater and a sense of living as though I am barely alive on the earth, treading a small, careful pathway through life.'

I am looking forward to reading this immensely, having also recently procured BESSIE HEAD: THUNDER BEHIND HER EARS by Gillian Stead Eilersen. I think I'm in for a Bessie Head reading fest of some description. You have been warned.

Lastly, BURMA BOY by Biyi Bandele
Bandele has an amazing range in his writing, and I am looking forward to this one, the subject matter a topic largely ignored; In June The Guardian ran an article on Bandele for The Family supplement:

Biyi Bandele's father fought in Burma, a forgotten soldier in a famous war. He came home in a straitjacket, a broken man. Years later his wife and children were still paying a heavy price...

...So I went to the Imperial War Museum. And there I found a treasure trove of memoirs by many of the British officers under whom my father and his comrades had served, detailing the considerable part they played. I discovered that there were 120,000 Africans - one in every six members of the 14th Army, the British Indian army that took on the Japanese in Burma. Japanese prisoners-of-war told their British interrogators that the Africans were the best jungle fighters the allies possessed...

This is the inspiration for Bandele's BURMA BOY. The jacket describes it as:

Taut and immediate, at once sombre and exhilarating, Burma Boy is the first novel to depict the experiences of black African soldiers in the Second World War. This is a story of real-life battles, of the men who made the legend of the Chindits, the unconventional, quick strike division of the British Army in India. Horrific and always brilliantly executed, this vividly realised account details the madness, the sacrifice and the dark humour of that war's most vicious battleground. It is also the moving story of a boy trying to live long enough to become a man.

Strangely topical, a memorial service has just taken place for the 649 black South Africans who sank with their ship, the SS Mendi, off the Isle of Wight 90 years ago. A different war, but forgotten heroes too - read more about their extraordinary story in The Independent.

I nipped over to Brighton last week for the launch of the SMALL PRESS REVIEW, for which I will probably begin writing soon. Thanks to Kimbofo over at Reading Matters for drawing my attention to this, "a magazine devoted to the English language small presses." Since the vast majority of books by African writers come from small presses, my interest is quite logical. The first issue has just come out...

Brighton is an interesting place for visitors - impressive architecture and the most stunning sea views as the sun sets pinky-red over the pier, lights twinkling on as the sky darkens.

The Kemp Town Bookshop is a wonderful independent with an interesting and eclectic range of books, cards and puzzles ranging over three floors. Upstairs is a light and airy cafe, and they've started to sell art as well (Bookroom Art Press), the young woman I spoke to said they were hoping to soon produce a range of Edward Ardizzone prints. A perfect spot for a rainy morning.

Meandering through the Lanes there are numerous secondhand bookshops of varying quality. I couldn't possibly visit them all in the time I had, but I lucked out at the Oxfam Bookshop, where I found some out of print African Writers' Series titles to add to my collection (descriptions below taken from cover blurbs):

ONE MAN, ONE WIFE by T.M. Aluko
First published Nigerian Printing & Publishing Co. Ltd 1959; AWS edition 1967

The village of Isolo has great difficulty in accepting the missionary concept of 'one man, one wife': this is the story of how a large portion of the village populace becomes disillusioned with mission Christianity and returns to the worship of the old gods.

A NAKED NEEDLE by Nuruddin Farah, the celebrated Somalian author, 1976.

Koschin has idly, far away and two long years ago, agreed with Nancy, that they should get married if they have not found anybody else in the meantime. It had been easy to give such a promise to her in London before he returned to teach in Mogadiscio. Now he receives a telegram to say that Nancy is coming to share his life in Somalia in a society she does not know.

THE AFERSATA by Sahle Selassie Berhane Mariam, 1968; AWS edition 1969.

'The night Namaga's hut was burnt down all the inhabitants of the thirty villages of Wudma were asleep.' Who is the culprit? The men set about finding out by means of the ancient institution of the Afersata, the traditional Ethiopian way of investigating crimes.

What is particularly exciting about these three books, is that they are titles I knew existed but have never laid eyes on before as they are long out of print! All in clean, neat condition. The cover art is sensational. One of these days I must get a digital camera so that I can post the covers here.

My final stop was my favourite source of African books (no bias here, of course!), the Africa Book Centre. Floor to ceiling titles from across the entire continent - so satisfying. I was extremely restrained, but still managed to purchase a few things. They deserve a little closer attention, so I'll blog in more detail about them shortly.

I once knew a young man (we'll call him Sifiso, although that is not his real name), a gentle and kind soul. He was often confused, and prone to wandering off. I imagine that all the single women within a 5 mile radius had had their hand in marriage requested by Sifiso, several times over. He would gently but firmly take your hand, make sure he had your attention, and propose. Turning him down didn't seem to dent his pride. Sifiso's mother was a hardworking seamstress who lent me fluffy novels (Macmillan's Pacesetter series for example, which incidentally are still available and can be ordered from the Africa Book Centre - hooray!). Sifiso's brother is one of the many disappeared - he did not come home one day, and there were whispers of alleged travels North out of South Africa to find external ANC training camps for freedom fighters. He has not been heard from since, and no news came for his family during the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The not knowing is so endlessly cruel. Sifiso himself was tortured by Apartheid security police past the point of sanity - hence the quiet confusion, the dizziness, paranoia and meanderings.

Fettouma Touati's DESPERATE SPRING begins:

Abdelkader and Sekoura had twelve children altogether. Five died in infancy. One boy was carried off by typhus but his mother claims he was killed by one of her enemies who put the evil eye on him. They had two married daughters, mothers of numerous offspring, who lived in Algiers. Another daughter, Djohra, was widowed at the age of twenty-four and was the mother of three children: Salah, Yasmina and Fatma. Sekoura's second youngest son, Said, lived in France with his wife Aicha. The youngest, Mohand, returned from the Resistance half mad.

I'm not sure if it is picturing Sifiso in my head while reading this, but I found Touati's storytelling riveting, especially her descriptions of the lives of those immediately around Mohand. War and torture, while never directly discussed, live on in the shockwaves rippling out into the wider family, starting with the implosion that knocks his wife, children and parents off their feet.

I (shamefaced) know very little about Algeria, although as a direct result of reading DESPERATE SPRING I am hunting down other fiction from there (Assia Djebar and Aziz Chouaki for a start) and will blog about them too in the fullness of time. I felt slightly at a disadvantage because of my ignorance of contemporary Algerian society. It is unclear to me whether some of the background to female experience described here is the same as it was in the early 1980s when this book was published. But that is just me responding to a desire to know more about Algerian society - the book needs no prior knowledge of Algeria's history.

This book is all about the lives of young women and girls as circumscribed by their marriage prospects. It is an angry book - the dark side, if you will, of books like Faiza Guene's NOT LIKE TOMORROW). Here Touati describes life in Paris for Malika:

Weary of living a lie, she left to live alone with her son. She got up at half past five, washed and dressed, had her breakfast, woke the child and fed him. Then she rushed him to the childminder and caught the bus. At lunch time she had a sandwich as the canteen was too expensive. In the evening she picked up her son, changed him, fed him and put him to bed. Then she did the housework, freshened herself up and finally went to bed at nine thirty with a book. This moment was sacred. What with the childminder, the rent and fares, all she had left over was a few centimes and a few hours' sleep. She wanted to live, even if it was for only one hour a day!

She spent a year living like this. Her mother urged her to come home. Her father remained angry for five years. For the first two years, he went around with a gun in his pocket, hoping to bump into her and cleanse his honour in blood.

It is the jolt of this last sentence which characterizes Touati's writing and keeps us reading in fascination. She does have occasional lapses into a somewhat unfortunately lecturing, educative style, but always lurking are startling descriptive passages.

Malika returns to Algeria, having been raised in the banlieue existence of so many North African immigrants to France. Can she adjust to Algerian life? Is it any better, less difficult, lonely and alienating than she has found French society? You may need to create a little family tree as you read along (I did) to keep track of who is who at the beginning, but you soon have them all straight and are captivated. In describing the lives of a large extended family Touati reflects Algerian society as a whole, and it is extraordinary.

Thank you francofinn for lending me DESPERATE SPRING, and for forgiving me since I've kept your copy so long! Published in French in 1984 (L'Harmattan, Paris) and in English by The Women's Press in 1987, Touati's book is sadly out of print, but there are still plenty of copies available secondhand (try abebooks).

The Second Coming - William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

I still have the poetry textbook from which I learned this poem, the margins crammed with scribbled pencil notes. I was sixteen and read it alongside THINGS FALL APART by Chinua Achebe. The first eight lines of poetry seemed so apt in the midst of Apartheid South Africa, and Achebe's book was a revelation.

Decades later, and this week Chinua Achebe was announced winner of the Man Booker International 2007 - a well-deserved honour for a writer who changed the face of African fiction in the twentieth century, and greatly influenced global literature at the time of his earlier works.

The Guardian (see full article here) notes that Nadine Gordimer, on the judging panel, says of Achebe:

"...he has achieved "what one of his characters brilliantly defines as the writer's purpose: 'a new-found utterance' for the capture of life's complexity. This fiction is an original synthesis of the psychological novel, the Joycean stream of consciousness, the post-modern breaking of sequence. He is a joy and an illumination to read."

And the BBC also reports.

I am delighted at the news.

At the Hay Festival, Ngugi wa Thiong'o spoke of the nature of authoritarian rule, mentioning Zaire ruled by Mobutu, Central Africa by Bokassa, Uganda under Idi Amin and Kenya under Moi. He felt that under dictatorships, the resulting culture of silence and fear has a corrupting influence. "With twenty years of dictatorship, moral decay seeps through every vein and artery of society." This moral decay formed a partnership between the west and Africa, with Africa also acting as a junior actor of the west in the Cold War.

In his latest book, WIZARD OF THE CROW, Ngugi chose to invent a fictional territory for the action of the story - he did not want to identify one country as he thought it might distract from the story. There is a lot of humour in the book and he argued that humour acts as a screen (like distance) with which to view grim reality. It allows us to palatably look at the moral devastation and decay in post-colonial territories, taking the sting out of the situation. The passage he selected to read aloud illustrated this perfectly, and had the audience laughing out loud:

Minister Machokali was waxing ecstatic about how the benefits of the project could trickle down to all citizens. Once the project was completed, no historian would ever again talk about any other wonders in the world...Here Machokali paused dramatically to allow time for an ovation. Except for members of Parliament, Cabinet ministers, officials of the Ruler's Party, and representatives of the armed forces, nobody clapped, but nevertheless Machokali thanked the entire assembly for their overwhelming support and he invited any citizen eager to say a word in praise of Marching to Heaven to step forward. People stared at one another and at the platform in stony silence. The only hands raised were those of the ministers, members of Parliament, and officials of the Ruler's Party, but the minister ignored them and appealed to the citizenry. Are you so overwhelmed by happiness that you are lost for words? Is there no one able to express his joy in words?

A man raised his hand and Machokali quickly beckoned him to come over to the microphone. The man, clearly advanced in years, leaned on a walking stick as he pushed through the crowd. Two police officers ran to help him toward the microphone near the platform. Age was still revered in Aburiria, and the multitude waited for his words as if from an oracle. But when the old man began to speak it was clear he had difficulty in pronouncing Swahili words for the ruler, Mtukufu Rais, calling out instead, Mtukutu Rahisi. Horrified at the Ruler's being called a Cheap Excellency, one of the policemen quickly whispered in the old man's ear that the phrase was Mtukufu Rais or Rais Mtukufu, which confused him even more. Coughing and clearing his throat to still himself, he called out into the microphone, Rahisi Mkundu. Oh, no, it is not Cheap Arsehole, the other policeman whispered in the other ear, no, no, it is His Holy Mightiness, Mtukufu Mtakatifu, which did not help matters because the old man now said, with what the old man thought was confidence, Mkundu Takatifu. At the mention of "His Holy Arsehole," the multitude broke out in hilarious laughter, which made the old man forget what he had wanted to say... (pp.17-18)

There was a further issue discussed in this session about the language chosen to write in if you are multilingual, but I'll save it for another day, as Ngugi, Habila, Adichie and Soyinka all touched on this over the course of the week.

And, speaking of Adichie, I am absolutely thrilled to announce that Chimamanda has won the Orange Prize tonight (full press release here): thoroughly deserved for an outstanding piece of work. I am sure we're all looking forward to what she writes next!

Let me start by saying that I enjoyed almost everything about the Hay Festival. There is no doubt that it has expanded hugely since its humble beginnings, but that is no bad thing if the array of authors present continues to stimulate and challenge. Food was a bit of a problem on the festival premises, as what you get for what you pay is absolutely extortionate, but you can wander into town for something more reasonable. There is a definite lack of reasonably priced accommodation in Hay-on-Wye for the huge numbers of people attending (some hotels are booked out four years in advance), but this is not the festival's fault. Hay-on-Wye is after all a small town which caters perfectly well for guests the rest of the year. We stayed with friends an hour or so's drive across the Black Mountains, which made for views of spectacularly lush green scenery on our way to and from the festival each day.

My first event was with the marxist philosopher and scholar Terry Eagleton, Professor of Cultural Theory at the University of Manchester. His work on literary theory has probably been read by most students studying at British universities today. Discussing his new book THE MEANING OF LIFE he ranged widely across several philosophers from Aquinas to Schopenhauer, trying to answer the question "What is the meaning of life?" Not "purpose" or "function" but meaning. Like many of the speakers I heard over the next few days, the theme of well-being and sufficiency over happiness emerged. Eagleton argued, in response to a question, that it is desire which makes us unable to be happy with the sufficiency of things, for desire cannot be fulfilled. I rather liked his closing image of life as a jazz band. You can download the podcast for a fee.

Helon Habila and Ngugi wa Thiong'o in conversation were next (download the podcast). One of the things I was reminded of in listening to these two is the issue of accents, translation and linguistics. Here we have two of the finest writers in english living today, yet when you hear them speak, both have strong Nigerian and Kenyan accents respectively. So often I have seen people's eyes glaze over at hearing an African accent, but this really is a peevish and shameful response. You cannot assume that someone is not educated or literate because they do not speak with an english or american accent. While I believe people know this intellectually, I'm not sure that in practice they are always quite so patient at allowing themselves to get used to an unfamiliar accent, and come across dismissive instead.

Habila talked of time as a filter and writing through research and memory. His first book, WAITING FOR AN ANGEL was written in the wee hours of each morning, when he was still living in Nigeria, and he said he found it easier to write. His latest MEASURING TIME written four years later in the UK, was much harder, and involved calling home to Nigeria to ask questions, hear how people speak and remind himself of tastes and smells. He talked of how he "survived on books" when he was younger.

In writing MEASURING TIME he started with one character, but soon found he would be unable to make one person experience all he intended for the character, and so they became the twins, Mamo and LaMamo - one staying home in the village, the other off fighting in the war; like one character, but shared. Habila identifies most strongly with the twin who stays behind in the village. He mentioned that when he was younger he wrote a biography of the chief of his village, so he felt a connection with Mamo's staying home and writing a history of his people.

He read an extract from MEASURING TIME beautifully:

After the closure of the school Mamo found himself with time on his hands and without much means of using it apart from taking long walks in the afternoon. He took walks not only to kill time, but also to avoid his father's constant looming presence in the house, and the inane laughter of the widows whenever they came to visit...With no work to prepare for in the mornings, the hours seemed to have grown twice as long and Mamo would sometimes wake up in the morning and almost panic when he thought of the long, lonely day ahead of him - he'd sit on the bed for hours, his back propped up against the wall, watching the thin rays of the morning sun streaming into the window. He missed the drab routine of meeting the students and listening to Ms. Lipstick and Mr. Bukar gripe about their lives. Outside, in the yard, Auntie Marina would be talking to the goats and chickens as she fed them. On good days he walked her to her farm and passed the hours under a tree reading a book or sleeping, but often he left her early, before the fresh invigorating morning air had turned hot and painful and hard to breathe.

He waited for something, anything, to happen, and as he waited he measured time in the shadows cast by trees and walls, in the silence between one footfall and the next, between one breath and the next, in the seconds and minutes and hours and days and weeks and months that add up to form the seasons. The rainy season ended in October, the wind turned dry and harsh, the leaves on the trees and cornstalks turned brown and brittle. Farmers brought home the harvest; the hunters set the hills on fire and chased the game up to the summit. At night the hilltops became incandescent with color - like a painting, the fires snaking around the contours of the hills, their orange reflected by the low clouds that hung over the hills like a backcloth... (pp.138-139)

More tomorrow on Ngugi. Today I am off to London to give a lecture on "Conflict in Africa."

A trip up to London yesterday meant the opportunity to browse at the Oxfam bookshop on Marylebone High Street. A decade or so ago I worked nearby on Harley Street and would pop in to this very shop on lunch breaks. I found treasures here, but it was tiny, chaotic, had a stained and grungy carpet with an equally stained and grungy person behind the counter. Much to my surprise, yesterday I discovered a charming light and airy shop: it has been extended into space at the back, the wooden floor stripped and gleaming and the entire effect is one of light and airiness. There were several staff in evidence, and none of them had a whiff of grunginess about them.

Naturally, there were umpteen books I could have picked up, but lately I try getting general titles at my local library or on bookmooch. Instead, I am specifically trying to expand my African collection when I buy. The idea is to make me feel less guilty when I have a splurging book shopping spree - after all I can buy general titles any time (so if I restrain myself that's excellent), but I can't always buy African books (having restrained myself on the general titles, I am then free to indulge), if this makes sense.

With this in mind I was fairly restrained. I found Segun Afolabi's A LIFE ELSEWHERE:

For the characters in Segun Afolabi's debut collection, 'elsewhere' is a place they must transform into home. The Far East, Europe, the Americas, Africa - the stories are as varied as their geographical settings. In the award-winning 'Monday Morning' a refugee boy puzzles out his place in a new land. A bereaved father in 'Arithmetic' thinks back to a confusing, youthful sexual encounter that has left him emotionally scarred; Jacinta faces a long retirement with a husband she is not sure she likes in 'Jumbo and Jacinta' and 'The Wine Guitar' tells the story of an aging musician who pays a prostitute for the gift of her youth.

These are tales of Diaspora, of people making their lives in new lands, some for the first time, others in the second or third generations. Often moving, sometimes funny and occasionally shocking, Afolabi's stories reflect the way we live now; exploring the universal need to establish family and identity in a world where the boundaries of geography, culture and language are increasingly fluid.

Afolabi won the Caine Prize for African Fiction in 2005. His winning entry, Monday Morning, is included in this selection of short stories; it was also included in THE OBITUARY TANGO. His second book, GOODBYE LUCILLE, was published last month and he will appear at the Hay Festival next week in conversation with AL Kennedy.

I was also surprised to find Cyprian Ekwensi's JAGUA NANA:

Jagua Nana, late of Onitsha market, is now well-established in Lagos, with its high life, its night clubs and its political intrigue. Jagua, a warm and magnificent prostitute, yearns for security among the elite. She must marry education and falls in love with a young teacher, Freddie. He wants to study law in England and she funds him on the understanding that he will marry her on his return.

Here Jagua is a corruption of the car, Jaguar, and all it symbolises. Originally published in 1961, the book is still frequently assigned on university reading lists and yet is no longer in print. Secondhand copies are available at online sites like abebooks, but it was satisfying to find my own 1979 edition in good nick at £2 and not have to pay postage!

Just a few steps up Marylebone High Street is the exquisite Daunt Books (have a look at the photos in the link if you don't believe me). Their African selection is really rather good for a general, admittedly independent, bookshop. Bookshops like Daunt remind one what a real bookshop should be. There are no discounted titles, but an amazing range. Surprise selections for even the most rabid bibliophile. Quite delicious. Here I found the rare and long out of print SNARES WITHOUT END by Olympe Bhely-Quenum, published originally in French in 1960 as Un Piege Sans Fin; this is a 1981 English version:

'Anatou, Anatou, what have you done to me? Why did you keep telling me that there was another expression, another heart, behind my gentle expression and my soft heart? This was the monster that lies hidden in each one of us. You woke the monster in me.'

The monster that Anatou wakes within Ahouna traps him into a motiveless murder. There is no escape from his tragic destiny...everything is a snare and a delusion.

Hmmm. Not sure about this being my kind of read, but I'll give it a go.

You have to admit, definitely restrained shopping.

I've noticed a strange thing - when I add a book to my "currently reading" list (over there on the right) I stop reading it. Some titles have sat there for months. So perhaps I should rename it the "living in anticipation" list. At the moment my reading is largely driven by what I have out from the library, which means I am distinctly side-tracked from the bigger purpose of reading at a pace towards the book I'm writing. I need to crank things up a notch or two for this "working reading" as I call it (as opposed to reading for pleasure). Happily, they frequently overlap.

Look at this fantastic opening paragraph to HARVEST OF THORNS by Zimbabwean Shimmer Chinodya:

The day he came back, and she walked in obliviously from the shower-room with soapsuds on her hands and found him sitting in his big brown boots on the sofa, she cried so much the neighbours rushed in thinking she had received news of death; after they had gone and she could talk she looked at the ropes of dried meat hung on a strip of newspaper and fished into her long skirts to send Peter to the butcher.

Published in 1989, part of the novel first saw the light of day as Chinodya's MA thesis at the University of Iowa in the mid 80s. In 1990 it won him the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Africa Region. It has a wonderful quality to it, and I am enjoying it thoroughly as (unofficial) current reading!

Of course, I cannot be restrained from buying something when in a bookshop. Tuesday's book launch meant I not only picked up Wole Soyinka's YOU MUST SET FORTH AT DAWN, but also:

THE BOOK OF CHAMELEONS by Jose Eduardo Agualusa
Felix Ventura is a man with an unusual occupation. If your lineage isn't sufficiently distinguished, he'll change that for you. If your family history isn't quite as glorious as you'd like, Felix Ventura can make you a new one. Felix Ventura is a seller of pasts.

THE YACOUBIAN BUILDING by Alaa Al Aswany
The Yacoubian Building - once grand, but now dilapidated - stands on one of Cairo's main boulevards. Taha, the doorman's son, has aspirations beyond the slum in the skies, and dreams of one day becoming a policeman. He studies hard, and passes all the exams, but when he is rejected because his family is neither rich nor influential, the bitterness sets in. His girlfriend, Busyana, finds herself unable to earn a living without also providing sexual services for the men who hire her. When Taha seeks solace in a student Islamic organisation, the pressure mounts, and he is drawn to actions with devastating consequences.

And last, but not least (with the finest cover of the year), MEASURING TIME by one of my favourite authors, Helon Habila
Mamo and LaMamo are twin brothers living in a small Nigerian village, where their domineering father controls their lives. With high hopes the twins attempt to flee from home, but only LaMamo escapes to live their dream of becoming a soldier. Mamo, the awkward, sickly twin, is doomed to remain in the village. Gradually, he comes out of his father’s shadow and gains local fame as a historian, embarking on a ‘true’ history of his people. But when the rains fail and famine rages, religious zealots incite the people to violence – and LaMamo returns to fight the enemy at home.

(Book descriptions in this post are from the individual publishers, and are not mine).

They look delicious.

My goodness! It seems that at every turn of late a literary prize is being awarded. I am happy to announce that two more this week were won by Africans!

The 2007 Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize (£10 000) "for a distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, evoking the spirit of a place" was awarded on Monday to the Libyan Hisham Matar for his IN THE COUNTRY OF MEN. Here are a couple of interesting links about him: a Stephen Moss interview in the Guardian talking about the process of writing the book and the appalling story of his father's torture and disappearance (silence since 1995). In the midst of this sadness he has space for levity, describing the writing life:

"The romantic idea of the penniless writer is false," he says. "It's terrible. I hated being in debt, I hated the anxiety of not knowing whether we could pay our rent that month. Thankfully, I had a wife who was very supportive and had faith and shared my madness. I got the call from my agent [to say Penguin had bought the novel as part of a six-figure, two-book deal] on the day I was ready to go to our landlord and say, 'You'll have to add this month's rent to what we owe you.' It came in the nick of time." Matar didn't have enough credit on his phone to call his wife with the good news; his landlord (evidently a saint) had to call her instead.

Here also a link to a Matar Literary Top 10 (don't we all love those lists?!).

Tuesday night saw the awarding of The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2007 (£10 000, although this time shared with his translator) to the Angolan José Eduardo Agualusa for THE BOOK OF CHAMELEONS. I am delighted. Agualusa and Mia Couto visited the shop together a few years back and we had a fascinating discussion about the state of African publishing and difficulties in making African writers known outside of the continent or, in fact, their own countries. He was charming and engaging. A much undervalued writer.

I sense a book shopping trip in the offing...

The IMPAC/Dublin Literary Award 2007 shortlist has been announced, whittled down from 138 novels (12 in translation) nominated by 169 libraries from around the world:

ARTHUR & GEORGE by Julian Barnes
A LONG LONG WAY by Sebastian Barry
SLOW MAN by J.M. Coetzee
EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE by Jonathan Safran Foer
THE SHORT DAY DYING by Peter Hobbs
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN by Cormac McCarthy
OUT STEALING HORSES by Per Petterson
SHALIMAR THE CLOWN by Salman Rushdie

Oh lordy - as usual I haven't read any of them, although the Coetzee, Hobbs and Rushdie are in my "To Be Read" pile!

I can never resist memes which "require" me to spend time browsing my bookshelves and so, following in the footsteps of Stephanie over at So Many Books, here are my selections for "10 books I would read right now if I didn’t already have a bunch of other books going" (the requirement being that I already own all of these):

Stephen Bates A CHURCH AT WAR: ANGLICANS AND HOMOSEXUALITY
I am a practising anglican (episcopalian, for you americans out there), so am constantly frustrated by, and grappling with, the big issues of the day faced by the church as an institution. In England the two largest are the issue of women clergy (far from resolved) and gay clergy (in some sort of don't-even-go-there administrative wasteland). I won't get into a long discussion here, but for me the more crucial overriding issue is "where is God in this?" I mean, is God really bothered? And I have to think not. A great priest is a great priest, whether gay, straight, female, male, black, white or brown. Let's get on with it. Stephen Bates is The Guardian's religious affairs and royal correspondent. I like his interesting press commentary, and am curious to see what he has to say.

John Boyne THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS
I recommended Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's PURPLE HIBISCUS to a friend who, gratifyingly, loved it so much she's been recommending it to everyone she knows. In return she recommended this Boyne to me. It looks like it might be shattering.

Michael Dirda AN OPEN BOOK
When I lived in Washington D.C. some years back, I would religiously read the lovely Dirda; he became a staple - one of those folks whose latest despatch I'd look forward to, thinking there'd be something in there for me (even if I never got around to reading it!)

Cynthia Enloe THE CURIOUS FEMINIST
Cynthia Enloe is one of those pioneering types in the field of international relations, in that she tried to place women front and centre. Bearing in mind that women are very often excised from the study of government, politics and international relations (other than as victims) this was a refreshing approach.

John McGahern THAT THEY MAY FACE THE RISING SUN
Kimbofo over at Reading Matters has a reading group, and this was their previous selection. Appropriately, I even bought my copy in Ireland, but I've yet to begin it (story of my life). Ireland is where we holiday most, and I have a real soft spot for the country.

Beverley Naidoo THE OTHER SIDE OF TRUTH
Beverley Naidoo is a talented children/teen writer. I met her several times when running the bookshop up in London and I have to say that she epitomizes the image of the hardworking writer - I was always very impressed with her work ethic and friendly approachability when confronted by fans. I haven't read this one of hers.

Pepetela JAIME BUNDA, SECRET AGENT
Aflame Books is a new independent publisher, focussing on translating into English books from Africa, Latin America and the Middle East originally published in another language. This is the first of their titles I've picked up and I'm looking forward to it very much (I loved Pepetela's THE RETURN OF THE WATER SPIRIT). If you enjoy Gabriel Garcia Marquez, you'll probably like Pepetela.

Elif Shafak THE FLEA PALACE
Both Orhan Pamuk and Elif Shafak have had a rather difficult time in Turkey lately because of their work.

R.C. Sherriff THE HOPKINS MANUSCRIPT
One of my favourite books is John Wyndham's THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS, which has so much contemporary resonance, despite being written in 1951. THE HOPKINS MANUSCRIPT, I get the impression, has similar overtones. And it is a Persephone title.

Niall Williams AS IT IS IN HEAVEN
The dove grey one over at dovegreyreader scribbles raved so much about Williams (and then he left her equally charming messages) that I succumbed - I trust her judgement, so am sure this will be good; also, did I mention I have a soft spot for Ireland?!

Naturally, it is highly unlikely I'll read any of these soon but one can live in hope...now go and rummage through your shelves, what would you read if you could?