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Released on June 7, Night Dancer is Chika Unigwe, author of On Black Sisters' Street, third novel. And what a beautiful novel it is. 


Night Dancer is set in Nigeria (Enugu to be exact) and tells the story of Mma and her stubborn mother Ezi. Ezi's unexpected death leads Mma to learn about her mother's past and rethink the resentment and contempt she has held for her mother her whole life. Mma resents her mother who likes to say things twice like 'dance-dance' and 'happy-happy' and who won't let Mma know anything about her father - Ezi left her husband, Mike, and life in Kaduna, when Mma was a baby to raise her as a single mother. 


Written in three parts, Chika Unigwe tells a beautiful story, which reveals what happened, why everything is the way it is and why every character in the book did what they did. It starts in 2001, after Ezi's death, and concentrates on Mma's very negative feelings and hatred towards her mother. From Mma's point of view we see what being raised by a proud single mother did to her childhood and how it affected Mma's life. When Mma starts reading Ezi's letters, or her 'memoirs', Mma finds out the truth about her mother, her past life and why she did what she did. Her mother's letters also leads Mma to be reunited with the family she never knew she had - grandfather, uncles, aunts, father. It then goes back to 1960 where we find out what exactly happened to make Ezi leave her husband Mike, and raise their daughter Mma on her own. And it comes back to 2002 when Mma eventually meets her father, Mike, and begins to change her mind about her mother. In these three parts, we hear both Ezi and Mma voices. 


When Night Dancer started I felt Mma's pain and sorrow and understood why she felt the way she did towards her mother, but as I read, I began to understand why Ezi was the way she was and my views towards her completely changed. You end up sympathising with, and understanding, both Ezi and Mma. Being a single mother in Nigeria is not easy, but being a single mother who isn't widowed, and who refuses to tell anyone about the child's father is even tougher. What happens when you defy tradition? What happens when you do what is right and what you strongly believe in, even if it goes against tradition? How does a modern woman cope with the battles of tradition versus her thinking, feelings, beliefs? And how do you survive in contemporary Nigeria and make a living once you have defied tradition?


From start to finish I loved everything about Night Dancer, and couldn't put it down. If you loved On Black Sisters' Street you will also love this. 


5 out of 5 stars.
13:51 2 Comments
A few months ago, I posted that Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche (who I love) will be releasing a new book called Americanah sometime in 2013. Excited cannot even begin to describe how I felt, and still feel, about hearing that news. Recently, I've found out that she will be releasing a new novel (no publication date yet) titled The Small Redemption of Lagos. The Small Redemption of Lagos follows two childhood friends from Nigeria, who are separated when they move to England and the United States, but are later reunited in Lagos. While Americanah is about a girl who goes to the States for college, and after 15 years of living there returns to Nigeria and is told by friends that she has become Americanah - the irreverent term used in Nigeria for people who become Americanised. So now I am really confused. Are Americanah and The Small Redemption of Lagos the same novel (maybe titled differently for different markets, maybe there was a name change somewhere down the line), or is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie only bringing out one of these, and if so which one? The Bookseller wrote a while back that rights to The Small Redemption of Lagos had been sold in US and Canada to Knopf and in the UK to 4th Estate, but on both 4th Estate and Knopf websites, Americanah is listed as a future release. So please, if anyone out there knows the answers to my questions, I would really love to know. Right now I am a really confused book-a-holic and would be truly grateful for the help. Thank you!!! 
10:16 2 Comments

Now this looks really interesting. Published by Pan Macmillan South Africa in March, Sarah House is the debut novel from Nigerian author, Ifeanyi Ajaegbo. It is about a young woman's life in the Nigerian world of human trafficking and prostitution. Here's the synopsis:  
Nita wakes up in a dark world very different from the life of opportunities promised to her by Slim, the man she loved and trusted to take her away from the small town in Opobo in Nigeria. Soon she realises she is a slave, bought and sold without her consent and forced into a life of prostitution and sleazy strip clubs. Every day Nita walks a tightrope of survival surrounded by vicious pimps and thugs. She meets Tega, a fellow slave lured into prostitution by Slim; she is sold to Madam, who runs Sarah House and makes money from young women and children; she finds favour with Chief, an influential politician who provides protection for Madam’s illicit business; and she must survive Lothar, a renegade porn film maker. Life in this nightmare world gets more complicated when Nita meets young Damka and is approached by a police detective working undercover. When Damka disappears and Nita discovers the child’s bloodied clothes in a room in Sarah House, she knows she has to work with the police in spite of the dangers to her own life.
18:23 2 Comments
A couple of months ago I got asked to review Broken Portraits: Jonathan's Chronicles by Efioanwan Edem. Unfortunately it took me longer than I had hoped to finally read it. I was able to read it last night and I have to say I enjoyed it.


Broken Portraits is Nigerian author Efioanwan Edem's debut novel and it tells the story of two twenty-something Nigerian men who win a scholarship to study at Ridge University College, a fictional constituent college of the University of South Africa. Jonathan Ambo, our narrator, is an aspiring writer and his cousin and best friend, Benjamin 'Bengy' Bocco, is an artist. 


It starts at the end with a letter our narrator writes to Ibiwarri, Bengy's fiance in Nigeria. It seems Bengy has got himself into a spot of trouble while in South Africa and he has asked Jonathan to write a letter to Ibiwarri, telling her the entire sordid details of their time in South Africa. Once the letter finishes, Jonathan begins his tale. 


It starts in Nigeria on the campus of the College of Basic Studies. Women love Bengy, who  is the player-type, until he meets Ibiwarri. Jonathan is the loner type and was really just at the College of Basic Studies 'just to pass time and get [his] A-level Certificate while at it'. Ibiwarri worries for Jonathan - 'your books, characters are no substitute for real people; a real, flesh and blood woman'. On a rainy day, Jonathan finds a poster for the African Universities and Colleges Exchange Programme and he and Bengy both apply (to Ibiwarri's dismay). After both winning the prestigious scholarship to Ridge University College, Jonathan and Bengy hope this would be what they need to see the world. 


In South Africa, they meet Professor Constance Tobe, the Dean of the College and Co-ordinator of the Scholarship Exchange Programme; his wife, Doctor Florence Consatnce Tobe, the head of the English and Literary Studies Department; Aretha Dominic , a Theatre and Performing Arts two hundred level student; and Martha Cliffe, a final year student at the Africa Centre for Arts and Cultural Heritage, who has very passionate views on the current state of South Africa, and the so-called 'freedom of the city'. While in South Africa, romance blossoms - an unexpected one between Jonathan and Dr. Florence Constance Tobe and an unfortunate one between Bengy and Aretha. As the novel is set in South Africa in 2008, there are also elements of xenophobia, with some focus on the xenophobic attacks that occured in South Africa in May 2008.


I have to say I didn't know what to expect when I first started reading Broken Portraits, but with time I grew to like it. Jonathan grew on me. I initially thought he used way too much 'big grammar' but then with time I realised he would be the type of man to speak (or should I say write) the way he did. He was after all an aspiring writer who loved Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams. Jonathan was a really smart man, but I wasn't sure how I felt about him saying when he went to Marabastad 'the Indian merchants looked so brown and so identical to me, and smelt too strongly of the sweet paste, which they used in their hair'. I also initially thought the story would be about both Jonathan and Bengy, but since it was told purely from Jonathan's point of view, Bengy only really featured in the story when he was with Jonathan, or when Jonathan was talking about him. 


Broken Portraits: Jonathan's Chronicles was an interesting debut novel and a pretty quick read. I am glad I had the opportunity to read it.


3.75 out of 5.
18:12 No Comments
Sefi Atta, author of Swallow and Everything Good Will Come as well as a collection of short stories News from Home has a new novel out. I'm not quite clear as to when it comes out in 2012, but here's the synopsis for A Bit of Difference:


At thirty-nine, Deola Bello, a Nigerian expatriate in London, is dissatisfied with being single and working overseas. Deola works as a financial reviewer for an international charity, and when her job takes her back to Nigeria in time for her father's five-year memorial service, she finds herself turning her scrutiny inward. In Nigeria, Deola encounters changes in her family and in the urban landscape of her home, and new acquaintances who offer unexpected possibilities. Deola's journey is as much about evading others' expectations to get to the heart of her frustration as it is about exposing the differences between foreign images of Africa and the realities of contemporary Nigerian life. Deola's urgent, incisive voice captivates and guides us through the intricate layers and vivid scenes of a life lived across continents. With Sefi Atta's characteristic boldness and vision, A Bit of Difference limns the complexities of contemporary world. This is a novel not to be missed.

17:15 No Comments
The Africa Reading Challenge and Middle East Challenge have introduced me to a whole new world - North Africa. Thanks to them I've read The Yacoubian Building, The Anatomy of Disappearance, and What the Day Owes The Night. Not much I know, but it's a start. I have also recently acquired The Secret Son by Laila Lalami and In the County of Men by Hisham Matar and just started reading Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz (but at nearly 500 pages, I am really pacing myself with that one). I am being introduced to a world that I have always been curious about, but never really knew and I am hooked. On a daily basis I am discovering new authors and books that I just have to read. There are a few blogs that have great lists on North African literature and I am not going to replicate them. Instead, I hope to complement them by showcasing some books I've been dying to read for a while - the ones that form part my ever-growing wish-list. If like me, you want to know more about North African literature then check out The Wononi Blog's North African Literature, Kinna's North African Reading List, Reading through Northern Africa, and Arabic Literature (in English). 


Algeria

 
Egypt

Libya

Morocco


09:39 No Comments
I am always celebrating the amazing female African writers out there, but today I thought I'd switch it up. It is Father's Day after all. From Achebe to Tutuola and Abani to Cole, there are some amazing Nigerian authors (and playwrights) out there and I just wanted to share some of their amazing works. Enjoy!!! And to my father, and all the other father's out there. Happy Father's Day!!!




 
 
 
 


13:20 No Comments
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About me

Founded in 2011, bookshy represents two things: the young me who was so shy I escaped through books, and the older me whose shelf is always one book shy of being full.

bookshy is a space where I celebrate, promote and recognise contemporary African literature - although sometimes I go back in time to commemorate the greats. It is about the books I love, the books I have read and the books that I am dying to read.

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      • Book Review: Chika Unigwe's 'Night Dancer'
      • A Confused Book-a-holic: 'Americanah' or 'The Smal...
      • Another New Release for 2012
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