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Over the weekend I read this beautiful article on women writing the best crime novels published in The Atlantic. Novels, such as Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train among many others were listed - although a bit sad that Kate Atkinson's work was not included in the article. As the author notes:
A number of years ago - well before 'Gone Girl' - I realised that most of the new crime fiction I was enjoying had been written by women. The guys had been all but run off the field by a bunch of very crafty girls, coming at them from everywhere: America (Mgan Abbott, Alison Gaylin, Laura Lippman), England (Alex Marwood, Paula Hawkins, Sophie Hannah), Scotland (Val McDermid, Denise Mina), Ireland (Tana French), Norway (Karin Fossum), Japan (Natsuo Kirino).
Well, women African writers are also killing it (no pun intended) with their subtle, but terrifying stories, and I wanted to give some love to the amazing female crime (mystery and thriller) writers out there. Many have already been mentioned in my previous posts on African crime writers - Unity Dow, Malla Nunn, Margie Orford, as well as Lauren Beukes, Priscilla Holmes, Joanne Macgregor, Charlotte Otter, Joanne Hichens and H J Golakai.



So here are six more crime novels by  African women writers to add to your ever-growing list. 


Red Ink by Angela Makholwa

South African author, Angela Makholwa's bio state that 'in 1998 ... she wrote to a convicted serial killer requesting an exclusive interview.' Five years later he acknowledged her letter, asked to meet up and requested she write a book about his life. Red Ink, Angela Makholwa's debut novel is very loosely based on this meet-up with a convicted felon. In it, public relations consultant and ex-journalist Lucy Khambule sees her life taking a dramatic turn, after receiving an unexpected call from Napoleon Dingiswayo - a convicted serial killer. Dingiswayo wants Lucy to tell his story, and intrigued by this proposition, she decides to take it; seeing it as an opportunity to fulfill her life-long dream of writing a book. But pursing  dream comes at a price, and how much is Lucy willing to pay for it?



Random Violence by Jassy Mackenzie

In book 1 of the Jade de Jong series, P.I. Jade de Long fled South Africa ten years ago after her father was killed. Now back in tow, she offers to help her father's former assistant, Superintendent David Patel, with his investigation of Annette Botha - murder victim of a car-jacking. The primary suspect - her husband, Piet Botha. As Jade probes into this and other recent car-jacking cases, a pattern begins to emerge, a pattern that goes back to her father's murder.




The Fatal Payout by Lauri Kubuitsile
Book 1 of the Kate Gomolemo Detective Series sees corruption in a road tender ending up in the murder of one of the clerks in the Roads Department Kgakgamatso Maipelo. But who murdered her? The are a list of men, including her soldier boyfriend. Detective Gomolemo needs to sole the case, but will her attraction to Kgakgamatso's boss John Mogami distract her and affect he case?

The Cutting Room by Mary Watson
In this psychological thriller from the Caine Prize winner, film editor Lucinda and her husband Amir's marriage is troubled. Lucinda is left angry and puzzled after her Amir abruptly leaves home - following research he had been doing on old housing and building methods. Now Lucinda worries that his departure could be her fault. Soon afterwards, Lucinda is assaulted in a knife attack in her own home, which throws her even more off balance. She finds a distraction in assisting an older friend, Austrian film-maker Thomas, with a documentary he is making about an old mission station which is allegedly haunted. But the experience becomes an unnerving one for Lucinda, who finds Thomas' obsession with the story behind his film worrying. The Cutting Room is a novel at the intersection of three genres - a crime story, a ghost story and a love story. 


Exhibit A by Sarah Lotz
Before the The Three and its follow up, Day Four - stories that were both freaky horrors and chilling thrillers - was Exhibit A. When a gorgeous stranger asks Georgie Allen - a Cape Town lawyer - for help after her sister accuses a policeman of raping her in a police cell, he's unable to resist another pro-bono case. Together with his sidekick Partrick McLennan and a tenacious mongrel, Georgie heads off to investigate. But things aren't as simple as they first appear, and the threesome soon find themselves enmeshed in a conspiracy of lies, small-town prejudice, corruption and bad coffee in their pursuit of ever-elusive truth and justice. 




True Murder by Yaba Badoe
In True Murder, 11-year-old Ajuba from Ghana has been left at an English boarding school by her parents. There she befriends the new girl Polly Venus, and together with the other girls in her dorm they read 'true murder' stories and then act them out, trying to solve cases. Polly invites Ajuba to her family home, and Ajuba is introduced to her glamorous, but chaotic family. The girls still play their detective games at Polly's home, and end up making a discovery in the attic of the Venus home - leading to them trying to solve the mystery.




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As the covers below show, there was a period within African literature - particularly with Francophone and Anglophone writing - where the child soldier narrative dominated. One of these narratives included Chris Abani's Song For Night, first published in 2007 and recently published by Telegram Books to mark their tenth anniversary. 

Considering the 'backlash among African literati' in this 'African child soldier' genre, as pointed out by Aaron Bady, it would have been quite interesting to know why the publisher decided to publish this particular book as part of their celebration. This does not take away from the book itself, which as I point out below is beautifully written, but it would have been nice for a foreword to be included to provide a little explanation for that. That aside, here are my thoughts.

A look at some African child soldier narratives in the noughties

Winner of the PEN/Beyond Margins Award in 2008, Song for Night is a dreamlike novella that follows My Luck - a 15-year-old, orphaned boy soldier in an unnamed West African country - who has lost his platoon following a land mine explosion. The story tracks his journey - in the past and the many different episodes that have shaped him (life before the war, and then becoming and being a child soldier); as well as the present day (traipsing through dangerous, possibly enemy, territory) as he retraces his footsteps to find his unit. 

Told from My Luck's perspective, he lets the reader know early in the story that, 'What you hear is not my voice'. Trained - similar to the other boys and girls in his unit - as human mine detectors and defusers; they were silenced by their commanding officer who demanded their vocal chords be removed (so that the others do not hear the 'death screams' of another child being exploded by a mine; and can concentrate solely on their own mines). 

As My Luck has woken up after being unconscious following the mine explosion, I couldn't help but wonder as I read if the present day was a dream or reality; and if My Luck was looking back at his life as he passed away. He does experience a lot of visions during his journey, and might be walking in circles. There are certainly many clues that make you wonder what the case might be.

The writing is gorgeous, which in a way made me very uncomfortable, especially considering the focus of the novella. It is after all about child soldiers, and poetic is not a word I would choose to use to describe what it must mean, and feel like, to be a child soldier. Yet, in reading Song For Night, I did feel like it was in a way trying to humanise the child soldier narrative. 

There is also beauty in the novella, which reveals - to some extent - the light that could be found in such bleakness. The children developed a beautiful form of sign language to counter the loss of their vocal chords; My Luck falls in love with his fellow comrade - a young girl, Ijeoma - to counter the rape and brutality that occurred following rampages in towns and villages; the touching moments of My Luck's past - his mother who taught him how to crotchet - to counter the number of lives he had taken in the three years since he had been a child soldier.  

Almost ten years after it was published, there is still something to be said about Song For Night. In its focus on separation, searching, displacement, love, suffering and horror it attempts to humanise a very harrowing aspect of Africa's history that really and truly cannot (and should not) be erased. Even if the narrative of the African child soldier is not the full picture of any conflict-affected African country - it is also a part of its reality that should not be discarded.
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If you've been on the blog in the last few days, you will notice there's been a change .... well, after almost five years of the same look, I decided it was time to switch things up. 


New look! 
I've been thinking about this for a while now - probably almost a year - but I kept on going back and forth on how to go about it: stay on blogger vs. archive blogger and move to a different platform; stick with blogpsot.co.uk vs. switch to .com or .co.uk; hire a designer to help redesign the website vs. learn to code; old logo vs. new logo, and so on. Over the last six months, I also spoke to different people - asking advice on all of these questions I had. 

After thinking way too much, I finally decided that I would redesign and change my logo and switch to .com or .co.uk. What I wasn't quite sure about was how I felt about getting an entirely new website, and saying bye to blogspot. One suggestion was to write a post saying I am no longer on this platform and here's a link to my new home. 

Honestly, I was still undecided when Friday morning I woke up super early and couldn't go back to sleep. My initial plan was to wait until December to redesign the blog and launch a new look bookshy to celebrate 5 years of blogging. But, in my 'I-still-have-way-too-many-hours-before-I-need-to-start-work-and-I-can't-go-back-to-sleep' state, I decided to finally look into moving from .blogspot.com to .com or .co.uk. This wasn't as difficult as I imagined, thanks in huge part to google. Thank you google! 

Now I had a new address, and with still way too many hours before I had to start thinking about work, I decided to look into templates for blogger. I searched and I searched, and searched and searched and searched some more. The idea was that if I really could not find one template that I liked, then I would look into a web designer. I had already started taking an online course on how to code as I had decided that as a last resort I would do some basic redesigning of bookshy myself, but I would still need someone skilled to do the major work. Thankfully, I found a few templates I liked. Now it was time to think about work, so I saved the templates and figured that I, at least, had something to work with for December. Oh, how wrong I was!

After work on Friday, I decided to play around with these new templates and see what worked. I had already backed up my old template, but I won't lie, I was nervous! What if in trying things out, I ended up mistakenly deleting something and losing it all. Thankfully that didn't happen. And so over the next two days - mostly Friday evening, but also Saturday - I modified the template I downloaded (again thank you Google and YouTube) - shared screenshots with friends and family asking for their thoughts, and started bringing together the thoughts I had from almost a year of thinking and speaking with people for the new look bookshy.

With the new look comes a new logo. There were many iterations and options of logos, and this also went through a process of sharing with a few friends and family to get their thoughts before deciding on the final one, which was unanimous - and enables me to play around with colours (if I need to). 

I have to say a major, major thank you to West Port Five - a young, design consultancy based in London - who designed the new logo. For keeping the essence of the old one (which I really did't want to lose - I wanted the glasses and the eyes to remain) but also capturing my geeky and inquisitive nature when it comes to African literature - which is what this blog is all about. When I think about the new logo, it is also going a step further by showing that I have in a way stepped away from peeking over the books over the last almost five years. Something, I have to say I am still coming to terms with.



I am still working on the site - tweaking and re-tweaking a few things here and there - and really making sure the formatting of the older posts work with the new template. I also know that it often takes time to adjust to new things - I know I found it hard saying bye to the old logo and old design, but I do hope you join me in this new look and hopefully new chapter as I continue to celebrate and geek out on all things African Literature. 
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It's Sunday, and I'm back again with Read it! Loved it! - a round-up of what I've been reading the last couple of weeks on the interweb in the world of African literature. There will also be a little sprinkling of general literary, as well as non-literary, content. So let's go!

Source: Pinterest
Dutch author Mylo Freeman wrote this beautiful piece on what inspired her to create a Black princess, and how the battle for diversity in children's books is far from over. Still, Freeman writes that she is:
 ... happy to find that Princess Arabella transcends race. Proud Surinamese moms send me pictures of their beautiful dark-skinned four-year-olds dressed up as princess Arabella. And when I visited a predominantly white school a few weeks ago, a little blond girl stood up and said: 'Sorry, but I don't think Arabella is a real princess!' I gasped and thought ... here it comes. 'Her dress is orange and not pink', she said. A real princess wears pink!'
Ramadan started on Monday June 6 (Ramadan Kareem to those who are observing) and Arab Lit (in English) shared six different view of Ramadan from different reads (different genres, countries and periods), while Leila Aboulela shared this beautiful quote on facebook from the author, Tayeb Salih on 'how time slows down when we are fasting.'


Source: Leila Aboulela Official
I also listened, and watched a few things. On BBC Radio 4 extra there is a new three-part series - readings of three contemporary stories from the Horn of Africa (Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia). The first - Sulaiman Addonia's new short story, Saba, about a former cinema employee who decides to create a 'cinema' in his own refugee camp. Over on NPR, Yaa Gyasi was interviewed and she spoke about growing up in Huntsville, Alabama; on recreating life in 18th century Ghana; on the complicity of African slave traders and more:
I did a lot of research for this novel. I like to say that my research was wide but shallow: I read a little bit of a lot of book. And a book that really helped me was The Door of No Return by William St. Clair. He took a bunch of archival research about the Cape Coast Castle, so it's a book that really just talks about what life might have been like in the castle in and around the 18th century. And it really helped me wrap my head around what it might have been like for my characters. And then the rest I think is just a wild and vivid imagination. 
Akwaeka Emezi announced her debut novel, Freshwater, would be published by Atlantic Grove in 2017/18; Imbolo Mbue gave a beautiful and inspiring talk on the importance of public libraries and librarians:
... because libraries and librarians were very instrumental in getting me here today. My journey as a writer began in a public library in Virginia many years ago.
In terms of awards and shortlists, Chinelo Okparanta won Best Lesbian Fiction with Under the Udala Trees at the 28th Lambda Literary Awards, which honoured the best LGBTQ books of 2015 - and Brittle Paper explaining why that win is significant for African literature and the conversation around LGBT+ rights on the continent.  

The 2016 British Fantasy Awards nominations were announced and the anthology, African Monsters, edited by Margret Helgadottir and Jo Thomas was shortlisted for Best Anthology and Nnedi Okorafor's Binti for best novella. Also great to see Fox Spirit Books (who have published works such as African Monsters) and Newcon Press, who published Nick Wood's Azanian Bridges, nominated for Best Independent Press. 

In the world of book - well, short story - to film adaptations, filmmaker and artist Akosua Adoma Owusu has optioned the exclusive film rights to On Monday of Last Week, from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's The Things Around Your Neck. On why this story:
I was compelled to create a new work by adapting the literature from contemporary African writers. The themes of race, liberalism and sexuality in Adichie's short story 'On Monday Last Week' resonated with films on the 'triple consciousness' of the African immigrant as I transitions between avant-garde cinema, fine art and African tradition to complicate the nature of identity.
On Guardian African Network - writer H J Golakai whose debut novel The Lazarus Effect, first published in South Africa by Jacana and now recently published in the UK by Cassava Republic Press - explains how through her writing, she 'is committed to changing international perceptions of writers from her home country.' Speaking of international editions of African books, Emmanuel Iduma's Farad, first published by the Nigerian publishers Parresia, gets a North American makeover with The Sound of Things to Come. Published by The Mantle - it is out sometime this summer, and has an awesome and freaky cover by Victor Ehikhamenor. 



The 2016 Caine Prize Blog-a-thon continues over on Brittle Paper - although Kola Tobuson's review of Tope Folarin's shortlisted story, 'Genesis' led to a divided debate among the African literary community on whether or not the story is too autobiographical to be considered fiction. 


On Twitter Bwesigye bwa Mwesigire writes that the review 'left a bad taste in [his] reading mouth' ... and through 9 tweets explained why; with the reviewer, Kola Tubosun responding that he had a few thoughts on his thoughts on Bwesigye's thoughts on his thoughts on Genesis. On the other camp were writers, such as Obinna Udenwe who questioned if something autobiographical, and in turn creative nonfiction, should even be enterred into a fiction competition. Although my favourite response (call me biased), is from my girl-crush, Ndinda Kioko. I've storify(ed) some of the discussion. The conversation also took place on facebook where Dami Ajayi, Chika Unigwe and Rotimi Babtunde among others weighed in on the review. On the debate, and the tension between fiction and non-fiction, Writivism shared a conversation on Guernica with Jamica Kincaid on 'fiction , non-fiction, history and what it means to tell the truth.'


Literary wars continued, but this time a light-hearted one - #ReplaceABookTitleWithJollof. This fun hashtag - 'a literary twist on the Jollof wars' was covered by okayafrica; and important to say that it started in Kenya with #replacebooktitlewith kegels by @notmutant and @mwazo_mengi, was adapted by @nnanaestherne to #replaceabooktitlewithjollof - and the best titles retweeted by Brittle Paper. 

The books of the Africa Writes 2016 guest - although 'Jollof went West' could be another option for Nikhil Singh's book.
Image via Africa Writes 
... and to those writers and publishers and activists that have many, many, many hats, there's also this interview with 25-year-old Panashe Chigumadzi - feminist activist, writer and corporate media owner on This is Africa; and publisher, feminist, scholar Bibi Bakare-Yusuf on Lemonade and bell hook's critique. And following the mass shooting in Orlando, Teju Cole's commentary on this being more than just 'news', Keguro on queer clubs, refuge, escape and how in those spaces 'affection between queers made quotidian', and Bisi Alimi on the reality of being LGBT and African.  


In the world beyond African literature: here are what the cool people in Casablanca, Jo'burg, Lagos and Nairobi are wearing; this beautiful piece on the Uber driver and Muhammad Ali; the first Hollywood studio-backed film adaptation of a book by a black author is now available on DVD, a race-positive, gender-bending, subversive series for kids, and black actors winning all four of the Tony's musical acting honours. 

... and that's it for this week's Read it! (occasionally watched it!) Loved it!
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This post is inspired by a question asked by @tukopamoja on twitter almost two weeks ago: 'What are some great mystery novels by African writers?' This got me thinking about updating a post I did back in 2012 on African Crime fiction. There I cited the works of Mia Couto, Mukoma Wa Ngugi and Margie Orford to name a few. Well, 4 years later there have been a number of exciting crime, detective and mystery novels published by African authors, and because I love my lists, here are 13 exciting novels in the crime genre (I've also thrown in a couple of thrillers) that have been published in the last four years. As always, this is not an exhaustive list, but a teeny glimpse at what is out there. 


Hey Mma Ramotswe! Image via Ramya's Bookshelf.
Beginning in 2012 with Metro: A Story of Cairo which was banned on publication in Egypt in 2008 for 'offending public morals'. It is Magdy El Shafee's first full-length book, and was published in English by Macmillan in 2012.In it Shehab, a young software designer, owes money to a loan shark - and has no way of paying him back, until a powerful businessman offers assistance. The next day, Shehab sees him being stabbed in the alley - and the man's dying words suggest a conspiracy extending to the upper reached of the regime. Metro has been described as a 'prescient portrait of a crumbling society ... sound[ing] a cry for a better, freer future' in Egypt.

2013 saw the publication of Mukoma Wa Ngugi's Black Star Nairobi (published by Melville International Crime). In it, two cops - one American, one Kenyan - team up to track down a deadly tourist. A mysterious death they are investigating appears to be linked to the recent bombing of a downtown Nairobi hotel. But local forces start to come down on them to back off the case, and then a startling act of violence tips the scales, setting them off on a round-the-globe pursuit of the shadowy forces behind it all. 


There's also the thriller, Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes which was published by Harper Collins in 2014. There's a nightmare killer in Detroit and while Detective Gabi Versado has hunted down many monsters during her eight years in Homicide, she's never seen anything like this. Clayton Broom is a failed artist, and a broken man. Life destroyed his plans, so he's found new dreams - of flesh and bone ...  

In Now I See You by Priscilla Holmes Detective Inspector Thabisa Tswane from The Eagles, the Special Violent Crimes Unit, is called to work the case of a pair of clever and squeaky-sounding criminals who go on on a looting spree across several small towns in the Eastern Cape. There's one problem, one of the most important witnesses in the case is her estranged grandfather, Chief Solenkosi, who ordered her violent expulsion from the village over 10 years ago. Then there's the rich and slick Ollis Sando, who is rumoured to be the next president, but has a dirty past. Published by Modjaji Books in 2014, Now I See You involves 'stirring twists of fates, [where] past and present blur, everything is interconnected and nothing can be assumed.'


2014 also saw the publication of Joanne MacGregor's psychological thriller Dark Whispers, in which psychologist Megan Wright decides to investigate the truth behind an experience a patient describes of mental torture and sexual mutilation by a gynaecologist at the hospital she works at. Megan uncovers horrifying details of abuse and damage, but can tell no one because she is bound to the ethics of confidentiality. With time, her investigation will lead her client and herself into the mind and hands of a dangerously disturbed man. 

In 2014 there was also Murder at Cape Three Points by Kwei Quartey (published by Soho Press). At Cape Three Points on the beautiful Ghanaian coast, a canoe washes up at an oil rig site with two bodies in it, that of the Smith-Aidoos - a prominent, wealthy, middle-aged married couple who have been murdered. Mr. Smith-Aidoo has been gruesomely decapitated, suggesting that the killer was trying to send a specific message -  but what, and to whom, is a mystery. Months pass before the Ghanaian federal police finally agree to get involved - with Detective Inspector Darko Dawson sent to investigate; but the more he learns about the case, the more convoluted and dangerous it becomes.

Also published by Modjaji Books in 2014 is Balthasar's Gift by Charlotte Otter. It is post-apartheid South Africa, and while in Pietermaritzburg, the capital of KwaZulu-Natal, thr ANC rules; in the townships and villages, fear and superstition also rule. Someone put four bullets in Balthasar's chest. Now the softly-spoken man crime reporter, Maggie Cloete ignored is dead. Is it a political murder? Maggie's instincts are on red alarm, and during the search for the truth, she comes up against both gangsters and politicians - and has their henchmen on her tail. However, threats and attacks against her make her even more stubborn and determined. 



Satans and Shaitans by Obinna Udenwe is set against the backdrop of Nigeria's ongoing terrorism tensions, and centres on two powerful men that are members of the Sacred Order of the Universal Forces - Chief Donald Amechi and Chris Chuba (a televangelist). There's a plot to gain control of the country, a love affair between the children of these two men which leads to assassination, but by the wrong crew; but whodunit? Published in 2014 by Jacaranda and described as a novel of 'morality, choices, consequences, political and religious powers, terrorism and jihad', Satans and Shaitans is a story 'at the very heart of corruption in the Nigerian security forces and the government.' 
Published by Jacana in 2015, is Sweet Paradise by Joanne Hichens when Rae Valentine loses her boyfriend, book deal, colleague and job withing the space of 24 hours, she jumps at the idea of a distracting and personally demanding challenge sure to increase her income overnight. She is the most compassionate, but also the most gullible PI in the business. In her attempt to locate a missing teenager Rae falls foul of a psychological cesspit of obsession, addiction, misogyny and love-gone-bad.

Vamba Sherif's Bound to Secrecy (originally published in Dutch in 2007), then in English by Aflame Books in 2010, and recently published by London-based Hope Road publishing in 2015, has been described as 'an exploration of power and the fear it generates; and of love in all its magical, addictive forms. In it, William Mawolo arrives in a small Liberian town with a secret mission: to investigate  the mysterious disappearance of the police chief. The locals, however, are far from happy about his presence, and their hostility is increasing daily, threatening to boil over. At the same time, the departed chief's daughter doesn't seem to be too concerned about her missing father. Intrigued, Mawolo decides to stay longer than required, and little by little he starts to behave like the despotic man whose disappearance he came to investigate. 

Easy Motion Tourist is Leye Adenle's debut crime novel set in Lagos and published in 2016 by Cassava Republic Press. In it Guy Collins is on the hunt for an election story, but accidentally gets accused of murder - a mutilated female body is found close to a local bar he ends up going to. A young working girl, Amaka,  manages to manages to convince the police station chief to let him go; and with Amaka thinking Guy is a BBC journalist, figures he can help her broadcast the city's witchcraft and body parts trade. 


In A Rare Blue Bird Flies With Me by Youssef Fadel (translated by Jonathan Smolin), it is Spring 1990 and after years of searching in vain, a stranger passes a scrap of paper in Zina's pocket. It's from Aziz, the man who vanished the day after their wedding day almost two decades ago. It properls Zina on a final quest for a secret desert jail in southern Morocco, where her husband crouches in despair, dreaming of his former life. Published by Hoopoe in 2016, it was shortlisted for the 'Arabic Booker'. 

The Lazarus Effect by H J Golakai, also recently published by Cassava Republic Press in the UK, was first published in 2011 by Kwela Books. It tells the story of Voinjama Johnson - an investigative journalist for the Cape Town magazine, Urban. Vee has been seeing things: a teenage girl in a red hat - and when she spots a photo of this girl from her hallucinations at a local hospital, she launches an investigation, under the pretext of writing an article about missing children. 

... and here's a bonus addition to the list - Saraba's Crime Issue published this year on their 7th birthday. It includes a memoir written by an inmate in prison, fiction from 'Pemi Aguda and Moses Kilolo and more. 



Finally, there are some great articles out there more generally on African Crime fiction, and specifically on Southern African crime fiction; as well as ones on Arabic fiction, with a lot of focus on Moroccan and Egyptian crime fiction, such as this one on the Arab crime novel, this on Arabic Noirs, this on the Arab whodunnit. Finally, not fiction but this book on Moroccan Noir looks awesome. 



PS. I had so much fun putting this list together, I am currently compiling a larger one of African crime fiction. Stay tuned for that!
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Back again with a round-up of what I've been reading this week about African Literature. It's something new I'm trying out on the blog, and hope to share a lot of what I've been reading and loving across the interweb once a week (It will most likely be every other week). It will be mainly African literature, but sometimes I might share general literary content, as well as non-literary content that I just thoroughly enjoyed reading. Here we go with the  with the second edition of Read it! Loved it! 


Image via kireei.com
Okay so this is not African literature, but the week began with me reading about the artist, Njideka Akunyiyli's, on her billboard project Before Now After. I first heard about Njideka Akunyiyli when I saw her work on a copy of Chinelo Okparanta's Happiness, Like Water, and have been a huge fan of her work ever since. I got the pleasure of actually seeing that billboard in New York, as well as two pieces of her work at the Whitney Museum in New York last month - and it's even more detailed and breathe-taking in real life. So if you're in NYC, definitely worth checking it out. 

And of course, the reading (and sometimes watching) continued! Speaking of Chinelo Okparanta. Her debut novel, Under the Udala Trees, is said to have provoked several conversations around LGBT issues in African; and she joined news24 in the studio to discuss how it has sparked this conversation.
Screen shot via news24.com
Yaa Gyasi's US$1 billion debut novel, Homegoing, is out in a couple of day (June 7 to be exact); and Gyasi speaks about the inspiration behind her novel, which explores generations of Africans both at home and in the U.S. Over on Vimeo, I watched a short interview with writer Roland Rugero - the first Burundian novelist to be translated into English (Baho!, translated from the French by Christopher Schafer) - speaking about how the past affects present-day Burundi.

Nnedi Okorafor had a short conversation with Kola Tubosun about her craft and her place in the writing industry; and when asked if she ever expected she would reach the stage of recognition she currently has in her career. Okorfor's response:
When I first started writing. I didn't come with any expectations. I just loved to tell stories. I've never expected awards. I don't have any list I'm checking off. You can't control awards. They're not really up to you. They are up to others. Thus, why expect them? It's a surprise and an honour each time it happens. When I heard my name called at the ceremony [Nebula], total and complete shock.
I also read about the inspiration for Nnedi Okorafor's Nebula Award-winning novella Binti - a Muslim Scientist, Mariam 'Al-Astrolabiya' Al-Ijliya, living in 10th century Syria. Okorafor learned of Al-Ijliya at a book festival in the UAE, and wove her name into Binti's longer name. 

Over on Africa is a Country, they ask if the film adaptation of Cynthia Jele's, Happiness is a Four Letter Word, in South Africa is the new benchmark for cinema in the country? While Mark Bould reviewed Billy Kahora, The Story Club and Pan African Publishers, Imagine Africa 500  - 'the fifteen-story collection [that] emerged from an sf writers' workshop in Malawi, for which the final assignment was to write a story set 500 years in the future.'
'Imagine Africa 500' is a smart and engaging addition to the growing number of anthologies of African sf, not quite as literary as Nerine Dorman's Terra Incognita, not quite as pulpy as Ivor Hartmann's AfroSF collection. Billy Kahora, The Story Club and Pan African Publishers are to be congratulated for setting this all in motion, for their commitment to developing new writers, for their efforts to address the domination of African sf by South Africa and Nigeria - 'Imagine Africa 500' includes five authors from Malawi, four from Uganda and one from Botswana, as well as three Nigerians and two South Africans - and by male writers - two-fifths of the stories are by women, which is not parity but is heading in the right direction.
AkeFest 2015 was almost eight months ago, and Mehul Gohil shares a beautiful memoir of his experience - both at the festival and the place, Abeokuta.
Image by Mehul Gohil via Jalada.org
There were also lists - this time from Niq Mhlongo - who 'grew up reading only the African Writers Series' - and shared his top 15 books from the series; while Okayafrica shared 7 African Women Poets that 'will keep you calm, cool and collected for the summer', including Warsan Shire and Safia Elhillo. 
Image via BooksLIVE
Mid-week came with very sad, and heartbreaking news about Binyavanga Wainaina - currently on a prestigious Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (Daad) Fellowship in Belrin. He shared on his Facebook page about being physically assaulted by a taxi driver who got impatient at Wainaina who was struggling to give the driver directions to a pharmacy he was trying to get  to to collect his medications, as a result of a speech impediment resulting from the stroke he had. This impatient resulting in Wainaina being beaten. Over the course course of the week, Richard de Nooy shared a WARNING prompted by the attack, and the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Programme issued a statement 'strongly condemn[ing]' the assault. 

The week also saw the start of the Caine Prize 'Blog-a-thon's' on Africa in Words (the first review from Beverly Namozo Nsengiyunva on Adbul Adan's The Lifebloom Gift) and Brittle Paper (the first from Ikhide Ikheloa on Lidudumalingani's Memories We Lost). Ikhide Ikheola also did his review of all the shortlisted Caine Prize stories:
Abdul Adan's, 'The Lifebloom Gift', is a dark, troubling story about sexuality and other identities; Lesley Nneka Arimah's, 'What It Means When A Man Falls From The Sky', is a dark, fascinating and brilliant story about identity and gentrification; ... Tope Folarin's 'Genesis', is a dark, haunting commentary on mental illness and a heart warming story about children growing up in the shadows of their parents' and Utah's anxieties; Bongani Kona's 'At Your Requiem', is a dark tale of childhood wars (rivalries, child sexual abuse etc.) and Lidudumalingani's 'Memories We Lost, is a dark, affecting tale about sibling and communal love and mental illness. You get the point. It's all dark, these writes thrive on the edges of a dark, dark world.
In wonderful news, Irenosen Okojie's debut novel, Butterfly Fish, has been shortlisted for the 2016 Betty Trask Prize. The judges comment on the book: 
A bittersweet story uniting different traditions of narrative to create a whole new geography of imagination. - Michèle Roberts  
LitHub shared a conversation between Leila Aboulela annd Elnathan John on writing Islamic identity and being labelled a political writer: They discuss the characters at the heart of their novels, the roots of violence in life and in literature, and the question of audience when writing from a non-Western context. 
Leila Aboulela: ... I want to start by asking you about the very first chapter, 'Bayan Layi'. I was one of the judges of the Caine Prize in 2013 when we short-listed 'Bayan Layi' for the prize. To me it felt like a complete, satisfying and accomplished short story. Was it, though, the first chapter of a novel in progress or did you later on take the character/idea further and develop it as a novel?
Elnathan John: ... 'Bayan Layi', in its first incarnation was only a short story written following the 2011 electoral violence in my home state Kaduna and other places in Nigeria. I was venturing an exposition of why the violence happened and what state the north was in general. I was giving it all a whirl in my mind letting the minutiae around me - the stories I was hearing and seeing and unfold - coalesce into some composite picture I could understand and explain to others. After the story was written and as much satisfaction that gave me, it became clearer (the more I had to read it on the Caine Prize circuit), that it was just the beginning of something larger and more pithy. That was when I decided to push out a few more chapters like 'Bayan Layi'. By the fourth chapter, its form manifested itself to me and guided me by the hand until 'Born on A Tuesday' was born.
Ellah Wakatama Allfrey writes about 'African writers needing new ways to tell stories' and how 'creative non-fiction has the potential to close the gap ... '

Finally, a few non-African literature reads that I enjoyed this week - on 'Roots' being reborn, as well as the most powerful online reactions to its Premiers on Memorial Day (May 30th) in the States; a sad but beautiful essay on mourning the loss of a loved one through the books they left behind; on how Asian-American actors are fighting for visibility; and how Hollwood's often annoyingly lazy treatment of Africa on Screen continues with the new AMC series, Preacher. And if like me, you grew up watching (and loving) Pinky and the Brain, someone out there has ranked every single one of Brain's schemes to take over the world! Pure genius! I've also been overdosing on content around the great, Muhammad Ali, such as this one on why he felt more free on the African continent than in the States, as I celebrate his life - and as a friend wrote in a beautiful facebook post, he is 'reflective' about Ali's death - 'and it is not even his celebrated greatness, but the beauty of his longevity.'

Happy Reading, and see you for the next edition of Read it! Loved it! ...with a little sprinkling of Watched it!
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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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