Book Review

AllAfrica News: Book Listings and Reviews

• Angola: New Books | War, Manhood and Angolan Society
  [New Frame] Anthropologist John Spall examines how combat affected the gender, sexual relations and religious orientation of a generation of Angolans recruited to fight between 1975 and 2002.
  
  
• Kenya: Book Club - Queer African Reads
  [Nation] Reviewer: Mercy Kariuki, Bookstagrammers and book club convener
  
  
• South Africa: Book Review | 'The Prophets', a Tender Love Story
  [New Frame] In his debut offering, Robert Jones Jr has written the book he wanted to read but could find nowhere: a story of queer Black love among slaves.
  
  
• Gambia: The Girl With the Louding Voice
  [The Point] "Nigeria is a country located in West Africa": so begins the prologue of Abi Daré's debut novel. The prologue is a brief excerpt from The Book of Nigerian Facts, supposedly published in 2014. Though this book is fictional, the facts it gives are real. It states: "As the 6th largest crude oil exporter in the world, and with a GDP of $568.5 billion, Nigeria is the richest country in Africa. Sadly, over 100 million Nigerians live in poverty, surviving on less than $1 a day." It seems a curious place to
  
  
• Zimbabwe: Kwachirere Previews Diaspora Dreams, a Novel By Andrew Chatora
  [This is Africa] Memory Chirere, a writer and literature lecturer with the University of Zimbabwe previews Diaspora Dreams, Andrew Chatora's debut novel. It's not the usual tale about a young Zimbabwean coming to the UK because of the crisis back home. Chatora rather "takes a very courageous and startling detour with this new book".
  
  
• Gambia: Award-Winning Gambian Author to Launch New Book
  [Foroyaa] Gambian award-winning author, Modou Lamin Age-Almusaf Sowe, is set to launch another book on 7 April, 2021 via Facebook Live from 4-6pm GMT.
  
  
• South Africa: Long Read | the Survival of the Paris Commune
  [New Frame] The Commune of 1871 was never truly vanquished - its political imaginary lived on and is today being liberated and revived in a new cycle of struggles.
  
  
• Africa: Book Review - a Pan-African Poetry of Belonging
  [Daily Maverick] In his latest poetry collection, Sihle Ntuli's acute observations of history and place show that belonging is layered, fraught with problems and often unharmonious.
  
  
• South Africa: New Books - In, Against, Beyond Corona
  [New Frame] Opening with a poem by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, the Church Land Programme's response to the Covid-19 pandemic thinks deeply about how to resist and rebel to create a life-enhancing world.
  
  
• Rwanda: Rwanda Is Eating Its Own (AKA Why You Should Read Do Not Disturb)
  [African Arguments] Michela Wrong's book about the murder of Rwanda's former intelligence chief is a masterclass in investigative journalism.
  
  
• Africa: New Books | Learning From Uprisings in Africa and Asia
  [New Frame] In their chapter in this book edited by Jade Saab, Azza Mustafa and Sara Abbas glean the lessons to be learned from Sudan's December Uprising.