Fiction

By Agatha Aduro

• Title: The Longing of the Dervish
• Author: Hammour Ziada
• Translator: Jonathan Wright
• Publisher: Hoopoe
• Number of pages: 297
• Year of publication: 2016
• Category: Fiction

What happens when you put a freed slave with strong leanings towards Jihadism and an impressionable, young, Christian nun, filled with a zeal to convert ‘African barbarians’, together in the midst of a Sudan that is embroiled in politico-religious turbulence? The result is what forms the core of The Longing of the Dervish, a novel by Hammour Ziada that in its Arabic original won the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature in 2014. More…

By Kemi Falodun

• Title: A Gecko’s Farewell
• Author: Maik Nwosu
• Publisher: Parrésia Publishers Ltd
• Number of pages: 256
• Year of publication: 2016
• Category: Fiction

There have been different narratives dealing with the themes of migration, displacement and home by many African writers. However, Maik Nwosu’s ability to weave different worlds into this novel makes A Gecko’s Farewell an unusual read. ‘A Gecko’s Farewell’ is also the title of an essay and the personal narrative of Mzilikazi, one of the three central characters of this novel and a core member of the Gecko X organisation. Etiaba and Nadia are the other two. These three young Africans, who are on different paths of struggle and discovery, meet on the internet via a platform created for Africans to tell their own stories. In Chimamanda Adichie’s Americanah, Ifemelu creates a community on the blogosphere for people with similar experiences. Etiaba does something similar, Gecko X. The reader will later learn, as the story progresses, how the lives of these three characters intersect. More…

By Su’eddie Vershima Agema

• Title: A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me
• Author: Youssef Fadel
• Translator: Jonathan Smolin
• Publisher: Hoopoe
• Number of pages: 235
• Year of publication: 2016
• Category: Fiction

Youssef Fadel’s A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me is a postcolonial novel and part of a prison literature set in the period of Moroccan history known as the Years of Lead (1961–1999), the reign of King Hassan II. It is the second part of a trilogy that explores that country’s history and culture during the ‘70s and ‘80s. The novel covers a season of imprisonments, maltreatment and murder in Morocco, which was the aftermath of the 1971 and 1972 coups against King Hassan II. More…

By Emeka Ugwu

• Title: Grace and Other Stories
• Author: Bongani Sibanda
• Publisher: Weaver Press
• Number of pages: 92
• Year of publication: 2016
• Category: Fiction

‘An eye for an eye and an ear for an ear may not be adequate in our circumstances. We might very well demand two ears for one ear and two eyes for one eye’. – Robert Mugabe

‘They don’t care if people die. For the sake of political power the government is willing to sacrifice the lives of thousands. The government is starving areas that voted for the opposition in recent elections. It is the work of devils’. – Pius Ncube

Bongani Sibanda’’s debut collection of short stories, Grace and Other Stories, opens as we meet Mlungisi, a young Zimbabwean migrant, who has just returned home on a visit for the first time in a decade. Meeting Mlungisi, the Political Science student at a university in South Africa, we come to learn that his Shona father married his Ndebele mother, who was just sixteen at the time, only to later divorce and throw her out on the streets. With his title story, ‘‘Grace’, Sibanda begins to thread the needle with stories of survival in Matabeleland. More…

By Agbonmire Ifeh

• Title: Nwelezelanga: The Star Child
• Author: Unathi Magubeni
• Publisher: BlackBird Books
• Number of pages: 129
• Year of publication: 2016
• Category: Fiction

Nwelezelanga: The Star Child is the testament to a drastic career change. Information gleaned from the author’s biography reveals that the author left the corporate world to become a sangoma and trainee herbalist, and the book could be read as an explanation for his choice. It is also public relations for his new job. Written in the third person, the book is divided into three parts. Taken as a novel, it would comfortably fall into the genre of magical realism, but Nwelezelanga: The Star Child really is a mystical and philosophical book. The narrative is starkly framed in terms of darkness versus light. More…

By Tọ́pẹ́ Salaudeen-Adégòkè

• Title: Who Told the Most Incredible Story?
• Author: Naana J E S Opoku-Agyemang
• Publisher: Afram Publishers (Ghana) Limited
• Number of pages: 619 (5 Vols: Vol 1, 113pp; Vol 2, 121pp; Vol 3, 128pp; Vol 4, 122pp; Vol 5, 135pp)
• Year of publication: 2015
• Category: Children

‘“Fantasy” is the natural bedrock of all African folktales. In other words, there is no African oral narrative, including folktales, both “fictional” and “non-fictional”, that is not couched in varying degrees of fantasy’, writes Ademola Dasylva in his monograph, Classificatory Paradigms in African Oral Narrative (p 14). It is often said that childlike truths are best expressed in a childlike manner, and fantasy is a sure means of perpetuating childlike truths. Fantasy allows free range for the imagination of oral artists and their listeners. More…

By Dami Ajayi

• Title: And after Many Days
• Author: Jowhor Ile
• Publisher: Kachifo Limited
• Number of pages: 287
• Year of publication: 2016
• Category: Fiction

Jowhor Ile’s debut novel, And after Many Days, has been panned by some readers and critics. More…

By Tọ́pẹ́ Salaudeen-Adégòkè

• Title: And after Many Days
• Author: Jowhor Ile
• Publisher: Kachifo Limited
• Number of pages: 287
• Year of publication: 2016
• Category: Fiction

Family is beautiful, an institution of love that binds more than mere friendship when genuine love is present. Family is not just a group of individuals who live together – the fraternal love and amity between siblings is wonderful when it is present. And, to be fortunate enough to have people who can be regarded as relatives is to be blessed immensely. More…

By Tolu Akinwole

• Title: Menorahs and Minarets
• Author: Kamal Ruhayyim
• Translator: Sarah Enany
• Publisher: Hoopoe
• Number of pages: 256
• Year of publication: 2017
• Category: Fiction

‘They could hardly believe what they were seeing: a dead Jew, and a Muslim funeral’ (p 249).

These are good times for readers; novelists are boldly taking on issues of immense socio-political significance, and novels are igniting lively debates. Kamal Ruhayyim is one such novelist; Menorahs and Minarets is one such novel. Days in the Diaspora (2012) and Diary of a Jewish Muslim (2014) heralded Menorahs and Minarets, which concludes a compelling trilogy. Menorahs and Minarets does not merely paint ‘an uncompromising portrait of an older generation dictating how their children live and love’ as the blurb proclaims, it is an insightful x-ray of the socially significant effects of the clash of menorahs and minarets on the private life of a man caught in that conflict. More…

By Adaudo Anyiam-Osigwe

• Title: Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun
• Author: Sarah Ladipo Manyika
• Publisher: Cassava Republic Press
• Number of pages: 118
• Year of publication: 2016
• Category: Fiction

Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s short novel, Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun, centres on the elderly Dr Morayo Da Silva, and is a considerate meditation on life’s daily triumphs and setbacks. Our moments and actions accumulate into years and stories that are embodied in a lifetime. As a former English professor, Morayo is deeply attached to books. However, as one discovers more about Morayo’s life, there is a realisation that this deep attachment is a form of solace, and not just solace but also a way to seek control over the meaning of death and betrayal. More…