By Richard Oduor Oduku

• Title: Homegrown
• Author: Christine Coates
• Publisher: Modjaji Books
• Pages: 69
• Year of publication: 2014
• Category: Poetry

Homegrown is a delicate intertwining of personal memory and national history. Memory has always been regarded a high art, even a sacred one, closely akin to the arts of divination and inspiration. In Homegrown, the emotions of daily life litter the pages with acute specificity. Coates uses narrative and everyday conversational language to weave personal experiences and memory as a way of investigating universal themes. The straightforward verse style and colloquial tone and simplicity radiates nostalgia so pervasive, yet so entrancing, in its effort to hold your hand and walk you through all the spaces the poet has passed through. Indeed, the poet sings, ‘I love to go a-wandering – in the dusty town of Africa’. More…

By Emeka Ugwu

• Title: Nobody’s Business
• Author: Thabo Jijana
• Publisher: Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd
• Number of pages: 180
• Year of publication: 2014
• Category: Faction

‘The tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that they are not mended again’. – Alan Paton.

Thabo Jijana, budding writer and author of Nobody’s Business, does not belong to the Rainbow Coalition’s so-called ‘born free’ generation. Nonetheless, he tells a very vital story in his memoir, not only about the rather untimely death of his father, Fundisile Jijana, but also of the ongoing strife that has plagued attempts by the government of South Africa to formalise its multi-million rand taxi industry. More…

By Dami Ajayi

• Title: The Maestro, The Magistrate & The Mathematician
• Author: Tendai Huchu
• Publisher: ‘amaBooks
• Number of pages: 273
• Year of publication: 2014
• Category: Fiction

Zimbabwean writer, Tendai Huchu’s second book, a novel, is called The Maestro, The Magistrate & The Mathematician, a rather mouthful title that enjoys the playful alliteration of a recalcitrant poet. More…