How far can you travel to find a home elsewhere? In a provocative yet vulnerable way, Jennifer Kumbi guides us to get answers to this. In most short stories, there is a tendency to be finite and crisp making such stories lack sporadic and reality. But in each of the 12 stories, each character gives us a fresh, almost filial feel of their circumstances and how they go through each of them.
Young discerning boys, ubiquitous women, bonded men all have Uganda in common. “We poor people are embarrassed by poverty. We hide it. There’s no need to look at a person saying I’ve tried Britain and failed. Where is the hope for the dreamer?”
And despite the winter and acrimony, the pain and the growth, at the end, everyone wants a family, a home, a place to be. Makumbi chose her characters so well and the plot so tainted that you would definitely say this is real life been given back to us.
And as Noah Mintz said, ‘A single story is never the whole story. The only proper way to tell it is as multiple narratives, lives that interweave and tie together, but are ultimately unique and independent. Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi grants us this as a corrective, a bright and rich collection that offers a glimpse into the expat community without presuming to show the whole picture.’
This is the perfect short story about migrants (NO!) Expatriates.
Let’s tell this story properly
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi was born in Kampala, Uganda, in 1967, and now lives in Manchester. Her first novel, Kintu, was longlisted for the Etisalat prize in 2014, and she won the Commonwealth Short Story prize in the same year. Her first short story collection, Manchester Happened, was published in 2019. She was awarded the prestigious Windham-Campbell prize for fiction in 2018. Her new book, The First Woman, is a powerful feminist rendition of Ugandan origin tales, charting the young girl Kirabo’s journey to find her place in the world.
Teller of secrets is an intimate recounting of the patriarchal horrors of the 1960’s West Africa. And through the text, we find a feminism which might have gine too far just to prove a point.
One of the best books to read to understand the diversive patriarchal African culture. Immediately, you go a short page with Esi you immediately feel lucky that you have this omniscient view. Although her story isn’t objective. It is humane. At random points, as if this was a tale she thought we could regard as a mere lie. She speaks to us directly, She tells us she is ‘creating cupboards in my mind where I lock up scenes that threaten to shred me to pieces.‘ However at other times, you wonder if she isn’t exaggerating. Could she remain sane despite the pain and harrowing fate that she faced while trying to explore. While trying to find the identity that her father claimed could only come if she married.
The teller of secrets as a story of young female Nigerian-Ghananian is first an intriguing piece into the personalities Esi can conveniently be without threatening her Papa or her half sister. Then a series of near miss rebellion against tyranny. Tyranny from those she thought would be modern enough to love her and not try to own her. Tyranny from a father who couldn’t conceive of a woman as herself, and only a vestige of the husband. Bisi’s words are not just merely flowery, they achieve a nuisance.
teller of secrets cover
A steady reminder that our persona isn’t just a full grown woman but one who knew when a bed shook shweequaw shweequaw and even it shakes normally. She also says, In the middle of the night, I feel ants crawling around the edges of my nightgown. I brush them off but they keep coming. I snap awake up to discover the ants are Rudolph’s fingers stealing under my nightgown. They creep between my legs, trying to pull my drawers to one side. His excited breath infuriates me. Pretending to be still asleep, I fling my arm out, whacking him hard. He holds still. From his fast breathing I know he is dying to come at me. When he thinks I’m sleeping, the fingers resume their creeping. I move and whack him again, then it’s creep, whack, creep, whack until he understands it’s not happening.
But still a question keeps nagging me, his African patriarchy so blatant. Her Papa made her go to the best schools, telling her to keep herself unlike her half-sisters who were a disgrace and at the end, he reminds her that a woman’s glory is her husband. Sometimes I am unsure as to Esi’s assuredness. Did she become wiser than her age by pain or simply what she would grow up to by her genes especially with no mother in her life. “When a farmer plants a seed, the soil has no right to refuse. Soil has no life. A woman does. She is not soil, and no man may plant in her at will. No one may own another human being. I am the only one who should decide if I can take a pill or not. Anything done inside me is my choice alone. I am the queen of my body.”At the end, the character live up to their worth providing the anger, backstory or fate that drives the plot. The settings are abysmally plain but numerous enough to keep a sense of peculiarism. A good story. An unbelievable plot.
WHERE TO GET THE TELLER OF SECRETS BY BISI ADJAPON
Bisi Adjapon’s writing has been featured in journals and newspapers such as McSweeney’s Quarterly, Washington Times, Daily Graphic, and Chicken Bones. She founded and ran the Young Shakespeare company for four years in America, and as an International Affairs Specialist for the US Foreign Agricultural Service, won the Civil Rights Award for Human Relations. Of Women and Frogs began as a short story, which was nominated for the Caine Prize. She lives in Ghana.
Namina Forna’s the gilded one is a story about brutal survival, unforgivable quisling and redeeming feminism.
It would be impossible to say in one breath what the gilded one is to me. But I would try. Set in Otera, the first of its series. We see coming of age girls who are born a crime. Their very existence, a taboo. Namina however don’t leave it at this cliche surface. She humanizes her tale, she humanizes monsters, she humanizes deity in ways that show that at the end we are all the same.Deka, our main character is like most of us, powerful, destined but ignorant. And when she is no longer ignorant, she tries to run away from who she is, tries to become someone else. Will it be too late before to make peace with her identity?
the gilded ones cover
There is a certain sense of comradeship that Namina builds among all the ladies that bleeds gold. They didn’t build it easily but when it mattered. The fear and the anxiety of whether it would last till the end held us. Will they betray themselves to the jali? To allow them keep being domineering or will they stand by each other even through death? The plot thickens masterfully, and the part that remains with me the most is when Belcalis reveal how people of their nature are treated, ‘Once I stopped being hurt, being violated, they faded.” She smiles bitterly. “And that’s the worst part. The physical body – it heals. The scars fade. But the memories are for ever. Even when you forget, they remain inside, taunting you, resurfacing when you least expect.”‘ This quietly reminded me that it is best never to be a thorn to anyone. Because once we commit the act, we can never undo it. Never.For a fantasy genre, the gilded one theme is far from cliche, sometimes even treading the part of diversity and newness.
But it would be wrong to talk about what Namina has written without taking about why she wrote it. The gilded ones examines patriarchy. How does it form? What supports it? How do women survive under it? And what about men or people who don’t fall into the binary? Who thrives and who doesn’t? It does all this in an unashamedly objective manner. Adeptly using characters to drive the plot. Although as common in most female fantasy fiction, there is the tendency that romance seems just like a reprieve not a momentum. Keila and Deka fail in giving a more physical expression of their love, time and time again. But I am only sated when he took the ultimate decision of volunteering to kill Deka. Wishing that it is the hands of a loved one she dies not a stranger.I am actively expecting the next in the series and hoping with all that have, that the damage hasn’t gone too far.
AWARDS WON BY THE GILDED ONES
Cooperative Children’s Book Center ChoicesSELECTION 2022RELATED ARTICLES
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY TEEN VOGUE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR OF THE GILDED ONES
Namina Forna is a young adult novelist based in Los Angeles, and the author of the New York Times bestselling epic fantasy YA novel The Gilded Ones. Originally from Sierra Leone, West Africa, she moved to the US when she was nine and has been traveling back and forth ever since. Namina loves telling stories with fierce female leads and works as a screenwriter in LA.
A gilt-edged debut. In his only wife, Peace dares us to see beyond marriage into womanhood, to see beyond love, into commitment.
Set about 2014 in modern Ghana, Peace Adzo Medie at first slowly introduces us into an untypical marriage where the groom isn’t present on his wedding day. The stage set, we aren’t suprised when he don’t see his new bride for weeks although they are in the same town. Neither are we suprised when the going gets tough in the marriage. And he remains a puppet of a matriarchal figure. If Medie story was about this pathetic living. It wouldn’t be worth its hype. But the only wife is more.
The character of Afi inspirés a sensé of rustic stubbornness, once believed to be the exclusive preserve of educated African women. A woman in her early twenties ready to be. Ready to continue being who she really is when it would cost her, her ‘marriage.’ At a point, You are seduced to put yourself in Afi’s shoe over and over when she takes revolutionary decisions against the mother figures in her life. And you would ask, would you really bite the hand that feed you, just to make a point? Would you leave the man you love just because his eye is set on another? The uncomfortable question of the other woman is the ilk even in this tale.
his only wife cover
Drawing deeply from the tragedy of what a single story could cause we see how some characters would have been all different if they knew everything they needed to know. ‘I often fantasized about what I would do when I met the woman. These fantasies varied depending on my mood. I would slap her and walk away without saying a word. Or I would give her a vicious tongue-lashing that would leave her sobbing and begging my forgiveness. I would call her a shameless husband-snatcher and a home-wrecker. I would ululate so that everyone around would gather as she huddled on the ground in a public place and join me in humiliating her. I would punish her for all the heartache she had caused me, for the sleepless nights and the tears. But now I just stood there staring at Eli and the only thing that I could think was that the Ganyos had lied to me. They had told me she was ugly. But there she was, the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.’
The tempo of the story takes too long to rise, to give us the conflict the bio promises, but it isn’t till late in the story that it starts off. Yet even in that lateness, it was worth the wait. As each character played it role towards a showdown of decisions. Toga Pious who did everything that should be done to woman when the well to do man of the family is dead. Aunty who is compassionate yet dictatorial. Having the aged bliss of concern and the ancient quest for the minutest control. The only wife for a debut is simple, bold and daring. And it shows African feminism as something that could likely bring hope.
AWARDS WON BY HIS ONLY WIFE
The October selection of Reese Witherspoon’s book club
Runner up for the 2020 Aidoo-Snyder Prize for Best Creative Work.
2020 best book by Buzzfeed, Library Journal, and the Chicago Public Library
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Peace Medie has produced several works of short fiction. In 2020, she published her debut novel, His Only Wife. It deals with the struggles of modern marriage in Ghana and the interconnecting lives of three women, Afi, Evelyn, and Muna. It was described as “A Cinderella story set in Ghana” by Kirkus. His Only Wife was well received, appearing on several lists of best new releases, including the New York Times’ Staff Pick. In 2021, she was named “Best Author” by the Ghanaian news station Citi TV at its annual Entertainment Achievement Awards. Medie describes her fiction as being heavily influenced by her academic research into gender, violence, and politics.
Freshwater is the debut of land mark breaking author-Ekwezi Akwaeke. If you have ever wondered about what the Igbo system says about bi-sexualism, non-binary cis-, or any unusual gender classification? This is the book for you.
Mysticism is usually regarded as something of the past. An expired belief system or an Eastern phenomenon. But Ekwezi proves to us it is more than that. Everyone of us is different. And in that difference we have parts of us that few people can understand.
Ekwezi builds the Igbo Culture in a daring and beautiful way. Taking shades from Ogozie’s Orchestra of Minorities. The ogbaje becomes something more than a folktale character. They becomes us. They are even wiser, desperate of the desire for us to see Ala, the great mother’s plan for what it really is. As they say, ‘We did not come alone. With a force like ours, we dragged other things along—a pact, bits of bone, an igneous rock, worn-out velveteen, a strip of human hide tying it all together. This compound object is called the iyi-ụwa, the oath of the world. It is a promise we made when we were free and floating, before we entered the Ada. The oath says that we will come back, that we will not stay in this world, that we are loyal to the other side. When spirits like us are put inside flesh, this oath becomes a real object.’
FRESHWATER COVER
The first emotion would be to pity Ada, to be sorry about what has befallen her. The fate the gods had dumped on her innocent frame. Then the next is the miracle of her multiple personality. ‘It’s like you’re on this thin line between being alive and being dead, like one small shift could send you in either direction.” Ekwezi explores non-binary as a natural not a forced. As Ada wants that to be her reality, we learn the purpose is not to be male exactly. But to be someone in that thin line. Yet within her; Asughara, a part of who she is, wants to be a woman. The other part says, ‘How many times had Asụghara allowed a wash of sperm into the Ada’s body? Yet each time, we hardened against it and nothing took. We were a miracle like that, a mercy to the Ada.’
Reading a text of this traditional unfamiliarity, at first strokes your lack of knowledge. You wondering what the author is driving at. But the personality of Yshwa(Yes, according to Ekwezi, Jesus) paints a picture of an innate allure. A character you know all along, yet when seen from an unnatural eye, you ask yourself, is this really him? ‘He ran his hands along the curve of her faith and felt its strength, that it would remain steadfast whether he came to her or not. And even if it did not hold, Yshwa had no intentions of manifesting. He had endured that abomination of the physical once and it was enough, never again. Not for the heartbroken children who were suffering more than her, not for the world off a cliff, not for a honey-soaked piece of bread. We resented him for it. When his fingers came too close, we snapped our teeth at them and Yshwa withdrew, amused, and went back to his watching.’ Is that merely who Jesus is? Those among us who feel his impact in our lives, is he really doing it to test us?
Modern African would ask if Indeed this character of brothersisters(masquerades), ogbaje, and more are not a step too far from reality. But there is a reminder that Ada was picked from before the womb. And that predestination and mysticism has it place. I would really love that Akwaeke recommends text for us to read to understand a background for this Igbo Dynamism.
Behold the dreamers is an intoxicating migrant story. Showing the struggle of the undereducated African in America. Mbue’s work is a must read if you want to know the cost which lack of immigration papers, immigration and lack of self-worth can cause.
Behold the dreamers is set in the times surrounding the 2008 financial shock. With ease and an unusual form of dexterity, Mbue tells the story of a random immigrant family. And it is through the travails, joy and humanity of this family that we see what America really is.
Amazingly, Mbue Imbolo manages to show how sometimes immigrants are ready to help themselves against almighty America. Is it Winston that helps Jende free of charge to get a visa, then to get a job, then to get a lawyer just like that? Or is it the closely knit sisterhood life, Neni, finds in Fatu and Betty? It is all just surprising even more to see that all Immigrant story don’t end from grass to grace. Nah! Sometimes fate in the form of a global meltdown happens. And when it strikes even the owners of the land themselves shed blood.
BEHOLD THE DREAMERS COVER PICTURE
Though from almost all perspective, Jende seems to be the main character, because it is his job with Mr Edwards that drive the plot, it is the finality to go back home that puts a curtain to it. And his thoughts like an African man; ‘you didn’t get married because no one wanted to marry you, or you didn’t find anyone you loved enough to marry, because no woman with a brain intact will say no to a man she loves if the man wants to marry her. Women enjoy making noise about independence, but every woman, American or not, appreciates a good man. If that wasn’t the case why did so many movies end with a woman smiling because she finally got a man?’However, Neni, the best portrait of an African woman and wife seems more qualified. Because it is from her that the weaknesses, the sub-plots of the story is able to move. Right from her discovery of Mrs Cindy Edward secret to creating an haven for Mighty, the child, then blackmailing. It becomes obvious the levels a woman can go to for her family.
Sometimes, that decision not to relate with other humans because of their colour and origin isn’t merely because of stratification. It is just a humane desire to relate with the persons with whom it is most easy to relate with. And when Neni says it ‘Even in New York City, even in a place of many nations and cultures, men and women, young and old, rich and poor, preferred their kind when it came to those they kept closest. And why shouldn’t they? It was far easier to do so than to spend one’s limited energy trying to blend into a world one was never meant to be a part of.’ It solidifies what America really is.Behold the dreamers is one of the few books with a perfect blend of African languages and English. And the thought process of Jende was immediately understandable when we saw what stood against him.
Mbue also gives Christianity a chance to show it is a religion of love-using Natasha, the pastor to show that possibility. Sincerely, I want to find no fault in how the story flows but I realise in a way we were rushed. For it is almost as if Mrs Edward had always wanted to die and the immigration lawyer didn’t want Jende to stay on in America. I love the story and a line that sticks with me is what Jende says to Leah, ‘It’s the fear that kills us, Leah,” Jende said. “Sometimes it happens and it is not even as bad as the fear. That is what I have learned in this life. It is the fear.”’
AWARDS BEHOLD THE DREAMERS HAS WON
Behold the Dreamers, her critically acclaimed debut novel, won the 2017 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and was named by The New York Times and The Washington Post as one of the notable books of 2016. It was also named as a best book of 2016 by NPR, Kirkus Reviews, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The novel also won the 2017 Blue Metropolis Words to Change Prize.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Imbolo Mbue is a native of the seaside town of Limbe, Cameroon. She holds a BS from Rutgers University and an MA from Columbia University. A resident of the United States for more than a decade, she lives in New York City.
Prince of Monkeys is a coming of age narrative that tells t anyhe Nigerian story in its natural blemished fashion. Ehirim’s debut is a book showing all shades of what Nigerian is in the 80’s and 90’s. It tells the story like Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus.
Nnamdi Ehirim made a provocative coming of age story in Prince of Monkeys. Set during the heydays of the Nigerian military regime. We see how the companionship and clique of childhood could make or perhaps even mar us when power beckons. As his debut, Nnamdi conveniently talks about sex, religion, politics not only in a colourful way but even flawlessly.
An African young adult novel that boldly tells the African growing up experience. Ihechi has always known he wants more out of life than what his father brazenly requires of him. As he befriends Mendaus, the once quiet but now passionate Messiah; Maradona, thé bastard turn armed robber; Enoch, the Pastor’s son. We see they leave various shades of their beliefs, faults and attitude with him. But of the most influence are the women in his life, his sweetheart Zeerat, whose death spun him to become more of who he wants to be. Or even his mother who initiates him to traditional religion and when the going gets tough in Lagos, he is sent to Enugu.
Everyone of the character has a depth you can believe almost as if they are someone you know. And it is in there naming, Nnamdi wove different tales, like Ephesians who becomes an Ogun Worshipper or Mendaus, who becomes a political celebrity. The Prince of Monkeys show us a desire by young adult to be regarded in an higher form not merely leaders of tomorrow who would miracously solve all the problems of Nigeria. But as people who want to look at friends without seeing any shadow aspect to their personalities, without any likes or dislikes, without any catalysts or inhibitions to accepting them despite their religion, sexuality, or even morality.
Reading this book to the end, only makes you to realize how you might have to sacrifice your religion, belief system, virginity and even fears just to be someone that is regarded with power. Ehirim’s writing style is a chasmic prosaic form where the cutting of a part leads to the distortion of the meaning. When he talks about death, it seems, he describes a cunning Mafia ‘During my life, I’d heard very little of death: He had moved around me often enough, but in quiet and subtle motions, so I never really knew till he was gone. This time he had stared me in the face, spared my life, and killed me in another way—and, as he had always done, left it to others to testify of his exploits.’
The choice of the first person point of view gives us intimacy. A calculated way to bring up our sympathy for Ihechi, now a grown man who has been appointed by Major-Genaral, Alhaji and other powers that be to be a Presidential aspirant. But as he is taking the last step to become a King, a power-broker, an elite, he encounters his childhood friends. ONCE AGAIN, Nnamdi has told a beautiful tale.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nnamdi Ehirim is a twenty–six–year–old Nigerian writer based in Lagos and Madrid. His writing has appeared in Afreada, Brittle Paper, Catapult, The Kalahari Review, and The Republic. He cofounded a clean–energy start–up in Nigeria and is currently pursuing an MBA focused on entrepreneurship in the renewable energy sector.
The first woman is a universal tale with an African perspective. It is well researched, human and emotional. Jennifer sets a new height in the African feminist movement, with this fiction. Imagine Purple Hibiscus blended with African child; this is it product. It is a coming of age prose set in Uganda detailing itself not only in the folklores & beliefs but even in the daily happenings. The first woman tells of the 1970’s back to the 1930’s, and again to the 1970 with unparalleled ferocity yet in a dedicated way. Idi Amin, Tazania, bloodbath, nothing was left out in this epical storytelling about a girl finding herself.
Kirabo, our protagonist is easily lovable. We can easily identify with her growing up pains and questions. It is amazing how she could have her heart in her mouth with Sio, but be a paragon of boldness with her fellow females. What catches my attention even more is the woman she becomes; the city which her father brings her into shows the power a woman like her can have. Though subtle, when needed could actually be a X factor.
All the characters are unmistakably like our next door neighbours. Is it Mino, a grandmother who though isn’t ‘educated’ knows where a man’s control had to break. Or Nsuta who will remain imprinted in my memory because of this words;’That is because some people have appointed themselves his police. And I tell you, child, the police are far worse than God himself. That is why the day you catch your man with another woman, you will go for the woman and not him. My grandmothers called it kweluma. That is when oppressed people turn on each other or on themselves and bite. It is as a form of relief. If you cannot bite your oppressor, you bite yourself.
A major theme, Jennifer inadvertently pursues is the substance of a woman. A woman was a woman, not a slave or a god. Kirabo’s, Nsuta’s and Mino’s life show all this in different but intensive shades. The cliff-hanger moment was when Sio got Giibwa pregnant, Jennifer expertly curates it revealing how Kirabo would feel about it. It was great. Then there is another side someone like Gayi brought to the discussion. ‘Father’s mantra that girls must be educated to escape oppression can also be oppressive. Mother, I stayed long enough in school to know it was not for me.’ Was education the only way to prevent chauvinist oppression?Makumbi was recommended a random Facebook friend. And I was quite sceptical about who could beat Adiche. However now that I have read this, indeed African feminism is rising, in a daring but still human manner.
AWARDS WON BY THE FIRST WOMAN
Selected as a Best Book of the Autumn by the Guardian, Telegraph Magazine, Times, Independent, Stylist and Irish Times
Selected as a Best Book of the Month by Waterstones, the Evening Standard and Apple Books
Sci-fi based on outer space are most times told from that adult, tainted perspective. Do you think of terra-two is a coming of age story about hope, innocence and a forced life.Working together for ourselves is not retarded, rather it is the best way to ensure we survive in this world.Temi Oh paints each of her character effortlessly, realistically and clearly. Though still in their teens, the emotions, principles and life they live is one we all as teenagers all had. Was it the Jason and Juno’s love life? A love life whose strength we sometimes question, sometimes tear up over. Or the fragility of living as shown by Asa. With her character we are forced to ask ourselves, right now at this moment, am I, me? Or I am living someone’s else life. Most times, we think the problem of Going to another planet in another system will be solely about the technological questions. But Temi shows that it isn’t. It is more than that. Even if there is another hope at starting all over.
do you think of terra-two?
Are we humans really going to start over or we would just carry our ingrained destructive tendency to the new world. I am mightily amazed at how she depicts Harry. He has one of the best character growth that have seen in Sci-fi in recent years. We realise in the course of their journey that his life seemingly perfect has it own burdens, its own obligations. Do you think of terra-two? is the right book for you if you have ever questioned why humans exist.
What could be the best gift your father could give you with his last breath? Money? Secrets? Fears?
As an immigrant to Britain, Abbas denies his children the satisfaction of knowing who they really belong to. England or Tanzania? It all comes to a head when he gets affected by a stroke. And it gives his children, a licence to exhibit what they previously hid.
Hanna who now wants to be called Anna loves everything England makes available, the sex, the books, the freedom but when in a parallel plot her boyfriend’s parents question her about where her black skin really belonged to. She is hurt and uncertain. Jamal seems to be immune to the uncertainties of being an immigrant Muslim. However, despite not being a devout Muslim like his father, he beats the brunt of what a devout Muslim faces in Britain.
Then their mother, whose life is a stereotypical rendition of a black woman. A foundling, born from an Arab and a Polish. It takes Abbas sickness ans death for her to truly live.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-62040-328-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Bloomsbury
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