QUICK DELIVERY
Swift dispatch
Remembrance by Lily Mabura
Brief Summary
The novel delves into the lives of Naomi and Daniel Dassa, a young Kenyan couple, who
dwell in the small college town of Pullman, WA, USA. Naomi works and studies at a local university, while Daniel is a member of a popular marimba band.
Their life seems peaceful, but the couple’s marriage is troubled by the fact that they are both dealing with traumatic events in their past lives. Naomi narrowly escaped death during the 1998 US Embassy bombing in downtown Nairobi, which killed hundreds of people and wounded thousands. Her brother Guba lost his fiancée in the incident.
Soon after this, Guba, a small charter plane pilot, went missing over Lake Turkana in Northern Kenya leaving Naomi without closure. Daniel, a former political prisoner, tries to help his wife through this trying time by hiring a teenage babysitter called Ayana for their two-year old son, Pascal.
However, an attraction develops between Daniel and Ayana, a refugee from Ethiopia, and the resulting affair threatens to forever tear apart the already fragile foundations of the Dassa household.
ISBN:9789966315717
Author:Lily Mabura
History and Development of Money in K...
Brief Summary
History and Development of Money in Kenya: In everyday society, the story of money elicits excitement as people easily relate to them. Interacting with currency notes and coins that have long ceased to be used can only evoke memories, especially those who saw and used the currencies.
This is the story the Central Bank of Kenya brings to the fore – a story of the various currencies and artefacts that were used to facilitate trade in Kenya and beyond.
A story that captures how money has transformed over time within our spheres and gain traction as the primary instrument of trade.
ISBN:9789966194794
Author:Central Bank of Kenya
Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James
Brief Summary
Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: "He has a nose," people say. Engaged to track down a mysterious boy who disappeared three years earlier, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he finds himself part of a group that comes together to search for the boy. The band is a hodgepodge, full of unusual characters with secrets of their own, including a shape-shifting man-animal known as Leopard.
As Tracker follows the boy's scent—from one ancient city to another; into dense forests and across deep rivers—he and the band are set upon by creatures intent on destroying them. As he struggles to survive, Tracker starts to wonder: Who, really, is this boy? Why has he been missing for so long? Why do so many people want to keep Tracker from finding him? And perhaps the most important questions of all: Who is telling the truth, and who is lying?
Drawing from African history and mythology and his own rich imagination, Marlon James has written a saga of breathtaking adventure that's also an ambitious, involving read. Defying categorization and full of unforgettable characters, Black Leopard, Red Wolf is both surprising and profound as it explores the fundamentals of truths, the limits of power, the excesses of ambition, and our need to understand them all.
ISBN:9780735220171
Author:Marlon James
Defeating Mau Mau Creating Kenya Coun...
Brief Summary
This book details the devastating Mau Mau civil war fought in Kenya during the 1950s and the legacies of that conflict for the post-colonial state. As many Kikuyu fought with the colonial government as loyalists joined the Mau Mau rebellion.
Focusing on the role of those loyalists, the book examines the ways in which residents of the country s Central Highlands sought to navigate a path through the bloodshed and uncertainty of civil war. It explores the instrumental use of violence, changes to allegiances, and the ways in which cleavages created by the war informed local politics for decades after the conflict s conclusion.
Moreover, the book moves toward a more nuanced understanding of the realities and effects of counterinsurgency warfare. Based on archival research in Kenya and the United Kingdom and insights from literature from across the social sciences, the book reconstructs the dilemmas facing members of society at war with itself and its colonial ruler."
ISBN:9780521113823
Author:Daniel Branch
Imperial Reckoning The Untold Story o...
Brief Summary
Britain fought in the Second World War to save the world from fascism. But just a few years after the defeat of Hitler came the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya - a mass armed rebellion by the Kikuyu people, demanding the return of their land and freedom. The draconian response of Britain's colonial government was to detain nearly the entire Kikuyu population of one-and-a half-million - to hold them in camps or confine them in villages ringed with barbed wire - and to portray them as sub-human savages.
From 1952 until the end of the war in 1960 tens of thousands of detainees - and possibly a hundred thousand or more - died from the combined effects of exhaustion, disease, starvation and systemic physical brutality. Until now these events have remained untold, largely because the British government in Kenya destroyed most of its files. For the last eight years Caroline Elkins has conducted exhaustive research to piece together the story, unearthing reams of documents and interviewing several hundred Kikuyu survivors.
Britain's Gulag reveals what happened inside Kenya's detention camps, as well as the efforts to conceal the truth. Now, for the first time, we can understand the full savagery of the Mau Mau war and the ruthless determination with which Britain sought to control its empire.
ISBN:9780805080018
Author: Caroline Elkins
Nyerere The Early Years by Thomas Molony
Brief Summary
Julius Kambarage Nyerere (1922-1999), the first President of Tanzania, was a man whose political life was uniquely and inextricably bound into the history of the nation he created.
This book presents the first truly rounded portrait of Nyerere's early life, from his birth in 1922 until his graduation from Edinburgh in 1952, enabling us to see his later political achievements in a new light. It was after returning to Tanganyika that "Mwalimu" (the teacher) formally entered politics, and led efforts to deliver Tanganyika to independence.
Drawing on interviews with his contemporaries and archival sources including his letters as a student and colonial authorities files on him, this biography brings a new perspective on how the scholarship that Nyerere engaged with as a young man influenced his ideas of the uhuru movement against colonial rule and, later, the ujamaa policy of African socialism that so defined his leadership of an independent Tanzania. Thomas Molony is Senior Lecturer in African Studies at the University of Edinburgh.
ISBN:9781847011503
Author:Thomas Molony
The Enough Moment Fighting to End Afr...
Brief Summary
Had Enough?
Join activists, organizations, and celebrities to fight human rights crimes in Africa.
Human rights activist John Prendergast and Oscar-nominated actor Don Cheadle bring us an empowering and hopeful new book, as they reveal the steps being taken by engaged citizens—"Upstanders"—famous and unknown, here and abroad, to combat genocide, rape, and child soldierdom in Africa, and show how you can be a part of the movement.
Learn how a high school student in Chicago rallied fellow students all over his city to raise awareness of genocide... a former child soldier in Uganda formed a group of others like him to aid in reconciliation... and a mother and teacher gang-raped by soldiers in Congo found strength to help other survivors. John and Don present ways for you to form alliances, contact Congress, alert the media, enlist corporations, and use social media to become part of the solution.
Featuring testimonies and interviews with:
• Ben Affleck • Madeleine Albright • Emmanuelle Chriqui • Sheryl Crow • Ann Curry • Annie Duke • Dave Eggers • Mia Farrow • Ryan Gosling • Mariska Hargitay • Emile Hirsch • Iman • Angelina Jolie • Nicholas Kristof • Joel Madden • Nicole Richie • Martin Sheen • Robin Wright • As well as a number of members of Congress and many others making a difference
ISBN:9780307464828
Author:John Prendergast and Don Cheadle
Empire and the Nuer Documents and Tex...
The documents edited here cover the significant events in the contact, conquest, and pacification of the Nuer from 1898 to 1930.
They contain some of the earliest 20th-century ethnographic descriptions of the Nuer and their Dinka and Mabaan neighbors.
Together these sources provide a historical context for further understanding Evans-Pritchard's ethnography, as well as a more detailed understanding of the events that led to incorporation of the Nuer into the colonial state.
The 5th Columnist a Legendary Journal...
To many, Philip Ochieng is that proud atheist and relentless social critic with unmatched grasp of the English language in the region. To others, though, he is undoubtedly a media giant and a journalist of great repute.
Having served in various capacities in the media industry, Ochieng has earned both praise and condemnation from not just his readers but also his employers, colleagues and the powers that be Carried within these pages of The Fifth Columnist is the story of Ochieng's life -education, work, social Life, beliefs - as told through interviews with the career journalist, his family, friends, neighbors and workmates.
And from his writings and travels.
History as destiny and history as kno...
Who if anyone owns the past reflectio...
An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozi...
A heart-breaking and mythic story about a Nigerian poultry farmer who sacrifices everything to win the woman he loves, by Man Booker Finalist and author of The Fishermen, Chigozie Obioma.
A contemporary twist on the Odyssey, An Orchestra of Minorities is narrated by the chi, or spirit of a young poultry farmer named Chinonso. His life is set off course when he sees a woman who is about to jump off a bridge. Horrified by her recklessness, he hurls two of his prized chickens off the bridge. The woman, Ndali, is stopped in her tracks.
Chinonso and Ndali fall in love but she is from an educated and wealthy family. When her family objects to the union on the grounds that he is not her social equal, he sells most of his possessions to attend college in Cyprus. But when he arrives in Cyprus, he discovers that he has been utterly duped by the young Nigerian who has made the arrangements for him. Penniless, homeless, we watch as he gets further and further away from his dream and from home.
An Orchestra of Minorities is a heart-wrenching epic about destiny and determination.
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Ad...
They killed my mother.
They took our magic.
They tried to bury us.
Now we rise.
Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls.
But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope.
Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good.
Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her powers and her growing feelings for an enemy.
Heads of the Colored People by Nafiss...
Brief Summary
Longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction and Kirkus Prize Finalist
Calling to mind the best works of Paul Beatty and Junot DÃaz, this collection of moving, timely, and darkly funny stories examines the concept of black identity in this so-called post-racial era.
A stunning new talent in literary fiction, Nafissa Thompson-Spires grapples with black identity and the contemporary middle class in these compelling, boundary-pushing vignettes.
Each captivating story plunges headfirst into the lives of new, utterly original characters. Some are darkly humorous—from two mothers exchanging snide remarks through notes in their kids’ backpacks, to the young girl contemplating how best to notify her Facebook friends of her impending suicide—while others are devastatingly poignant—a new mother and funeral singer who is driven to madness with grief for the young black boys who have fallen victim to gun violence, or the teen who struggles between her upper middle class upbringing and her desire to fully connect with black culture.
Thompson-Spires fearlessly shines a light on the simmering tensions and precariousness of black citizenship. Her stories are exquisitely rendered, satirical, and captivating in turn, engaging in the ongoing conversations about race and identity politics, as well as the vulnerability of the black body. Boldly resisting categorization and easy answers, Nafissa Thompson-Spires is an original and necessary voice in contemporary fiction.
How to Love a Jamaican by Alexia Arthurs
Brief Summary
From a magnetic new voice, a debut story collection set in Jamaica and America for readers of Zadie Smith, Helen Oyeyemi, and Imbolo Mbue.
"There is a way to be cruel that seems Jamaican to me.”
Tenderness and cruelty, loyalty and betrayal, ambition and regret—Alexia Arthurs navigates these tensions to extraordinary effect in her debut collection about Jamaican immigrants and their families back home. Sweeping from close-knit island communities to the streets of New York City and midwestern university towns, these eleven stories form a portrait of a nation, a people, and a way of life.
In "Light Skinned Girls and Kelly Rowlands,” an NYU student befriends a fellow Jamaican whose privileged West Coast upbringing has blinded her to the hard realities of race. In "Mash Up Love,” a twin’s chance sighting of his estranged brother—the prodigal son of the family—stirs up unresolved feelings of resentment.
In "Bad Behavior,” a mother and father leave their wild teenage daughter with her grandmother in Jamaica, hoping the old ways will straighten her out. In "Mermaid River,” a Jamaican teenage boy is reunited with his mother in New York after eight years apart. In "The Ghost of Jia Yi,” a recently murdered international student haunts a despairing Jamaican athlete recruited to an Iowa college. And in "Shirley from a Small Place,” a world-famous pop star retreats to her mother’s big new house in Jamaica, which still holds the power to restore something vital.
The winner of The Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize for "Bad Behavior,” Alexia Arthurs emerges in this vibrant, lyrical, intimate collection as one of fiction’s most dynamic and essential young authors.
ISBN:9781524799205
Author:Alexia Arthurs
Hold by Michael Donkor
Brief Summary
Moving between Ghana and London, Hold is an intimate, powerful coming-of-age novel. It’s a story of friendship and family, shame and forgiveness; of learning what we should cling to, and when we need to let go.
‘You have to imagine. That’s how I told myself.’
‘Imagine what?’
‘Imagine that you are the kind of girl that can cope with it, even if you are not.’
Belinda knows how to follow the rules. She has learnt the right way to polish water glasses, to wash and fold a hundred handkerchiefs, and to keep a tight lid on memories of the village she left behind when she came to Kumasi to be a housegirl.
Mary is still learning the rules. Eleven years old and irrepressible, the young housegirl-in-training is the little sister Belinda never had.
Amma has had enough of the rules. A straight-A pupil at her exclusive South-London school, she has always been the pride of her Ghanaian parents. Until now. Watching their once-confident teenager grow sullen and wayward, they decide that sensible Belinda might be just the shining example Amma needs.
So Belinda is summoned from Ghana to London, to befriend a troubled girl who shows no desire for her friendship. She encounters a city as bewildering as it is exciting, and as she tries to impose order on her unsettling new world, Belinda’s phonecalls back home to Mary become a lifeline.
As the Brixton summer turns to autumn, Belinda and Amma are surprised to discover the beginnings of an unexpected kinship. But when the cracks in their defences open up, the secrets they have both been holding tight to threaten to seep out…
ISBN:9780008280345
Author:Michael Donkor
A Change Is Gonna Come by Bello Mary
Brief Summary
WINNER OF THE YA BOOK PRIZE SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 2018
Featuring top Young Adult authors and introducing a host of exciting new voices, this anthology of stories and poetry from BAME writers on the theme of change is a long-overdue addition to the YA scene.
Contributors include Tanya Byrne, Inua Ellams, Catherine Johnson, Patrice Lawrence, Ayisha Malik, Irfan Master, Musa Okwonga and Nikesh Shukla.
Plus introducing four fresh new voices in YA fiction: Mary Bello, Aisha Bushby, Yasmin Rahman and Phoebe Roy.
ISBN:9781847158390
Author:Bello Mary
The Pen and The Gun by Maina Wa Kinyatti
Brief Summary
The Pen and The Gun will make an excellent addition to the study of the struggle for democracy, the imposition of dictatorship and state terrorism in Kenya.
The book will also enrich Kenya's prison revolutionary literature and, at the same time, reveal the brutality of the Kenyan penal system.
Linked to all of the above, it will shed light on the broader role of African nationalism, Pan-Africanism and Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in the African social revolution. the role of the working class and its peasant ally in the liberation of Africa from world imperialism is clearly defined.
ISBN:9781453834411
Author:Maina Wa Kinyatti
At the Crossroads Readings of the Pos...
Brief Summary
Recent criticism on African literature and visual art, affected by contemporary global socio-economic and political influences, has been moving away from a singular focus on postcolonial theory towards notions of transnationalism.
There have been visible critical attempts that question the relevance of postcolonial critique, while various globally orientated critical approaches have emerged, complicating the notion of postcoloniality as we have known it.
This book consists of essays and articles that demonstrate this critical shift.
ISBN:9781592219636
Author:Ghirmai Negash, Andrea E Frohne and Samuel Zadi
The Search for Africa A History in th...
Brief Summary
These essays and articles, written between 1953 and 1993, explore the development of an African historiography and, in that context, the author's own development.
People who have been involved all their lives with Africa will be reminded of how many times Basil Davidson has given them new insights.
People who approach the study of Africa for the first time will find this collection opens out their perceptions.
ISBN:9780852557143
Author:Basil Davidson
