Blogger: Etta Wilson
Location: Books & Such Nashville office
Africa has been popping up in one way or another during the past year for me. Last fall, I heard the organizer of the centennial for native Tennessean James Agee, who wrote the screenplay for The African Queen, speak. I was startled to realize how many great changes had taken place on that continent in the 60 years since Agee had not only written that story for film (starring Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn), but also Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and A Death in the Family, for which he won the Pulitzer after his sudden death in 1955.
In January Desmond Tutu’s daughter Naomi, in full South African garb, spoke at a local university here in Tennessee. I didn’t get to hear her, but this quote indicates she has the same spirit as her father: “It doesn’t matter what the prime minister of South Africa thinks of me. It only matters what I think of them, and I think of them as my brothers and sisters.”
In June, at The International Christian Retail Show, I heard Christy Award keynote speaker, Lisa Samson, talk about her life-changing trip to Africa with her daughter to combat the AIDS crisis. The trip and its impact are fully described in her new book, Love Mercy: A Mother & Daughter’s Journey from the American Dream to the Kingdom of God. Perhaps the most valuable parts of the book are the Appendix covering “Social Justice in Scripture” and the Acknowledgments, which includes a collection of African children’s pictures—most of them happy.
I know several of you are writing books, both fiction and nonfiction, about Africa. It’s a very large continent with many different stories—as Alexander McCall Smith has shown. It’s also considered the birth place of human beings. Tell us about books based in Africa you’ve enjoyed reading, or about what you’ve written on Africa.
I haven’t written any books about Africa and I am not planning to. However, I have listened to books about Africa recently and I enjoyed the following:
Nonfiction:
“Reason for Hope” by Jane Goodall
“Left to Tell” by Immaculee Ilibigiza
“A Long Way Gone” by Ishmael Beah
Fiction:
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
I have “Out of Africa” but I have not read it yet. The movie is one of my favorites.
I’ve been to Chobe National Park and Victoria Falls and I loved it. I want to go back someday.
A couple of years ago, I read Lawrence Hill’s Book of Negroes, which was the novel’s title when it was released in Canada. It later was released in the US as Someone Knows My Name.
The novel starts with a young girl growing up in Africa and then traces her life, as her tribes’ people are either murdered or kidnapped into slavery. The latter was the girl’s plight, and the story follows her life.
While most of the events are harsh, she grew up with a sense of grace and care for others that outshone the treatment she received to make for a triumphant rather than depressing tone to the novel.
Lucky you, Lori. Victoria Falls must be one of the grandest sights on earth.
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton comes to mind now–another one I need to read again.
Janet describes something I hear often about the children in Africa–Many of them seem to have an innate happiness.
Hello,
I am looking for an agent and publisher to republish my three adventure, suspense and love novels – set in Africa in 1960 – as one tome.
I read your blurb … and thought we might be kindred spirits.
Four books that I have read recently on Africa are
1) Christ Walks where Evil Reigns: Responding to the Rwandan Genocide by Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini and Dr Peter R Holmes, Authentic Publishing, 2008
2) Never Silent, By Bishop Thaddeus Barnum,Eleison Publishing, CO, 2008
3) Emmanuel Kolini: the unlikely Archbishop of Rwanda, by Mary Weeks Millard, Authentic Publishing, 2008
4) The Bishop of Rwanda: Finding Forgiveness amidst a pile of bones, by Bishop John Rucyahana with James Riordan, Thomas Nelson Inc, 2007
It has been inspiring to see the work of reconciliation and forgiveness in Rwanda after such a tragic genocide.
While we have traveled literally around the world in the last 20 years, we hadn’t stepped onto the continent of Africa until this year. We visited Tangiers, Morocco. Everyone seems to forget that northern Africa is a whole differnt culture than most of the rest of the continent. Tangiers was interesting and prompted us to see the movie “Casablanca” when it was shown on a big screen here. Mysterious places.
This is interesting timing as my youngest daughter is presently in South Africa for two weeks working in an orphanage. (She is an RN)
I’ve lived in Africa for almost a decade and have fallen in love with the people from all my many travels across the continent.
As a writer, it was always my dream to write stories set here, though for years no publisher I spoke to was interested. Things have changed and like you said in your post, I now see Africa popping up everywhere.
I’m excited to have just finished my third romance/adventure novel set in Africa. Two contemporary stories with Zondervan, Blood Ransom came out in April and Blood Covenant will be released early next year. An Ocean Away will also be released early next year from Summerside Press, and is set in both Africa and New York in the early 1920’s.
Enjoyed reading about a topic close to my heart. 🙂
Lisa Harris
As the Africa specialist here at B&S (“This looks like a manuscript about Africa, Michelle should read it.”), I’ve read a great deal of both unpublished works and books.
I’ve read almost everything I could find about Rwanda, trying to come to terms with what happened there. (Answer? No answer; unrelieved evil in too many hearts–even the killers themselves couldn’t explain). I’ve read Kingsley’s memoirs, stories from Egypt, Morocco, Mali, Alexander McCall Smith, Paton, etc. I’ve read a number of tragic memoirs out of Zimbabwe after I worked with an ex-pat Alaskan writer who sent us a beautiful proposal of that horror-story country (alas, which did not work out).
I’m personally fascinated by people who take great steps of courage and follow their curiosity to the ends of the earth. So, I’ve also read stories about people in the 1960’s who drove travel trailers from Cairo to Capetown.
Give me an adventure and I’ll take it with you from my armchair. I just can’t stand the thought of the malaria pills . . . 🙂
It was Etta. It makes Niagra Falls look like a puddle. I was just so awestruck.
Michelle, I had no idea! You should be writing this post, not me. Africa is a land of many contrasts and contradictions as the “Cairo to Capetown” expression proves.
Etta
Ed, your list of titles about Rawanda indicates an area we may tend to forget–unless we see “Hotel Rawanda” again. Thanks for sharing and for your concluding comment.
Michelle, I found malaria pills to be no problem. It’s like taking any other pill. However, the yellow fever shot I had before I went to Peru was a different story. I swear it gives you a mild (yea right) case. It’s a good thing that shot last for 10 years because I was still covered when I went to Africa.
My aunt and uncle took their two young daughters to Nigeria in the 1960s and their 3rd daughter was born there. They told stories when they would come home (and my uncle sent my mother many tapes describing events, etc.) and I would fall asleep while the adults talked on. I remember praying for them every day. They lived there during the Biafran secession war and then later were sent to Ghana.
But one African story stands out to me told by a man with a very deep voice on a record. I vividly remember the story of a little boy who disobeys his mother and is then gored by an elephant. (He was called “Loving Water” because he drooled as a baby. LOL.) I would cover my ears on the part where he goes and disobeys his mother and I would cry every time!
Anyway, my earliest memories are of being so concerned for those in Africa and praying from the time I was in first grade. I still have the doll my uncle brought me from Africa, dressed in the Yoruba tribe costume.
What a great post!
Crystal, what a rich childhood you were given. “Loving Water” sounds like a children’s book there.
Somehow I haven’t mentioned The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer (HarperCollins, c2009). It’s such a great story about what a small invention can do, and did in this case in Malawi.
Etta,
I was excited to see your blog, I have been working on a book for eleven years, and feel that is it ready for publishing. I have just sent a query letter to your company.
This novel is a story of PJ, an Ameriacn woman who discovers much about herself while sitting in a round thatched hut surrounded by singing, clapping Mpondo villagers as impepho sage burns to ward away evil spirits. Much of the writing has a humorous tone and includes insightful descriptions of traditional life in the Transkei hills of South Africa. Anyone who has left their culture to take another, or has the urge to travel, will relate to this soul-searching story of an expatriate’s journey home. It is a revealing account of African hospitality, ancestor worship, a mysterious death, and the spiritual relevance of the trance-dance, set against PJ’s stay in an eclectic, out-of-the-way beach community in South Africa. It takes place in 1997, only three years after the momentous election of Nelson Mandela.
Regards and blessings, Anjahli Parnel
Hello, I have observed that most Americans do not get access to information, books and novels about Francophone africa, essentially due to the language constraint. I am a former governor from the DR Congo and have written a book entitled “The Making of the Congo State in the US: a forgotten story and new project”. the book reveals an forgotten episode of the formation of the Congo Free State in Washington, in 1884, by great Americans such as General Sanford, Président Chester Arthur and Secretary of State Frelyngheisen. In fact, the book shows that the creation of the Congo was initially an American projet and not a Belgian endeavor. It was pre-published in an academic prensentation at Grand Valley University in Michigan. I am still lokking for a Publisher.
I have read the book Half of a Yellow Sun, Purple Hibiscus and The Thing Around Your Neck which are all stories about Africa, or Africans in the diaspora. Personally I just recently completed a novel that chronicles the life of a slave girl’s journey to freedom and achievement after a life of abuse and dehumanization. The story covers partly fictional tales in the historic Benin Empire and the ancient Nri Kingdom in Southeastern Nigeria. Part of the story also takes place in South Africa. Thanks.