Category: Book Recommendation
July 26, 2003
Things Fall Apart
For those interested in learning more about the culture behind all the pictures we've been posting, we plan to put up a series of recommendations for books that we feel capture the African experience.
Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, set in an Ibo village at the turn of the century in what is now Nigeria, describes the customs and daily life of the community and one man in particular, and the disastrous effects of their first encounter with colonialism in the form of British Christian missionaries.
"We have heard stories about white men who made the powerful guns and strong drinks and took slaves away across the seas, but no one thought the stories were true."
"There is no story that is not true," said Uchendu. "The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others. We have albinos among us. Do you not think that they came to our clan by mistake, that they have strayed from their way to a land where everybody is like them?" [Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, p. 130]
If we have time, we'll also recommend some books that illustrate conditions in developing countries more generally, and whatever else we think expresses some element of our experience here.
Posted by Timothy Prestero at 02:00 PM
| Comments (0)
August 03, 2003
Collector of Treasures
Bessie Head's A Collector of Treasures is a rare and wonderful book, a masterpiece of humanism. Although this collection of short stories is set in rural Botswana, the author paints a picture that rings equally true for life in West Africa.
And so the woman Dikeledi began phase three of a life that had always been ashen in its loneliness and unhappiness. And yet she had always found gold amidst the ash, deep loves that had joined her heart to the hearts of others. She smiled tenderly at Kebonye because she knew already that she had found another such love. She was the collector of such treasures. [Bessie Head, A Collector of Treasures]
Posted by Timothy Prestero at 08:11 PM
| Comments (0)
August 11, 2003
Poisonwood Bible
Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible follows an American missionary family--husband and wife and their four daughters--through their service in the Congo from 1959 to 1961, a tumultuous period which coincided with Congolese independence from Belgium, the country's first elections and the shattering coup d'etat which followed. Kingsolver shows the missionaries' profound ignorance of the culture in which they've arrived, and illustrates the difficulties of crossing that gulf of misunderstanding.
At first Mama got after us for staring and pointing at people. She was all the time whispering, "Do I have to tell you girls every single minute don't stare!" But now Mama looks too. Sometimes she says to us or just herself, Now Tata Zinsana is the one missing all the fingers, isn't he? Or she'll say, That big goiter like a goose egg under her chin, that's how I remember Mama Nguza.
Father said, "They are living in darkness. Broken in body and soul, and don't even see how they could be healed."
Mama said, "Well, maybe they take a different view of their bodies."
Father says the body is the temple. But Mama has this certain voice sometimes. Not exactly sassing back, but just about nearly. She was sewing us some window curtains out of dress material so they wouldn't be looking in at us all the time, and had pins in her mouth.
She took the pins out and said to him, "Well, here in Africa that temple has to do a hateful lot of work in a day." She said, "Why, Nathan, here they have to use their bodies like we use things at home--like your clothes or your garden tools or something. Where you'd be wearing out the knees of your trousers, sir, they just have to go ahead and wear out their knees!" [Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible, p.62/616]
Posted by Timothy Prestero at 08:18 PM
| Comments (0)
July 26, 2003
Things Fall Apart
For those interested in learning more about the culture behind all the pictures we've been posting, we plan to put up a series of recommendations for books that we feel capture the African experience.
Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, set in an Ibo village at the turn of the century in what is now Nigeria, describes the customs and daily life of the community and one man in particular, and the disastrous effects of their first encounter with colonialism in the form of British Christian missionaries.
"We have heard stories about white men who made the powerful guns and strong drinks and took slaves away across the seas, but no one thought the stories were true."
"There is no story that is not true," said Uchendu. "The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others. We have albinos among us. Do you not think that they came to our clan by mistake, that they have strayed from their way to a land where everybody is like them?" [Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, p. 130]
If we have time, we'll also recommend some books that illustrate conditions in developing countries more generally, and whatever else we think expresses some element of our experience here.
August 03, 2003
Collector of Treasures
Bessie Head's A Collector of Treasures is a rare and wonderful book, a masterpiece of humanism. Although this collection of short stories is set in rural Botswana, the author paints a picture that rings equally true for life in West Africa.
And so the woman Dikeledi began phase three of a life that had always been ashen in its loneliness and unhappiness. And yet she had always found gold amidst the ash, deep loves that had joined her heart to the hearts of others. She smiled tenderly at Kebonye because she knew already that she had found another such love. She was the collector of such treasures. [Bessie Head, A Collector of Treasures]
August 11, 2003
Poisonwood Bible
Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible follows an American missionary family--husband and wife and their four daughters--through their service in the Congo from 1959 to 1961, a tumultuous period which coincided with Congolese independence from Belgium, the country's first elections and the shattering coup d'etat which followed. Kingsolver shows the missionaries' profound ignorance of the culture in which they've arrived, and illustrates the difficulties of crossing that gulf of misunderstanding.
At first Mama got after us for staring and pointing at people. She was all the time whispering, "Do I have to tell you girls every single minute don't stare!" But now Mama looks too. Sometimes she says to us or just herself, Now Tata Zinsana is the one missing all the fingers, isn't he? Or she'll say, That big goiter like a goose egg under her chin, that's how I remember Mama Nguza.
Father said, "They are living in darkness. Broken in body and soul, and don't even see how they could be healed."
Mama said, "Well, maybe they take a different view of their bodies."
Father says the body is the temple. But Mama has this certain voice sometimes. Not exactly sassing back, but just about nearly. She was sewing us some window curtains out of dress material so they wouldn't be looking in at us all the time, and had pins in her mouth.
She took the pins out and said to him, "Well, here in Africa that temple has to do a hateful lot of work in a day." She said, "Why, Nathan, here they have to use their bodies like we use things at home--like your clothes or your garden tools or something. Where you'd be wearing out the knees of your trousers, sir, they just have to go ahead and wear out their knees!" [Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible, p.62/616]
