February Newsletter - African Review of Books:

For the first newsletter of 2005 we offer you snippets of what is new on www.africanreviewofbooks.com.

Read how the success of the Africa's 100 Best Books project has translated into exorbitant prices for at least one of the titles on the list. But it also means other titles are coming into print. The latest to be released is The Last Will and Testament of Señor da Silva, by Cape Verdean author Germano Almeida.

A group of prominent academics in the USA has begun a campaign to pressure the Kenyan government into taking the assault on Ngugi wa Thiong'o and his wife seriously.

Nigerian writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed by the government of Sani Abacha, is to be remembered in an anthology to mark the tenth anniversary of his death.

A number of writers' festival are planned in South Africa for later this year, and in the first major award of the new year (or in this case, lack thereof) the Noma Award committee said there would be no prize award, but five books did get a special mention.

New reviews added to the site include a humorous masterpiece of detective fiction and social commentary created by one of Angola's (and the continent's) greatest writers, Pepetela.

From Kenya comes a brave and, in some ways, groundbreaking novel by SW Omamo, Men Do Not Eat Wings. It tells of the history a family in Kenya through four generations and across two continents. It is a work which refuses to be categorised, although it is billed as a political thriller, it breaks the bounds of what is expected and takes readers on a journey through modern Kenya.

From South Africa comes a critique of the government's approach to addressing the problems of the poor, such as housing and worker rights. In We are the Poors: Community struggles in post-apartheid South Africa Ashwin Desai documents the real stories of those suffering and struggling in the South African townships.

Other reviews deal with an analysis of oral histories and slavery in west Africa, and Francis Nyamanjoh's play, The Converts deals with the lives of born-again Christians in Botswana.

In her Nobel lecture environmentalist Wangari Maathai relates the history of the Green Belt Movement and explains how protecting the environment supports peace and democracy. (She has also related a more detailed history of the Green Belt Movement in the book of that name).

All of this is available at www.africanreviewofbooks.com and please remember that our continued survival depends on you making use of our online bookshop to acquire books mentioned above, or anything else from the continent.

New in stock at special prices are:
Collected poems of Wole Soyinka: £4.00
Samarkand and Other Markets I have known by Wole Soyinka. £4.00
From Zia, With Love by Wole Soyinka. £4.00
Ibadan by Wole Soyinka. £4.00
House of Hunger by Dambudzo Marechera. £4.00
Question of Power by Bessie Head. £4.00

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