The Fraud, by Zadie Smith
The Fraud is an ambitious book, not one to take lightly. It encompasses the true story of an identity fraud trial in the 1800s, where a man returning from the colonies supposes to be not an East End butcher, but the lost son of a wealthy family. The family say he isn’t. Others, including a loyal black servant and the masses, believe he is.
Continue reading “The Fraud – book review”Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
What is it, to be an Americanah? That’s the question at the core of this wonderfully rich story, along with other such essential questions, such as what is it to be foreign in America or Britain? What hold does a country have over prospective immigrants, how is it perpetuated? How are different cultures and races valued? And of course, as at the heart of any great novel, how does love work?
Continue reading “Americanah – book review”Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
A brilliant story teller on the birth of Biafra and the war, the war, the starving millions. This is a hard book.
I was a child in Wellington during the Nigerian civil war. We learned about the starving children of Biafra and I am still haunted by those first images of black children with distended bellies, held by women with arms so thin they seemed to contain no flesh at all. I didn’t then know the reason for the big bellies but I do after reading Half of a Yellow Sun. The systematic malnutrition of babies and children by the Nigerian generals, aided by British weapons and ammunition was causing acute protein deficiency, leading to the condition known as kwashiorkor.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s story is centred around five linked people, who lose all control over their lives as Nigeria erupts into civil war and they become “Biafran” for the three long years of the secessionist state’s existence. All are interesting and fully engaging characters and we walk with them as their stable and happy world disappears fast into chaos and brutality.
Continue reading “Half of a Yellow Sun —book review”Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo
This is not so much a novel as a commitment. There are a lot of lives here and they all ask you to take the time to read, to listen, to understand. Don’t skimp on this book. Don’t try to squeeze it in with quick gulps when your mind is elsewhere.
I found the level of intimacy from strangers a bit overwhelming to begin with. These are straight talking and honest women sharing their experiences from a cross-section of black Britain. They take you right into the living room and sit you down. There are twelve main characters who tell their stories in separate chapters, up and down the generations and all loosely linked. The bunch is tied together at the end in a party.
Continue reading “Girl, Woman, Other – book review”David Olusoga’s reviews
David Olusoga is fast becoming one of my favourite BBC presenters (though David Attenborough will always have my heart). Olusoga presented the excellent two part series on Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners in 2015, showing how after slavery was abolished the legacy continued in the compensation paid out—not to the erstwhile slaves but to their “owners”—and in the underlying prejudices that became embedded in the culture. Brilliant documentary, watch it if you can.
His latest documentary is a review of Black British writers. It’s called Africa Turns the Page: the Novels that Shaped a Continent.
Continue reading “African literature”
Cristina Sanders' blog 