Stories of Africa


Book Description

Mhlophe tells stories from African folklore.




I Lost My Tooth in Africa


Book Description

Penda Diakité joins forces with her award-winning author/artist father to give a charming peek at everyday life in Africa. "This fact-based story of losing a tooth while visiting family in Mali rings with authenticity and good humour...[T]he illustrations exude happiness and togetherness." - The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books




Tales of East Africa


Book Description

Tales of East Africa is a collection of 22 traditional tales from Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. Welcome to a world of magical adventure—a place where a boy spares the life of a fearsome monster, a flock of doves brings a girl back from the dead, and a hare wreaks havoc among all the other animals. Translated and transcribed by folklorists and anthropologists in the early 20th century, these stories evoke the distinctive beauty and irresistible humor of East African folklore. • The tales come alive alongside bold, contemporary art in this special illustrated edition. • Each story transports readers to an enthralling world. • Part of the popular Tales series, featuring Tales of Japan, Celtic Tales, and Tales of India Tales of East Africa will enthrall fans of fairytales and captivate those interested in East Africa's rich history and culture. Readers will encounter mischievous animals, plucky heroes and heroines, and monsters, and artist Jamilla Okubo pairs each tale with a bold and vibrant illustration. • A visually gorgeous book that will be at home on the shelf or on the coffee table. • A perfect gift for fairy tale and folklore lovers, fans of East African culture, people of East African ancestry, collectors of illustrated classics, adults and teens alike, and bibliophiles • Add it to the collection of books like The Girl Who Married a Lion: and Other Tales from Africa by Alexander McCall Smith, Favorite African Folktales by Nelson Mandela, and Indaba My Children: African Folktales by Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa




Feast, Famine and Potluck


Book Description

A dazzling collection from across the African continent and diaspora here SHORT STORY DAY AFRICA has assembled the best nineteen stories from their 2013 competition. Food is at the centre of stories from authors emerging and established, blending the secular, the supernatural, the old and the new in a spectacular celebration of short fiction. Civil wars, evictions, vacations, feasts and romances the stories we bring to our tables that bring us together and tear us apart.




The Granta Book of the African Short Story


Book Description

Presenting a diverse and dazzling collection from all over the continent, from Morocco to Zimbabwe, Uganda to Kenya. Helon Habila focuses on younger, newer writers - contrasted with some of their older, more established peers - to give a fascinating picture of a new and more liberated Africa. These writers are characterized by their engagement with the wider world and the opportunities offered by the end of apartheid, the end of civil wars and dictatorships, and the possibilities of free movement. Their work is inspired by travel and exile. They are liberated, global and expansive. As Dambudzo Marechera wrote: 'If you're a writer for a specific nation or specific race, then f*** you." These are the stories of a new Africa, punchy, self-confident and defiant. Includes stories by: Fatou Diome; Aminatta Forna; Manuel Rui; Patrice Nganang; Leila Aboulela; Zo Wicomb; Alaa Al Aswany; Doreen Baingana; E.C. Osondu.




Out Of Africa


Book Description

In Out of Africa, author Isak Dinesen takes a wistful and nostalgic look back on her years living in Africa on a Kenyan coffee plantation. Recalling the lives of friends and neighbours—both African and European—Dinesen provides a first-hand perspective of colonial Africa. Through her obvious love of both the landscape and her time in Africa, Dinesen’s meditative writing style deeply reflects the themes of loss as her plantation fails and she returns to Europe. HarperTorch brings great works of non-fiction and the dramatic arts to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperTorch collection to build your digital library.




Once Upon a Time in Africa


Book Description

This collection of stories from Africa brings us to a place where the elders gather the children around the fire at night and narrate the stories and events that make them a proud and memorable people. The stories--some, myths from the past and others, accounts of life today--tell of the mystery of being and the relationship of both human and non-human creation with the Creator. They teach the human heart about compassion, forgiveness, joy, peace, and unity; indeed, of the value of harmony within all creation.




28


Book Description

From one of our most widely read, award-winning journalists – comes the powerful, unputdownable story of the very human cost of a global pandemic of staggering scope and scale. It is essential reading for our times. In 28, Stephanie Nolen, the Globe and Mail’s Africa Bureau Chief, puts a human face to the crisis created by HIV-AIDS in Africa. She has achieved, in this amazing book, something extraordinary: she writes with a power, understanding and simplicity that makes us listen, makes us understand and care. Through riveting anecdotal stories – one for each of the million people living with HIV-AIDS in Africa – Nolen explores the effects of an epidemic that well exceeds the Black Plague in magnitude. It is a calamity that is unfolding just a 747-flight away, and one that will take the lives of these 28 million without the help of massive, immediate intervention on an unprecedented scale. 28 is a timely, transformative, thoroughly accessible book that shows us definitively why we continue to ignore the growth of HIV-AIDS in Africa only at our peril and at an intolerable moral cost. 28’s stories are much more than a record of the suffering and loss in 28 emblematic lives. Here we meet women and men fighting vigorously on the frontlines of disease: Tigist Haile Michael, a smart, shy 14-year-old Ethiopian orphan fending for herself and her baby brother on the slum streets of Addis Ababa; Alice Kadzanja, an HIV-positive nurse in Malawi, where one in six adults has the virus, and where the average adult’s life expectancy is 36; and Zackie Achmat, the hero of South Africa’s politically fragmented battle against HIV-AIDS. 28 also tells us how the virus works, spreads and, ultimately, kills. It explains the connection of HIV-AIDS to conflict, famine and the collapse of states; shows us how easily treatment works for those lucky enough to get it and details the struggles of those who fight to stay alive with little support. It makes vivid the strong, desperate people doing all they can, and maintaining courage, dignity and hope against insurmountable odds. It is – in its humanity, beauty and sorrow – a call to action for all who read it.




Queer Africa 2: New Stories


Book Description

In Queer Africa 2: New Stories, the 26 stories by writers from Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Uganda and the USA present exciting and varied narratives on life. There are stories on desire, disruption and dreams; others on longing, lust and love. The stories are representative of the range of human emotions and experiences that abound in the lives of Africans and those of the diaspora, who identify variously along the long and fluid line of the sexuality, gender and sexual orientation spectrum in the African continent. Centred in these stories and in their attendant relationships is humanity. The writers showcase their artistry in storytelling in thought-provoking and delightful ways.




Of Warriors, Lovers and Prophets


Book Description

South African history will never be the same again ... Shunning the predictable, Max du Preez has put on his investigative journalist’s cap and examined our past from a fresh perspective. The result is a collection of extraordinary and mostly unknown stories, all meticulously researched and written in an engaging and lively style. Instead of regurgitating the story of Jan van Riebeeck’s arrival at the Cape, he tells the tales of a Portuguese viscount killed on a Cape beach in 1510, of the Khoikhoi chief who was kidnapped and taken to England in 1610, and of the saucy goings-on between slave women and their European settler lovers. There’s the story of King Moshoeshoe’s remarkable conduct when cannibals ate his beloved grandfather, and Shaka’s sexuality is explored via his relationship with his mother and the woman who loved him without ever touching him. Sidestepping the old clichés about the Anglo-Boer War, Du Preez recounts the story of an Afrikaner broedertwis - General Christiaan de Wet and his brother Piet, who joined the British forces and fought his own people. The reader is taken through every stage of our history, up to the story of apartheid South Africa’s nuclear bombs, and the secret dealings and intrigue during the negotiations leading up to the 1994 elections. This is South African history as you’ve never seen it before: a colourful mosaic of our rich heritage.