Ahsante

I may be trying to get on the good side of Bants and SBB here, but I really want to say thank you for the effort into keeping bookworms alive. And bants (you can translate this into sheng) you are still co-editor!

Now that am back from the bush, and we have two editors, let us try and revive this blog. There was a time I was overwhelmed with reviews, but either watu wameacha kusoma (shudders!) or guys are too busy to send in reviews. But kichwa ngumu mimi shall not give up so here is my request:
Anyone who has read the following books kindly send in a review:

1. The Wangari Maathai book:- Unbowed

2. The Raila Odinga book:

3. The Moi book: Elder statesman (or whatever)

4. The Mandela book: Long walk to freedom

5. The kibaki book? Iko?

Am sure you can see a pattern here. Biographies of famous and infamous people............

There shall be a prize at the end of the biography session!!! So get writing. (pleeeease, they shall close us down if you dont) How is that for blackmail...

Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust

by Imaculee Ilibagiza

I stumbled upon this book in my quest for interesting memoirs and I must admit I was not disappointed. The book is written from Imaculee's perspective and starts off on a nostalgic note where she is describing her childhood. Her vivid description of the lush Rwandan countryside will make you long to visit shagz. The first few chapters suck you right in and this lays the groundwork of how deep an emotion you'll feel for the rest of the book. It's pretty obvious that she had a happy childhood, but was also very sheltered and mostly unaware of the political climate in the country. Therefore, when she wakes up one morning and Hutus are suddenly butchering Tutsis with machetes, it takes you by total surprise and you're right there with her wondering what the hell is going on.

The rest of the book takes you through the long, awful days spent in hiding with seven other Tutsi women in a tiny little bathroom that belongs to a Hutu pastor. I read the book while holding my breath and felt as though I were in that bathroom with her, willing those Hutus that are looking for her to disappear. How they all survive until the end of the genocide is truly remarkable and Imaculee's own intelligence and quick thinking is evident. There are many vivid descriptions in the book that will stay with you long after you've put the book down. Mine is the one where her oldest brother's head is split in half because the perpetrators wanted to see what "the brain of a person with a Masters degree looks like".

Overall, the book is well written and gripping enough to make you want to read it nonstop. However, this is a very personal representation of history and if you're like me, you will end up with a lot of unanswered questions when you turn the last page. It was not until after I'd read the book and was busy recommending it to everyone I knew that I found out her story has been featured on Oprah and a few other places, so many people are probably familiar with the story. But, it's worth a read. It's a testimony to how truly animalistic humans can be, but it is also a testament to the strength of the human mind and how hope and faith can help you survive trauma.

Overall, the book is well written and gripping enough to make you want to read it nonstop. However, this is a very personal representation of history and if you're like me, you will end up with a lot of unanswered questions when you turn the last page. It was not until after I'd read the book and was busy recommending it to everyone I knew that I found out her story has been featured on Oprah and a few other places, so many people are probably familiar with the story. But, it's worth a read. It's a testimony to how truly animalistic humans can be, but it is also a testament to the strength of the human mind and how hope and faith can help you survive trauma.


~SBB~

Shalimar the Clown, by Salman Rushdie

This is the first book by Salman Rushdie that I ever read. Initially, I wanted to start with his other book which landed him a fatwa - The Satanic Verses - since it was out of stock I read Shalimar instead.

A very well written book about a young indian village girl-a dancer, who marries his childhood sweetheart-an entertainer a.k.a clown, later turned killer, and leaves him later on for an american ambassador, a married guy with a frigid wife hence the roving eye. In the end, things don't go as she thought they would and she goes back to the village, where she lives as an outcast, until her husband comes to kill her. Let me not spill more beans now.
I really liked the way the story flows though Salman tends to take meandering paths to get to the point, so if you are impatient, it might not really tickle you. There was one section where he went on about some parties (political) and they were all abbreviated (HDG, KIR, MJU, ALZ, BPT etc) It looked crazy but since i skipped that page, i was alright with it:-)

The last part of the book was wonderful, did not want to put it down. A really nice book, not fast paced but has parts that grip. Definately 8 out of 10.

Review by Chatterly

MESKEL

I always thought of Ethiopia or Ethopia as I so fondly love to call this marvelous African gem, as a place where chics have this incredibly soft and oddishly but nice wavy hair…I still do by the way, but after reading this story my perspective of these beautiful people was refined. This land, this high land- “The roof of Africa”- is the setting of Meskel. A story about Greek immigrants that moved into Ethiopia in the early 20­­­th century, the story is nothing but illustrious, a documentary of sorts telling graphically, a story of a people endowed with a rich culture. It is against this background that Mellina and Lucas Fanouris now Kenyan immigrants (I know!! Don’t they ever get tired of their nomadism?!) tell the 2-generation story which culminates in their fleeing their “homeland” during Mengistu Haile Mariam’s “Red Terror”, remember?
Yeah that’s the I-want-to-sound-knowledgeable-opinion; this is my raw take: I think it’s a book that you’ll be proud to read, not because its interesting but because it’s an “EthOpian family saga”, you get my drill? Yeah its those books that you’ll read for months at times putting it away so far because its exhausting to read details of some ‘immaculatte’ orthodox catholic ceremony, because, well the cover defines drab and yes sometimes it’ll leave you wondering “What the hell am I doing reading this? Isshh?”.
But hey don’t listen to me, believe it or not, I know about the “RED TERROR” now and the barbaric tyranny of Haile Mariam and the ‘glorious’ reign of the Emperor Haile Sellasie and his down fall on his 80th birthday? I forget… Anyway it’s a great book for y’all out there with literary egos and a knack for historical and socio-political literature.
In my honest opinion though, out of five yawns: I give it 3. Out of ten laughs,: I give it 0.5.
Real stories are made realer by pictures? Well you won’t be disappointed there…
Read Meskel…(1926-1981).

Review by Bantutu

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I first heard of this writer when she was featured in the Sunday Nation magazine premium stuff so no link, some time last year. I was very impressed because it was the first article that took so much space in the said paper and did not contain useless phrases like ‘ so how do you manage to balance being wife, mother, full time worker blah blah. “or alternatively “is there a man in your life.” Duh...!

Anyway on to the book.
It is a beautiful simple story through the eyes of 15 year old Nigerian girl living under the wings of a tyrannical father. At the end of it all I hated her father with such a passion, his being a tithing, not to mention generous, Christian notwithstanding. The man did not even talk to his own father because the said father had not converted to Christianity! The things he does to his own family members in the name of Christianity are abominable to say the least.

The book is an easy read most readers will have something to relate to within the story be it the unbelievable amount of corruption, hypocrisy, growing up, a girl’s first crush (even if it is a priest), university strikes, womanhood, endless blackouts, military coups.

The cover is really pretty too though you must not judge a book by that only.I plan on reading more of her books and short stories.

Other writing by the same author
http://www.ulg.ac.be/facphl/uer/d-german/L3/cnaindex.html

Review by: prousette