african literature

And does "african literature" necessitate african authors? Between Xgau's review and my Dad's approval, Norman Rush is #1 on my fiction-to-read-some-year list.

off top of my head can't think of anything particularly new and inspiring - will mull that over.

Norman Rush's Mating was one of the biggest pieces of crap I've read in a long time. a friend who'd been living in Botswana gave it to me having had the same reaction as I did - that it was casually racist in the way many expats living in Africa are, was very much written by someone who'd been living with blinders on and a very patronizing attitude towards life in Botswana (and def. don't think these were intentional stylistic choices), and to boot had a horrendous sense of charecterization.

Honestly, it really astounds me when stuff like this gets lauded as good writing.

Nuruddin Farah, anyone? Blood of the Sun (trilogy) sounds like my kind of thing.

it's not newer but i give my absolute highest recommendation to camara laye's "radiance of the king"

Oh yeah this was one of the NYRB classics that I singled out to get reading at some point.

(The intro is freely available)

have not found any novels really excited abt in years, always preferred Ngugi's essays to his novels, never felt the love for Achebe or Soyinka or Sembene as novelists tho Soyyinka's childhood memoir Ake made me understand how you can use luminous to refer to a book,

still have to read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie tho ppl tell me she is great, have not been able to tackle biafra etc

i really like journals like Chimurenga published by Ntone Edjabe out of Cape Town or Kwani, Binyavanga Wainana's journal which was out of Nairobi and based on an email i got the othere day they are working together on various projects together linking younger and more established writers like the new African Pilgrimages which has younger writers and ppl like Achebe

find more short stories and/or essays that i think are interesting than novels i have read recently

Chimurenga site http://www.chimurenga.co.za/
kwani site http://kwani.org/main/
pilgrimages www.pilgrimages.org.za

yeah that NYRB is the edition i have and as far as trade paperbacks go they're pretty darn well constructed so worth the price. excellent intros too.

i'd also recommend j r ackerley's "hindoo holiday" (sorry, not african i know) as one of the most unconventional postcolonial experiences i've read. basic plot summary is that a gay british man flees to the raj but instead of finding liberation he finds himself the other in a complex caste system. actually not too far off from the plot of "radiance of the king" but totally different in tone ... it's a gentle humor instead of a dark one, less phantasmagoric and more minutely observed

Salvation Army by Abdellah Taia is pretty dope, imho.

http://www.amazon.com/Salvation-Army-Semiotext-Native-Agents/dp/1584350709

Nuruddin Farah, anyone? Blood of the Sun (trilogy) sounds like my kind of thing.

While a lot of his dialogue is stilted and heavy-handed, I would definitely recommend all three books, though Gifts is my favorite.