Part 1: 1985 1 “Mary, please open the door.” His voice echoed from behind the locked front door, plaintive, lost – the voice of a man adrift. “Please, my darling, just open the door, one more time. Let me in for five minutes. I just want to talk.” He sounded close to breaking. His careless … Continue reading Excerpt: Grace by Barbara Boswell
Zeina Abirached, author of the award-winning graphic novel A Game for Swallows, returns with a powerful collection of wartime memories. Abirached was born in Lebanon in 1981. She grew up in Beirut as fighting between Christians and Muslims divided the city streets. Follow her past cars riddled with bullet holes, into taxi cabs that travel … Continue reading USBBY Outstanding International Book Pick: I Remember Beirut by Zeina Abirached
Guébo’s verse in My Country, Tonight (Mon Pays Ce Soir) often refers to the Iroko, a tree that withstands brush-fire and cannot be razed, because of its deep and study roots. Iroko: the name of the tree is also the name of a guardian-deity, or ancestor-spirit worshiped in West-African traditional religions — the native religions that Guébo insists have … Continue reading Between the Naked Water and the Flower of the Iroko: A book review of My Country Tonight by Josué Guébo
The U.S. debut of bestselling South African writer Chanette Paul. Rejected by her parents, her sister, her husband, everyone except her extraordinary and unusual daughter, Caz Colijn lives a secluded life in her own little patch of South Africa. But a single phone call from her estranged sister is all it takes to shatter this … Continue reading Excerpt: Sacrificed by Chanette Paul
Making rain for southern African women writers Modjaji Books is an independent feminist press that publishes southern African women writers. Modjaji Books fills a gap by providing a platform for serious and ground-breaking writing by new and established women writers with brave voices. We publish short stories, novels, memoir, biography, poetry, essays, narrative non-fiction, reference … Continue reading Publisher Spotlight: Modjaji Books
Banned from publication in his home country of Czechoslovakia, Ivan Klíma's powerful 1986 novel Love and Garbage could not be published until after the Velvet Revolution of 1989. It went on to sell over 100,000 copies in the thaw that followed the end of the Cold War. Summary: The narrator of Ivan Klima's novel has temporarily abandoned his … Continue reading International Banned Book Pick: Love and Garbage by Ivan Klíma
She sat in a taxi, stuck on the main road in the Old Town district. White lines of paint clearly marked six lanes of traffic, but none of them were going anywhere. The road signs reflected the harsh rays of the sun, glowing in every color of the spectrum. The trees on either side … Continue reading Paper Republic Story: “49 Degrees” by Song Aman
In the early 1980s, thousands of Ethiopian Jews fled the civil unrest, famine and religious persecution of their native land in the hopes of being reunited in Yerusalem, their spiritual homeland, with its promises of a better life. Wuditu and her family risk their lives to make this journey, which leads them to a refugee … Continue reading USBBY Outstanding International Book Pick: Cry of the Giraffe by Judie Oron
HELPER I She was not one of us. She said her life was an early evening, or an early dawn, and she was going to leave before it was night or before it was morning. She gave you the feeling that you were inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, and that if you stood … Continue reading Excerpt: The Sound of Things to Come by Emmanuel Iduma
The protagonist of An Eternity in Tangiers is a teenager named Gawa, who leaves his native city, the imaginary West African capital of Gnasville, hoping to find a better life in Europe, where he hopes to escape the turmoil of his home country. Following a journey fraught with dangers and betrayals, Gawa is stranded in … Continue reading Title Pick: An Eternity in Tangiers by Eyoum Nganguè
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 