African & Caribbean Literature

















 

All African & Caribbean titles 10% Off (until February 28/10)


African Fiction
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FUNSO AIYEJINA
The Legend of the Rockhills and Other Stories

Bitingly satirical stories set in the Nigeria of military dictatorships.

Winner of the Commonwealth Writer's Prize, 2000  

RÉSHARD GOOL
Cape Town Coolie

It is 1948. The Afrikaaner Nationalists are poised to introduce the racist policy of apartheid into South Africa. Naidoo, a highly principled yet gentle Indian lawyer, realizes that the struggle calls for a brutality he is not equipped with.
 

 
FARIDA KARODIA
Against an African Sky and Other Stories

“...riveting...palpable and heart wrenching.”
The Globe and Mail
 

“Karodia had taken the writer's role to new heights in South Africa.”
The South African Review of Books
 

ROZENA MAART 
The Writing Circle

"A beautifully written, heartbreaking piece. If your book club is looking for a book to spark meaningful conversation and bring awareness to the group, no matter where you live, The Writing Circle will deliver that and more."
— carp(e) libris
ROZENA MAART
Rosa's District 6

 “. . . a writer in our midst with radical style and uncommon courage. The ability to engage the reader passionately in her narrator’s experiences, which she demonstrates...makes Maart a writer to watch.”
The Ottawa Citizen
KAGISO LESEGO MOLOPE  Dancing in the Dust

“cinematic in clarity . . . Molope makes her reader see and understand . . . feel the enormity of apartheid's atrocity.”
The Globe and Mail
 
SOPHIA MUSTAFA
In the Shadow of Kirinyaga

This beautiful novel reveals a rare insight into life in early colonial Kenya, from the perspective of a Muslim family. A poignant story innocent love caught in the web of larger events.

 

YVONNE VERA
Without a Name

“Probably one of the most serious female writers to come from this country [Zimbabwe] in the decade and a half of independence.”
The Herald (Harare, Zimbabwe)

Winner of the Commonwealth Regional Prize

PETER NAZARETH
The General is Up
Damibia is a fictitious country in East Africa, in which a demented army general takes power and begins a brutal rule of surrealistic dimensions.
The General is Up is a comic fictional look at the essentially tragic story of the rise and fall of an African dictator, and the horrendous wrecking of a beautiful productive country . . .
YVONNE VERA
Nehanda

Runner-up for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Africa Region, 1995.

“. . . a meditation on fate and language. . . a compelling story.” —
The Toronto Star

 

YVONNE VERA
Why Don't You Carve Other Animals


“A subtle writer . . . [This book] radiates the same commitment as The Grass Is Singing, Doris Lessing’s first novel, which forty years ago also reported unbridgeable boundaries in Southern Africa.’’
The Toronto Review

   


African Non-Fiction
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SOPHIA MUSTAFA
The Tanganyika Way

The Tanganyika Way spans the political events of 1958–1961 that led to Tanganyika’s independence from Britain. Sophia Mustafa participated in those events, and her account offers a rare insider’s perspective of the political drama.
CARMEN CALIZ-MONTORO
Writing from the Borderlands: A Study of Chicano, Afro-Caribbean and Native Literature in North America

This work looks at three “borderlands” literary responses: Chicanos at the border between the southern United States and Mexico, the African Caribbean minority in Canada, and the Native North Americans.

H NIGEL THOMAS
Why We Write: Conversations with African Canadian Poets and Novelists

The writers include Austin Clarke, Bernadette Dyer, Althea Prince, Afua Cooper, M. NourbeSe Philip, Cecil Foster, Lawrence Hill, George Elliott Clarke, Wayde Compton, Robert Sandiford, Suzette Mayr, Claire Harris, Pamela Mordecai, and Ayanna Black. More.

MARTIN GENETSCH
The Texture of Identity: The Fiction of MG Vassanji, Neil Bisoondath, and Rohinton Mistry

Examines the works of three major Canadian writers of South Asian origin and born in three different parts of the world—MG Vassanji, Neil Bissoondath, and Rohinton Mistry.

 


African Poetry
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MICHELLE MUIR
Nuff Said

Michelle Muir's debut poetry collection brings a new and confident voice in the hip hop genre to the printed page. Muir's poetry skillfully blends the language of the contemporary urban environment with her personal take on African-Canadian rhythmic and poly rhythmic style.

   

 


Caribbean Fiction
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CYRIL DABYDEEN
Drums of My Flesh

In a central park in Ottawa's Sandy Hill, Gabe, an immigrant from Guyana (South America), explores the past in the company of his young Canadian-born daughter.

Winner of the Guyana Prize - Best Book of Fiction
 

CYRIL DABYDEEN
My Brahmin Days

Closely observed, finely ironic stories confront Dabydeen's Asian and Caribbean identity with his life experience of life in Canada.

RAYWAT DEONANDAN
Divine Elemental

According to family legend, Kalya Lal is perhaps descended from a ghost.

“…quirky and engaging…at its satirical best it is amusing and incisive …”
The Globe and Mail
RAYWAT DEONANDAN
Sweet Like Saltwater

Stories set in the Caribbean, in India and in Canada profile immigration and detached belonging.

“...amusing and incisive.” —The Globe and Mail

Winner of the Guyana Prize - Best First Book
ARNOLD HARRICHAND ITWARU
Home and Back

A touching, lyrical meditation on growth and loss, the departure from home and life lived between remembering and forgetting, set in Canada and Guyana. “...powerful, involving reading.”
Books in Canada
SASENARINE PERSAUD
Canada Geese and Apple Chatney

“Persaud’s breathtaking narrative demonstrates its strong affinity with the work of Austin Clark.  Here, almost inscrutable demotic slang, once penetrated, reinforces Persaud’s social commentary and nimbly pits self-ironizing postmodernism against the timeless values of narrative.” —The Globe and Mail

ISMITH KHAN
The Obeah Man

“A brilliant revelation of the dark reality under a lively Caribbean surface, The Obeah Man combines the humour of Samuel Selvon, the pathos of George Lamming and the irony of V S Naipaul all in one.”  —Frank Birbalsingh, York University
 
SAMUEL SELVON
An Island is a World

A novel of personal and intellectual quest in postwar Trinidad.

“Selvon writes with great charm” —
The New York Times
SAMUEL SELVON
Those Who Eat the Cascadura

A story of inter-racial romance and the havoc it creates in a Trinidad village by “a master yarn-spinner”
The Globe and Mail
JOHN STEWART
Last Cool Days

“John Stewart draws a painful and all too credible picture of the squalor and injustice endured by the black community…” — The Times Literary Supplement

“The atmosphere and insight displayed in this book make it a considerable achievement.”
The Irish Times

JOHN STEWART
Looking for Josephine

A deeply probing look at various facets of Trinidadian life, by the author of Last Cool Days “a considerable achievement” — The Irish Times
H NIGEL THOMAS
Behind the Face of Winter

“...the starkest, most distressingly honest, thus unforgettable, account of the Caribbean-Canadian experience yet written.”
 —
Montreal Gazette

A coming-of age novel set in Montreal. “...undeniably beautiful...worth reading--and rereading...” —
Quill & Quire
H NIGEL THOMAS
Return to Arcadia

"In lean, precise prose, Return to Arcadia journeys through the unspeakable and tabooed in the contemporary Caribbean, reminding us that the brutalities of slavery and colonialism continue to raise hell and fierce memory in the more secret realms of flesh and desire." Thomas Glave, State University of New York
 
   


Caribbean Non-Fiction
(Click on title for more info)
 

CARMEN CALIZ-MONTORO
Writing from the Borderlands: A Study of Chicano, Afro-Caribbean and Native Literature in North America


This work looks at three “borderlands” literary responses: Chicanos at the border between the southern United States and Mexico, the African Caribbean minority in Canada, and the Native North Americans.
BASDEO MANGRU
Indenture and Abolition
 
This thoroughly-researched and well-documented book looks at several of the key aspects of the phenomenon of Indian indentured labour in the West Indies.
 

MARTIN GENETSCH
The Texture of Identity: The Fiction of MG Vassanji, Neil Bisoondath, and Rohinton Mistry

Examines the works of three major Canadian writers of South Asian origin and born in three different parts of the world—MG Vassanji, Neil Bissoondath, and Rohinton Mistry.

H NIGEL THOMAS
Why We Write: Conversations with African Canadian Poets and Novelists

The writers include Austin Clarke, Bernadette Dyer, Althea Prince, Afua Cooper, M. NourbeSe Philip, Cecil Foster, Lawrence Hill, George Elliott Clarke, Wayde Compton, Robert Sandiford, Suzette Mayr, Claire Harris, Pamela Mordecai, and Ayanna Black.


Caribbean Poetry
(Click on title for more info)
 

SASENARINE PERSAUD
In a Boston Night

From the first poem, the title poem “In a Boston Night,” Persaud returns to the passionate and sensuous that informed much of his earlier work. Persaud, the poet as craftsman, is ever present in this collection, using a complex series of personas and “voices” moving back and forth in time and place. More.
DANNABANG KUWABONG
Caribbean Blues & Love's Genealogy

In this new collection of poetry, Kuwabong shows a maturity of voice and a larger poetic vision to celebrate love—love for the people of the Caribbean and love between lovers.

CYRIL DABYDEEN
Hemisphere of Love

Hemisphere of Love reflects the author’s passion and honesty as he delves into the mystery of love and strives to bring order to human experience.
MADELINE COOPSAMMY
Prairie Journey

"A brave and beautiful collection—at times reflective, at times haunting, but always, challenging us to rethink our ideas of home and our dilemmas of belonging."
—Ramabai Espinet

 


Caribbean Anthology
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FRANK BIRBALSINGH
Jahaji: An Anthology of Indo-Caribbean Fiction

Indians have lived in the Caribbean for more than a hundred and sixty years, ever since they took to the ships to work on the sugar plantations. Jahaji (“ship traveler”) brings together a representative selection of Indo-Caribbean fiction from three generations of writers.
   
 

 

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