Download or read book The Suns of Independence written by Ahmadou Kourouma and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2024-01-01 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ahmadou Kourouma's award winning novel, The Suns of Independence is one of the great classics of Francophone African literature, capturing the dreams and struggles of a newly independent nation. Fama is the last of an ancient line of Dumbuya princes who, before the Europeans came, reigned undisputed over the Malinke tribe. Yet even after independence, Fama is forced to beg for his place amongst the bureaucratic elite. Meanwhile, his wife, Salimata, is desperately attempting to save the Dumbuya legacy from extinction. Beyond the gripping political intrigue, Ahmadou Kourouma weaves together an in-depth tapestry of Malinke culture, blending the everyday experience of 1960s postcolonial life with age-old myths and traditions. 'Perhaps the most remarkable African novelist writing in French.' Guardian

Download or read book Waiting for the Vote of the Wild Animals written by Ahmadou Kourouma and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally from the Côte d'Ivoire, Ahmadou Kourouma spent much of his life working in the insurance industry and living in France and in political exile elsewhere in Africa before returning to Abidjan in 1993. His earlier novels are The Suns of Independence and Monnew. Carrol F. Coates is Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Binghamton University-SUNY and has translated numerous books, including Jacques Stephen Alexis's General Sun, My Brother (Virginia).

Download or read book Allah is Not Obliged written by Ahmadou Kourouma and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ALLAH IS NOT OBLIGED TO BE FAIR ABOUT ALL THE THINGS HE DOES HERE ON EARTH.These are the words of the boy soldier Birahima in the final masterpiece by one of Africa’s most celebrated writers, Ahmadou Kourouma. When ten-year-old Birahima's mother dies, he leaves his native village in the Ivory Coast, accompanied by the sorcerer and cook Yacouba, to search for his aunt Mahan. Crossing the border into Liberia, they are seized by rebels and forced into military service. Birahima is given a Kalashnikov, minimal rations of food, a small supply of dope and a tiny wage. Fighting in a chaotic civil war alongside many other boys, Birahima sees death, torture, dismemberment and madness but somehow manages to retain his own sanity. Raw and unforgettable, despairing yet filled with laughter, Allah Is Not Obliged reveals the ways in which children's innocence and youth are compromised by war.

Download or read book Monnew written by Ahmadou Kourouma and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The tragic story of Djigui Keita, a fictional king of Soba, who is overwhelmed by the French colonial forces.

Download or read book So Long a Letter written by Mariama Bâ and published by Waveland Press. This book was released on 2012-05-06 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by award-winning African novelist Mariama Bâ and translated from the original French, So Long a Letter has been recognized as one of Africa’s 100 Best Books of the 20th Century. The brief narrative, written as an extended letter, is a sequence of reminiscences —some wistful, some bitter—recounted by recently widowed Senegalese schoolteacher Ramatoulaye Fall. Addressed to a lifelong friend, Aissatou, it is a record of Ramatoulaye’s emotional struggle for survival after her husband betrayed their marriage by taking a second wife. This semi-autobiographical account is a perceptive testimony to the plight of educated and articulate Muslim women. Angered by the traditions that allow polygyny, they inhabit a social milieu dominated by attitudes and values that deny them status equal to men. Ramatoulaye hopes for a world where the best of old customs and new freedom can be combined. Considered a classic of contemporary African women’s literature, So Long a Letter is a must-read for anyone interested in African literature and the passage from colonialism to modernism in a Muslim country. Winner of the prestigious Noma Award for Publishing in Africa.

Download or read book Half of a Yellow Sun written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2010-10-29 with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With her award-winning debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was heralded by the Washington Post Book World as the “21st century daughter” of Chinua Achebe. Now, in her masterly, haunting new novel, she recreates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria during the 1960s. With the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Adichie weaves together the lives of five characters caught up in the extraordinary tumult of the decade. Fifteen-year-old Ugwu is houseboy to Odenigbo, a university professor who sends him to school, and in whose living room Ugwu hears voices full of revolutionary zeal. Odenigbo’s beautiful mistress, Olanna, a sociology teacher, is running away from her parents’ world of wealth and excess; Kainene, her urbane twin, is taking over their father’s business; and Kainene’s English lover, Richard, forms a bridge between their two worlds. As we follow these intertwined lives through a military coup, the Biafran secession and the subsequent war, Adichie brilliantly evokes the promise, and intimately, the devastating disappointments that marked this time and place. Epic, ambitious and triumphantly realized, Half of a Yellow Sun is a more powerful, dramatic and intensely emotional picture of modern Africa than any we have had before.

Download or read book The Shadow of the Sun written by Ryszard Kapuscinski and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2011-05-25 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A moving portrait of Africa from Poland's most celebrated foreign correspondent - a masterpiece from a modern master. Famous for being in the wrong places at just the right times, Ryszard Kapuscinski arrived in Africa in 1957, at the beginning of the end of colonial rule - the "sometimes dramatic and painful, sometimes enjoyable and jubilant" rebirth of a continent. The Shadow of the Sun sums up the author's experiences ("the record of a 40-year marriage") in this place that became the central obsession of his remarkable career. From the hopeful years of independence through the bloody disintegration of places like Nigeria, Rwanda and Angola, Kapuscinski recounts great social and political changes through the prism of the ordinary African. He examines the rough-and-ready physical world and identifies the true geography of Africa: a little-understood spiritual universe, an African way of being. He looks also at Africa in the wake of two epoch-making changes: the arrival of AIDS and the definitive departure of the white man. Kapuscinski's rare humanity invests his subjects with a grandeur and a dignity unmatched by any other writer on the Third World, and his unique ability to discern the universal in the particular has never been more powerfully displayed than in this work.

Download or read book A Thousand Splendid Suns written by Khaled Hosseini and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2008-09-18 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting and powerful story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship and an indestructible love

Download or read book A Summer Like No Other written by Elodie Nowodazkij and published by Elodie Nowodazkij. This book was released on 2015-07-27 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dive into a whirlwind of romance, dance, and undeniable attraction with the sizzling young adult romance, "A Summer Like No Other", where a very off-limits brother's best friend may be breaking the bro code. Currently, we are offering this spellbinding tale of forbidden love for FREE! She’s his best friend’s little sister. He’s the biggest player of them all. They shouldn’t be together. But this summer’s just too tempting. Emilia Moretti, a sixteen-year-old ballet dancer, is all set for a summer of perfect pirouettes and the quest to find her birth parents. But an unexpected twist threatens to shatter her plans—Nick Grawsky. He's her brother's best friend, the consummate player, and the one guy Emilia should forget. But this summer, forgetting just got a whole lot harder. Nick Grawsky, a charismatic professional dancer, is living a dual life. Striving to follow his dancing dreams while combating his father's expectations of a legal career, he's got enough on his plate. And then there's Emilia—the girl he can't have, the girl he can't stop thinking about. Bound by the unspoken bro code with his best friend Roberto, Nick knows Emilia is off-limits. But what happens when the rhythm of the heart drowns out the voice of reason? In this intoxicating dance of desire and restraint, "A Summer Like No Other" captures the essence of a quintessential brother's best friend romance, set against the vibrant backdrop of a New York summer. With the heart-pounding allure of forbidden love and the captivating world of ballet, this story will pull you in and refuse to let go. Critics rave about it as a "beautiful teen romance" that keeps you on your edge of your seat. It's more than just a love story—it's a roller coaster ride of emotions, a symphony of moving parts, and a dance that's as complicated as it is beautiful. Will Emilia and Nick manage to navigate the tricky choreography of their tangled emotions? Or will the bro code and their own fears lead to a finale they're not ready for? Experience the passion, the heartbreak, and the thrill of first love with "A Summer Like No Other". Don't miss this chance to own a piece of this scintillating brother's best friend romance for FREE. Indulge in a summer love story that promises to be like no other!

Download or read book Caste written by Isabel Wilkerson and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2023-02-14 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • “An instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions—now with a new Afterword by the author. #1 NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, O: The Oprah Magazine, NPR, Bloomberg, The Christian Science Monitor, New York Post, The New York Public Library, Fortune, Smithsonian Magazine, Marie Claire, Slate, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews Winner of the Carl Sandberg Literary Award • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • National Book Award Longlist • National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist • Dayton Literary Peace Prize Finalist • PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Finalist • PEN/Jean Stein Book Award Longlist • Kirkus Prize Finalist “As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.” In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched, and beautifully written narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their outcasting of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity. Original and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.

Download or read book Lightning on the Sun written by Robert Bingham and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2001-07-17 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the highly acclaimed author of Pure Slaughter Value comes this latter-day literary noir about an ex-pat in Cambodia eager to get home but taking all the wrong turns. Asher went to Cambodia to get away from Julie, his Harvard grad ex-girlfriend currently tending bar in a topless joint in New York. But when his UNESCO work cleaning bat dung from Khmer statues is finished, and he decides on a dicey heroin scheme as his means to get home with plenty of money to spare, it's Julie whose help he solicits. She agrees, but plans go dangerously awry frighteningly fast. A pulsating plot and precise literary prose make Lightning on the Sun a startlingly compelling and strangely poetic tale.

Download or read book A Fire Upon The Deep written by Vernor Vinge and published by Tor Science Fiction. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now with a new introduction for the Tor Essentials line, A Fire Upon the Deep is sure to bring a new generation of SF fans to Vinge's award-winning works. A Hugo Award-winning Novel! “Vinge is one of the best visionary writers of SF today.”-David Brin Thousands of years in the future, humanity is no longer alone in a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures, and technology, can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence. Fleeing this galactic threat, Ravna crash lands on a strange world with a ship-hold full of cryogenically frozen children, the only survivors from a destroyed space-lab. They are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle. Tor books by Vernor Vinge Zones of Thought Series A Fire Upon The Deep A Deepness In The Sky The Children of The Sky Realtime/Bobble Series The Peace War Marooned in Realtime Other Novels The Witling Tatja Grimm's World Rainbows End Collections Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge True Names At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Download or read book The Warmth of Other Suns written by Isabel Wilkerson and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-10-04 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this beautifully written masterwork, the Pulitzer Prize–winnner and bestselling author of Caste chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves. With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties. Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous and exhausting cross-country trips by car and train and their new lives in colonies that grew into ghettos, as well as how they changed these cities with southern food, faith, and culture and improved them with discipline, drive, and hard work. Both a riveting microcosm and a major assessment, The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration” within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is destined to become a classic.

Download or read book The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born written by Ayi Kwei Armah and published by Heinemann. This book was released on 1988 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A beginners' guide to the fundamentals of the Dru meditation technique, a method for soothing the mind and relaxing the emotions. The programme includes six short guided meditations designed to instill a sense of profound stillness, quieten and calm a stressed mind and reconnect with the important aspects of life. Each nine-minute meditations is based on one of the elements: Earth, Water, Light, Air and Sky.

Download or read book Measuring Time written by Helon Habila and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2007 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mamo and LaMamo are twin brothers living in the small Nigerian village of Keti, where their domineering father controls their lives. With high hopes the twins attempt to flee from home, but only LaMamo escapes successfully and is able to live their dream of becoming a soldier who meets beautiful women. Mamo, the sickly, awkward twin, is doomed to remain in the village with his father. Gradually he comes out of his father's shadow and gains local fame as a historian, and, using Plutarch's Parallel Lives as his model, he embarks on the ambitious project of writing a "true" history of his people. But when the rains fail and famine rages, religious zealots incite the people to violence--and LaMamo returns to fight the enemy at home. A novel of ardent loyalty, encroaching modernity, political desire, and personal liberation, Measuring Time is a heart-wrenching history of Nigeria, portrayed through the eyes of a single family.

Download or read book Trouble written by Gary D. Schmidt and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2010-04-12 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Henry Smith’s father told him that if you build your house far enough away from Trouble, then Trouble will never find you.” But Trouble comes careening down the road one night in the form of a pickup truck that strikes Henry’s older brother, Franklin. In the truck is Chay Chouan, a young Cambodian from Franklin’s preparatory school, and the accident sparks racial tensions in the school—and in the well-established town where Henry’s family has lived for generations. Caught between anger and grief, Henry sets out to do the only thing he can think of: climb Mt. Katahdin, the highest mountain in Maine, which he and Franklin were going to climb together. Along with Black Dog, whom Henry has rescued from drowning, and a friend, Henry leaves without his parents’ knowledge. The journey, both exhilarating and dangerous, turns into an odyssey of discovery about himself, his older sister, Louisa, his ancestry, and why one can never escape from Trouble.

Download or read book A Forest of Stars written by Kevin J. Anderson and published by Orbit. This book was released on 2007-11-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Five years after attacking the human-colonized worlds of the Spiral Arm, the hydrogues maintain absolute control over stardrive fuel...and their embargo is strangling human civilization. On Earth, mankind suffers from renewed attacks by the hydrogues and decides to use a cybernetic army to fight them. Yet the Terran leaders don't realize that these military robots have already exterminated their own makers - and may soon turn on humanity. Once the rulers of an expanding empire, humans have become the galaxy's most endangered species. But the sudden appearance of incredible new beings will destroy all balances of power. Now for humans and the myriad alien factions in the universe, the real war is about to begin...and genocide may be the result.