April reading
Africa Is Not a Country: Notes on a Bright Continent, Dipo Faloyin
An early contender for best book I've read this year. Faloyin was a writer for Vice, and some of the ideas in this book were first aired on the site. Lots of books are described as hilarious and poignant; this one actually is. Faloyin is from Lagos, and the first two chapters are odes to his city and to modern Africa. Then he delves into Europe's meddling, starting with the 19th-century summit to set the ground rules for colonizing Africa. It's sad to say that hearing about the ensuing disasters from an African perspective makes them fresh and new. The section on the stolen heritage (called simply "The Looting") is the best I've ever read. Did you know that the British brought an anthropologist when they overthrew the Abyssinian Empire (now Ethiopia), neatly undermining their claim that the siege was meant solely to free hostages. The hilarity comes when talking about portrayals of modern Africa in Western pop culture (the skewing of Independence Day is delightful), the solemn tone used by Western sport commentators talking about South Africa's victory in the World Cup it hosted as "a win for Africa," and western Africa's response to Jamie Oliver's recipe for jollof rice. The book reminded me that I knew a woman in grad school who went to Mali because, at the time, it was the poorest country in the world according to the UN. Even 25 years ago I thought that was a terrible reason to visit a country. Faloyin ends by inviting people to visit Africa, and not just the national parks teeming with elephants and zebras. Oh, and we should give them their stuff back.
The Bird Tattoo, Dunya Mikhail
This was in the library's collection celebrating Arab-American heritage month; Mikhail is from Iraq but now lives in MIchigan. This book is about a Yazidi woman, Helen, who is captured by ISIS (called Daesh) and sold along with other women and girls as servants and sex companions for Daesh soldiers. There are flashes to Helen's previous, almost too good to be true life, but overall it's a pretty grim story, and even when she escapes and returns home it's not a very happy ending.
Bitter Orange Tree, Johka Alharthi (translated by Marilyn Booth)
This was in the same collection, although from Alharthi's bio she's never lived in the United States. She did study in England, so I was a bit surprised that she used a translator. The narrator is a young Omani woman at a British university recalling an elderly woman whom she calls her grandmother even though she was more like a servant. It's the grandmother's life that is the focus, the grandmother and the small village where she lived for most of her life. The translation is excellent, and even though it's not a happy story it was beautifully told.
Woman of Light, Kali Fajardo-Anstine
Speaking of unhappy stories beautifully told, here's another one. I really liked Fajardo-Anstine's first book, a collection of short stories. Like the first book, this novel is centered on Latinx and Indigenous people around Denver and the changes that came with European settlers and the "conquering" of the American West. Some of the brutality made my stomach churn, but the writing is amazing and the characters are compelling.