Ghana Must Go, by Taiye Selasi
Second paragraph of third chapter: Dewdrops on grass blades like diamonds flung freely from the pouch of some sprite-god who’d just happened by, stepping lightly and lithely through Kweku Sai’s garden just moments before Kweku appeared there himself. Now the whole garden glittering, winking and tittering like schoolgirls who hush themselves, blushing, as their beloveds approach: glittering mango tree, monarch, teeming being at center with her thick bright green leaves and her bright yellow eggs; glittering fountain full of cracks now and weeds with white blossoms, but the statue still standing, the “mother of twins,” iya-ibeji, once a gift for his ex-wife Folasadé, now abandoned in the fountain with her hand-carved stone twins; glittering flowers Folasadé could name by their faces, the English names, Latin names, a million shades of pink; glowing sky the soft gray of the South without sunlight, glittering clouds at its edges.
I see a lot of "meh" reviews of this book online, but actually I rather liked it; it's the story of a family patriarch, who dies in the first chapter, and his two wives and four children in Ghana, Nigeria and the USA, with some fairly grim family secrets coming to the surface as the relatives gather for the funeral in a series of extended flashbacks. I felt it said interesting things about migration, culture and families in a vivid and lyrical way. Worth a look.
That was my top unread book by a non-white author. Next on that list is The Man Within My Head, by Pico Iyer.
I see a lot of "meh" reviews of this book online, but actually I rather liked it; it's the story of a family patriarch, who dies in the first chapter, and his two wives and four children in Ghana, Nigeria and the USA, with some fairly grim family secrets coming to the surface as the relatives gather for the funeral in a series of extended flashbacks. I felt it said interesting things about migration, culture and families in a vivid and lyrical way. Worth a look.
That was my top unread book by a non-white author. Next on that list is The Man Within My Head, by Pico Iyer.
