africa book club Archives -

PALACE OF DESIRE by Nagoub Mahfouz

How charming is this author bio?

Naguib Mahfouz was born in Cairo in 1911 and began writing when he was seventeen. A student of philosophy and an avid reader, he has been influenced by many Western writers, including Flaubert, Balzac, Zola, Camus, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and, above all, Proust. He has more than thirty novels to his credit, ranging from his earliest historical romances to his most recent experimental novels. In 1988, Mr Mahfouz was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He lives in the Cairo suburb of Agouza with his wife and two daughters.

His most famous work is probably THE CAIRO TRILOGY, three books tracing a single Egyptian family across the twentieth century. I have reviewed the second here, for Africa Book Club.

This is a wonderful series of novels. In fact, I think I’m going to go out on a limb here and declare the TRILOGY the best work of fiction ever produced on the African continent. Sorry, Chinua, Wole, et al.

THE RIVER AND THE SOURCE by Margaret A. Ogola

This has been a school set book in Kenya for many years, and oh lord, you can tell from the copy I read. It is seriously mangled, and covered with youthful writing which indicates ‘metaphors’ and ‘similies.’ It was sort of charming. Part way through, a photograph of a girlfriend even fell out.

I’ve reviewed it here for Africa Book Club.

I DO NOT COME TO YOU BY CHANCE by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

I DO NOT COME TO YOU BY CHANCE is a quirky and fun little novel from Nigeria, which I have reviewed here for Africa Book Club.

It has been most educational, teaching me why I will never order 404 in a Nigerian restaurant.

OUT OF AFRICA by Karen Blixen

I have reviewed this for Africa Book Club – here it is! I will only say, it is not at all like the movie.

If you aren’t going to click through, let me leave you with this interesting little extract:

The Elite Of Bournemouth

I had as neighbour a settler who had been a doctor at home. Once, when the wife of one of my houseboys was about to die in childbirth, and I could not get into Nairobi, because the long ruins had ruined the roads, I wrote to my neighbour and asked him to do me the great service of coming over and helping her. He very kindly came, in the midst of a terrible thunderstorm and torrents of tropical rain, and, a the last moment, by his skill, he saved the life of the woman and the child.

Afterwards he wrote me a letter to say that although he had once, on my appeal, treated a Native, I must understand that he could not let that sort of thing occur again. I myself would fully realize the fact, he felt convinced, when he informed me that he had before now, practised to the elite of Bournemouth.

THINGS FALL APART by Chinua Achebe

I’m reviewing occasionally for AFRICA BOOK CLUB at the moment, a very worthwhile venture, giving African literature a higher profile on the web. My review for them, which is much more formal and well behaved than is usual for this blog is here.

Let me just give you a charming little story from the book, that tells us pre-colonial Ibo had the same problems as us . . . .

Mosquito had asked Ear to marry him, whereupon Ear fell on the floor in uncontrollable laughter. “How much longer do you think you will live?” she asked. “You are already a skeleton.” Mosquito went away humiliated, and any time he passed her way he told Ear that he was still alive.