Sunday, December 30, 2007

My Year 2007 in Books

Habara Gani and Happy New Year...

2007 was a hectic and exciting year for me and I’m looking forward to a slower-paced, yet exciting 2008. I didn’t write many book reviews this year, but I read a lot of books; saw a lot of films; and listened to a lot of music.  This year I also went back to books that I have read and enjoyed. I want to share some of my 2007 past-times with you.

My Favorite Books in 2007

My #1: The Wizard of the Crow, by Ngugl wa Thiong’o

Exiled Kenyan writer, Ngugl wa Thiong’o spins a darkly comic tale of Africa and her dictators. The Wizard of the Crow takes place in Abruria, a fictional country that could be anywhere in Africa, with characters drawn so exquisitely and completely, that the Ruler could be any dictator in Africa.  There are about 765 pages to this book and the reader is advised to take his/her time and get to know the Abruria characters as they appear because all of them are important to the story. 

This is parody at it’s highest level.  Abruria is a country where down is up and the newest government project is “Marching to Heaven,” erecting the tallest building in the world.  There are fantastic stories within stories, mistaken identities; torture in jail cells; love gone bad; love finding two lovers; and all sorts of hilarious, non-sensical happenings. Do yourself a favor.

Stolen from Gypsies, by Nobel Smith:

Generally, the myths speak of babies stolen by gypsies. Stolen from Gypsies is a madcap tale told by a hypochondriacal English nobleman named Ambrogio Smith is like Monty Phython, The Black Adder and Mel Brooks on crack.  Ambrogio, the narrator, lies in bed in attendance by his slavish manservant, Antonio.  The laughs never stop coming.  This is the story of a child stolen from gypsies, replete with antiquated slang, bawdy English, beet-juice enemas and a glossary to boot.

The Death of Vishnu, by Manil Suri:

With The Death of Vishnu, Manil Suri, takes on themes of religion, lost love, classism and spiritual emptiness. While Vishnu lies unconscious on the landing of an apartment building in Bombay, the lives of the residents spiral out of control all around him. Vishnu becomes an inconvenience, where he once was a playmate to the children of the building and later, a handyman. His alcoholism has stolen away his life and now he drifts in and out of consciousness.  His story is as riveting as the other stories in the building.  This is Bollywood on paper with music, laughter, sorrow and tears.

The Village of the Water Spirits: The Dreams of African American, by Michael Ortiz Hill with Mandaza Augustine Kandemwa and
Twin from Another Tribe, by Michael Ortiz Hill and Mandaza Augustine Kandemwa.

Michael Ortiz Hill is an Nganga--a South African healer, born in North America.  In The Village of the Water Spirits, Ortiz Hill begins to collect the dreams of African Americans about white people. His initiator is Mandaza Augustine Kandemwa, a Shona and an Ndebele Nganga.  They met when Ortiz Hill brought the dreams of African Americans to Kandemwa for interpretation.  In his work with the ‘water spirits”, Kandemwa is often involved in dream-telling and interpretation.  In his work as a collector of dreams, Ortiz Hill learned that Africa is at the very core of African American dreaming.

In Twin from Another Tribe, Ortiz Hill and Kandemwa recount their separate journeys towards initiation and their inevitable twinning.  Kandemwa is from the Shona people who were sworn enemies of the Ndebele people.  All attempts to find a Shona initiator were futile until his spirits led him to an Ndebele Nganga.  Across the world in Los Angeles, Ortiz Hill was reeling from the Rodney King verdicts and riots. He began to prepare himself to go to Africa and to be initiated.  He was initiated by Kandemwa, who in a dream saw Michael, his “brother.” Eventually, Ortiz Hill initiated Kandemwa, freeing his spirits in a trance possession.  They had become twins.

Posted by Dorothy Ferebee on 12/30 at 12:00 AM
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Friday, December 07, 2007

The Black Outsider in British Society

In Foreigners: Three English Lives, once again, Caryl Phillips turns his eye to race, class and identity.  Although somewhat of an outsider himself, Phillips admired and was primarily influenced by African American writers like James Baldwin.  He considers himeslf first and foremost a British author.

Phillips was born in St. Kitts, brought to Leeds, England as an infant, and later emigrated from England to New York City as an adult. Foreigners, historically and fictionally examines the role of the black outsider in British society.

Phillips, in most of his novels, introduces characters that are slightly out-of-step with the societies surrounding them. Some are struggling against oppression, others are struggling against themselves. Some of his previous works of fiction include, Cambridge, a Caribbean love story of slavery, betrayal and murder; Crossing the River, a tale of black lives severed from ties of home; and A Distant Shore, the story of two dissimilar individuals who form a tentative friendship in a small northern England town.

The “foreigners” in this hybrid of history and fiction are all black men who at varying points in time were the talk of Britain. The first was Francis Barber, who as a child, was “given” to the 18th century writer Samuel Johnson. The second was boxer Randolph Turpin, although bi-racial, he was considered black by English standards. Turpin beat Sugar Ray Robinson in 1951. The third and lesser-known man was Nigerian immigrant David Oluwale who died at the hands of British police in 1969.

None of these men in their latter years lived very significant lives. They were tragic heroes who, at some point were the objects of British fascination, but never assimilation.  Phillips style of writing is a bit awkward and uneven in places, but the telling of the tale is more than enough to compensate for the choppy flow.


Posted by Dorothy Ferebee on 12/07 at 02:52 PM
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Tuesday, December 04, 2007

The Free Black Experience in Canada

From Canadian author, Lawrence Hill, his 4th novel, Someone Knows My Name--a breath-takingly beautiful and bitter-sweet memoir of Aminata Diallo, an African stolen from her West African homeland and sold into slavery.  Hill is the author of three other novels, notably, Any Known Blood. Someone Knows My Name offers a rare insights into the plight of free blacks and escaped slaves in New York City and Nova Scotia, Canada where life was extremely difficult.

Aminata Diallo struggles and perseveres in her attempts to not relinquish her identity as an African in the New World.  Her struggles are legion.  Aminata watched both of her parents die at the hands of Africans and Europeans, who regarded them as property and chattel in the commerce of human lives.

Her ultimate salvation lies in the skills her parents passed along to her.  Her father taught her to write in Arabic and to read parts of the Quaran. Her mother taught her the science of midwifery and natural plant medicine.  A mixed-race overseer taught her to read and write English. These skills kept Aminata away from beatings and death at the hands of slave traders and plantation owners.

Hills characters are deeply human and multi-dimensional.  The Africans are portrayed as greedy and skilled negotiators--not innocent, naive by-standers in the slave trade.  The Europeans are arrogant, brutish and classless.  Aminata determines to free herself. After escaping her Jewish “master,” she hides among the poor blacks in New York City.  This provides her with an opportunity to use her skills as a midwife to eek out a meager living.

Hill does not make Aminata a pitiable character through the loss of ther wo children, Mustafa and May and her devoted husband Chekura.  Her son is sold away from her; her daughter abducted by white “friends”; and her husband drowned on a capsized ship bound for Nova Scotia.  For a brief period of time, Aminata wishes for her life to end, but her love for her people and her compassion for seeing new life enter the world, renews her will to live.

Through Aminata, we see the abolitionists in their fervor and single-mindedness.  Although they need Aminata to tell her story to a parliamentary committee on abolition in London, and to his royal highness himself, King George III, they want to control her autobiography to suit their needs.  Aminata does not relinquish her right to tell her own story her own way.

Prominent in this novel, is the history of the The Book of Negroes.  It is a real document of the free blacks who left New York City to settle in various British colonies. Aminata Dialla, in the telling of this tale, wrote the names and descriptions of three thousand black men, women and children. It is said to be “The largest single document about black people in North America, up until the end of the eighteenth century.”


Posted by Dorothy Ferebee on 12/04 at 06:00 AM
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