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MONNEW

Name: MONNEW
Author: Ahmadou Kourouma
ISBN: 1-56279-027-7

by Ahmadou Kourouma ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 8, 1993

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Ivory Coast-born Kourouma (The Suns of Independence, 1982) brilliantly indicts both colonial and independent Africa for their monnew—insults, outrages, humiliations. Like a griot (one of the traditional storytellers of West Africa), Kourouma tells of Djigui Keita, the ``AgeOldMan,'' in idiomatic prose that reflects the mythic nature and intent of his tale. Djigui, a great king, tries to repel the French colonialists with human sacrifices and a towering wall, but he's soon won over by the French, who promise to build him a railway line from the coast. In return, Djigui is to provide them with free labor. As he grows older, however, this devout, humanistic Moslem begins to question his bargain with the French as their demands for goods and labor grow more rapacious. Djigui's subjects are also made to fight for France in WW I, suffer under the PÇtainists, welcome de Gaulle, and then participate in French-rigged elections. The French, Djigui realizes, are all promises—the railway never materializes—and bestowers of trifles, like a visit to France for Djigui when he's invested with the Legion of Honor. But as independence nears, Djigui's own people— including son Bema—are equally treacherous and greedy. Djigui now understands that people's woes, their monnew, like his own, come from themselves—``the wound of Djigui came from a possession of Djigui, the wound that never closes is the one left by the crocodile born of your own.'' In a last-minute effort to thwart his son, the 125-year-old patriarch sets off for the ancestral stronghold to abdicate, and thereby end the dynasty, but he dies en route. The ``rough path'' is unchanged, monnew continues. An evocative lament for the passing of the old—as well as a bitter indictment of all that leaves Africans still ``voiceless in short.''

Pub Date: Feb. 8, 1993

ISBN: 1-56279-027-7

Page Count: -

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1992

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
ALLAH IS NOT OBLIGED
by Ahmadou Kourouma & translated by Frank Wynne

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LAND OF SWEET FOREVER
by Harper Lee ; edited by Casey Cep

- BOOK REVIEW
GO SET A WATCHMAN
by Harper Lee

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DISTANT SHORES

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2002

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...

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Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.

After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).