A rich collection full of work of accomplishment and great promise alike.
Annual installment of the prize volume honoring short stories by African writers.
Established in 2000, the Caine Prize recognizes short stories of distinction published by African writers, which is to say, a native or citizen of an African nation or someone who has a parent of African birth or nationality. The present volume includes the five stories shortlisted for the prize, three of them by Nigerian writers this year, as well as a dozen stories by developing writers written at the Caine Prize Writers' Workshop. Several pieces speak to the experience of African immigrants in the U.S. The story “Departure,” by the Cameroonian writer Nsah Mala, is a case in point, one that opens on a note of foreboding: “It wasn’t the first night sleep had divorced her.” Nangeh has visions, one of which comes to her as she drops a bucket into a well: She is returning on a plane from America, with piles of cash and “big suitcases of American products.” Indeed, she’s won a green card lottery, but now she needs the money to get there. Alas, says the District Officer, whom she approaches for help, the only way she’ll get there is to marry his son—and never mind the fact that Nangeh is already married. It’s a story that does not end well, for all the promise of a new world. Just so, Rwandan writer Caroline Numuhire recounts the travails of a young woman who finds herself, improbably, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, caught up in just such a web. She frees herself, returning home alone: “Had it been beauty, intelligence, money, charm or any other woman, it might have been a battle I could have won. But my rival’s name was America." Dreams abound in this collection, as does some wonderful poetry, as when Ethiopian writer Heran Abate writes: “The clouds are pink and orange in a way that Mititi thinks is magical. She points up to them and starts blowing air in their direction as if to move them along faster.”
A rich collection full of work of accomplishment and great promise alike.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-62371-970-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Interlink
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
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.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
