false 2296567 12 Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence so piercingly that few readers will feel they've ever encountered Africa so immediately. The eight-year-old narrator of "An Ex-Mas Feast" needs only enough money to buy books and pay fees in order to attend school. Even when his twelve-year-old sister takes to the streets to raise these meager funds, his dream can't be granted. Food comes first. His family lives in a street shanty in Nairobi, Kenya, but their way of both loving and taking advantage of each other strikes a universal chord. In the second of his stories published in a <i>New Yorker</i> special fiction issue, Akpan takes us far beyond what we thought we knew about the tribal conflict in Rwanda. The story is told by a young girl, who, with her little brother, witnesses the worst possible scenario between parents. They are asked to do the previously unimaginable in order to protect their children. This singular collection will also take the reader inside Nigeria Benin, and Ethiopia, revealing in beautiful prose the harsh consequences for children of life in Africa. Akpan's voice is a literary miracle, rendering lives of almost unimaginable deprivation and terror into stories that are nothing short of transcendent. 2302876 book 9 6 2008 Say You're One of Them total:785|5:183|4:284|3:205|2:77|1:36| 785 2856 3164 345 5 7 false false Sat Jul 05 17:34:51 -0700 2008 Sat Jul 05 17:35:59 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 4 false false Sat Jan 03 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 03 15:36:42 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 03 15:47:57 -0800 2009 more...]]> 1 3 false false Sat Aug 29 19:14:59 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 12 13:45:31 -0700 2009
The stories seemed to be an echo chamber of not, these are our stories, listen. more of a: We are flat suffering characters.... ...more...]]> 3 4 false false Sat Oct 25 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Oct 19 18:16:59 -0700 2008 Mon Oct 27 03:59:37 -0700 2008 People loved it. Time loved it. Essence loved it. Entertainment Weekly loved it. Maybe I should have checked my sources--all owned by Time Inc. (duh)--but I figured that a book generating this much positive press would be worth reading.
...more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Sep 23 11:09:21 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 01 11:00:07 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Jul 01 20:49:22 -0700 2008 Thu Jan 29 15:34:09 -0800 2009
In ea...more...]]> 5 2 false false Thu Jun 26 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jun 26 07:13:58 -0700 2008 Thu Jun 26 07:57:35 -0700 2008
Tragic, frustrating, majestic, bewildering are all words I would use to describe this short story collection. I have never read so many sad tales that did not come out of Russian literature. This collection is breathtaking in so many ways that mere ...more...]]> 0 6 false false Wed Feb 11 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Jul 06 07:11:06 -0700 2008 Thu Feb 12 07:53:35 -0800 2009
To further the analogy, readin...more...]]> 5 1 false false Thu Feb 12 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 11 09:48:56 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 12 07:08:29 -0800 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 05 09:58:22 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:58:22 -0800 2009 Hailed as "a major literary debut" (San Diego Union-Tribune) and "brilliant" (USA Today), Uwem Akpan's collection Say You're One of Them fulfills the promise of his 2005 short story, "An Ex-Mas Feast," in the New Yorker. Without flinching or lecturing, Akpan shares the ...

more...]]> 4 1 false false Thu Nov 27 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Nov 27 19:44:36 -0800 2008 Thu Nov 27 19:49:57 -0800 2008 Uwem Akpan, a Jesuit priest who grew up in Africa and earned a MFA in Creative Writing in the U.S., has put together a harrowing colle...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Nov 23 11:54:18 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 23 11:55:14 -0800 2008 more...]]> 2 2 false false Mon Sep 21 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 22 07:29:26 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 22 07:46:56 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Sep 19 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 19 15:31:40 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 19 21:58:30 -0700 2009
I found the first story very sad; a family trying to stay together. The mother, pick-pocket father, the 12 year old sister who turns to pro...more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri May 29 11:11:32 -0700 2009 Fri May 29 11:11:46 -0700 2009
Akpan's portrayal of life in the many countries in which these stories take place feels (and no doubt is) incredibly auth...more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Jan 14 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 21 06:44:36 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 21 06:55:10 -0800 2009
The most nuanced of these superbly crafted novellas and short stories is "Luxurious Hearses," in which the sad stew of African politics and culture -- the lingering effects of colonialism, religious conflict, tribal and ethnic division, official corruption, absentee o...more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Oct 19 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 11 19:25:24 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 20 00:39:36 -0700 2009 more...]]> 1 4 false false Wed Apr 22 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 22 07:58:51 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 22 08:19:02 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Sat Oct 03 16:05:30 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 13 14:00:34 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Oct 09 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 28 09:59:44 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 09 17:58:48 -0700 2009 What I liked: the stories, all set from the point of view of a child, offer unusual insight to a subject (subjects) I know very little about. In this sense it is almost as if a reader with little knowledge is at the same level of understanding as ...more...]]>