Great African Reads discussion
Welcome
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Welcome to new members!!... and introduction... if you want
Nice to meet you, Kirsten! Is that a long or short i? My wife's Kirsten with the short i. I love geography, too. It amazes me that I used to be perfectly comfortable hearing about a place and having no idea where it actually was in the world.
ha! alex you beat me. hi kirsten! i've been saying your name keersten.
Hello Kirsten, welcome to the madhouse that calls itself "Great African Reads"! :) Hope you like it around here, and feel free to participate wherever, whenever you like (i.e. don't feel like you have to have read a book in order to join a discussion).
Hi Kirsten, welcome to the group. I hope you'll enjoy it us much as most of us have.
Thanks, guys! The Americanized version I pronounce with a long i. Actually, the Swedish version too, to be technical.I presented my kindergarten teacher with a fairly good map of Madagascar at kindergarten round up, and she decided that I was going to be one of "those kids".
Hello All,My name is Matthew and I would like to introduce myself to the group. Nice to see a space where we can share our reading and other interests in the Continent. I've lived there briefly, (in Mali) and have done a bit of traveling in a few other countries, but not as much as I would like. I'm one of those snobs that hates describing it as "Africa". There are 53 countries (recognized?) and thousands of languages and cultures. The Continent is so much more diverse than either Europe or North America.
Thanks for starting a group dedicated to Africa-Themed writing. I was browsing the group books and have some suggestions as if the group would like.
Cheers,
Matthew
Kirsten wrote: "Thanks, guys! The Americanized version I pronounce with a long i. Actually, the Swedish version too, to be technical.I presented my kindergarten teacher with a fairly good map of Madagascar at k..."
oh, we LIKE those kids here, Kirsten! :D
i have a pdf file of a "country report" i did on yugoslavia in grade school. i have it at work as kind of a gag. that's one of the things my office does and has done--country studies. i showed it to my colleague who had actually written a country study of yugoslavia around the time i wrote my own report. i wanted to know why he hadn't cited my work. :P
Matt wrote: "Hello All,My name is Matthew and I would like to introduce myself to the group. Nice to see a space where we can share our reading and other interests in the Continent. I've lived there brief..."
Welcome, Matthew! i'm a bit jealous that you have lived in Mali! that is one of my "favorite" countries although i can't quite explain why. i think i like the ancient history and the desert. and also the music. :D
if you poke around the group you'll see we have quite a lot going on here and i'm pretty sure we have a thread for book suggestions; if i'm mistaken, i'll fix that pronto. we have a "Tour" that you may or may not be interested in, so check that out. and we're trying to see about creating some semi-structured regular thematic discussions, which would be another great place for you to make recommendations.
I would love to visit Mali one day. Two of my most favourite musical artists are from there, Toumani Diabate and the wondrous Oumou Sangare. I saw them live a few times in London (I was reviewing African music at that time).
Hello all,Thanks for pulling together this group. Really great idea. I've been looking at Africa for a few years now with a particular focus on political and economic development. I've been fortunate enough to make it to Ghana, Niger, Botswana, Namibia and Egypt. Hoping to jet over to the continent again here soon. I read Tropical Gangsters last year and loved it. Looking forward to the discussions.
Taylor
Taylor wrote: "Hello all,Thanks for pulling together this group. Really great idea. I've been looking at Africa for a few years now with a particular focus on political and economic development. I've bee..."
welcome, Taylor! i'm sure many of us would love to hear more about your travels. We have a folder called "Places" where members are invited to share their experiences in Africa (if they wish to do so). Matthew--if you see this, you may wish to share some of your time in Mali with us (it's not a requirement by any means!).
I saw you posted at the Equatorial Guinea thread already, Taylor--wonderful! i'm hoping to get my hands on Tropical Gangsters: One Man's Experience With Development and Decadence in Deepest Africa this afternoon.
Alex wrote: "Nice to meet you two!"Likewise. This should be fun!
Marieke,Nice to meet you too. Thanks for the tip on Places. I'd love to see what others have observed. I'll post on my own personal travels in time. Quadbiking in the Kalahari...nothing like it! :0
Taylor
Marieke wrote: "Taylor wrote: "Hello all,
Thanks for pulling together this group. Really great idea. I've been looking at Africa for a few years now with a particular focus on political and economic develop..."
Just wanted to say, welcome to the group Matt and Taylor!! Please poke your nose into any discussion you like, and don't feel like you need to have read a book in order to have your say! :DHope you find this group lots of fun (we tend to be a pretty easygoing bunch... ;) )!!
Just in general, sorry I'm not around much at the moment (though Marieke, our lovely chatterbox, is doing an awesome job all by herself - does she even need me?? ;) ); I'm hugely busy at work with very little energy to spare outside of work :( but things should calm later in December and I hope to be able to contribute just a little more ;) from then on...
Hi and welcome to Matthew and Taylor. I love reading about other members' African travels or living when they have time to write, so I hope you have time to share at some point. This is a fun group and feel free to follow and comment on discussions even if you can't get the particular book (or just can't get it read!).
Hi everyone.I'm new to goodreads (I don't know what took me so long!) and this group. I just got back from 3 months in southern Africa (mostly Namibia and South Africa, but a little of Lesotho and a drive through Swaziland). I'm especially interested in history but love good fiction too. Looking forward to some good discussion and book recommendations.
T wrote: "Hi everyone.I'm new to goodreads (I don't know what took me so long!) and this group. I just got back from 3 months in southern Africa (mostly Namibia and South Africa, but a little of Lesotho a..."
Welcome T! Have a look around; I hope you like it here. Let us know if you have any questions.
Hi T - welcome to Great African Reads!!We've got a bi-monthly book club that tours across Africa in alphabethical order - you can check it out here. Or you can check out any of the other discussions, of course! :)
Hope you like it around here, feel free to ask questions if you're not sure, we're definitely a friendly group (I'd hope! :) ).
That's so cool T! Three months! Was it for work or fun?
Wow, T, that sounds like a great experience. Hope you will join us for some of the discussion.
Hello,I just joined the group a few days ago. I'm very excited to see it on here. I've never been to Africa and I would really love to go there one day (Senegal, being on the top of the list), which is why I am so eager to learn as much as I can about anything and everything. It is great timing too, I just moved to a a neighborhood where there are a lot of Eritreans and Ethiopians. I'm 26 and I work for a non-profit for low-income residents of San Francisco.
hi maria elena! welcome! it sounds like you're a perfect match for this group and i hope you are able to join us for our Tour, *especially* Eritrea and Ethiopia. i'm pretty excited about it myself and am itching to crack open I Didn't Do It for You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation as soon as i finish a small stack of other books that i am half-way done with. :D
Welcome Maria Elena!! Hope you like the group and it's going to be an inspiring and fun place for you to learn more about Africa! Absolute wonderful timing for you to be joining the group, with our book stops in Eritrea and Ethiopia on the horizon now! :)
Hi again - I haven't been around for the past several months because I moved to France to be an English language assistant, and somehow my 12 hours a week of in-class time took over my life. Plus I had various internet access issues.I'm back in the US for a couple of weeks. And I can see how much I've been missing by not checking into GoodReads or this group. :)
Here's hoping that in the new year, I'll be able to check in more, even when I'm back in France.
Nothing new in Africa-related things for me, but I did read The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears. Recommended, especially for the African immigrant characters' categorizations/lists of African coups (country-by-country).
Welcome back Margain! ;) Yeah, I noticed you hadn't been around much, good to have you back even if it's just for a tiny bit of time! :) Hope it's going to be easier with internet etc. when you get back to France this year.Thanks for the book rec, sounds really interesting - will see if they've got it at my local library...
Happy new year!
Hello Everyone!I am so excited to have stumbled across this group!! I have been working in Kenya since last August and I have made it my mission to read as many Kenyan authors as I can! I have just finished Going Down River Road by Meja Mwangi which is tremendous, really gets you into the nitty gritty of how it must feel like to struggle for survival day to day. Michela Wrong's book on Kenya (It's Our Turn to Eat) is also amazing and I am so excited to see one of her books on your list. I have a number of books already on my bedside table but I also would love to read more from other countries too so I will be following this group with great interest! Well done to the organizers and looking forward to discussing books with all of you!
Anna
Hello Anna!! Welcome to the group, you sound all bubbly and excited to be here, that's great!! :D :D Are still living in Kenya now?Check out the Tour d'Afrique that we run on a bi-monthly basis or just chat about books you've read or want to read, or any other topic on Africa that interests you. Feel free to start a new discussion thread if you can't find one that seems appropriate! :)
Hope you enjoy the group!!
Hi Anna and welcome!we don't require people to read books that we choose for the Tour...several of us *do* read them and participate regularly, but we love conversation. so feel free to jump in and add comments or ask questions even if you are not reading the book we are discussing. seems like you've got a lot in your stack right now! my dad and his wife lived in kenya for a few years and shamefully i am behind on my kenya-reading. :(
Anna wrote: "Hello Everyone!I am so excited to have stumbled across this group!! I have been working in Kenya since last August and I have made it my mission to read as many Kenyan authors as I can! I have j..."
Hi Anna, Welcome! Going Down River Roadis one of the best and worst African books I have ever read! It is really well written and does make you really appreciate what it is like to live in a high density urban area (also known as a slum). While I appreciated every minute of reading the richly written and intense text, I hated every minute of what it represented and the truth behind it all. Thanks (and no thanks) for reminding me of that book!
Hi Anna,Welcome to the group! We have lots of great conversations here, and most of them are actually related to books, but all are related to Africa. I have Kenya connection myself. My profile picture is the cottage my husband and I renovated on the Keiyo escarpment of the Rift Valley where we plan to live in a year and a half or so. What type of work do you do?
I'm inviting myself for a visit, Andrea. :D
Thank you to all for such a warm welcome!!Muphyn I am still living in Kenya so Andrea I too am inviting myself for a visit :)
You will be pleased to know that I just made another tour via Bookstop (my local bookshop - the one Michela Wrong mentions at the end of her book as it is the only one to actually sell her book in Kenya, under the counter) and just got myself another book for my large pile! It is Petals of Blood by Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Have any of you read that one? I was going to go with a Grain of Wheat but they informed me to start with that one - it's my first by Thiong'o!
Elizabeth - I very much agree with your assessment, I was wincing as I was reading Going Down River Road. I see downtown Nairobi differently as a result.
Andrea - I am an international lawyer specializing in post conflict constitutions & international criminal justice. Wonder why I am working in Kenya ;) It's fascinating - very political which is why I loved Michela Wrong's book. What will you be doing when you live here and where do you live now?
I have just started preparing to climb the Mount Kenya and realized I can take books with me on the treadmill which is great :)
When I've read a few more books on Kenya, perhaps we could start a Kenya thread if this has not been done already?
Thanks all and really excited to have met fellow readers who love African literature!
We can absolutely have a Kenya thread. I'll put it in the Places folder. Your job sounds like it must be fascinating, Anna...but I'm kind of a court/justice wonkette. :D
I second Marieke -- Anna, your job sounds incredibly fascinating. I would love to hear more about the work you are doing -- that is, if you are able to talk about it.
Anna, your work sounds fascinating, but stressful. Right now I live in Michigan, where I teach college writing. In Kenya, my husband and I are building a high school, so I will be teaching and administrating. (As an American, I just can't quite bring myself to say "headmistress" in reference to myself yet:))
Can I just jump on the bandwagon as well and say how amazing Anna's job sounds??!! BUT, I think Andrea's future sounds really inspiring too, I'd love to teach somewhere in Africa as well!!
Muphyn wrote: "Can I just jump on the bandwagon as well and say how amazing Anna's job sounds??!! BUT, I think Andrea's future sounds really inspiring too, I'd love to teach somewhere in Africa as well!!"Totally agree. And Andrea -- I say go w/ headmistress. It's sounds so stern and impressive :-)
i have never met Andrea in person but somehow i cannot picture her keeping a straight face while introducing herself as the Headmistress...
Hi everyone :DI'm currently a student who is looking to go to University next year with a major in International Development Studies and a minor in African Studies. I would like to work for a non-profit organization that would permit me to help people across the African continent.
I discovered my passion for Africa recently by taking an english post-colonial studies class. We covered both the colonizer's viewpoint (Heart of Darkness by joseph Conrad) and the colonized (Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe).
I would like to get into novels by African writers and I would also like to learn more about the African continent through non-fiction books pertaining to this subject.
My mother was born in Angola but she had to leave because of the civil war that broke out.
I don't have a current preference for a certain part of Africa. If I could I would visit every single country on the continent because I find that Africa seems like such a beautiful and complex area of the world.
Wow, visit every country in Africa; now that would be a laudable goal. Welcome to the group! Can we call you "view" for short?
Hello "View", welcome to the group! :)Hopefully this group will continue to fuel your interest in Africa, we're quite a mixed bunch of people here.
Our Tour d'Afrique does just what you want to do... visiting every country in Africa, except that the tour does it through books only... :) Feel free to join the tour when/if you're interested (you don't have to have read the book to join the discussion, so feel free to get right into things!).
Feel free to start new conversation threads if you want to discuss a book that hasn't been discussed yet.
Hope you like it around here! :D
Hi View, you've definitely come to the right place! :D
Andrea wrote: "Wow, visit every country in Africa; now that would be a laudable goal. Welcome to the group! Can we call you "view" for short?"of course you can call me View :)
Hi everyone I'm Sheila. Originally from Scotland, I usually live in England except for a 3 years spell when I stayed in the American Mid West for work reasons, and just now where for the the last 15 months I have been in Orissa State, in eastern India with a local NGO.I got a pointer to this board from Marieke so here I am!
I try to read widely and have read some really good books by writers from the African continent in the past year and I want to build up a new reading list for when I return home. For now I am restricted to ebooks and audios that I have with me or I can cheaply download so I may not be able to get to actually read many of your tour reads now but will be dipping in where I can.
Welcome Sheila. Sounds like you are doing interesting work.
Great African Reads
Books mentioned in this topic
The Shadow King (other topics)The Moor's Account (other topics)
Half of a Yellow Sun (other topics)
Huit leçons sur l'Afrique (other topics)
Africana: Viaggio nella storia letteraria del Continente (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Tsitsi Dangarembga (other topics)Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu (other topics)
Khadija Abdalla Bajaber (other topics)
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (other topics)
Yefon Isabelle (other topics)
More...
I will read just about anything, so I welcome suggestions. I am fairly new to Goodreads, but I treat it like a giant European coffee shop.