May 22, 2013

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Franco-Congolese Novelist Alain Mabanckou On African identity and the Difficulty of Defining an “African literature”

May 1, 2013 By Leave a Comment
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With nine novels, five collections of poems and a bunch of essays to his name, Franco-Congolese writer Alain Mabanckou is a literary phenomenon in the Francophone world. Renowned for the derisive drollery of his prose but also for his candour when talking about Africa, he has become an important voice of African literature – a subject he now teaches at UCLA. We talked to him on the occasion of the publication in English of his novel “Tomorrow I will be 20 years old”, in which he evokes with mischievousness and emotion his childhood in Pointe-Noire, the Congolese port city on the Atlantic coast. In this interview with Africa Book Club, Alain Mabanckou speaks about African identity, his eclectic influences and why it is difficult to define an “African literature”.

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Writing is Freedom, Says Award Winning Ugandan Author Doreen Baingana

April 3, 2013 By 2 Comments
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Doreen Baingana is the Ugandan author of Tropical Fish: Stories out of Entebbe, which won the 2006 Commonwealth Prize for First Book, Africa Region, and the AWP Award for Short Fiction. She has twice been a finalist for the Caine Prize for African Writing. A Bread Loaf Writers Conference Fellow and a Fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Centre, Baingana has also won a Washington Independent Writers Fiction Prize, and an Emerging Writer’s Fellowship from the Writer’s Center. She talked to Africa Book Club recently.

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Remembering Chinua Achebe

March 23, 2013 By 4 Comments
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Death has robbed us of Chinua Achebe – one of the most influential writers of his time. Undoubtedly Africa’s best known writer, Achebe stood for many things. To many, he was the father of African literature – recognized worldwide for his book, Things Fall Apart, the most translated African work of all time, which has sold more than 12 million copies and appeared in over 50 languages.

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Ethiopian Writer Tewodros Fekadu On his Remarkable Story of Survival

March 1, 2013 By 4 Comments
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Tewodros Fekadu scraped through his childhood years between relatives’ houses and the streets of Ethiopia. He has since lived in five countries on three continents and is fluent in four languages (Amharic, Tigrinya, Japanese and English). In 2003, he arrived in Australia and resides on the Gold Coast with his wife, Anita, where he is an active member of the community. His book, No One’s Son tells the remarkable story of his life – from his difficult childhood, his struggles through life’s challenges, and eventual migration to Australia. In this month’s interview, he talks to Africa Book Club about his life and work.

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Books Helped Me Understand My Place in the World — Ghanaian Author Nana Ekua

February 1, 2013 By 3 Comments
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This month, Africa Book Club speaks to Ghanaian writer, Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond. Nana (nanaekua.com) is an accomplished author and copywriter, who has written for AOL, The Village Voice, JET Magazine, Metro, and Trace Magazine, among others. Her short stories have been published in African Writing and the anthology This Woman’s Work; while her poem, “The Whinings of a Seven Sister Cum Laude Graduate Working Bored as an Assistant,” was published in the anthology Growing up Girl. A cum laude graduate of Vassar College, she attended secondary school in Ghana. Her debut novel, Powder Necklace (published by Simon and Schuster) was released in 2010 and was featured as one of our 2010 Books of the Year.

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American Author Julie Wakeman-Linn Finds Success With An Africa-based Publisher

January 1, 2013 By Leave a Comment
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This month, we feature Julie Wakeman-Linn, author of “Chasing the Leopard; Finding the Lion”. A professor at Montgomery College in Maryland (USA), Wakeman-Linn has lived in a number of African countries, most recently in Tanzania, where she volunteered at the Bethsaida Orphan Girls Secondary School. Her debut novel, “Chasing the Leopard; Finding the Lion” is published by a Tanzania-based publisher, Mkuki Na Nyota, and was a finalist for Barbara Kingsolver’s Belwether Prize. In this interview, she talks about her book, living in Africa, and how she made the decision to work with a Tanzanian publisher.

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Moroccan Novelist Laila Lalami On What It Takes to Succeed As a Writer

November 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Laila Lalami, Moroccan Novelist and Essayist

Laila Lalami is a novelist and essayist, and currently an associate professor of creative writing at the University of California at Riverside. Born and raised in Morocco, she attended Université Mohammed-V in Rabat, University College in London, and the University of Southern California, where she earned a Ph.D. in linguistics. She is the author of the short story collection Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award, and the novel Secret Son, which was on the Orange Prize longlist. In this interview with Africa Book Club, she talks about her favorite writers and what it takes to succeed as a writer.

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An Interview with Afro-Belgian Writer Chika Unigwe

September 1, 2012 By 4 Comments
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Chika Unigwe is an Afro-Belgian writer of Nigerian origin, who currently lives in Turnhout, Belgium. She is the author of fiction, poetry, articles and educational material. Her second novel, On Black Sisters’ Street, was published in Dutch in 2008 (as Fata Morgana) and in English in 2009. Night Dancer, her most recent novel, was released in June 2012 by Jonathan Cape. In this interview with Africa Book Club, she talks about her books and her enthusiasm about the state of African literature.

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First-Time Novelist Yejide Kilanko On Landing Contract With Global Publishing Giant

August 1, 2012 By 6 Comments
Yejide Kilanko

Yejide Kilanko is a Nigerian author, poet, and social worker based in Ontario, Canada. Her debut novel, Daughters Who Walk This Path, was published in April 2012 by Penguin Canada and is due to be released in the US next year. In this interview with Africa Book Club, she talks about her debut novel, how she managed to land a publishing contract with Penguin.

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Zimbabwean Author Tendai Huchu Draws Inspiration from Real Life

July 1, 2012 By 1 Comment
Tendai Huchu

Tendai Huchu (www.tendaihuchu.com), author of the Hairdresser of Harare and An Untimely Love, was born in Bindura, Zimbabwe. He has a great love of literature, and currently lives in Edinburgh, Scotland. In this interview with the Africa Book Club, he shares talks about growing up in Zimbabwe, and his own development as a writer.

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