A 2014 Indie Book Award winner, Losing My Religion is the first novel written by the Nigerian author, Jide Familoni. The principal protagonist is Olufẹmi (meaning “God loves me”) or Femi. Fẹmi hails from Ido-Ekiti village, in the South Western region of Nigeria in Yorubaland. The story tracks his life journey, as he relocates from his homeland to Canada, and eventually to the United States.
About Enoch Tanyi
Secret Son (by Laila Lalami)
A 30-year old Moroccan Arab, Nabil Amrani, gets entangled in an adulterous relationship with his pregnant wife’s nurse, Rachida, and this results in pregnancy. To save the honor of her family, Nabil’s mother sacks the nurse. Nabil gives her some money to go get an abortion. All this is kept a secret from Malika, Nabil’s legitimate wife.
Malika gives birth to a girl, Amal. Initially the gender issue does not matter to Nabil, but later on when the subject of inheritance surfaces, it becomes an issue and Nabil regrets not having a son. When fired, Rachida relocates to Casablanca, keeps the pregnancy and five months after Amal is born, she gives birth to a son, Youssef. Nobody, not even Nabil, is aware of this.
MANKA’A (by Ngwa J. Neba)
The life of Manka’a from teen-age to great-grand motherhood is crammed into a 121-page novel entitled MANKA’A.
Manka’a is about 1.75m (almost 5 feet 9 inches) tall and has an alluring physique. In secondary school form two, her mother dies, and two years later her father falls from a palm tree and also dies. Orphaned and barely sixteen years old, she has to eke out a living as a house-girl in the household of Mr. Abah, a farm supervisor in a plantation along the coast. She uses the money to support her younger siblings in school.
I Will Marry When I Want (by Ngũgĩ wa Thiongo’o and Ngũgĩ wa Mĩriĩ)
Originally written in Gĩkũyũ, I Will Marry When I Want is a play authored by Ngũgĩ wa Thiongo’o and Ngũgĩ wa Mĩriĩ. The play portrays life in pre- and post independence Kenya, and brings out the suspicions local people held towards the missionaries and imperialists, whom they saw as wielding the Bible in one hand and the gun in the other. While the missionaries brainwashed and caused the local people to be drunk with religion, they purloined their land and heaped up riches for themselves.
Miracle in the Land (by Christine Botchway)
Miracle in the Land, by the Ghanaian author, Christine Botchway, is a story that spans nearly twenty years – from 1977 through 1996. It captures the author’s memories, fears, joy and pain, despair and hope experienced from age 9 through 28. Over that period, Ghana went through two military coups.
A Dirge Too Soon (by Peggy Appiah)
A Dirge Too Soon by the Ghanaian author, Peggy Appiah, is a novel ingeniously woven out of the quest for gold, commercial gold mining, traditional beliefs, intrigues and trickery. It involves four villages – Obimma, Anyinase, Okrawie, and Omanya. The first two fall under the Anyinase Paramountcy with Nana Aduam Bosompem as its chief, and the next two fall under the Omanya Paramountcy with Nana Okuku Karikari as its chief.
Living Memories (by Al Kags)
Living Memories is a depiction of British colonialism captured from the varied and often disturbing experiences of 13 Kenyans. Many of the stories provide a poignant and dramatic indictment of the cruelty that the British colonialists inflicted on their subjects through such atrocities as beatings, rape, infanticide, dispossession of land, mass murder, incarcerations. In the face of these atrocities, Al Kags provides a different perspective on the eight-year Mau Mau revolt – the indigenous uprising that paved the way for the eventual granting of independence to Kenya.
Toads of War (by Eddie Iroh)
First published in 1979 by Heinemann Educational Books Ltd as part of the African Writers Series , Toads of War (by Eddie Iroh) centers around the recapture of the Biafran town of Owerri during the Nigerian Civil War and the love-relationships that are rife in this town even in the midst of war.
The Crown of Thorns (by Linus T. Asong)
The Crown of Thorns, by the Cameroonian author, Linus T. Asong, is a novel about the Biongong tribe of the Lebialem division of the South-West region of Cameroon. The Chief of Nkokonko Small Monje dies and his successor has to be chosen. Nji is disqualified and expelled from the tribe for sleeping with one of the chief’s thirty-eight wives. For reasons not mentioned in the novel, the D.O., interferes with the chief-making process and Antony Nkoaleck, the favorite of the elders of the village, is passed over for his younger brother, Alexander Nchindia. Alexander declines the offer and flees into the forest, but he is caught and enstooled under duress and the watchful eye of the D.O. and law-enforcing officers
Overwhelming Treasures (by Chimeka Nduka Ekeghe)
In Overwhelming Treasures, Chimeka Nduka Ekeghe puts together forty-six poems on the themes of love, life and Nigeria in eight sections the poet calls “seasons”. Each poem is a story in itself. In these poems he talks about love, women, life, emotions and death. He also writes motivational poems and pores over corruption in Nigeria in the midst of its vast wealth.