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Many of the reviews on this page are by independent reviewers and are not necessarily the opinion of AfricanOz website
Current Book Previews & Reviews
Reader's review: That's My Mum
by H. Barkow & D. Brazell
Publisher: Mantra 2001. Available in 23 dual languages e.g English with French
Review submitted by African Australian Gloria Davidson 5/02/08
Mia and her friend Kai don't look like their mums. Mia's mum is white and her dad is black. Her friend Kai's mum is black and his dad is white. When these children go out, especially to school, people assume that they are not with their real/biological mothers, simply by the colour of their skin and their looks. When these two friends go out together with their mums, there is a total confusion over who their real mums are.
Based on a true story, the book shows the children being judged by the colour of their skin, telling and showng the world through their daily experiences. It is simply illustrated, with beautiful colours, and a short but powerful story. It gives children who are in bi-racial families positive empowerment in dealing with daily issues encountered at the playgrounds and raises public awareness about bi-racial families, who are a part of our society today.
When I read it to my two children who are bi-racial, African-Australian, I was almost in tears. My little boy who was nearly four at the time said to me, "Mummy, how could those people be so mean"? "It's not ok to tease others, is it"? "I wouldn't want to play with those kids, they are making Mia & Kai very sad". Sad indeed, that summed it up for me. It is a must-read book for children of all ages and if you can get it in a language spoken by the 'other 'partner it is priceless.
About the Book Reviewer: "I am a mother of bi-racial children and very passionate about raising positive awareness about such families in our communities. There are little or no support systems in place for such families at present, hence the need to share positive stories such as this.
I am a member of Australian African Network in Sydney."
The War After the War by Edison Yongai
Accomplished African Australian writer Edison Yongai's new book The War after the War is his first book since his manuscripts were burned in the Sierra Leonean war. The book explores the struggles of Danyima, a man thrust into a world of greed and corruption who fights to maintain his integrity and morality, even his soul.
"It’s really about the aftermath of the war in my country, but it can also happen in any other country, especially in Africa," says Edison. "It’s about how people can lose their morals in this sort of society – everything is lost. People are trying to renew their lives – some do it the right way and others do it the wrong way."
"So many people do not know about the devastation in Sierra Leone. When we came we started talking about it and people thought it was some fairy tale we were telling. It was the most devastating war in modern times. People’s hands were chopped off. Children’s hands were chopped off. This was done by little boys, they were drugged and given strong liquor and they did not know what they were doing," he said.
Edison’s work draws on his experiences living and working as a journalist in Sierra Leone. The first journalist to be imprisoned by the government, Edison spent time in solitary confinement. His home, and manuscripts, were later burned in the guerrilla invasion of Freetown in 1999 and he arrived in Australia as a refugee in 2001. You can read an autobiographical piece by Edison on AfricanOz Features
Edison has previously published three books, the novel Who Killed Mohtta? and two children's books, Check, Come Here and The Birthday Party.
For further details of the book, contact Mouna Zaylah at ICE on 02 9897 5744 or email ccd@ice.org.au
Gogo Mama - A journey into the lives of twelve African women
by Sally Sara
Macmillan Australia, July 2007
This is a book on Africa that many have been waiting to read: real women, real stories, by a writer who knows when to stand back and when to come forward.
There are plenty of books by foreign correspondents about African dictators, unfolding disasters and the foreign correspondent's own reporting experience... But barely anything about real African people who have to deal with life 'behind the news'. At last! A book that takes you into the clean-swept huts, shady verandahs and market stalls that are often the domain of African women. Over six months travel, author Sally Sara (former Africa ABC TV Africa correspondent) talked to 12 remarkable African women about their lives as conflict survivors, performers, mothers, slaves, villagers, mid-wives.
What emerged is a moving and fascinating series of interviews and stories - enhanced by backgrounders on issues and events, and Sally's own travelogue. Written in a beautiful, simple style that is neither embellished or dramatic, you get a real sense of being on the ground in Africa, holding the hand of Ugandan mutilation survivor Hellen Lanyom (the interviewee in the first 'tearful' chapter), passing through Cairo's crowded streets as you go to meet Eyptian belly dancer Nagwa Fouad, and crowding into a mud-walled hut in south Sudan to hear the grievances of women in a refugee camp. In the book, Sally shares some of her own experiences which are also a vital part of the story - but the African women take centre stage, so we can all learn of their histories. The book includes women from all walks of life: Masinda, a Pygmy who lives at the base of a volcano in Congo, Mali midwife Traore Fatoumata Toure, Ethiopian war veteran Tenagnework Mekete, South African AIDS grandmother Lucia Mazibuko - and other women from across the continent. The women are all very different, but united in the resiliance, courage and sometimes humour they show. Given the trauma many have faced it is not always easy reading - but, as with Africa, there is hope and lightness too.
When a Crocodile Eats the Sun (Paperback)
by Peter Godwin
Picador, December 2006
In 'When a Crocodile Eats the Sun' the author returns to his birthplace Zimbabwe to visit his dying father, an ‘Anglo-African’ who Godwin discovers, is really a Polish Jew. The story is a personal memoir that takes place during recent unrest in the time of Mugabe. This Reader's Review was submitted by former South African resident, Lesley Snow, on 9.1.07.
In many African myths and legends, animals feature as quirky, interesting characters, used to describe happenings from oral history and providing strong moral messages. The Zimbabwean legend about the crocodile eating the sun is an old tale of a nation plunged into darkness.
The legend and Godwin’s book have parallels with another African journey into darkness: Conrad’s colonial masterpiece “The Heart of Darkness”.
Godwin’s book is a compelling tale of a contemporary journey into the heart of darkness where the more things change, the more they stay the same. Enter a surreal world where politicians take noms de guerre like Hitler and Stalin whilst their ill-fated constituents have names like Decent, Noble, Honest and Charity.
The book explores one of the crucial questions bedeviling post-colonial Africa: Do Africa’s problems reside principally in the continent’s underlying environment, or with imposed colonial distortions or with the travesty of Africa’s post-colonial leadership? Godwin’s conversations with Jared Diamond in 2002 go beyond the trite and superficial mantras that we have all got used to and that have become excuses for endemic corruption and terror. It includes questions about not only the present and colonial past, but also pre (western) colonial times. Questions emerge about why African agriculture remains at subsistence level, why Africa has found it hard to establish food surpluses and its effect on establishing well-functioning cities – could the answers be as simple as the fact that Africa has no indigenous beasts of burden and was never able to domesticate wild animals, leaving all tilling, planting, harvesting and distribution to be done by hand?
The book is mostly concerned with present day Zimbabwe. It highlights the injustice and grave economic consequences for ordinary – mostly poor - black African families caught in the middle of Mugabe’s terror and what remains substantially, the greed of white farmers - though I felt that Godwin was more sympathetic to white farmers than was necessary.
Though I enjoyed the book immensely, I was left with one unanswered question: in which era were poor black African families not caught in the middle and facing injustice and grave economic consequences? Or has the question become so clichéd that it has lost all meaning and no longer deserves an answer? The conundrum: how long must Africans face the recurring cycle of jambanja? ('jambanja' is a Zimbabwean word roughly translated as upside down and chaos - used widely in the book and in the parlance of contemporary Zimbabwe.)
Other web resources on this book include: an interview with Peter Godwin on the external website www.thebookseller.com
The Scent of Oranges (Paperback)
by Joan Zawatzky
Publisher: JoJo Publishing, Melbourne, Australia, August 2006
Review submitted by (name & address supplied) 12.11.06
It is great to see fiction work emerging from African Australian authors. Joan Zawatzky, who was born and raised in South Africa, is a counselling psychologist and author now based in Melbourne. The Scent of Oranges, a crime novel, makes absorbing reading, following 'Linda' as she returns to her family's orange farm in South Africa after many years of absence, to attend her father's funeral and ultimately investigate the murder of her youngest brother. As we delve into her complex family history, we learn much about the old and new South Africa, coming face to face with race relations, the weakness of humanity, skin colour divisions, and the love that can exist despite race and dogma. You can read more about this work on Melbourne's Jojo publishing website.
Black Founders: The Unknown Story of Australia's First Black Settlers (Paperback)
by Cassandra Pybus,
Publisher: UNSW Press (August 2006); ISBN: 0868408492
Review submitted 15.08.06
With the increasing number of Africans settling in Australia, it is an interesting time for Cassandra Pybus to bring us the unknown story of Australia's first black settlers of African background - proving that Australia's 'settlement' following thousands of years of Aboriginal history was indeed a multi-racial process, involving not just Europeans, but people from across the world. The book makes a revealing and stimulating read, keeping this African Australian reviewer up well after midnight.
The African descendants' story begins during the American Revolution when African Americans were given a choice between continuing to serve their masters as slaves or join Lord Dunmore's "Ethiopian Regiment" and win their freedom. It was a very frightening and difficult time for these African Americans facing diseases, or being hunted and killed. Later on after the defeat of the British, some of them were transported back to England, however in England many found life much harder and had to resort to petty crime to survive - eventually languishing in Britain's notorious prisons. When the condition of these prisons became out of control the British government decided to either send these African Americans back to Africa or later on to its penal settlement in New South Wales (in Australia) with other British convicts.
Aboard the First Fleet to Australia, there were 10 convicts of African origin. In the book, we get to know the runaway Black Caesar, who became Australia's first bushranger and the famous Sydney convict, settler and ferryman Billie Blue. The survival of some of Australia's first settlers of African origin is really beyond one's expectations. This book helps us to rethink our conceptions of Australian history.
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Book review - Archive
Kofi and His Magic (Hardcover) | by Maya Angelou
HKnopf Books for Young Readers; 1st ed edition (November 5, 1996)|ISBN: 0517704536 |
Reviewed by Jill Sergeant - review submitted 26.06.06
I discovered this delightful book by accident, when my young step-son decided to type his own name into the local library's search engine, and it came up as the result. I hadn't been expecting anything except perhaps a book about Kofi Annan, so we were both surprised and excitedly rushed to the shelves to find it.
The book rewarded our excitement. Kofi is an Ashanti boy who lives in the town of Bonwire in Ghana. Bonwire is famous for producing kente cloth, and the book shows Kofi weaving, controlling the loom with his toes. Kofi's magic is his imagination - he closes his eyes and imagines himself with friends and relatives all over Ghana - at school, in the markets, by the sea, in Northern Ghana. Margaret Courtney-Clarke's gorgeous photos capture his imaginary journey through this lively and colourful country. The text is by African-American poet Maya Angelou, whose love of Ghana shines through. (Angelou has also written about her own journey through Ghana in her biography, All God's Children Need Travelling Shoes).
My stepson Kofi borrowed the book and took it to school, pleased and proud to be able to share this loving tribute to his heritage with his classmates (some of whom tease him because of his name). While a book is no permanent antidote to playground bullying, Kofi and His Magic is a positive and joyous portrayal of an African country and cultures that would be a treasure in any home or library.
A Prisoner in the Garden
Hardback | 240 pages | ISBN I0670029491 | Nov 2005 | Penguin Australia
The Mandela Prison Archive is a living record of Mandela's 27 years in prison including rare photographs, diaries, photographs and handwritten notes. The photograph captioned 'A Prisoner Working in the Garden' forms the centrepiece.
Reviewed by one-time South African resident Lesley Snow
In his own words in the foreword to this remarkable archive, Mandela reminds us that in the life of any individual, family, community or society, memory is of fundamental importance.
This memory is a chronicle that is frightening, inspirational and poignant. Frightening, as it documents the degree of control exercised by the State over the daily lives of the prisoners, inspirational in its documentation of their struggle to be heard and recognized and poignant because it describes their dogged persistence to resist the State’s determination to write them out of history.
It is an official record with a compelling message from the past that should not be ignored if South Africa is to have the future that Prisoner 46664 and the Nelson Mandela Foundation envision.
For an extract of the book, please see Penguin Australia website.
White Gold:The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and North Africa's One Million European Slaves
By Giles Milton. Hodder Headline, 352 pages, (Paperback - May 2005)
Reviewed by social researcher/consultant Craig Newcombe
For much longer than America, and operating more efficiently and productively was Africa's own sophisticated slave network. White Gold explores this network in North Africa through the autobiography of Thomas Pellow who - captured in 1715 as an 11-year-old Cornish cabin boy - spent 23 years as one of the more than a million European slaves. They were held for ransom, built the Sultan's vast pleasure palaces, became part of the 4,000 European women in imperial harems or were sold in the vast slave auctions in Morocco, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli. Those captured by sea by the Moroccan corsairs where likely to be middle-class, educated and skilled Europeans, but Europe was too powerless to meaningfully respond. The Sultans effectively managed to raid as far as the Irish coast although they preferred the far richer Spanish Galleons. Coupled with real fear and brutality, there was always the hope that with luck, ability or the possession of marketable skills and most of all conversion to Islam, a slave could not only gain freedom but status, wealth and power. Consequently, there was always far less danger of rebellion than in America. A useful book opening up a little known chapter of Africa's vast history.
The Shadow of the Sun: My African Life
by Ryszard Kapuscinski (Penguin Books, 336pp) Paperback - March 28, 2002
Reviewed by freelance writer & editor Stephanie Goodwin
In 1957 a young polish reporter, Ryszard Kapuscinski, arrived in Africa to cover the beginning of the end of colonnial rule and so began his love affair with the continent he would return to repeatedly over the next four decades. The Shadow of the Sun is a collection of episodes from Kapuscinski’s time there, but although it is taken from the notebooks of a journalist this is not simply reportage or historical reflection. The humane observation and sharp clarity of description in his encounters brings every page to life and lends it the air of great literature.
It is clear that Kapuscinski was determined to encounter Africa not simply as an expat journalist but on every level available to him. ‘I travelled extensively, avoiding official routes, palaces, important personages, and high-level politics.’ He favoured living in slums and interacting with local Africans to the excesses of the diplomatic districts. The result is one where magnificent snapshots of daily African life rub shoulders with more personal adventures, where the reader is led from involved passages on the interior of a bush taxi to wrestling a python to its death. These are the intimate reflections that linger in the mind of the reader and set Kapuscinski apart, but his tenacity and depth of understanding also resulted in some remarkable coverage of the revolution in Zanzibar, the 1966 military coup in Nigeria, the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the end of the war in Liberia in 1995.
The Shadow of the Sun reads beautifully as a piece of literature but is not without its faults. There are inaccuracies, yes. But its greatest disappointment, perhaps, is that despite his statement in the preface which asserts that ‘except as a geographical appellation, Africa does not exist’, Kapuscinski still plays host to a number of generalisations about ‘Africa’ and ‘Africans’, none of which could be considered a general truth of Africa. As irritating as this may be, it’s worth remembering that this is undoubtedly a tale of his Africa and storytelling at his best. Forgive him and read on.
A Passage to Africa.
George Alagiah's
Reviewed by Craig Newcombe
 A Passage to Africa by George Alagiah (2001, Little Brown, 272 pages) (Image courtesy of Angus & Robertson, Australia), Paperback - August 15, 2002
In the early 20th century, dictator and self-proclaimed 'King Zog of Albania' fled his throne to spend the rest of his life living in a luxury London Hotel complete with a large chest stuffed with gold looted from the country’s treasury. Prior to this - and for a large bribe - he betrayed his own army after it heroically defeated the nation’s historic enemy. In other words, he behaved like some of Africa's more notorious leaders whose policy has been to loot their nations and citizens.
The author of 'A Passage to Africa', George Alagiah - born in Sri Lanka and educated in Ghana - is a BBC Africa correspondent. ‘A Passage to Africa’ examines the idea that Africa is undergoing a fundamental renaissance. The 'post-colonial generation' and its selected leaders have created their own strong sense of place and mission. Increasingly, leaders like Zaire's Mobuto and his ilk are no longer acceptable, as a new wave of leaders - including South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki, Uganda's Yweri Museveni, Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi and Eritrea’s Issaias Aferwerki - have emerged. For all their faults, these leaders believe in their respective countries and can no longer be fitted into the West’s stereotypes of African leaders as looters or beggars. Rwandan President Paul Kagame is often described as prickly and arrogant for unashamedly demanding assistance according to his government's needs rather than accepting the traditional 'begging bowl' for aid
Although admitting that Africa’s tragedies have a long way to run, this book provides a balanced and coherent argument for a positive future for the continent. It is a highly readable and informative book. The big question Alagiah doesn’t address is; when charlatans like Zog in Europe were replaced by patriotic leaders who strongly believed in their respective countries, Europe tore itself apart in two utterly horrendous world wars - just as Ethiopia and Eritrea have now fought themselves to a standstill in Africa’s first conventional war between nation states. How many more such wars does Africa now face?
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