Book Reviews

News : Book Reviews

Title: Brigadier Noble Mayombo, an Officer and a Gentleman (AllAfrica)

A booklet which aims to engage the nation in a dialogue on issues of xenophobia, racism and tribalism and issues of reconciliation and nation-building was released to the public on Wednesday. (AllAfrica)

The literary work entitled "A Cidade e as Duas 'rfãs Malditas (the city and the two malignant orphans)", of the Angolan writer Luís Fernando, shall be released next Friday at the Journalists Training Centre (Cefojor), in Luanda, ANGOP learnt this Tuesday from a press release. (AllAfrica)

A UK based Genocide survivor, Illuminée Nganemariya has launched a new book titled 'Miracle in Kigali at Hotel des Mille Collines' in Nyarugenge District Thursday. (AllAfrica)

For the Sake of Silence is the story of the Trappist monasteries and missions in South Africa, from their beginnings at Sunday Rivers in the Eastern Cape in 1880 to their amazing expansion and then demise in Natal through to 1922. The tale begins in Europe in 1863, with the arrival of a Wendelin Pfanner at Mariawald, a monastery in Germany, who later was to advance in South Africa to become Abbot Francis Pfanner of Mariannhill near Pinetown outside Durban-it became the largest monastery in the world. He came from Langen, near Lake Constance. He had elected to join the Trappists. He became known simply as Franz. Franz was first posted to serve a community of nuns in Croatia and then allowed to establish a monastery among Muslims in Bosnia. He was a religious leader with a knack for enthralling some and alienating others, a man who nearly always had to have the last word. His story is told by a Moravian, Josef Eduard Biegner, who became an accountant in Vienna and then Father Joseph Cuppertino. He joined the Trappist seeking a contemplative life, but then he became Franz's friend and scribe. (AllAfrica)

The maiden EduArts Literature Awards, an initiative of Dr. Joyce Ashuntantang, Lecturer at the University of Connecticut, USA, will take place on Friday, July 18, at the Capitol Hotel, Buea. (AllAfrica)

David Magang, former cabinet minister, BDP politician, lawyer and businessman well known for his success at Phakalane Estates, an upmarket residence in the north of Gaborone, on Tuesday evening launched his autobiography, The Magic of Perseverance. (AllAfrica)

Pula, Pula, Pula: Two years in search of money, rain and blessings for Botswana is a new memoir from a personal vanity press "Wild Dog Publishing" (in the book no address is provided for this entity - it is also confusing as there already is a Wild Dog Press in Johannesburg). If you know people who are visiting Botswana and who are looking for something to read on the plane or while on safari, this might be a reasonable choice. It is written more for people outside Botswana and in the United Kingdom (UK) than for Batswana. It might be a helpful introduction for those programmes placing volunteers here, as long as its limitations are recognised. (AllAfrica)

Title: Footprints of The Outsider (AllAfrica)

HOW do you forgive terrible crimes committed against you, and by you? The blood diamond-fuelled war from 1991 to 2002 left Sierra Leone in pandemonium with about 50,000 dead and hundreds of thousands displaced. (AllAfrica)

Politics, Leadership and Development in Nigeria is a collection of twenty-four essays composed over a period of over 20 years by the renowned literary critic-turned politician, Dr. Ihechukwu Chiedozie Madubuike. These essays are the product of the author's sojourn into Nigeria's political waters. Having been a two time Hon Minister of Education and of Health in 1979 and 1995 respectively and currently romancing with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the essays are diverse, ranging from the health to educational issues; from political leadership to the economy, sharia controversy and our nascent democracy. (AllAfrica)

The fact that the human soul lives again in a new body after physical death has been a subject of controversy between two opposing fates in Africa; while believers in the traditional belief system uphold the essence of reincarnation, the followers of the new religion preach against such an idea on the premise that the new fate favours a single death for a man after which he faces judgment. (AllAfrica)

Annie Gagiano is a Professor of English at Stellen bosch University, South Africa. She obtained her B .A(Honours), M.A as well a D. Lit from the same university, where she has been teaching in the Department of English for over three decades now (1967). As one of the earliest scholars of African prose fiction, and the twentieth-century English poetry, Gagiano's foray into African writing has become a subject of discourse amongst scholars as her scholarly contributions have equally lent credence to her agitation for a black renaissance. (AllAfrica)

A book titled "Nzamba - O Rei Sou Eu", by the Angolan writer John Bella, was presented to the public Saturday at Luanda's Independence Park, in the ambit of the second edition of the children's Book Fair, which opened on Thursday. (AllAfrica)

Interesting, self revealing, with captivating drama is a summary of Vice President Gilbert Bukenya's autobiography - Through intricate corridors to power that was launched on Friday. (AllAfrica)

Title: Slavery in the Great Lakes Region of East Africa (AllAfrica)

IN HIS COMPELLING NEW BOOK, Prof. Issa Shivji is in no mood for taking prisoners. Instead, he takes some very sacred cows indeed to the slaughter as he dissects the actions of the protagonists involved in the story of the Union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar - from Julius Nyerere to Abeid Karume, to Aboud Jumbe, to Abdulrahman Babu and others. (AllAfrica)

Ogilvy South Africa's chief operating officer Mike Abel recently teamed up with Morgan van Heerden, head of art at OgilvyOne Cape, to create children's book 'Canoot and the Pickle'. The story, penned by Abel, is set in a fantastical world which is illustrated in full colour by Van Heerden. (AllAfrica)

Title:The Raped Amulet, Author:Sammy Oke Akombi Publisher:Langaa Research & Publishing, Mankon,Bamenda, 2008, Reviewer:Azore Opio, No. of Pages: 117 (AllAfrica)

Sefi Atta, the London-based Nigerian writer who has twice won the BBC's African Performance Competition for plays, has come up with a new novel Swallow, and the paperback edition of the book which has been enjoying scintillating reviews globally can be obtained in Nigeria, courtesy of Kachifo Limited, the publishers of Farafina Magazine and Farafina books. Swallow can be found in all major bookshops. (AllAfrica)

The President General of the Northwest Fon's Union, NOWEFU, Fon Isaac Chafah XI of Bangolan, has condemned child trafficking. (AllAfrica)

In an article on Cameroon literature in English published in 2004 in the French language literary journal Africultures, Pierre Fandio of the University of Buea noted that while Francophone Cameroon literature has been generally militant in nature, with many of its first generation writers having faced exile or imprisonment, Anglophone Cameroon literature, (AllAfrica)

Title: Through Intricate Corridors to Power (AllAfrica)

Title: Fate of the Banished (AllAfrica)

Prof. Humphrey Nwosu, former Chairman of the defunct National Electoral Commission (NEC) last week in Abuja made a book presentation, during which he gave an account of the circumstances that led to the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election. (AllAfrica)

The ninth volume in the series, No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith was released by the Penguin Group in South Africa in April this year. It is already in to its sixth reprinting, sales probably stimulated by the release of the TV film of Precious Ramotswe and her friends (Mmegi, 25 April 2008). (AllAfrica)

For many Nigerians, who had looked forward to the/public presentation of Prof. Humphrey Nwosu's Book, last Thursday was a classic anti-climax. And like all anti-climatic cases, Nwosu's has left Nigerians, and indeed other watchers of the Nigerian Project acutely disappointed. (AllAfrica)

Book: From Hippos to Gazelles: How Leaders Create Leaders (AllAfrica)

"Africa: Atlas of our Changing Environment," a publication which reveals stories of how environmental change is affecting more than 100 locations in every country in the continent, was launched in Johannesburg on June 10. The 400-page publication includes more than 300 satellite images, 300 ground photographs and 150 maps, together with graphs and charts showing Africa and its changing environment. (AllAfrica)

This 274 page book leadership by Tony Oyatedor is an inspiring and thought provoking compendium on the issues of leadership in Nigeria. It opens up with a chronicle of the events on the Nigerian leadership landscape from 1960 and asserts: (AllAfrica)

Book: Of Saints and Scarecrows (AllAfrica)

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