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Janet Maslin Reviews Foreign Gods, Inc. by Okey Ndibe
Verdict: carrot Okey Ndibe’s razor-sharp Foreign Gods, Inc. steps into the story of a Nigerian-born New Yorker called Ike, just as everything in his life has begun to go horribly wrong. The only thing...
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Sunday Read: Adam Gopnik Muses on the End of the Literary Culture of Really...
After reading Olivia Laing’s book The Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking, Adam Gopnik, author of The Table Comes First, reflects on the “literary culture of really big drinkers”, which he...
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Video: Watch the Trailer for Sarah Lotz’s Much Anticipated Novel, The Three
A trailer for The Three by Sarah Lotz has been released by UK publishers Hodder and Stoughton on the book’s website. The Three is the first half of a six-figure, two-book deal Lotz made with Hodder and...
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David Maillu Criticises Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Calls for His Return to Kenya...
David Maillu has written an open letter to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, who now resides in America, criticising his “intellectual prostitution” and asking him to return to the country of his birth, Kenya. “You...
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Google Doodle Celebrates Zoologist Dian Fossey on Her 82nd Birthday
American zoologist Dian Fossey has been celebrated on what would have been her 82nd birthday with a Google Doodle. The Doodle pictures Fossey with the gorillas that she spent years studying in Rwanda....
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Teju Cole Uses Twitter to Create a Short Story Compiled Through Retweets
Nigerian-American author Teju Cole is known for his innovative work on Twitter, most notably his Small Fates project, and his latest initiative is a similarly interesting use of the social media...
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Chris Abani Presents New Crime Novel, The Secret History of Las Vegas (Plus:...
Nigerian novelist and poet Chris Abani’s latest book, The Secret History of Las Vegas, was published this month by Penguin USA. The crime novel is set in Las Vegas and features a South African...
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Sunday Read: Tove Jansson: Life, Art, Work by Boel Westin Tracks the...
The Guardian’s Sue Prideaux has written about the newly published Tove Jansson: Life, Art, Work, Boel Westin’s authorised biography of Tove Jansson, the Swedish-speaking Finnish author who created...
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Books LIVE Exclusive: Lauren Beukes on that All-Women Arthur C Clarke Award...
The Shining Girls author Lauren Beukes says the Arthur C Clarke Award’s decision to publish a women-only list of nominations should not be seen as “gender segregation”. The award, presented to the...
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Sue de Groot Reviews Jeeves and the Wedding Bells, Sebastian Faulkes’s Take...
By Sue de Groot for the Sunday Times Jeeves and the Wedding Bells Sebastian Faulkes Hutchinson **** “I’m all for incest and tortured souls in moderation,” PG Wodehouse told an interviewer in 1961, “but...
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Christopher Merrett Reviews Knowing Mandela by John Carlin
Verdict: critical carrot Asked what Nelson Mandela had been fighting for all his life, Walter Sisulu responded simply “ordinary respect”. It is, of course, the very antithesis of apartheid. John Carlin...
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Video: Kenyan Author Binyavanga Wainaina Shares YouTube Documentary on Being...
After coming out on Saturday, Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainaina has released a witty and incisive YouTube documentary called We Must Free Our Imaginations. In the context of a wave of anti-gay...
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Publishers Weekly Reviews The Secret History of Las Vegas by Chris Abani
Verdict: carrot Lambent prose lifts this offbeat crime novel from PEN/Hemingway Award–winner Abani (The Virgin of Flames), who effortlessly captures the essence of Sin City: “Here in Vegas the glamour...
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Sunday Read: Joyce Carol Oates, America’s Unlikely Literary Giant, Discusses...
America’s pre-eminent “Woman of Letters”, Joyce Carol Oates, has published over 100 books in 40 years – three last year alone – and, after joining Twitter at 74, still finds time to tweet...
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Hedley Twidle Discovers “Unexpected Affinities” on a Literary Walkabout with...
University of Cape Town lecturer Hedley Twidle reflects on a recent “literary walkabout” of Cape Town he undertook with Teju Cole for the Open Book Festival. The celebrated Nigerian author was one...
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Ainehi Edoro Reviews Foreign Gods by Okey Ndibe
Verdict: carrot The gods in Okey Ndibe’s second novel, Foreign Gods Inc., are playthings for the rich and the famous. They undergo the indignity of being stolen or exiled and then bought and sold like...
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Monique Mulligan Reviews The Orchard of Lost Souls by Nadifa Mohamed
Verdict: carrot In 1988, I was in Year 11 of school, oblivious to much of what went on beyond my world of friends, school, boys, music and fashion. I knew there were wars, famines and other...
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Joey Hi-Fi Shortlisted for British Science Fiction Association Award for Best...
Three years ago Joey Hi-Fi (Dale Halvorsen) won a British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) award for his cover of Zoo City by Lauren Beukes. In 2012 he won Ranting Dragon’s Cover Battle for the...
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Jason Diamond Reviews Radiance of Tomorrow by Ishmael Beah
Verdict: carrot Radiance of Tomorrow is all about finding balance in a story where balance shouldn’t be a possibility. Beah contrasts the natural beauty of Imperi with the harrowing imagery of the war,...
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Taiye Selasi Longlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award 2014
Taiye Selasi, author of Ghana Must Go, is in the running for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award 2014, valued at £30 000 – the world’s biggest prize for a single short story. Selasi, of Ghanian...
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