Category: Reading

“I’ve seen things in this city that would be too much even in a dream.” José Eduardo Agualusa’s wonderful novel — A General Theory of Oblivion, translated from Portuguese by Daniel Hahn — feels like a dream, a strange alternative reality from which I didn’t want to stir.

Ludo, a middle-aged Portuguese woman, lives in Luanda, Angola, with her sister and her sister’s Angolan husband. When the war for independence breaks out, Ludo’s sister and brother-in-law disappear and — after an attempted robbery — Ludo locks herself in her apartment. For years. Agualusa leads us through Ludo’s struggle for survival along with a series of other tales that intertwine, some sooner, some later. This is a novel of tragedy and suffering, and it is a novel of dreams and poetry and hope, with just a touch of humor and fantasy mixed in. It is lyrical and surprising and I did not want it to end.

This book was on the shortlist for the 2016 Man Booker International Prize. (It lost to Han Lang’s The Vegetarian, which I liked but not as much as this.) It is inspired by a true story.

A few lines that stayed with me

• “Women have more power, here, than people think.”
• “A man with a good story is practically a king.”
• “God invented music so poor people could be happy.”
• “Our capital is full of mysteries. I’ve seen things in this city that would be too much even in a dream.”

What other reviewers had to say

• Claire Kohda Hazelton, The Guardian: “Beautifully sprawling and poetic.”
• Jane Bradley, The Scotsman: “Agualusa’s writing is a delight throughout, as he opens up the world of Portuguese-speaking Africa to the English-speaking community. And what a world it is.”
• Jeff Bursey, Numero Cinq magazine: “This short novel, written with confidence and poise, contains sharply sketched characters, an evolving and engaging main narrative around Ludo, and years of conflict succinctly summarized and easily understandable.”
• Matthew Lecznar, Africa in Words: “Agualusa creates a rich, moving tale in A General Theory of Oblivion, where people, objects, and memories circulate and collide, and where nothing is ever quite as it seems. It is the story of a community of souls struggling to stay rooted even as legacies of violence threaten to tear them apart.”
• Jennifer Bort Yacovissi, Washington Independent Review of Books: “Agualusa originally wrote this story as a screenplay, and the novel retains that sense of immediacy. Certainly his economy of words heightens its impact.”
• Dustin Illingworth, The Quarterly Conversation: “A General Theory of Oblivion is both more and less than its title; it certainly provides a kind of blueprint of the encroaching obscurity inherent to living and dying—at times bemoaning its certainty, at times celebrating the assured darkness—but it is also a general theory of love, of life, and, finally, of literature. Working in the fertile ground between fiction, philosophy, and enchantment, Agualusa has accomplished something strange and marvelous here, a whirling dervish of joy and pain, blood and memory, whose many high points I found myself re-reading immediately, eager to experience the shine of the prose like spun gold. It left me in awe of these stories we tell ourselves: those we need to survive, those that change us, and those that change with us.”

This is book #17 in my effort to read a book by an author from every African country in 2019.

“I was not sorry when my brother died.” Thus begins Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel Nervous Conditions, set in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) in the 1960s and 70s. Dangarembga’s novel, first published in 1988, comes with distinction: It was “the first novel to be published in English by a black Zimbabwean woman” and is ranked 66 on the BBC’s poll of novels that “shaped mindsets or influenced history.” The novel traces how a preteen girl, Tambu, responds as she consistently faces deep currents of gender inequality, as well as her reactions to European education and culture. Early in the book, Tambu’s parents lack the funds to send both their older children to school, so they send only her brother. Her mother tells her, “When there are sacrifices to be made, you are the one who has to make them.” Tambu, dissatisfied with this state of affairs, decides to grow some maize on a small plot and sell it to finance her own education, to her father’s consternation. This is the beginning of her industrious rebellion. Step by step, Tambu works her way up, but she faces discrimination every step of the way.

We spend a lot of time in Tambu’s head; this book is not driven by action. But ultimately, Tambu’s subtle insurrections and insights she shares merited the read. I look forward to reading the two sequels, The Book of Not and This Mournable Body.

Here is what a few other reviewers had to say:

• Ash, Speaking Across Centuries: “All in all, it was a good read with an interesting perspective I hadn’t before considered. I would not say it was a favorite.”
• M.A. Orthofer, Complete Review: “Nervous Conditions is a powerful work and very fine piece of writing.”
• Alexia Ternate, The Guardian: “This book introduces us to many numerous struggles that women experience… It surely is a must-read book.”
• BookShyBooks: “I wouldn’t call it a page-turner, but it really makes you think about gender and society.”
• Publishers Weekly: “This novel becomes Tambu’s keening–a resonant, eloquent tribute to the women in her life, and to their losses.”

In Abdourahman Waberi’s novel, In the United States of Africa, the Djibouti-born and US-based writer hypothesizes a world where Africa is the wealthiest continent, with Europe and North America struggling with poverty and conflict. This upending of the current world order reminds this U.S. reader of just how much of his life is the product of historical chance, as the narrator observes that

• On travel writers: “You’re neither a tourist nor an ethnologist, still less one of those so-called travel writers who traipse all over the planet in search of utopias, heavenly oases, and stories to steal.”
• On sculpture: “Of all the plastic arts, sculpture is the one that goes furthest in the imitation of divine creation. At the beginning was the emotion embodied in the clay.”
• On uselessness: “As useless as the king in an incomplete deck of cards”

• M.A. Orthofer, The Complete Review: “Waberi’s ‘United States of Africa’ makes for a marvelous and highly entertaining — and thought-provoking — backdrop, but the narrative itself is less sure-footed… If not an entirely successful work of fiction, the short In the United States of Africa is nevertheless well worth reading.”
• Sofia Samatar, Islam and Science Fiction: “There’s a certain amount of glee in this reversal of stereotypes, but the novel is more than just an extended joke. It is, itself, a mirror. In its pages, a reader of any background will see herself or himself reflected in the body of the other.”
• Peter Wuteh Vakunta, Journal of the African Literature Association: “Abourahman’s…masterpiece is undoubtedly In the United States of Africa. 
• Ryan Michael Williams, PopMatters: “Despite the fact that neither plot nor characters seem especially important to Waberi, his considerable ability as a stylist helps keep his novel consistently engaging. In David and Nicole Ball’s translation, Waberi’s prose reads as both riotously funny and lyrically lush, offering big laughs as well as multifaceted subtleties of expression.”
• The African Book Review: “Brilliant and short yet written with an elegant simplicity that belies great depth, it’s a novel aimed for the critical thinker in all of us.”
• Publishers Weekly: “Waberi manages to convince of the power of art and love to heal very real rifts.”
• Three Percent: “This novel is not perfect, but it is imperfect in a very acceptable and forgiving way. The lofty aim and the mechanics Waberi uses emphasize his talent as a writer and his responsibility as a writer. To make us think in a different way about the world we live in, but rarely question. For moral integrity alone, this book deserves to be on the longlist.”

Dr. Amin Jaafari is a surgeon. He is an Arab and a naturalized Israeli citizen. He and his wife live a happy, secular life. One day, he finds out that his wife has blown herself and a fast food restaurant filled with schoolchildren up in a suicide bomb attack. In Yasmin Khadra’s The Attack, Dr. Jaafari seeks answers both within himself and from members of Arab community in Israel. In the process, Khadra — originally from Algeria — shines a light on the enduring Arab-Israeli conflict. I found this book illuminating and often engaging. The pacing slowed in the middle, and occasionally I wished for a little less thinking and a little more action. But ultimately, the insights and an occasionally lovely turn of phrase — I “stare unwaveringly at the opalescent streaks gently lifting the horizon’s coattails” at sunrise — won me over. I enjoyed John Cullen’s English translation and Stefan Rudnicki’s narration of the audiobook.

• On violence: “The only battle I believe in is the battle the surgeon fights, which consists in recreating life in the place where death has chosen to conduct its manoeuvres.”
• On the motivations of terrorists: “I think even the most seasoned terrorists really have no idea what has happened to them. And it can happen to anyone. Something clicks somewhere in their subconscious, and they’re off. Their motives aren’t all equally solid, but generally, whatever it is, it comes over them like that… Either it falls on your head like a roof tile or it attaches itself to your insides like a tapeworm. Afterward, you no longer see the world the same way. You’ve got only one thing on your mind: the thing that has taken you over, body and soul.”
• On God: “I couldn’t bring myself to accept the notion that God could incite his subjects to take up arms against one another and reduce the exercise of faith to an absurd and frightening question of power relationships.”
• On dreams: “He who dreams too much forgets to live.”

• The Complete Review: “The final truth, and all the consequences are fairly well handled, and the novel packs a decent punch by the end.” (The Complete Review also excerpts a number of other reviews.)
• James Buchan, The Guardian: “With the exception of Dr Yehuda, Moulessehoul’s Jews are louts. His Arabs strike heroic poses. There is none of that peculiarity of place, person and history that you find in an Israeli Arab writer such as the late Emile Habiby.”
• Janet Maslin, New York Times: “painfully acute observations of Arab-Israeli strife…  This book is also gripping and dynamic in ways that rivet the reader even when the thinking is didactic and the prose takes a purplish turn.”
• Publishers Weekly: “Khadra…turns his attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in this moving novel unlikely to satisfy partisans on either side of the issue.”
• The New Yorker: “Khadra’s writing has a tendency toward cliché, but the book’s dark vision of the conflict is powerful.”

“Don’t forget that your mother is dead, your father is a scoundrel, and you’re a bastarda.” Trifonia Melibea Obono’s La Bastarda is the first novel by a woman from Equatorial Guinea to be translated into English. If that weren’t enough to get you to read it, how about knowing that it’s been banned in the author’s home country? And if you want more, how about that it’s good?! (And short, coming in at just over one hundred pages.)

• On early marriage: “Dina is on the brink of old age—she is eighteen years old and has no husband!”
• On the universal truth of parties: “That’s when I discovered the worst part of parties: cleaning up.”
• On non-sexual intimacy: “We spent some time in silence, letting our bodies talk.”
• How not to open a letter asking your daughter for money: “Daughter, Your marriage is the biggest mistake you’ve made in your whole life.”
• On a traditional healer: “After bankrupting her, the curandera sent her to the hospital.”
• On youth: “Your opinion doesn’t count; your elders are always right.”
• On the metal ceiling: In that makeshift town, I discovered that the better-paying jobs were all held by men. Women were limited to cleaning and cooking. And also: prostitution.”

• Publishers Weekly: “Slim yet undeniably potent… Obono’s voice is assured and vital, and her tale of queer rebellion in Fang society is an exceptional take on the coming-of-age novel.”
• Karina Szczurek, Africa in Words: “Obono’s writing itself is an act of inspiration and should be celebrated as such. Her narrator tells the story in a fresh, mesmerising voice. Its haunting quality adds to the irresistibility of this slim book and its considerable impact.”
• Silvia Cruz Lapeña, Altair: “Escuchar la voz de una ecuatoguineana lesbiana es el principal valor de La bastarda porque entre los suyos, los fang, entorno del que procede la autora, ni siquiera hay una palabra para referirse a ellas… Otra de las fuerzas de esta novela radica en que se carga en pocas páginas la imagen de mujer sumisa que se da de las africanas.”