Items

• TLS Listings: Fiction 1988

  Excerpt: "A comprehensive weekly selection of new and forthcoming books received by the TLS. Fiction: Aidoo, Ama Ata. No Sweetness Here. (Longman African Classics; 1st pub 1970). Longman. 134pp. 3.50 (paperback).
• TLS Listings: Fiction 1987

  Excerpt: "The TLS Listings provides full publication details of those books received each week by the TLS which seem to fall within the main interests of our readers... Fiction: Aidoo, Ama Ata. The Dilemma of a Ghost; Anowa (African Classics). Longman. 124pp. 2.95 (paperback)."
• The people who are Africa

  [Excerpt]: "Chinua Achebe is often called the father of the modern African novel, as Bernth Lindfors attests in the introduction to Early Achebe, his perceptive collection of essays on Achebe's output between 1951 and 1966. While this praise may seem exaggerated, it is not unwarranted -- though to regard Achebe's first and most famous novel, Things Fall Apart, published in London in 1958, as an "African" novel only underplays its status as one of the most influential post-war novels in English, one that still possesses the power to startle the reader with its vivid description of a complex society in the throes of momentous change. It was the first in the African Writers Series, the Heinemann Educational Books project that revolutionized the field of of anglophone African writing by providing literature for African readers by African writers.... Ike Osodi, the journalist character in Anthills of the Savannah (modelled in part on Achebe's late poet-fighter friend Christopher Okigbo), is a spokesman for this middle ground..."
• Telephone Conversations

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• Spring Announcements

  The short announcement mentions the release of Francis Cary [sic] Slater's new collection of poetry, "Dark Folk and Other Poems," along with a few other works also being published by Blackwoods.
• South African wins Booker prize

  The Booker McConnell prize for fiction was awarded last night to J. M. Coetzee for Life and Times of Michael K, published by Secker and Warburg... Mr Coetzee wins the prize of 10,000 and considerable prestige for his political novel about South Africa... Mr Coetzee was born in Cape Town in 1940 and educated in South Africa and the United States. Trained as a computer scientist and linguist, he teaches linguistics and American literature at the University of Cape Town.
• Poet fights apartheid with his pen

  Mr Breyten Breytenbach, the Afrikaans poet, who arrived here on Sunday after being unexpectedly freed from prison in South Africa, said yesterday that he would not continue his political fight against apartheid. "I realize that I am not a politician," he said in an television interview. "But my whole life is against this type of situation, this type of ideology, in my private and professional life, as a poet and painter." Asking if he would continue his struggle through his poems and paintings, Mr Breytenbach said: "Yes, that will be my way." Mr Breytenbach, aged 44, was released on Thursday after serving seven years of a nine-year sentence on charges of plotting to overthrow the South African Government. At his trial he had admitted actively supporting the banned African National Congress. Looking fit and well, Mr Breytenbach said that he had seven years of poetry written in prison which he hoped to prepare for publication.
• Paperbacks: Changes

  Full text: "Changes by Ama Ata Aidoo. Ama Ata Aidoo is one of Africa's best-known women writers and was for several years Ghana's minister for education. This short novel, subtitled A Love Story, follows the fortunes of Esi, a young woman recently separated from her husband, trying to build a new life in which she can combine a relationship with a career, and retain her identity. But in Accra in 1990, women's roles are slow to change and the changes are meeting a lot of opposition. Esi's search for happiness is sympathetically told and offers Western readers a rare glimpse into the lives of contemporary Ghanaian women. Unfortunately, the arguments put forward, although valid, are so well known that they fail to have much impact (The Women's Press 6.99)."
• Paper-backs: Fiction

  [Full Text]: "Fiction: Alain-Fournier: The Wanderer. Translated by Lowell Bair. (Signet. 60p.) Mikhail Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita. The White Guard. Translated by Michael Glenny. (Fontana. 40p each.) Alexandre Dumas: Camille. (Signet. 45p.) George Eliot: Middlemarch. Edited by Robert Speaight. (Pan. 45p.) Henry Fielding: Joseph Andrews. Edited by James Gordon. (Pan. 35p.) Gustave Flaubert: The Sentimental Education. Translated by Perdita Burlingame. (Signet. 70p.) James Hilton: Lost Horizon. (Pan. 30p.) Nick McCarty and Jack Gerson: The Regiment. (Pan. 30p.) Nkem Nwankwo: Danda. (Fontana. 30p.) Gabriel Okara: The Voice. (Fontana. 30p.) Adaora Lily Ulasi: Many Thing You No Understand. (Fontana. 35p.)"
• One Night at Victoria Beach

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• No lies, no half-truths: a writer's cup of bitterness runs over

  The article writes on Wole Soyinka's new book, A Man Died, which was "based on his experiences in and out of prison during the civil war [in Nigeria], and which seems certain to cause General Gowon's Government grave embarassment."
• Mr F. C. Slater

  Mr. Francis Carey Slater, the South African poet, died on Tuesday at the age of 84, our Cape Town Correspondent reports. He was born in the Cape and educated privately at Lovedale. He joined the staff of the Standard Bank in 1899 and retired from the management of its Grahamstown branch in 1930. His poetry began to appear in 1905 and a selected edition with biographical introduction by Sir Robert Ensor was published by the Oxford University Press in 1947. Some of the poems in the book were obviously derivative, but others had force and originality from their blend of romantic, stoic, and satiric strains. He was deeply moved by the great themes of nature, character, and race in his native country. His Collected Poems was published last year. In 1925 he made an anthology, The Centenary Book of South African Verse, and his verse had appeared in The Times Literary Supplement.
• Love, charity, and fantasy

  Full Text: "Our Sister Killjoy by Ama Ata Aidoo. Republished as an African classic, this book traces the reactions of a girl from Ghana who earns an opportunity to travel. She arrives in Germany and is confused. It is the first time she has felt that her colour is a badge of difference. Although pleased by contacts with other students from different countries, she is puzzled by the over friendly approaches of a German hausfrau. What mystifies her most is that such unhappiness can exist in the middle of such luxury. Written in a mixture of prose and of poetry, the book captures the naivety and freshness of a first experience (Longman 3.50)."
• Listings: Fiction

  Full Text: "Fiction. Aidoo, Ama Ata. Changes: A love story. Women's Press, 166pp. 6.95. (paperback) 0 7043 4261 8."
• Leading source for Negro art

  [Excerpt]: "In 1974 Nigeria is to stage the second World Festival of Negro Arts. Announcing this officially in Lagos recently, Chief Enahoro, Federal Commissioner of Information and Labour, who is also to be the Comissioners for the festival said it would be 'the greatest concourse of black peoples from different continents and countries in the entire history of the blakc man.' ... Nigeria's literary talents have achieved a much greater pre-eminence, and are now widely appreciated, both inside and outside Africa. Two authors in particular, Soyinka and Achebe, have received special acclaim, and both were deeply disturbed by the recent conflict and became politically involved..."
• In search of a subject

  Sousa Jamba writes critical reviews of both Africa Talks Back, which contains interviews with Anglophone African authors, and The Ordeal of the African Writer, by Charles R. Larson. Of the first, Jamba writes, "Africa Talks Back... reflects the ambitions of a wide range of writers. Some of them, like the Ugandan poet Okot p'Bitek, are long dead; others have gone into obscure retirement. Some, such as Chinua Achebe, Dennis Brutus, Kole Omotoso, Taban Lo Liyong and Njabulo Ndebele, are still active, thugh mainly in the academic world in the West or in South Africa... Today, the all-powerful Big Men who have dominated postcolonial Africa are slowly being forced out and institutions such as Makerere University are, very slowly, recovering their former glory..." Of the second, Jamba writes, "Charles R. Larson, a professor of literature at American University in Washington D.C. outlines some of the major obstacles facing the African writer. These are the parlous state of publishing on the continent, persecution from political authorities, and consequent exile."
• In 'The Times' tomorrow

  A new novel by Graham Greene, his first since The Honorary Consul, is to be published in Britain shortly. An extract from The Human Factor, another exploration of the Greene country, will appear in the Saturday review tomorrow. Other articles include Louis Heren on Adam Small, the Afrikaans poet; an interview with Nadine Gorimer; Olga Franklin on cleaning the British Museum, and the monthly review of paperbacks.
• Heinemann: New African Writing

  [List of publications for the Heinemann African Writer's Series.]
• Heinemann Educational Ltd

  [Excerpt]: "The collected poems of one of the most talented writers in Africa, who was killed in battle during the Nigerian Civil War."
• Heinemann Educational Books: African Writers Series

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• Heinemann

  [Excerpt]: "The Literature and Thought of Modern Africa. Claude Wauthier. The second edition of this renowned work has been updated to include the new intellectuals: Wole Soyinka, Ayi Kewi Armah, Chinua Achebe and Ngugi among others... African Writers Series. Latest additions to this world famous series, now comprising over 200 titles. The Journey Within. I. N. C. Aniebo.... The Fisherman's Invocation: Poems by Gabriel Okara..."
• For Christopher Okigbo

  Four published selections of poems. The first is entitled "For Christopher Okigbo;" the next is an excerpt from "Live Burial;" the next is an excerpt from "Procession;" and the last is from "Conversation at Night with a Cockroach."
• Cultural Studies

  [Excerpt]: "Few literary magazines have undergone journeys more remarkable than Transition. Founded by Rajat Neogy in Uganda in 1961, the magazine began as a forum for new African writing, and its earliest issues helped to launch the careers of Chinua Achebe, Christopher Okigbo, Ulli Beier, Dennis Brutus, Nadine Gorimer, Paul Theroux and Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Following political repression and allegations of CIA involvement, however, the magazine closed down its Kampala offices in 1968. Wole Soyinka, another original contributor, helped to revive the magazine in Ghana during the 1970s, but it folded again for lack of money. It took the clout and backing of Soyinka's former student at Cambridge, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr, to relaunch Transition on a more stable footing in 1991..."
• Commonwealth writing from Africa

  The announcement features African writers whose novels/collections have recently been published. Major poets include Wole Soyinka (Black Orpheus), John Pepper Clark (A Reed in the Tide) and Christina Ama Ata Aidoo (The Dilemma of a Ghost). Excerpt: "The Dilemma of a Ghost: Christina Ama Ata Aidoo. A lively play in five acts. It is set in Ghana and tells of problems in a Ghanaian family when the eldest son brings home an Afro-American wife."
• Commentary

  [Excerpt]: "The new African writing has come a long way since the early 1950s when its preoccupations reached publication under titles as Elizabeth's passion and How to write love letters. Authors even then were not shy to take liberties with the English language... Anglophone Africa had to wait ten years before it could begin to read these books in translation and it is still waiting for the Mongo Beti novel, which is currently being translated by Gerald Moore and will then join the other two in the African Writers Series of Heinemann Educational Books. General editor of this series which, including forthcoming books, extends to some 73 titles, is the Ibo, Chinua Achebe, whose first novel, Things Fall Apart, published in 1958, is a classic of modern African writing which has become well known through translations into many languages...[Achebe] identifies himself wholeheartedly with the Biafran cause and he and two other gifted young writers, Cyprian Ekwensi and Gabriel Okara, have undertaken highly paid lecture tours in the United States to raise funds for their country. Achebe's publisher asked him while he was in London not so long ago whether he was in fact here on diplomatic business. "No," he replied, "on sedition."