Lavinia

#821
Title: Lavinia
Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Year: 2008
288 pages

Audiobook & paper.

Its careful language shows it to be Le Guin's, but really, I'm not used to quite so much plot from her. It's an interesting stretch and I enjoyed how she pulled it off. It's not so much that Lavinia knows herself to be a fictional character a la, say, some of the characters in The Inkheart Trilogy. Rather, she recognizes that as a person whose story is told by someone else, she becomes fictionalized, her own details subsumed in someone else's needs for the shape of a story and a plot.

The section of the book up to Aeneas's death was excellent, and the section after was good enough, and perhaps I feel the difference because until that point I was comparing Lavinia's story to the story Virgil tells. I'm reminded of other Le Guin stories in which women are best able to tell their own stories after they've ceased to be the objects of male fantasy.

A Short History of Africa (6th Ed.)

#820
Title: A Short History of Africa (6th Ed.)

Author:  Roland Anthony Oliver & J. D. Fage
Publisher: Penguin
Year:1990
336 pages

Audiobook.

A useful overview, especially until around the end of the 1800s, but the tone and focus are sometimes shockingly mushy and bland when describing events that were, by all other accounts, quite horrific. Do read with King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa and The Challenge for Africa for balance. This is the white-bread version of the seizing and exploitation of Africa.

Saturday Is for Funerals

#819
Title: Saturday Is for Funerals
Author: Unity Dow & Max Essex
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Year: 2011
218 pages

Dow provides the anecdotes, which Essex then unpacks and explains. This is a great way to hang a lot of (sometimes repetitive) facts about HIV on vivid, personal stories. A nice model for teaching.

The Postman: Il Postino

#818
Title: The Postman: Il Postino
Author: Antonio Skármeta
Publisher: Miramax Books
Year:1985/1995
128 pages

A very pleasing little novel that became in turn a pleasing film. I think I enjoyed the novel just a little more because it provides the opportunity to linger over phrases both beautiful and silly.

The Challenge for Africa

#817
Title: The Challenge for Africa
Author: Wangari Maathai
Publisher:Pantheon
Year: 2009
Country: Kenya
304 pages

Audiobook.

Wangari Maathai brings a wealth of knowledge, experience, and evidence to this sweeping critique of colonial and post-colonial policy in Africa. Though she often gives examples from Kenya, she addresses issues from many African nations and micro-nations. I don't agree with all of her arguments and opinions, but some are so persuasively made that I assume I ought to rethink the ones I questioned. I still have a strong impression that she reveals her own tension about how to validate and reclaim African history pre-colonialism. She has plenty to say about what's been problematic about colonial and post-colonial policies and practices, but little critique of pre-colonial life. This creates some over-valorization, but raises the excellent question of how to reclaim a suppressed and forgotten history.

The Collector of Treasures and Other Botswana Village Tales

#816
Title: The Collector of Treasures and Other Botswana Village Tales
Author: Bessie Head
Publisher: Longman
Year:1992
109 pages

I've been reading a lot about Africa in general and Botswana in particular this year, and the evidence for how much I've learned is that this short story collection was nicely illuminated by my previous explorations. It would have been enjoyable even without the background knowledge, but the stories, which tell tales about peoples lives in their villages (not folktales, as might be inferred), just lit up. Head is a strong writer who doesn't pull any punches. Her narratives are frank about the status of women, sexuality, violence, politics, religion, superstition, and jealousy. Fortunately, much of her oeuvre is available in Heinemann's African authors collection.

An African Awakening

#815
Title: An African Awakening
Author: Valerie Bell
Publisher: Authentic
Year: 2007
96 pages

There are a few odd factual errors, and I live in a very different world from Bell, but I was more impressed by this than I expected to be.