Harare Review of Books, May 2024
Hi!
I'm here, I guess, so—congratulations me! Please excuse any broken links and typos because I’m really just barely here. If anything is really egregious, hmu. (The internet outage when I was finalising this to send out was also profoundly unhelpful.)
Although you see it less nowadays, sometimes, when you drive along Zim’s highways, you’ll see local handicrafts laid out for sale. More often (still) you’ll see fruit and veg. The floor mats below are made from baobab fibre.
Recently on the blog
*The more eagle-eyed among you will notice a change; links now lead to hararereview.wordpress.com. The old blog is still up, but am gradually migrating everything to one place and name.
Also, if you’re not a fan of WordPress, there’s another way to get posts now: through Substack here, where I post each review as I did on the blog. (This is a work in progress.)*
If you'd like to support my work, or to buy or preorder a book I’ve recommended—including the ones below, please do so on Bookshop here: https://bookshop.org/shop/hrb
Here’s an interview I did with Cynthia Rumbidzai Marangwanda, the very talented author of Shards. [Substack link]
The new book censor has made the mistake of looking for meaning in a book he volunteered to review—Zorba—and now he can’t stop reading and secreting books at home. [More] [Substack]
The Man Who Saw Seconds is greater than the sum of any of its parts. It’s a super fun, fast-paced read with a warm heart: Preble’s love for and protection of his son. [More] [Substack]
… high walls, barbed wire, robodogs, biometric registration and scanning, and cameras on surveillance towers; people smugglers—coyotes, or whatever name they may use regionally; rubber bullets, teargas, the Greek coast guard that flips their boats over or tows them back into international waters; camps and detention centres that are open prisons, where one only gets food if one consents to have one’s iris scanned; the Turkish border patrol that strips, searches and beats migrants, terrorising them with dogs; EU-funded or facilitated death camps in Libya; death, humiliation, trauma, and injury… [More] [Substack]
Burning Sky tickled my brain cells in most of the right ways, and is something readers of books like Veronica Roth’s Divergent series would enjoy. It’s dystopian and also hopepunkian, too: the Global South in the book shows humanity a possible way forward. [More] [Substack]
One of my favourite things about non-Western SF is how each story’s (or story universe’s) associated cosmology allows the author to set the reader up for a wholly different way of seeing the world than what our Eurocentricised (possible neologism!) imaginations allow. This is not the world of your Enlightenment philosophers; the rules of cause and effect obey ancient laws and beings. [More] [Substack]
In Trash, Monroe addresses unemployment, homelessness, and drug use among the poor; but also capitalism, racism, and settler colonialism, and accepts even their own positionality (and that of all non-Indigenous Americans) as part of the problem.
Trash is a clear-eyed, piercing, impactful, and very personal presentation of just what poor people in the US, and by extension, across the world, are up against. It’s a hard read, and a profoundly necessary one. [More] [Substack]
How to Make Your Mother Cry actually defies description; it’s something readers have to experience for themselves, like any sublime work of art. And while it’s true that not all formally inventive writing works, this collection succeeds brilliantly. It’s a deeply moving, truly emotive work. [More] [Substack]
This wonderful novella follows a young woman over the course of two days in Harare, as she grapples with existential questions about her life and calling. Written from a first-person perspective, with a kind of stream-of-consciousness style, Shards immerses the reader into the life and thoughts of the twenty-three year old. Right from the beginning, I sensed the influence of Marechera… [More] [Substack]
Apart from Jules Verne (of course), I can’t say I’ve come across much French science fiction at all (except, of course, every science fiction fan knows that the first-ever science fiction movie was French). This gap in my knowledge is partly explained in the introduction to this collection. [More] [Substack]
There’s the woman who looks like her grandmother, or is possibly possessed by her. The night market, that wonderfully spooky urban legend. Death stalks a particular street; can residents escape it? A daughter learns to mother her mother after a terrible accident on Ibadan Expressway. [More] [Substack]
This was a wonderfully charming, entertaining, and sometimes chilling adventure through Japanese myth and legend. [More] [Substack]
Happening in books
News
It’s 10 years since Kintu! Transit Books will be publishing an anniversary edition of Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s novel on June 4. (Source? Me.)
The great Alice Munro died aged 92. Paris review unlocked her Art of Fiction interview. Granta also unlocked four of her stories. Writer Fatin Abbas called her work “a beautiful gift.” From the Telegraph when she won the Nobel in 2013: For Alice Munro, Small is Beautiful.
And Other Stories announced The Book of Disappearance from Palestinian author Ibtisam Azem, due August 1.
Dr Ukamaka Olisakwe announced the successful defence of her dissertation. Congrats!
And Prof Mukoma Wa Ngugi announced on Twitter/X that Dr Panashe Chigumadzi had successfully defended hers. Big congrats to Panashe ❤️
Eugen Bacon is the 2024 University of Tasmania Hedberg Writer-in-Residence. Congratulations to her!
Hay Festival announced, on May 24, the suspension of their sponsorship from Baillie Gifford after pressure from activists including Fossil Free Books. And here’s an interesting argument from the other side, in FT.
This is brilliant, but possibly 🔐 (NYT): An autobiography by the brother of Harriet Jacobs (Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl), John S. Jacobs—himself a fugitive enslaved person who ended up in Australia (!), has recently been rediscovered.
A picture by Augusta Supple on Twitter/X of Yumna Kassab, the inaugural Parramatta Laureate in Literature, at the Sydney Writer’s Festival.
The 2024 African Literature Association just ended in Louisville, Kentucky, and the venue for 2025 is the University of Nairobi. Maybe I can finally make it there.
Senegal bought back the library of Senghor from France. Among the works, one signed by Aimé Césaire.
Molara Wood, author of Indigo (one of my faves, as you’ll see at that link), has a new short story out!
Israeli soldiers are burning books in Gaza, and taking photos.
Look at this beautiful thing: African Folklore Restoration Initiative (AFRI) is a project to update folkloric texts from the continent. Unpublished writers (5-6, currently) aged 55+ will be provided with a grant to support their work.
A public library in the US state of Idaho will become an adults-only space from July 1 because… Guess.
Chelsea FC’s manager, Emma Hayes, will be publishing a book with Piatkus about leadership in the beautiful game.
Can’t say I’m surprised: The Women’s Prize Trust says men prefer to read men.
The Writer’s Trust of Canada has apologised for the removal of Kagiso Lesego Molope (and its silence over the expulsion) from their Politics and the Pen gala on May 7. The article in the Toronto Star is worth reading: ““We recognize the impact this interaction with security had on Ms. Molope, especially as a Black woman who experienced apartheid in South Africa.” The Writers’ Trust said the incident is “particularly troubling,” given that the event was to celebrate political writing, and wants to ensure it never happens again. “We recognize that our relative silence for the past few weeks has caused mistrust and speculation among some members of our community about what role we played,” the organization continued.””
Bloomsbury Publishing has acquired Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group’s academic publishing arm for $83 million.
And Pushkin Press has acquired Steerforth Press. (Not unrelated: I’m currently reading a book about conglomeration/consolidation in publishing.)
Camilla, queen of the UK and etc, has selected Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko as her book club pick.
The sequel to Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point will be published by Little, Brown and company on October 1.
Lots more Japanese literature coming this year; here’s a list.
The excellent Deep Vellum’s Will Evans was knighted by France, it seems.
A mini thread on Twitter/X from Monica Cure on Romania’s BookFest. Moldova is this year’s guest of honour.
The first Tongan-Australian writer to be published in Oz is Winnie Dunn. Her debut is titled Dirt Poor Islanders.
Fascinating read on how TikTok made a bestseller out of a self-pub book (file under hmm); and, also, Ta-Nehisi Coates has a new book, The Message, out in October. Per Kirkus, Coates’s non-fiction book will be three essays set in Senegal, South Carolina, and Palestine.
Something to look forward to: a graphic novel adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, coming in September.
Remember James Frey? Well, he (initially secretly) has a new book out that has a movie deal already.
The Woman In Cabin 10 is being adapted at Netflix (—what isn’t, at this point?). Keira Knightley will be in it. She used to be my fave.
New Pratchett? Yes: Arnold, the Abominable Snowman, coming September.
Zukiswa Wanner’s fifth novel, Love Marry Kill, is coming September 9!
Events
It’s 100 years since Franz Kafka died. If you’re near the Bodleian Libraries, there’s a Kafka exhibition on: Kafka: Making of an Icon, from May 30 until October 27. There are also events in Cz, in case you’re there: Kafka100.
Diana Evans will headline Africa Writes, which will be held from June 7 to June 9 this year.
An evening of readings and political teachings: Writers For Palestine, on June 13, in Peckham, the UK.
There’ll be a creative summer camp for LGBTQIA+ youngsters aged 15-18 in Dublin in August. Deets here.
Check out a replay of the launch of ArabLit’s Gaza! Gaza! Gaza! on YT.
Prizes
V. V. Ganeshananthan is the winner of the prestigious 2024 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction for Brotherless Night. Many congratulations to her! 🎉
Jenny Erpenbeck (tr. Michael Hofmann)’s Kairos has won the International Booker Prize for 2024, the first German book to do so. More here.
The winner of the 2024 Dublin Literary Award is Mircea Cărtărescu with Sean Cotter (tr.) (pictured here with the judges) for Solenoid, published by Deep Vellum. You can watch the award ceremony here.
Here are the Commonwealth Short Story Prize regional winners for 2024. They are: Reena Usha Rungoo (Africa), Sanjana Thakur (Asia), Julie Bouchard (Canada and Europe), Portia Subran (Caribbean), and Pip Robertson (Pacific). Yay for women writers! You can read all the stories on Granta here.
The Orwell Foundation has announced the finalists for the Orwell Prizes for 2024. Winners will be announced on June 27. Among the finalists for fiction: Samantha Harvey’s Orbital (which I wrote about here); Percival Everett’s excellent James, which I’m currently reading; Adam Thirlwell’s The Future Future; and Hisham Matar’s My Friends. Two on the political writing final-list :): Nathan Thrall’s A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, for which he just won the non-fiction Pulitzer!; and Eve: How the Female Body Drove 500 Million Years of Human Evolution, by Cat Bohannon.
The International Publishers Association has announced the 2024 shortlist for the Prix Voltaire which honours exceptional courage in upholding the freedom to publish. On the shortlist: Victoria Amelina, who was killed by Russian forces in Ukraine in 2023.
Then there were the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards: Emily Perkins won the 2024 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction for Lioness. Claire McAlpine wrote about the awards here.
Small Worlds by Caleb Azumah Nelson is the winner of the 2024 Dylan Thomas Prize.
And Alexis Wright won the 2024 James Tait Black Prize for fiction for Praiseworthy, along with Iman Mersal and Robin Moger (tr.) for Traces of Enayat, and Ian Penman for Fassbinder (they won the joint prize for biography).
Here’s the Society of Authors’ McKitterick Prize shortlist (Dr Anietie Isong was on the judging panel); and the rest of the SoA Awards shortlists are in this thread. (The SoA is in a spot of bother rn btw.)
Here are the winners of this year’s Isele Prizes: Alex Leslie, Erinola Daranijo, and Gloria Mwaniga.
And here’s the shortlist for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize.
The winners of the Jhalak Prize have just been announced: Yepoka Yeebo’s Anansi’s Gold, and Hiba Noor Khan’s Safiyyah’s War. (Here’s a picture of the gran the prize is named for ❤️)
Here’s the shortlist for the 2024 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize.
The Encore Award celebrates outstanding second novels, and the 2024 shortlist has been announced here by the RSL.
The Island Prize 2024 Shortlist was announced here; authors Simbarashe Steyn Kundizeza (Zimbabwe), Ruby Excel (Ghana), and Mali Kambandu (Zambia) made the list.
The New South Wales Public Libraries Association 2024 Book of the Year is Ali Cobby Eckerman’s She is The Earth. (No thread, but you can search #NSWPLA on Twitter/X for more).
Check out the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2024 shortlist!
Cool Stuff
Here’s an online book club that used to meet in London pubs, which sounds fun. On Monday, June 3, they’ll be discussing Thuận’s Chinatown.
Here’s m. nourbeSe philip, winner of a 2024 Windham-Campbell Prize, on her childhood in Tobago and Trinidad. Also, beautifully, on dreams and masks.
Some lovely libraries: the national library in Oslo; the Future Library, also in Oslo; the Haruki Murakami Library/Waseda Intl House of Literature; the Bibliothèque Nationale de France Richelieu in Paris.
Here’s Tyler Ball in conversation with Abdulrazak Gurnah at Warwick, when he was there to deliver the Edward Said Memorial Lecture.
Here’s an article on the Booker Prizes website about nominated books that were rejected by publishers.
Want to see other people’s May reads? Here, here, and here (you’ll find mine below).
Do you like the idea of rediscovering neglected books? Neglected Books is for you.
Jobs, opportunities, residencies, and suchlike
Want to volunteer with The Rumpus? Here’s your chance.
The Roxane Gay Books Fellowship is open for applications until June 24.
Feminist Press are still looking for a full-time Senior Editor. Soft-closes 24 June.
A residency from Write Within in a Welsh cabin (sounds dreamy!) for authors of minoritised identity based in the UK or Ireland.
Submissions
Discovered this cool round-up of where to submit this week. Really covers this entire section for me this time :)
There are other people on Twitter/X who tweet out what’s open for subs. Here’s one.
Submit to Grist’s IMAGINE 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors. Deadline June 24. Exciting: Judges are Omar El Akkad and Annalee Newitz! It’s open to writers worldwide.
Scholastic is looking for kidlit MSs from unagented Indigenous writers. Closes July 31. Tell someone, please.
Copper Monstera Publishing are looking for stories about women and money from Zambian writers. Closes July 15.
Keep your eye on the anthology Black Poets on Craft, which was announced on May 21.
Umuofia Arts and Book Festival, created in honour of Chinua Achebe, is open for subs for an anthology until June 30.
ArabLit’s 2024 Arabic Flash Fiction Prize (with Komet Kashakeel) is open to subs of short fiction from Arabic writers worldwide, until July 31. Deets here.
The deadline for Mizna’s Futurities issue has been extended to June 30.
Black Warrior Review is open for all kinds of subs.
Here’s a poetry competition from Renard Press that’s open to everyone, everywhere; closes June 30.
The independent bookshop magazine, Backstory London, is looking for pitches for features and columns for their Issue 3; deadline June 21.
One month to the deadline for subs to the Middle Eastern Science Fiction Translation Contest.
The Journal of Global Postcolonial Studies welcomes subs of essays about African authors, and more. Closes Sept 1. More on Brittle Paper here. (I’m veeery tempted.)
Big Black Books is open for subs for issue two. Deadline June 30.
Emerge Journal is open for subs for full-length collections, novellas and novels.
Phoebe Journal has dedicated its first summer issue to Palestine, and invites subs until June 15.
All of that is it for now. You can find me in all of the usual places, while I last: linktr.ee, on the blog, or by replying to this email.
Take care! And thanks, always, for reading and for subscribing! 🌸
Jacqueline 💫
There's no feeling more exhilarating for a writer than getting into a rhythm, finally seeing every word and idea slip into place, and finally, the entire piece starts to cohere together. It's a wonderful feeling, and writers will trudge through miserable moments to experience it. - Orion’s Belt Mag on Twitter/X.