Harare Review of Books, August 2024

Sep 15, 2024

Hiya!

(A little boy I know says hiya a lot.)

Erm, surprise? As you’ll see from today’s date, August very nearly didn’t happen; but, happily, we’re here, because I decided to send out whatever possibly truncated version I manage in the end. It’s been a ridiculously busy time for me (also, I was a little sick) (also, it was my birthday, which has nothing to do with this), so things got irregular. I hope it won’t happen too often; but if it does, please know I’m thinking of you all (:

We’re waiting for the rain—(the title of a Zimbabwean classic by Charles Mungoshi, and also) a real thing in my part of the world, even for us urban people. I can see the stars again at night; the haze has lifted. Even seen rainclouds on some promising days. I, for one, no longer take seasons for granted; so much has changed here since I was a child.

So very many big thanks to Rosanna McGlone, who kindly sent HRB some copies of The Process of Poetry!

This weekend I’ve been reading:

Blood on the Brain x Esinam Bediako/Red Hen Press (Thanks Cassie!)
A Place Between Waking and Forgetting x Eugen Bacon/RDS Press

An Interview with Wole Talabi

HRB is thrilled to bring you this interview with Wole Talabi, wherein he shares his thoughts on writing, the success of Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon, AI, philosophy, his favourite books and writers, dystopia vs utopia and the arc of human progress, and loads more. Grateful to Wole for the time he took to answer these questions.

Recently on the blog

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: I'd Rather Be Reading

30+1 Recent and Upcoming Books for Young Readers

This moving graphic novel tells the story of the last months of Van Gogh’s life, mainly his time in Auvers-sur-Oise. It’s gorgeously drawn—I frequently lost myself in the exquisite hatching—but it’s the poignancy of those last days as well, how sensitively Van Gogh’s struggles are handled on the page. And in the midst of those struggles, a happy note, because Van Gogh found a little peace here and there with the family of our interlocutor Adeline Ravoux, on whose account this novel is based. [More]

Bonnie and Mansour meet in mid-century New York. They have things in common: very messy childhoods, and time spent in a town called Mende, in France. But how they meet comes about through very unusual circumstances, perhaps destiny: Bonnie is toiling away in the basement of a record company when she comes across liner notes for Mansour’s debut album, recorded with his mate Liam. [More]

Imagine that your ancestors are held hostage by a foreign nation, so foreign that they mostly don’t look like you and live on some island that’s very far away and inaccessible. They have your ancestors because they feel they have the right after invading your land and fighting wars of conquest or punishment, wars where they burnt down your palaces and beheaded your kings. You’ve been pacified, although you won your independence back, and these days you and those foreign nations profess friendship so they can continue to extract your wealth and give you handouts that you sign for in suits they taught you to wear, with handshakes and smiles. [More]

Vergès reviews the present state of “universal” museums, particularly the ethnological ones of the European former colonisers: the Louvre, the British Museum, and the like. The French, Germans, English, Belgians and Portuguese all looted and rampaged all around Africa, bringing back tons of Africa’s heritage to the metropole. [More]

Buddy Ray Guy has encountered that rarest of creatures, the unicorn woman. No, really: he sees, at a carnival, a woman with a horn apparently growing out of her forehead, which sets him on a (relatively half-hearted) quest to meet and talk to her. All he really does, though, is follow the carnival around and pay his money to stare at her. [More]

This is the wholesome story of Wambũi, a girl growing up on the slopes of Mount Kenya in the 1950s, a time of tremendous change. Wambũi contends with, among other things, the whispers around the village about the guerrilla fighters in the area, and her move to a prestigious boarding school where she excels at mathematics and gradually forms an attachment with a missionary teacher from England, Eileen. [More]

A convoluted crime caper and dark comedy of errors: Two Russian boys, not-quite-twins but they share a name and birthday, arrive in “Montegasco”, somewhere in Europe, to meet their father. Only, he doesn’t know that he has “twins”—in fact, he’s completely sure he has one son, and he suspects a woman named Alina of foul play. [More]

I loved, loved! this collection of (eventually I worked out) linked stories that are set in our (potential) future: climate change has ravaged the world, sea levels have risen, and the corps run everything that matters. (The book’s blurb is excellent, because that’s exactly what it delivers.) Salkovic sets these stories in unnamed countries around the world… [More]

Sooooo much fun! This is an absolute treat for science fiction fans, a collection from some of the best authors in the business today. [More]

In The Drought, a weatherman turns into something of an Old Testament prophet, beard and all. Beachcombers in Doggerland is about a family adrift after a terrible loss. The Man Who Slept With Eudora Welty is a quirky nod to a literary figure. The Complete Miracles of St Anthony: Definitive Edition With Previously Unpublished Material was such a delightful surprise (which I can say about many of the stories in this collection). [More]

A man and a woman meet in a park in Kanazawa. Their respective spouses have run off together, and Mariko has reached out to Sedge perhaps to make sense of things. Incidentally, Sedge is about to move to his brother-in-law’s inn, where Mariko works. [More]

It’s kind of in fashion to claim neurodivergence these days, or elements of it. On the other hand, greater awareness has also meant that people without a formal diagnosis have, through popular culture and social media, identified their own neurodivergence. What hasn’t really happened to a large extent yet is literature featuring neurodiverse characters; disabled characters in general are still rare. [More]

Sarah, a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, wants to escape. She has her beauty, and she’s French. She’s also very driven. Driss, the guy she sets her heart on, is very rich—maybe as rich as the King, ugly, socially inept, and initially seemingly not interested. But Sarah is determined. [More]

Happening in books

News

So proud: Jackie Chikambure’s story, One Braid at a Time, that came second in HRB’s competition for Zimbabwean writers, Zim SF, last year, is on this Brittle Paper list: 43 Short Stories to Get You Caught Up on New African Sci-fi/Fantasy
Algerian poet Mohammed Belkacem Khammar passed away August 13.
Founder (or expander) of Barnes & Noble, Leonard Riggio, passed away aged 83.
George Orwell’s archive is up for sale, and people are outraged.
A burglar in Rome got distracted when he stopped to read a book about Greek mythology that was on a bedside table. Totes relatable.
Bad omens: Neil Gaiman, with multiple accusations of sexual assault, has had production on multiple adaptations halted, including the final season of Good Omens.
The Onion, that wonderful satirical publication, is back in print.
Nothing to see here, just book-dumping in Florida, USA.
Scalzi has at least ten more books in him, God willing. He signed a seven figure advance with Tor.
Sareeta Domingo has a new book coming. You don’t know her?! She writes fun romance, with Black protagonists.
Here’s a Little Free Library map for beleaguered US readers.
NaNoWriMo decided to talk about writing and AI, and did it wrong. Wired has the goss.
Zimbabwean writers are serialising their novels on WhatsApp and making money doing it, according to The Week, who got it from the Financial Mail.
It was Sonia Sanchez’s 90th birthday! Cave Canem celebrates her (she’s amazing!). Here’s another poem.
Check out Reighan Gillam reading *The Fire Next Time.*
Bookshop.org announced BookLoop, where you can sell your pre-loved books for credit.
The Open Book Festival just ended in Capetown, and looked great.
A million dollars for Cormac McCarthy’s papers, nogal.

Events

In London, the UK, on September 17: Celebrating Iranian Resistance.
A book launch for Joan Wickersham’s No Ship Sets Out To Be A Shipwreck is happening at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, MA, USA on September 24.
An evening of readings with NY State Poet Laureate Patricia Spears Jones will take place on September 26.
The schedule for the 2024 Brooklyn Book Festival is now live!
If you’re in Fish Hoek, SA, check out this book event on September 21: Blown Away by Books presents Life & Writing.
On September 21, join Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore for the online launch of Eugen Bacon’s A Place Between Waking and Forgetting.
Nairobi: Here’s this year’s Macondo Literary Festival programme, and also how to get tix.
Adania Shibli will deliver the keynote at PEN International’s 90th Congress on September 24 in Oxford, UK. More here.
The Windham-Campbell Festival will be held from September 17-20.

Prizes

The 2024 Kirkus Prizes finalists include Louise Erdrich, Percival Everett, Richard Powers, Olivia Laing, Adam Higginbotham, and Hiba Noor Khan. Winners will be announced October 16.
Here are this year’s Nommo Awards winners, from the African Speculative Fiction Society. Includes: Best Novel, Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon by Wole Talabi; Best Novella, Undulation by Stephen Embleton; and Best Short Story, A Name is a Plea and a Prophecy by Gabrielle Emem Harry.
Here are the winners of the 2024 Hugos! Including: Emily Tesh, T. Kingfisher, Naomi Kritzer (twice!), Ann Leckie, Neil Clarke, Ruoxi Chen, Nerds of a Feather, and Strange Horizons.

Interesting fun cool things, giveaways

Why readers love/hate Colleen Hoover.
Book stairways: 1. Lebanon. 2. Islamabad.
The Hyde Institute Library imposed a ban on liars and dirty faces. Also on falling asleep, kicking the furniture, leaving your business card behind, and coming in with smallpox. (No date given.)
Check out this Goodreads giveaway for Errant Roots, from RDS Press.
Look at this book love: A community helps a bookshop move.

Stuff that’s free to read online

Naomi Kritzer’s lovely hopepunk: The Year Without Sunshine, which was winner of the 2024 Hugo Award for Best Novelette, and Better Living Through Algorithms, which won the Hugo for Best Short Story.
Here’s something cool to download: Contemporary Afro-Brazilian Short Fiction | UCL Press

A List of Lists

Because recently, there’ve been lots of lists.

Harare Review of Books

Discussion about this post

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