A Review of When the Sun turns Red: Women’s Tears from a Land in Despair Yaah Maggie Kilo, PhD In the tradition of outpouring of emotions through all the expressions
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A Very Writerly Life
A Poetic Book Review By Nkam Giftus You dig deep into the crevices of time, Excavating long-lost tales of our land – Your pen knows neither rest nor relief, For
Read moreTranslocation narratives, travelogues and memoir in “The Radio”
As a voracious reader interacting with authors and the contexts of their works, you will certainly agree that it is a literary exercise in futility to attempt to completely vanish a writer from their works in an attempt to achieve objectivity. Like a biological child that bears its parents’ DNA as permanent mark of identity and relationship to its source, a writer’s output bears prints of their convictions, elements of their lived or be-lived experiences, and characteristics of their persuasions on a given subject matter. This is the truth that I’m confronted with when I finally get to read Gil Ndi-Shang’s recently published short story anthology, “The Radio and Other Stories”.
Read moreInterrogating the Shades of Life
The foremost English critic, Matthew Arnold, once observed that “poetry is, at bottom, a criticism of life; that the greatness of a poet lies in his (her) powerful and beautiful application of ideas to life; to the question: How do we live?” Arnold here simply meant that poetry should be relevant to the lives of people and shouldn’t be far-fetched as to have no direct contact with humankind. This observation aptly applies to Beatrice Fri Bime’s Shades of Sorrow, Tears and Laughter; a poetic tapestry of 66 pieces of varying length rendered in 12 shades of unequal length. Here, Fri Bime’s appealing lyricism, her uniquely simple but witty voice, invites an engagement with issues that pertain to life; to all of life, in her immediate vicinity and beyond.
Read moreThe Vacuum Chamber: A Review
Babila Mutia is a master storyteller but he is a poet too, and his poetic sensibilities are not far off in these two masterpieces. We, the readers are at his mercy, devouring every word, and when we get to the last page, we are forced to confront the unstable nature of what we call our reality. That is, if we survive Mutia’s vacuum chamber!
Read moreJuliette Wangia’s Review of Beads of Memory
In this page turner, the author offers a vivid picture of Leinteng’s experiences as a young, foreign student in Madrid, a city far-flung from his native Cameroon.
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