The Death of Comrade President
The Death of Comrade President

Author: Alain Mabanckou

Publisher: The New Press

Published: 2020-09-01

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 1620976072

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A poignant and riotous tale of family and revolution in postcolonial Africa, from the winner of the French Voices grand prize and finalist for the Man Booker International Prize Pointe-Noire, a bustling port town on Congo's southwestern coast, is host to Alain Mabanckou's astonishing cycle of novels that is already being hailed as one of the grandest, funniest fictional projects of our time. His novels have been twice short-listed for the Man Booker International Prize and have been described as "beautiful" (Salman Rushdie), "brutally satiric" (Uzodinma Iweala), containing "fireworks on every page" (Los Angeles Review of Books), and "vividly colloquial, mischievous and outrageous" (Marina Warner) . Mabanckou's riotous new novel, The Death of Comrade President, returns to the 1970s milieu of his awarding-winning novel Black Moses, telling the story of Michel, a daydreamer whose life is completely overthrown when, in March 1977, just before the arrival of the rainy season, Congo's Comrade President Marien Ngouabi is brutally murdered. Thanks to his mother's kinship with the president, not even naive Michel can remain untouched. And if he is to protect his family, Michel must learn to lie. Moving seamlessly between the small-scale worries of everyday life and the grand tragedy of postcolonial politics, Mabanckou explores the nuances of the human soul through the naive perspective of a boy who learns the realities of life—and how much must change for everything to stay the same.

The Death of Comrade President
The Death of Comrade President

Author: Alain Mabanckou

Publisher: Serpent's Tail

Published: 2020-03-12

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 1782835407

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In Pointe-Noire, in the small neighbourhood of Voungou, on the family plot where young Michel lives with Maman Pauline and Papa Roger, life goes on. But Michel's everyday cares - lost grocery money, the whims of his parents' moods, their neighbours' squabbling, his endless daydreaming - are soon swept away by the wind of history. In March 1977, just before the arrival of the short rainy season, Comrade President Marien Ngouabi is brutally murdered in Brazzaville, and not even naïve Michel can remain untouched. Starting as a tender, wry portrait of an ordinary Congolese family, Alain Mabanckou quickly expands the scope of his story into a powerful examination of colonialism, decolonization and dead ends of the African continent. At a stroke Michel learns the realities of life - and how much must change for everything to stay the same.

Dear Comrade President
Dear Comrade President

Author: André Odendaal

Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa

Published: 2022-08-01

Total Pages: 683

ISBN-13: 177609669X

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In his annual presidential address on 8 January 1986, ANC president Oliver Tambo called on South Africans to make apartheid ungovernable through armed action and militant struggle. But unknown to the world, on that very day, the quiet-spoken mathematics teacher and aspirant priest turned reluctant revolutionary had also set up a secret think tank in Lusaka, which he named the Constitution Committee, giving it an ‘ad hoc unique exercise’ that had ‘no precedent in the history of the movement’. Knowing that all wars end at a negotiating table, and judging the balance of forces to be moving in favour of the liberation movement, Tambo wanted the ANC to hold the initiative after the fall of apartheid. Assisted by Pallo Jordan, he instructed his new think tank to formulate the principles and draft the outlines of a constitution that could unite South Africa when the time came to talk in the fledgling days of freedom and democracy. The seven-member team, including Albie Sachs, Kader Asmal and Zola Skweyiya, started deliberating and reporting to Tambo. In correspondence, they typically addressed him as ‘Dear Comrade President’. Drawing on the personal archives of participants, Dear Comrade President explains how the purposeful first steps were taken in the making of South Africa’s Constitution. Why and how did this process happen? What were the first written words? When and where were they put on paper? By whom? What values did they espouse? And how did the committee’s work fit into the broader struggle? This book answers these questions in new, paradigm-shifting ways.

Comrade Sister
Comrade Sister

Author: Laurie R. Lambert

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 2020-06-08

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 0813944279

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In 1979, the Marxist-Leninist New Jewel Movement under Maurice Bishop overthrew the government of the Caribbean island country of Grenada, establishing the People’s Revolutionary Government. The United States under President Reagan infamously invaded Grenada in 1983, staying until the New National Party won election, effectively dealing a death blow to socialism in Grenada. With Comrade Sister, Laurie Lambert offers the first comprehensive study of how gender and sexuality produced different narratives of the Grenada Revolution. Reimagining this period with women at its center, Laurie Lambert shows how the revolution must be recognized for its both productive and corrosive tendencies. Lambert argues that the literature of the Grenada Revolution exposes how the more harmful aspects of revolution are visited on, and are therefore more apparent to, women. Calling attention to the mark of black feminism on the literary output of Caribbean writers of this period, Lambert addresses the gap between women’s active participation in Caribbean revolution versus the lack of recognition they continue to receive.

Buffoon
Buffoon

Author: John

Publisher: 30 Degrees South Publishers

Published: 2014-04-01

Total Pages: 602

ISBN-13: 192821150X

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“The strangest, most original book to ever come out of Africa and possibly the most important” This is a tale of redemption after a descent into the ether – set against a primal African backdrop; it purports to be a good read but also to have redeeming social value by providing insight into the solution of a fatal and universal malady – by turns humorous, dark, historically informative and, just possibly, uplifting. Briefly, the story, given in monologue by an ‘anti- hero’, begins in eastern Zimbabwe with ‘the drinking night that had everything’, including a brush with death via car accident. It sets the tragic-comic theme of alcoholism in a setting that is luxurious, exotic and violent. The narrative maintains momentum throughout and connects the disparateness of crime, killing, genius and sainthood through a sequence of travel to all corners of the world. There is a strong metaphysical overprint to this true-life journey and the readers will come out the other side able to identify, at some level with the text, somewhat refreshed, enlightened and made stronger in their life’s affirmation. In essence, this is the purpose of Buffoon and the basis of its claim to be one of a kind. It is also a love story. Response to date from 20–30 readers of ages varying from 25–85, including eight different nationalities, essentially the ‘intelligent layman’ (architect/ lawyer/surgeons/businessmen), has been astonishing.

Good Morning Comrades
Good Morning Comrades

Author: Ondjaki

Publisher: Biblioasis

Published: 2008-03-15

Total Pages: 129

ISBN-13: 1926845692

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Luanda, Angola, 1990. Ndalu is a normal twelve-year old boy in an extraordinary time and place. Like his friends, he enjoys laughing at his teachers, avoiding homework and telling tall tales. But Ndalu's teachers are Cuban, his homework assignments include writing essays on the role of the workers and peasants, and the tall tales he and his friends tell are about a criminal gang called Empty Crate which specializes in attacking schools. Ndalu is mystified by the family servant, Comrade Antonio, who thinks that Angola worked better when it was a colony of Portugal, and by his Aunt Dada, who lives in Portugal and doesn't know what a ration card is. In a charming voice that is completely original, Good Morning Comrades tells the story of a group of friends who create a perfect childhood in a revolutionary socialist country fighting a bitter war. But the world is changing around these children, and like all childhood's Ndalu's cannot last. An internationally acclaimed novel, already published in half a dozen countries, Good Morning Comrades is an unforgettable work of fiction by one of Africa's most exciting young writers.