Nathaniel Mackey: BASS CATHEDRAL

183 pp. New Directions. Paper, $16.95.
Paper, 224pp., $16.95
ISBN 978-0811217200

The Great American Jazz Novel by Nathaniel Mackey, winner of the 2006 National Book Award


Bass Cathedral is Mackey's fourth volume in his ongoing novel with no beginning or end, From a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate. Thought balloons morph into mute-stereoptic emanations; N. encounters a master mouthpiece-maker; Drennette leaves Penguin dateless; Lambert's kicking it around with Melanie--much is abuzz but something else is happening to the ensemble. The music seems to be living them. N. suffers cowrie shell attacks and they are all stranded on an Orphic Shore. Socio-political forces are at play or has this always been the essence and accident of the music's resilience? And Hotel Didjeridoo must be resurrected, but how? Myth spins music spins thought spins sex--Mackey's post-bop boxless box set is, as the Utne Reader wrote, "Avant-garde literature you can love: an evolving multivolume novel of the jazz world that plays with language and ideas the way Thelonious Monk plays with flatted fifths."

NATHANIEL MACKEY is the author of several books of poetry, fiction, and criticism; edits the literary journal Hambone; and is the host of a legendary radio show of jazz and world music in Santa Cruz called "Tanganyika Strut." A Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, he is Professor of Literature at the University of California at Santa Cruz. His book Splay Anthem is the winner of the 2006 National Book Award for Poetry.

Date of publication: 2008

Planting Water - Sandile Dikeni

This tribute collection binds together the manifold voices and visions of Sandile Dikeni - one of South Africa's most gifted poets. Combining the best of his previous two collections with a dazzling display of original new work, it stands as a testament to the breathtaking talent of a poet who always writes from the heart.

Paperback: 74 pages
Publisher: University of Kwazulu Natal Press
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1869141229
ISBN-13: 978-1869141226
Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 0.4 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces



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Art and Revolution - The Life and Death of Thami Mnyele

Diana Wylie
April 2008

Thami Mnyele's life spanned the era of apartheid. He was born the same year the National Party won office and came of age in a time (the 1960s) and a place (Johannesburg) that ofjavascript:void(0)fered a sensitive young black artist little encouragement. In 1985, in the waning days of apartheid, he was killed by South African Special Forces operatives in Gaborone, Botswana, where he had joined the banned African National Congress. Although reticent by nature, he played a vanguard role in efforts to throw open the doors of South African culture.

Thami Mnyele's story sheds light on this tumultuous era from an unusual perspective: that of an artist and not a “young lion.” Not only does Mnyele's story help us understand the birth of a modern African aesthetic; it also addresses the genesis of revolutionary commitment. How did a man come to face the prospect of martyrdom and learn to accept it? How did this choice affect what he was able to express as an artist?


Diana Wylie's beautifully written and illustrated literary biography reveals the struggles inside and around a gentle South African artist as he remade himself into a revolutionary soldier, and brings fresh insights to our understanding of South Africa's recent history.

Diana Wylie is Professor of History at Boston University. She is the author of A Little God: The Twilight of Patriarchy in a Southern African Chiefdom and Starving on a Full Stomach: The Triumph of Cultural Racism in Modern South Africa (Virginia), which won the Melville J. Herskovits Award.


Published by Jacana Media
Imprint: Jacana Media
Country of origin: South Africa
April 2008
Authors: Diana Wylie
ISBN-13: 978-1-77009-346-1
Categories: Biography & autobiography
LSN: 1-77009-346-X

Nights of the Creaking Bed - Toni Kan

2008
Cassava Press

Toni Kan is an award winning poet, essayist and short story writer. He is one of Nigeria's most anthologised young poets and short story writers. Author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection When a Dream Lingers Too Long and the novella Ballad of Rage, his works have appeared in Salthill, Drum Voices, Revue, Farafina, Sentinel Poetry Quarterly and ANA Review. Nights of the Creaking Bed is full of colourful characters involved in affecting dramas: a girl who is rejected in love because she has three brothers to look after; a middle aged housewife who finds love again but has an impossible decision to make; a young man who can't get the image of his naked, beautiful mother out of his mind; a child so poor he has to hawk onions on Christmas day - and many others. Some, initially full of hope, find their lives blighted by the cruelty of others, or by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or by just not knowing the 'right' people.

Lawless and Other Stories - Sefi Atta

# Publisher: Kachifo Ltd (2008)
# ASIN: B001E17H14



Sefi Atta writes like one who has lived the life of each single character in her dazzling collection of short stories. The reader comes off with the sense of a story teller who is so in tune with the suffering and other life happenstances of her characters, that the reader is bound to find a commonality with them—be it cultural, psychological, social, or human.

Sefi Atta's stories evoke profound moral, ethical, and cultural questions most contemporary African writers find uncomfortable to tackle in their works. And the beauty of her writing is that she does all this in a quietly defiant manner, and at such a high aesthetic and artistic level, that one never feels the harshness of these questions at the time of reading, until hours or days after putting down the story.

Winners Have Yet to be Announced - A Song for Donny Hathaway

Ed Pavlic
Paperback, 189 pages, February 2008
Published by University of Georgia Press

This moving collection of prose poems about seventies soul singer Donny Hathaway presents a complex view of a gifted artist through imagined conversations and interviews that convey the voices, surroundings, and clashing dimensions of Hathaway's life.

February 2008/ March 2008
ISBN-13: 978-0-8203-3097-6



image source

The Whistler - Ondjaki

Paperback, 102 pages, February 2008
Published by Aflame Books

From Angola, a country riddled with civil war and it's aftereffects for the last 30 years, comes a surprising story of hope, passion, and magical realism from a groundbreaking, young African novelist. A young man arrives at the church of a small African village and starts whistling so beautifully that the priest is left in tears. As his weeklong stay continues, the whistler finds himself affected by the colorful inhabitants of the village as they all become bewitched and surrender to the
Imprint: Aflame Books
First published: February 2008
ISBN-13: 978-0-9552339-7-5

Amputated Memory - Werewere Liking

Translated by Marjolijn de Jager. Afterword by Michelle Mielly.
ISBN: 978-1-55861-555-7
Publication Date: 12-01-2007
Pinned between the political ambitions of her philandering father, the colonial and global influences of encroaching and exploitive governments, and the traditions of her Cameroon village, Halla Njoké recalls childhood traumas and reconstructs forgotten experiences to reclaim her sense of self. “Werewere Liking’s novel or ‘chant-roman’ is a truly remarkable achievement illustrating the potential of African literature to renew and regenerate its forms. Through innovative and fully successful use of traditional songs, praise-naming, lullaby, letters and myth, the novel is unique in its form.” —The 25th Noma Award for Publishing in Africa “With The Amputated Memory, her fifth novel, francophone Cameroonian artist Werewere Liking confirms her great lyrical talent while still probing into a collective and familial past…Like its multifaceted author, the saga…stands at the crossroads of genres and traditions…[and] takes on the destiny of an entire nation through the life of the heroine.” —Michell Mielly, from the Afterword

[an opportunity to look more broadly at Werewere, Village Ki-Yi M'Bock]

The Yambo Ouologuem Reader - The Duty of Violence, a Black Ghostwriter's Letter to France, and a Thousand and One Bibles of Sex

Yambo Ouologuem
Published by Africa Research & Publications

The Duty of Violence, A Black Ghostwriter's Letter to France, and A Thousand and One Bibles of Sex. Translated and edited by Christopher Wise.

Imprint: Africa Research & Publications
Country of origin: United States
Release date: May 2008
ISBN-13: 978-1-59221-601-7

[A bigger Yambo story, 40 years of Le Devoir de Violence - a chance to focus on the book, jazz novel, manuscripts etc? ]

send someone to find/ read the original Le Devoir de violence manuscripts (Yambo and Editions de Seuil’s versions)

Ouologeum stated his editors at Editions de Seuil revised his manuscript by removing citations see “Polemique: Le Devoir de violence"

"In Defence of Yambo Ouologeum": Kaye Whiteman former Deputy Editor of West Africa testifies to having seen the manuscripts in question: original manuscript hand written in an old exercise book

Yambo claims manuscript in the hands of his lawyer Le Devoir de violence", Figaro Litteraire 10 Jun 1972, p17

Publisher Editions de Seuil yet to make public their copy of the manuscript

The Maoist Electoral Victory in Nepal

The Maoist Electoral Victory in Nepal: Interview with Shyam Shrestha, Former Chief Editor of Mulyankan Monthly Magazine
by Johan Petter Andresen

The elections in Nepal on Thursday, April 10th, resulted in a victory for the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), stunning the mainstream international press.

Mulyankan monthly magazine is almost 18 years old. It is the largest leftist monthly magazine of Nepal, with a circulation of 30 000 copies per month. Shyam Shrestha has been actively seeking to promote a broad left unity in Nepal.

Kirtipur
Sunday,13th of April, 2008.

Full interview here.

Nepal's Revolution: Armed Struggle Made Free and Fair Elections Possible
by Analytical Monthly Review
Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a
sister edition of Monthly Review. Its April 2008 issue features the following
editorial. -- Ed.

The peaceful mass participation in the elections for a Constituent
Assembly ("CA") in Nepal on April 10, 2008 was not only an historic
achievement of the Nepalese people, but a reminder that the
revolutionary process in Nepal deserves the close attention and eager
assistance of every sincere Marxist.

Read the rest here

Money Farming & Africa

The New World Order Ideology and Africa by Tatah Mentan
The New World Order Ideology expressed in the form of neoliberal globalization has been
used by numerous politicians, scholars and media men through the ages. It refers to a
worldwide conspiracy to effect complete and total control over the planet through money
farming. This book examines the case of Africa put directly on the chopping board as client
states by this ideology – when less hampered by idealistic slogans as human rights, raising
living standards and democratization – to better the achievement of the agenda of the
money farmers whose goal is to establish government by loan operations. The money
farmers’ strategy, as in credit card companies, is to lend as much as the subject target can
borrow and still pay fees, charges and interest payments. This means to encourage them
to borrow, loan after loan, consolidate all other loans and keep lending – up until the crop
of foreign exchange seems in jeopardy. The ideal from the Lending Agency viewpoint is to
get an African country maxed out on loans to the point that it actually operates all of its
government and the nation on LOANS. Once that goal is achieved, you basically have a
never ending crop of FOREIGN EXCHANGE from helpless and hopeless African
governments and people. Here is Tatah Mentan at his trenchant best!
ISBN 9789956578610 | 278 pages | 234 x 156 mm | 2010 | Langaa RPCIG, Cameroon |
Paperback
Economics & Development | Politics & International Affairs | Policy & Development
Tatah Mentan
Professor Tatah Mentan has taught Political Science as well as journalism and
mass communication in African, American, and Canadian universities. His
research interests are in the areas of globalization and security issues,
contemporary African politics and the political economy of international relations.
Prominent among Tatah Mentan’s publications are the following books: Dilemmas
of Weak States: Africa and transnational terrorism in the twenty-first century,
Ashgate, 2004; Held Together by Pins: Liberal Democracy Under Siege in Africa,
Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 2007; With Neither Guns nor Bullets :
Recolonisation of Africa Today, Global Publishers, New Delhi, India, 2007. Dr
Tatah Mentan has authored scores of peer-reviewed articles published in
scholarly journals in Africa and abroad.

Papergirl

"Papergirl is an art project which, in the style of news paperboys, distributes rolled art pieces by bicycle to random passers-by in the streets. The project was founded in Berlin by Aisha Ronniger and has been carried out once a year in summer since 2006. Now Papergirl has spread and will also take place in Cape Town in June 2010.

The basic idea is to bring art to the public in a different way than normal; to surprise people and bring them into contact with art in their everyday lives. The idea of distributing art by bike came from the search for new ways to bring art straight to society, and have fun doing so!

Papergirl is, in short: participatory, analogue, non-commercial and impulsive.
This means:
Everyone can participate by submitting art and/or by helping with the distribution. As we don´t select, it´s the artist who decides what he wants to show and hence give away as a present. Papergirl is distributed like a newspaper, but not edited or printed like it. It consists of art pieces which are rolled up together. Contributions are handed in by mail or personally and are later included in the art rolls. There are no guidelines as to format, subject matter or quantity. So originals, prints, photos, copies etc. come together. Each roll contains 10-15 different works, meaning that each one holds a unique combination of art! The art rolls cannot be sold and they are not delivered to subscribers..."

For more info check papergirl-sa.com

PAPERGIRL #4 from Papergirl on Vimeo.

All City Writers The book, a massive volume of more than 400 pages, has been conceived as an imaginary newspaper. The chronicles it contains have not been penned by real journalists or narrators, but by people who define themselves as ‘writers’. 406 Pages, Format: 24,5 cm x 33,5 cm Hardcover.

read more...

Pambazuka - Kenya and the ICC: Court of last hope?

Pambazuka - Kenya and the ICC: Court of last hope?

Newspaper Blackout

"Instead of starting with a blank page, poet Austin Kleon grabs a newspaper and a permanent marker and eliminates the words he doesn't need."
(NPR)







"Underlining. Highlighting. Circling. When we read interactively, when we 'alter' texts, we’re isolating little bits of writing that speak to us. Fire our imaginations. Illuminate something.

It’s the same thing when we hyperlink: we’re pointing to something that speaks to us.

When the CIA redacts a document:



It’s the same practice done in the opposite spirit: they’re isolating text that speaks to no one." ~ Austin Kleon

source