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New Titles for Courses Fall 2017 African Studies NEW TITLES • AFRICAN STUDIES NGŨ G Ĩ WA THIONG´O CHARLIE ENGLISH Devil on the Cross INTRODUCTION BY NAMWALI SERPELL The Storied City One of the cornerstones of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s fame, this powerful fictional critique of AFRICAN capitalism is a cry for a Kenya free of dictatorship and for African writers to work in their The Quest for Timbuktu and the Fantastic Mission to Save Its Past own local dialects—it has had a profound influence on Africa and on post-colonial African Two tales of a city: The historical race to “discover” one of the world’s most mythologized PAID Presort Std U.S. Postage literature. places, Timbuktu, and the story of a contemporary band of archivists and librarians fighting Permit No. 169 to save its ancient manuscripts from destruction at the hands of al Qaeda. Staten Island, NY “Ngũgĩ is the most celebrated of African novelists. What he offers is nothing less than a new direction for African writing.”—British Book News “Insightful...interesting…shows that the sort of willful delusion behind much of the 18th and 19th century quest for Timbuktu continues to this day.”—The Wall Street Journal STUDIES “One of our century’s great novels.” —Tribune (UK) PENGUIN CLASSICS PAPERBACK • 320 PAGES • 978-0-14-310736-1 • $16.00 RIVERHEAD HARDCOVER • 416 PAGES • 978-1-59463-428-4 • $28.00 NEW TITLES FOR COURSES The River Between ANNA BADKHEN FALL 2017 INTRODUCTION BY UZODINMA IWEALA A legendary work of African literature, this moving and eye-opening novel lucidly captures Walking with Abel life in the mountains of Kenya during the early days of white settlement. Faced with a choice Journeys with the Nomads of the African Savannah between an alluring new religion and their own ancestral customs, the Gikuyu people are In this meditative and poetic account, journalist Badkhen joins a family of Fulani cowboys, torn between those who fear the unknown and those who see beyond it. nomadic herders in Mali’s Sahel grasslands, as they embark on their annual migration. “It has the rare qualities of restraint, intelligence and sensitivity.”—The Times Literary “A careful rendering of one of the world’s last remaining migratory peoples.”—The Los Supplement Angeles Review of Books “Beautifully compact...It takes its reader on a journey out of the colonial matrix and into RIVERHEAD PAPERBACK • 320 PAGES • 978-0-399-57601-0 • $16.00 the world of the real, showing us life reclaimed in all its complexity from the simplifying template of colonialism....It has an undeniable power.”—Uzodinma Iweala, from the Introduction CLAUDE MC KAY PENGUIN CLASSICS PAPERBACK • 176 PAGES • 978-0-14-310749-1 • $15.00 Amiable with Big Teeth PENGUIN PUBLISHING GROUP Academic Marketing Department 375 Hudson Street NY 10014-3657 New York, Weep Not, Child EDITED BY JEAN-CHRISTOPHE CLOUTIER AND BRENT HAYES EDWARDS INTRODUCTION BY BEN OKRI This newly discovered novel centers on the efforts by Harlem intelligentsia to organize The first East African novel published in English,Weep Not, Child is a moving book about support for the liberation of fascist-controlled Ethiopia. the effects of the infamous Mau Mau uprising on the lives of ordinary men and women and “It dramatically expands the canon of novels written by Harlem Renaissance writers. on one family in particular. More important, because it was written in the second half of the period, it shows that the “One of the signal novels to emerge from an artist listening to both the well of tradition and renaissance continued to be vibrant and creative and turned its focus to international issues the troubled oracles of his time....To my mind it is classic Ngũgĩ, his Romeo and Juliet, his —in this case the tensions between Communists, on the one hand, and black nationalists, tale of young love set against the backdrop of opposing families and a world seething with on the other, for the hearts and minds of black Americans.” —Henry Louis Gates, Jr. violence and injustice.”—Ben Okri, from the Introduction PENGUIN CLASSICS HARDCOVER • 352 PAGES • 978-0-14-310731-6 • $28.00 PENGUIN CLASSICS PAPERBACK • 176 PAGES • 978-0-14-310669-2 • $16.00 LESLEY NNEKA ARIMAH A Grain of Wheat INTRODUCTION BY ABDULRAZAK GURNAH What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky Follows a group of villagers whose lives have been transformed by the 1952–1960 This dazzlingly accomplished debut collection explores the ties that bind parents and children, Emergency. As we learn of the villagers’ tangled histories in a narrative interwoven with husbands and wives, lovers and friends to one another and to the places they call home. myth and peppered with allusions to real-life leaders, including Jomo Kenyatta, a masterly “Never have needful things been so gorgeously displayed.”–Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist story unfolds in which compromises are forced, friendships are betrayed, and loves are RIVERHEAD HARDCOVER • 240 PAGES • 978-0-7352-1102-5 • $26.00 tested. PENGUIN CLASSICS PAPERBACK • 272 PAGES • 978-0-14-310676-0 • $17.00 YRSA DALEY-WARD FALL 2017 FALL Petals of Blood bone INTRODUCTION BY MOSES ISEGAWA FOREWORD BY KIESE LAYMON The puzzling murder of three African directors of a foreign-owned brewery sets the scene WWW.PENGUIN.COM/ACADEMIC The poems in Yrsa Daley-Ward’s collection bone are reflections on a particular life honed for this fervent, hard-hitting novel about disillusionment in independent Kenya. First published in 1977, this novel was so explosive that its author was imprisoned without to their essence—so clear and pared-down, they become universal. Each of the raw and PENGUIN PUBLISHING GROUP NEW TITLES FOR COURSES NEW TITLES FOR COURSES AFRICAN AFRICAN immediate poems resonate to the core of what it means to be human. STUDIES PENGUIN PUBLISHING GROUP charges by the Kenyan government. PENGUIN PAPERBACK • 160 PAGES • 978-0-14-313261-5 • $15.00 PENGUIN CLASSICS PAPERBACK • 432 PAGES • 978-0-14-303917-4 • $16.00 WWW.PENGUIN.COM/ACADEMIC NEW TITLES • AFRICAN STUDIES NGŨ G Ĩ WA THIONG´O CHARLIE ENGLISH Devil on the Cross INTRODUCTION BY NAMWALI SERPELL The Storied City One of the cornerstones of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s fame, this powerful fictional critique of AFRICAN capitalism is a cry for a Kenya free of dictatorship and for African writers to work in their The Quest for Timbuktu and the Fantastic Mission to Save Its Past own local dialects—it has had a profound influence on Africa and on post-colonial African Two tales of a city: The historical race to “discover” one of the world’s most mythologized PAID Presort Std U.S. Postage literature. places, Timbuktu, and the story of a contemporary band of archivists and librarians fighting Permit No. 169 to save its ancient manuscripts from destruction at the hands of al Qaeda. Staten Island, NY “Ngũgĩ is the most celebrated of African novelists. What he offers is nothing less than a new direction for African writing.”—British Book News “Insightful...interesting…shows that the sort of willful delusion behind much of the 18th and 19th century quest for Timbuktu continues to this day.”—The Wall Street Journal STUDIES “One of our century’s great novels.” —Tribune (UK) PENGUIN CLASSICS PAPERBACK • 320 PAGES • 978-0-14-310736-1 • $16.00 RIVERHEAD HARDCOVER • 416 PAGES • 978-1-59463-428-4 • $28.00 NEW TITLES FOR COURSES The River Between ANNA BADKHEN FALL 2017 INTRODUCTION BY UZODINMA IWEALA A legendary work of African literature, this moving and eye-opening novel lucidly captures Walking with Abel life in the mountains of Kenya during the early days of white settlement. Faced with a choice Journeys with the Nomads of the African Savannah between an alluring new religion and their own ancestral customs, the Gikuyu people are In this meditative and poetic account, journalist Badkhen joins a family of Fulani cowboys, torn between those who fear the unknown and those who see beyond it. nomadic herders in Mali’s Sahel grasslands, as they embark on their annual migration. “It has the rare qualities of restraint, intelligence and sensitivity.”—The Times Literary “A careful rendering of one of the world’s last remaining migratory peoples.”—The Los Supplement Angeles Review of Books “Beautifully compact...It takes its reader on a journey out of the colonial matrix and into RIVERHEAD PAPERBACK • 320 PAGES • 978-0-399-57601-0 • $16.00 the world of the real, showing us life reclaimed in all its complexity from the simplifying template of colonialism....It has an undeniable power.”—Uzodinma Iweala, from the Introduction CLAUDE MC KAY PENGUIN CLASSICS PAPERBACK • 176 PAGES • 978-0-14-310749-1 • $15.00 Amiable with Big Teeth PENGUIN PUBLISHING GROUP Academic Marketing Department 375 Hudson Street NY 10014-3657 New York, Weep Not, Child EDITED BY JEAN-CHRISTOPHE CLOUTIER AND BRENT HAYES EDWARDS INTRODUCTION BY BEN OKRI This newly discovered novel centers on the efforts by Harlem intelligentsia to organize The first East African novel published in English,Weep Not, Child is a moving book about support for the liberation of fascist-controlled Ethiopia. the effects of the infamous Mau Mau uprising on the lives of ordinary men and women and “It dramatically expands the canon of novels written by Harlem Renaissance writers. on one family in particular. More important, because it was written in the second half of the period, it shows that the “One of the signal novels to emerge from an artist listening to both the well of tradition and renaissance continued to be vibrant and creative and turned its focus to international issues the troubled oracles of his time....To my mind it is classic Ngũgĩ, his Romeo and Juliet, his —in this case the tensions between Communists, on the one hand, and black nationalists, tale of young love set against the backdrop of opposing families and a world seething with on the other, for the hearts and minds of black Americans.” —Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
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