In Land and Blood, his second novel, the Algerian-Kabyle writer Mouloud Feraoun offers a detailed portrait of life for Algerian Kabyles in the 1920s and 1930s through the story of a Kabyle-Berber man, Amer. Like many Kabyle men of the 1930s, Amer leaves his village to work in the coal mines of France. While in France, he inadvertently kills his own uncle in an accident that sets in motion forces of betrayal and revenge once he returns home.

Unlike The Poor Man's Son, his first fictional work, Land and Blood is not autobiographical but is rather the first in a...

In Land and Blood, his second novel, the Algerian-Kabyle writer Mouloud Feraoun offers a detailed portrait of life for Algerian Kabyles in the 1920s and 1930s through the story of a Kabyle-Berber man, Amer. Like many Kabyle men of the 1930s, Amer leaves his village to work in the coal mines of France. While in France, he inadvertently kills his own uncle in an accident that sets in motion forces of betrayal and revenge once he returns home.

Unlike The Poor Man's Son, his first fictional work, Land and Blood is not autobiographical but is rather the first in a...

-To attain some sort of universal value, - Veronique Tadjo has said, -a piece of work has to go deep into the particular in order to reveal our shared humanity.- In Far from My Father, the latest novel from this internationally acclaimed author, a woman returns to the Cote d'Ivoire after her father's death. She confronts not only unresolved family issues that she had left behind but also questions about her own identity that arise amidst the tensions between traditional and modern worlds. The drama that unfolds tells us much about the evolving role of women, the legacy of polygamy,...

-To attain some sort of universal value, - Veronique Tadjo has said, -a piece of work has to go deep into the particular in order to reveal our shared humanity.- In Far from My Father, the latest novel from this internationally acclaimed author, a woman returns to the Cote d'Ivoire after her father's death. She confronts not only unresolved family issues that she had left behind but also questions about her own identity that arise amidst the tensions between traditional and modern worlds. The drama that unfolds tells us much about the evolving role of women, the legacy of polygamy,...

Gabon's first female novelist, Angele Rawiri probed deeper into the issues that writers a generation before her--Mariama Ba and Aminata Sow Fall--had begun to address. Translated by Sara Hanaburgh, this third novel of the three Rawiri published is considered the richest of her fictional prose. It offers a gripping account of a modern woman, Emilienne, who questions traditional values and seeks emancipation from them.

Emilienne's active search for feminism on her own terms is tangled up with cultural expectations and taboos of motherhood, marriage, polygamy, divorce, and passion. She...

Gabon's first female novelist, Angele Rawiri probed deeper into the issues that writers a generation before her--Mariama Ba and Aminata Sow Fall--had begun to address. Translated by Sara Hanaburgh, this third novel of the three Rawiri published is considered the richest of her fictional prose. It offers a gripping account of a modern woman, Emilienne, who questions traditional values and seeks emancipation from them.

Emilienne's active search for feminism on her own terms is tangled up with cultural expectations and taboos of motherhood, marriage, polygamy, divorce, and passion. She...

The Other Side of the Sea, the first novel by this major Haitian author to be translated into English, is riveted on the other shore--whether it is the ancestral Africa that still haunts Haitians, the America to which so many have emigrated, or even that final shore, the uncertain afterlife awaiting us all. With a grandmother and her grandson sharing the narration, this rich and concise tale covers an impressive span of Haitian history and emotion. Too old to leave her veranda, Noubot reflects on her past, touching on the 1937 Parsley Massacre, in which thousands of Haitians died...

The Other Side of the Sea, the first novel by this major Haitian author to be translated into English, is riveted on the other shore--whether it is the ancestral Africa that still haunts Haitians, the America to which so many have emigrated, or even that final shore, the uncertain afterlife awaiting us all. With a grandmother and her grandson sharing the narration, this rich and concise tale covers an impressive span of Haitian history and emotion. Too old to leave her veranda, Noubot reflects on her past, touching on the 1937 Parsley Massacre, in which thousands of Haitians died...

The celebrated and highly versatile writer Leila Sebbar was born in French colonial Algeria but has lived nearly her entire adult life in France, where she is recognized as a major voice on the penetrating effects of colonialism in contemporary society. The dramatic contrast between her past and present is the subject of the nine autobiographical essays collected in this volume. Written between 1978 and 2006, they trace a journey that began in Aflou, Algeria, where her father ran a schoolhouse, and continued to France, where Sebbar traveled, alone, as a graduate student before eventually...

The celebrated and highly versatile writer Leila Sebbar was born in French colonial Algeria but has lived nearly her entire adult life in France, where she is recognized as a major voice on the penetrating effects of colonialism in contemporary society. The dramatic contrast between her past and present is the subject of the nine autobiographical essays collected in this volume. Written between 1978 and 2006, they trace a journey that began in Aflou, Algeria, where her father ran a schoolhouse, and continued to France, where Sebbar traveled, alone, as a graduate student before eventually...