STORY TIME

|A Play About An Adventure| written by Tochukwu Chike Muonagolu  continued from  Okwute: Scene 2 Copyright © 2020 by Tochukwu Chike Muonagolu All rights reserved The total or partial reproduction of the contents of this book is totally forbidden without the author’s permission. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to publishingwithpermission@gmail.com ACT ONE Scene 3

  |SAY YOU’RE ONE OF THEM| UWEM AKPAN In this collection of short stories by Nigerian author and Roman Catholic Priest, Uwem Akpan, each story pays tribute to the wisdom and resilience of African children living in the most agonizing circumstances.                                In An Ex-mas Feast , a family living in a makeshift shanty in urban Kenya scurries to find gifts of any kind for the impending Christmas holiday. In Fattening for Gabon , a Rwandan girl relates her family’s struggles to maintain a façade of normalcy amid unspeakable acts. In What Language Is That? A young brother and sister cope with their uncle’s attempt to sell them into slavery. In  Luxurious Hearses , A Muslim boy aboard a bus filled with refugees—a microcosm of today’s Africa—summons his faith to bear a treacherous ride across Nigeria. And finally, in My Parents’ Bedroom , the emotional toll of religious conflict in...

|MINE BOY| PETER ABRAHAMS In Mine Boy , Peter Abraham narrates the story of Xuma, a countryman living in the large, apartheid influenced, South African industrial city of Johannesburg, and the impact the new ways and values of the city have on him. Xuma, a man in transition, is an instrument Abraham uses to capture the mentality, lives and ways of people living in mid-twentieth century South Africa. Because Xuma is new to the system, he finds it hard to dilute and accept the underprivileged and disturbing life he encounters. When he falls into a love triangle that involves Eliza, a beautiful but strange woman, and Maisy, a woman who is carefree yet experienced and mature, he finds himself travelling on a journey of self-discovery and realization.  Written in 1946, this is one of the first books to draw attention to the lives of black South Africans in a white-dominated country.

|HOME AND EXILE| CHINUA ACHEBE In Home and Exile , Africa’s most prominent writer, Chinua Achebe, reveals the man behind some of the continent’s most powerful works. The book is an extended exploration of the European impact on African culture, viewed through the most vivid experiences available to the author—his own life. It is an evocation snapshot of a major writer’s childhood, illuminating his roots as an artist.  Chinua Achebe (1930-2013) Achebe also discusses his English education and the relationship between colonial writers and the European literary tradition. He argues that if colonial writers try to imitate and, indeed, go one better than the Empire, they run the danger of undervaluing their homeland and their own people. Achebe contends that to redress the inequalities of global oppression, writers must focus on where they come from, insisting that their value systems are as legitimate as any other. Stories are a real source of power in the world, he concludes, and to ...

|BURNING VISION| A PLAY BY MARIE CLEMENTS In Burning Vision , Canadian Métis playwright and actor—Marie Clements, unmasks the great lies of the imperialist power-elite and the seemingly small rationalizations and accommodations people of all cultures construct to make their personal circumstances yield the greatest benefit to themselves for the least amount of effort or change on their part.  Burning Vision, National Theatre School of Canada 2019 When a Dene medicine man prophesizes a burning vision that will come a long time in the future, nobody but his people believe him. But the Dene medicine man’s vision turns out to be the atomic bombs that devastated Japan’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And Uranium, the source of those bombs, came from the bowel of the Sahtu Dene territory in the Northwest Territories of Turtle Island. Tracing the journey of Uranium, Clements uses it as a metaphor for the poisonous effects that results from constructing our lives on foundations so terribly ou...

  |SNAKEPIT| MOSES ISEGAWA      In Snakepit , a powerful novel set in Idi Amin’s Uganda, Isegawa tells the story of a young man named Bat Katanga, who has just returned to his homeland after two years in Britain. While Bat completed a postgraduate degree at Cambridge, he watched from afar as “flag independence gave way to economic independence” in Uganda, his chances to make a fortune there increasing with each “reform” imposed by Idi Amin. When Bat lands a job as a Bureaucrat II in the Ministry of Power and Communications, he feels himself entering the top echelons of government, his sense of honor and honesty firmly intact: “Everything seemed to have been building to this moment, his triumphant entry into the bastions of power.” But when he is threatened into taking bribe from a Saudi prince, he unwittingly begins a journey—both psychological and physical—into the darkest and most dangerous precincts of the madness that was Amin’s Uganda. As Bat’s life begins to ...

  |PURPLE HIBISCUS| CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE In Adichie's  Purple Hibiscus , Fifteen-year-old Kambili’s world is circumscribed by the high walls and frangipani trees of her family compound—and by her wealthy father who, while generous and politically active in the community, is repressive and fanatically religious at home.  When Nigeria begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili’s father sends her and her brother away to stay with their aunt, a university professor, whose house is noisy and full of laughter. There, Kambili and her brother discover a life and love beyond the confines of their father’s authority. The visit will, in time, give rise to devotion and defiance that reveal themselves in profound and unexpected ways. This is a book about the promise of freedom, about the blurred lines between childhood and adulthood, between love and hatred, between the old gods and the new.

|HALF WORLD| HIROMI GOTO In Half World , Goto portrays the protagonist, a young girl named Melani Tamaki, as an outsider and the unpopular and impoverished only child of a loving but neglectful mother. Melani is just barely coping with school and life. When she returns home one day to discover that her mother is missing, lured back to Half World by a vile creature who calls himself Mr. Glueskin, everything changes. Soon Melani embarks on an epic and darkly fantastical journey to save her mother. What she does not realize, however, is that the state of the universe is at stake. Half World is a haunting combination of a coming-of-age novel and a spiritual quest, a mad funhouse of horrors and a tale of redemption and love. It is wonderfully odd and quite unforgettable. 

  |THERE WAS A COUNTRY| A PERSONAL HISTORY OF BIAFRA BY CHINUA ACHEBE There Was A Country , Chinua Achebe’s personal history of Biafra, is a meditation on the condition of freedom. It has the tense narrative grip of the best fiction and is a revelatory entry into the intimate character of the writer’s brilliant mind and bold spirit. With this book, Achebe creates a new genre of literature in which politico-historical evidence, the power of storytelling, and revelations from the depths of the human subconscious become one. The event of a new work by Chinua Achebe is always extraordinary, and this one exceeds all expectation. Below is an introduction to the work in Achebe’s own words.              A n Igbo proverb tells us that a man who does not know where the rain began to beat him cannot say where he dried his body.  The rain that beat Africa began four to five hundred years ago, from the “discovery” of Africa by Europe, through the ...

|IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF MR. KURTZ| MICHELA WRONG In The Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz, Michela Wrong traces the rise and fall of “the famous Leopard,” Mobutu Sese Seko, who ruled Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, for thirty-two years and became the stereotype of an African despot. Mobutu shows all the cunning of his namesake, Mr. Kurtz, from Joseph’s Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness . He seduces western powers, buys up the opposition, and dominates his people with a devastating combination of brutality and charm. And while the population is pauperized, he plunders the country’s copper and diamond resources from the comfort of his jungle palace.  Engrossing, highly readable, and as funny as it is tragic, In The Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz assesses the acts of some of the villains and heroes in the fascinating history of the Democratic Republic of Congo.   

|WEEP NOT CHILD| NGUGI WA THIONG’O In  Weep Not Child , Ngugi narrates the story of a young man named Njoroge. Above all, Njoroge wants to be as educated as the son of a rich farmer named Jacobo, who had finished all his learning in Kenya and is going to England for further studies. Ngotho, Njoroge’s father, works for Mr. Howlands, a Caucasian settler from England, and they both share a powerful love for the rich red earth they farm. At school, Njoroge is good at reading: education, he believes, is the key to the future. When Jomo Kenyatta is arrested, and a state of emergency declared, it makes very little difference to the people as they believe Kenyatta will emerge winner in his struggle for an independent Kenya. However, things take a different turn when Ngotho is arrested and tortured for the sympathy he has for the liberal opposition. And when Njoroge’s brothers leave to join the freedom fighters in the big city and forest, the ongoing struggle and war become a day-to-day t...

  |AMERICANAH| CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE In  Americanah , Adichie paints a heart-wringing love story that crosses continents. As teenagers living in late 20th-century military-controlled Nigeria, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. Later the self-assured Ifemelu departs for America, where she suffers defeats and triumphs, finds and loses relationships, while also feeling the weight of something she never thought of back home—Race. Obinze, on the other hand, had hoped to join her, but post-9/11-America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London.    Thirteen years later, Obinze is a wealthy man in a newly democratic Nigeria, while Ifemelu has achieved success as a blogger in America. But after so long apart and so many changes, their courage to continue a relationship that once shaped their teenage world is tested. Fearless, gripping, spanning three continents and numerous lives,  Americanah  is a richly told story of ...

|THE LAST MAASAI WARRIORS| an autobiography by WILSON MEIKUAYA AND JACKSON NTIRKANA In The Last Maasai Warriors , Wilson and Jackson pour out their lives for the world to see. They are a living testament to a vanishing way of life on the African savannah; brave warriors of the Maasai, an intensely proud culture built on countless generations steeped in the mystique of tradition, legend and prophesy, they represent the final generation to literally fight for their way of life. Yet, as the first generation to fully embrace the modern ways and teachings of Western civilization, the two warriors have adapted—at times seamlessly, at times with unimaginable difficulty—in order to help their people. At this watershed moment in their history, Wilson and Jackson carry the weight of their forefathers while embracing contemporary culture and technology. And while their struggle to achieve this balance unfolds, their discoveries resonate well beyond the Maasai Mara, connecting ancient traditio...

  |CHANGES| AMA ATA AIDOO In Changes , Aidoo portrays the conflicts between professional women whose lives have changed drastically and men whose lives and cultural assumptions remain unchanged. Married and with a daughter, Ési chooses divorce and a life focused on work. When she falls in love with an attractive man—married, wealthy, and able to arrange a polygamous marriage—the modern woman finds herself facing a new set of problems.  Witty and fast-paced, Changes never missies an opportunity for social satire. It is a powerful novel that explores the complex web of late 20th-century human relationships in ways that are both comic and deeply affecting. 

  |ÉFURU| FLORA NWAPA In this story, Flora Nwapa depicts Éfuru as a beautiful, independent woman, who is unable to marry or successfully bear children. Her neighbours acknowledge her distinctions and are grateful for her generosity. However, they cannot intervene in or comprehend her tragedy. When a sage diagnoses that a river goddess has in fact chosen Éfuru as her honoured worshiper, she learns that as far as earthly companions are concerned, she must remain alone. The characters in Nwapa’s story have an objective complexity and sophistication dependent neither on the chiaroscuro analogies of Europeans nor the nostalgia generated by the deracinated graduate revisiting their people.