How Dare the Sun Rise by Sandra Uwiringiyimana with Abigail Pesta

a nutshell: this moving memoir follows Uwiringiyimana’s journey from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, through the Gatumba massacre, to the US where she resettled with her family and began to confront her trauma

a line: “We must not fall prey to the kind of thinking that separates us”

an image: Uwiringiyimana vividly recalls the sense of displacement in the family’s arrival in the US, for instance how her father says he feels like the cold wind is electrocuting him

a thought: I was astonished to learn the family did not receive any counselling during their resettlement, which seems like an extreme oversight in the program – I was very moved by Uwiringiyimana’s frank account of her mental health in the years following the massacre

a fact: Uwiringiyimana’s activism grew out of a photo exhibition she created with her brother, Alex, which led to an invitation to speak at Women in the World – here‘s part of that interview she did with Charlie Rose

want to read How Dare the Sun Rise? visit here

The Purple Violet of Oshaantu by Neshani Andreas

the purple violet of Oshaantu cover with purple splodge

a nutshell: set in rural Namibia, this is a story of friendship between two neighbours with very different husbands – one kind, one abusive

a line: “Child, don’t wait until it is too late … I have seen women who have died in this thing called marriage”

an image: I loved the scene of the women’s okakungungu (working festival / group cultivation) where they sang songs of ancestors and called on their great-grandmothers as they ploughed Kauna’s land before the rains, then sat drinking and chatting in a spirit of sisterhood under the marula (wild plum) tree

a thought: though the society is eminently patriarchal, wives are the backbone of the village and several women are seen to stand up to domineering men – such as when an elderly woman publicly shamed Shange, asking what he feels when he beat his wife who could not beat him back

a fact: through the exuberant descriptions of dishes throughout the book, I learned that dried caterpillars are a Namibian delicacy

want to read The Purple Violet of Oshaantu? visit here

Withered Flowers by Stella Gitano (tr. Anthony Calderbank)

book cover orange in front of flower bouquet

the artwork on the cover and throughout the book is by Hussein Khalil

a nutshell: this stunningly unqiue short story collection shares glimpses of daily life in South Sudan, from scene of raids to breastfeeding, pickpocketing to thunderstorms

a line: “the real diseases were poverty and displacement and war”

an image: a mother tries to amputate the memory of a distressing period, which has grown like an unwanted limb on the body of her life – serving no purpose but to disfigure it

a thought: I was touched by the unconditional loyalty of a brother to his sister, both of who live in abject poverty; he sees her as a mermaid as the top and bottom of her body are different, since she is paralysed from the waist down since she had polio

a fact: in the author’s note, I learned that Gitano has a Bachelor of Pharmacology from Khartoum University and is passionate about helping to solve matters concerning women and children in South Sudan

want to read Withered Flowers? visit here

Our Father Is Tired by Susy Delgado (tr. Susan Smith Nash & Delgado)

a nutshell: translated from Guaraní, this free-flowing poem conjures a present where a demoralised god has lost belief in himself and abandoned the world

an image: Delgado exhales beautiful imagery while in the same breath mourning its decease, for instance writing of how the Father no longer scatters his seed in the middle of the earth where sweet breezes unfurl palms destined to live until the end of time

a thought: the poem ends on a deeply pessimistic note, almost dismissing a future altogether, at least dismissing any vision for it – it left me intrigued about what’s held in the rest of Delgado’s extensive oeuvre

a fact: I read this poem in Words Without Borders’ July 2020 issue The Indigenous Writing Project: Contemporary Guaraní Poetry; Paraguay is a bilingual country, where most of the population speaks Spanish and Guaraní, an indigenous language – in Guaraní, word and soul are one word: ñe’ ẽ

want to read Our Father Is Tired? visit here (also, take a look at another brilliant poem from Paraguay here)

Thirty Days by Annelies Verbeke (tr. Liz Waters)

thirty days on kindle with cover as blue sky and single cloud

a nutshell: this layered novel imagines thirty days through the lens of Senegalese painter/decorator Alphonse, who glimpses the ‘interiors’ of his clients’ often chaotic lives in the Belgian countryside (the good and the very ugly)

a line: “And I don’t believe in hell. Not after death, anyhow.”

an image: at one point Alphone recalls his mother saying that everyone he’ll meet is a child, and the nicest people are those who are aware of it

a thought: this book took me an incredibly long time to read as I kept dipping in & out, perhaps because of the sheer quantity of things that happen in it – nonetheless Alphonse was one of the most likeable characters I’ve encountered in a long time

a fact: Verbeke is a Belgian writer who writes in Dutch, and this novel was chosen as the best Dutch-language novel of 2015 by readers of a Dutch newspaper

want to read Thirty Days? visit here

The Country Under My Skin by Gioconda Belli (tr. Kristina Cordero)

Blue spine of book with title and author, blank red cover, yellow brick wall in background

a nutshell: subtitled ‘A Memoir of Love and War’, this is a stunningly rich remembrance of an acclaimed Nicaraguan writer’s involvement in the Sandinista Revolution and how she came to age as a passionate feminist in & out of exile

a line: “I couldn’t go on living if I didn’t believe in the creative powers of the human imagination”

an image: on returning to Managua after a heart-rending medical procedure in NYC, Belli presses her forehead to the plane window and realises the runway is beautifully lit by oil lamps – since recent storms had wreaked havoc, they had relied on these with the hope it wouldn’t rain

a thought: Belli’s account certainly made me reflect on social responsibility & collective joy – esp. as my partner is currently reading Lynne Segal’s Radical Happiness – but I never quite pinpointed whether her primary source of joy is herself or collaboration (sometimes she singles out the former as the key to happiness, other times the latter)

a fact: Belli’s most well-known book, The Inhabited Woman, is a semi-autobiographical novel which raised gender issues for the first time in the Nicaraguan revolutionary narratives, yet she considers herself a poet before all else

want to read The Country Under My Skin? visit here