Review: The Color Purple – by Alice Walker

Synopsis: Celie is a poor black woman whose letters tell the story of 20 years of her life, beginning at age 14 when she is being abused and raped by her father and attempting to protect her sister from the same fate, and continuing over the course of her marriage to “Mister,” a brutal man …

God’s Bits of Wood – by Sembène Ousmane

Synopsis: In 1947–8 the workers on the Dakar-Niger railway came out on strike. Sembène Ousmane, in this vivid and moving novel, evinces all of the colour, passion and tragedy of those decisive years in the history of West Africa. Title: God’s Bits of Wood Author: Sembène Ousmane Publisher: Heinmann Pages: 256 ISBN: 978-0435909598 Rating:  The 1947–8 …

Purple Hibiscus – By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Synopsis: The limits of fifteen-year-old Kambili’s world are defined by the high walls of her family estate and the dictates of her fanatically religious father. Her life is regulated by schedules: prayer, sleep, study, prayer. When Nigeria is shaken by a military coup, Kambili’s father, involved mysteriously in the political crisis, sends her to live with …