I have added a new page to my blog today. I thought it might add some value to my blog if I had a separate page in which I write about the books I’m reading. I’m doing this because eventually all the posts disappear in the black hole of the archives, so this new page works like an archive that can be read without further clicks. If I’m over-excited on any particular book I will also write separate posts on those!  

A Saint in the City. Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal by Allen F. Roberts and Mary Nooter Roberts, with Gassia Armenian and Ousmane Gueye. Finally I have a copy of my own of this beautiful book! Anyone who has been to Senegal knows how powerful a role the visual has in the Mouride community. 

When the World Began by Elisabeth Laird.  I have actually borrowed this book from a friend of mine. These stories of cunning animals and ancient kings have been collected in Ethiopia. I almost said it’s a children’s book but I think this is very nice reading to anyone really. I only wonder how big part of the stories that for decades and centuries were told from one generation to another have already died because they were not written down.

Aujourd’hui au Sénégal by Fabrice hervieu-Wane, Aurélia Fronty, Florent Silloray. This book is one of the Gallimard Jeunesse series in which the authors have combined a story in diary format with nice illustrations and some encyclopedic elements, the topic here being of course Senegal and Senegalese history and customs. The story is told from the viewpoint of a twelve-year-old boy named Bocar and his diary is indeed very informative, from how to use alternative energy sources like solar power, to how the wives keep their husbands from running after other women, to what the holy month of Ramadan means to a small boy. There’s one thing that bothers me though, namely the “French lense” through which some of the stories or topics are perceived. The book is written with good intensions – and of course with French money and French distribution channels. The two countries have a common past, true, but does it really have to be underlined in such a pretentious way? It’s almost as if the publisher were trying to ease the young French readers’ minds to the fact that Senegal was colonized by the French.

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Have just started this novel on the Nigeria-Biafra war – it’s a page-turner. The author, who also wrote Purple Hibiscus (still on my “to be read later” list) has a very good web site here.

Contes wolof du Baol collected by Jean Copans and Philippe Couty. Stories from Senegal, translated from Wolof into French.