Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 Hope Is Our Only Wing Rutendo Tavengerwei Hot Key Books, May 2018 Available 3 May A brilliant debut full of Zimbabwe’s golden sunsets. Shamiso is a fifteen year old girl forced by the death of her political journalist father to move back to Zimbabwe from London, this is just […]
Tag Archives | Book Review
Star Rating: ★★★★★ 5/5 What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky Lesley Nneka Arimah Riverhead Books, April 2017 Online Price: R380 Lesley Nneka Arimah’s debut is a vibrant collection of 12 compelling stories set in the US and Nigeria. From fantastical myths to a post-apocalyptic world, all the shorts are […]
Star Rating: ★★★☆☆ 3/5 Colour Me Yellow Thuli Nhlapo Kwela Books, September 2017 Online Price: R246 Reading Colour Me Yellow, I felt like an adult watching helplessly over a child’s unfolding plight. A relentlessly heart-breaking story of rejection – first by Thuli’s own mother, then by society, because she is different – this […]
Star Rating: ★★★☆☆ 3/5 A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars Yaba Badoe Head of Zeus, September 2017 Online Price: R216 If book covers are anything to go by—they shouldn’t be, but they are—this one draws you in immediately. It is a beauty, and tells you straight away that A Jigsaw of Fire and […]
Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 Ghana Must Go Taiye Selasi Penguin Books, January 2014 Online Price: R189 He stares at the glittering, arrested by beauty, and knows what he knew all those winters ago: that when faced with a thing that is fragile in a world that is ugly and crushing and cruel the correct […]
Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 When Rain Clouds Gather Bessie Head Little Brown, August 2010 (originally published 1968) Online Price: R180 Bessie Head is one of southern Africa’s hidden gems. Like most people I was introduced to her because her books were part of my school’s syllabus – and since then I have long […]
Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 Purple Hibiscus Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Harper Collins, January 2005 Online Price: R200 When a house is on fire, you run out before the roof collapses on your head. – Aunty Ifeoma Purple Hibiscus is a story told in the first person by Kambili Achike, a 15-year-old girl who is […]
Star Rating: ★★★☆☆ 3/5 What We Lose Zinzi Clemmons Harper Collins, July 2017 Online Price: R246.00 I waited with bated breath for this book. The USA cover art drew me in and the tweets raving about how good it is only served to heighten my curiosity. Critics were quick to call it the […]
Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 Queen Sugar Natalie Baszile Penguin Putnam Inc, January 2015 Online Price: R257.00 Sometimes, you go looking for adventure, all you find is disaster – Queen Sugar I was introduced to Queen Sugar through the hit series on the OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) channel but reading the book I got more […]
Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 The Twelve Tribes of Hattie Ayana Mathis Cornerstone, August 2013 Online Price: R185.00 I can’t remember when I read anything that moved me quite this way, besides the work of Toni Morrison. – Oprah Winfrey This book was a gift from a friend, who told me how he adores […]