Friday, May 15, 2009

A Compelling Case

Over at Powell's (by way of The Brooklyn Rail), Paul Charles Griffin reviews Gods and Soldiers: The Penguin Anthology of Contemporary African Writing, edited by Rob Spillman of Tin House. Griffin describes the collection as a "keenly collected and expertly packaged anthology of urgent and vital writing." Griffin goes on to make a very compelling case for why we need to read this book:

One would do well to read this book because: a) Africa is larger than the United States, Europe, and China combined, and in our interdependent, globalized world, Africa's problems are our problems; b) African writing is, as Spillman argues in his introduction, entering a golden age due to a host of factors including rapid urbanization and expanding educational and economic opportunities, and is thereby 'ready for the international spotlight'; and c) these stories are really, really good.
(Via Conversational Reading)

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