cross cultures

Desert Flower
Waris Dirie ran away from her oppressive life in the African desert when she was barely in her teens, illiterate and impoverished, with nothing to her name but a tattered shawl. She traveled alone across the dangerous Somali desert to Mogadishu—the first leg of a remarkable journey that would take her to London, where she worked as a house servant; then to nearly every corner of the globe as an internationally renowned fashion model; and ultimately to New York City, where she became a human rights ambassador for the U.N. Desert Flower is her extraordinary story.

Author: Waris Dirie & Cathleen Miller
Release Year: 1999
Buy: www.amazon.com ___

African Psycho A petty criminal has decided to kill his girlfriend Germaine. He's planned the crime for some time, but still, the act of murder requires a bit of psychological and logistical preparation. Luckily, he has a mentor to call on, the far more accomplished serial killer Angoualima. The fact that Angoualima is dead does not prevent Gregoire from holding lengthy conversations with him. Little by little, Gregoire interweaves Angoualima's life and criminal exploits with his own. Continuing with the plan despite a string of botched attempts, Gregoire's final shot at offing Germaine leads to an abrupt unraveling.

Author: Alain Mabanckou
Release Year: 2007
Buy: www.hclib.org ___

cross cultures

Sleepwalking Land
An old man and a young boy, refugees from a civil war, seek shelter in a burnt out bus. Among the belongings of a dead passenger, they discover a set of notebooks that tell of his life. As the boy reads the story to his elderly companion, the tale gradually becomes part of their own lives." "Set in the author's native Mozambique, Sleepwalking Land examines the effects of war and devastation on a newly independent African nation and reflects a period in the history of Mozambique when the country could only go forward after settling its account with the bloody past.

Author: Mia Couto
Release Year: 2006
Buy: www.hclib.org ___

The Imposter
Galgut leads his readers into the developing heart of postapartheid South Africa, a landscape being reshaped by new waves of money and power. Adam Napier leaves Johannesburg looking for a fresh start. With no job or direction but with a head full of literary ambitions, he moves into his brother's dilapidated house on the edge of a backwater town. He encounters Canning, a man who claims Adam saved his life in their school days, but whom Adam does not remember at all. But he plays along and, for a time, enjoys all that Canning has: a vast fortune and game preserve inherited from his father, and a beautiful, mysterious younger wife to whom Adam is compulsively, dangerously drawn. The Impostor evokes a glittering world in which the moneyed old guard, newly empowered black Africans, and shady foreign businessmen jockey for a piece of the new South African dream.

Author: Damon Galgut
Release Year: 2008
Buy: www.hclib.org ___