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Showing 1 - 5 of
5 matches in All Departments
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Jazz and Palm Wine (Paperback)
Emmanuel Dongala; Translated by Dominic Thomas; Foreword by Dominic Thomas
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R489
Discovery Miles 4 890
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Jazz, aliens, and witchcraft collide in this collection of short
stories by renowned author Emmanuel Dongala. The influence of Kongo
culture is tangible throughout, as customary beliefs clash with
party conceptions of scientific and rational thought. In the first
half of Jazz and Palm Wine, the characters emerge victorious from
decades of colonial exploitation in the Congo only to confront the
burdensome bureaucracy, oppressive legal systems, and corrupt
governments of the post-colonial era. The ruling political party
attempts to impose order and scientific thinking while the people
struggles to deal with drought, infertility, and impossible
regulations and policies; both sides mix witchcraft, diplomacy, and
violence in their efforts to survive. The second half of the book
is set in the United States during the turbulent civil rights
struggles of the 1960s. In the title story, African and American
leaders come together to save the world from extraterrestrials by
serving vast quantities of palm wine and playing American jazz. The
stories in Jazz and Palm Wine prompt conversations about identity,
race, and co-existence, providing contextualization and a
historical dimension that is often sorely lacking. Through these
collisions and clashes, Dongala suggests a pathway to racial
harmony, peaceful co-existence, and individual liberty through
artistic creation.
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Johnny Mad Dog (Paperback)
Emmanuel Dongala; Translated by Maria Louise Ascher
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R629
R524
Discovery Miles 5 240
Save R105 (17%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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Set amid the chaos of West Africa's civil wars, this is the story
of two teenagers growing up while ethnic groups fight for control
of their country. Even as he is drawn into the rebels' program of
terror, Johnny Mad Dog - as he calls himself - retains his taste
for the good times and adventure."
Sardonic, subtle, and sweetly scathing, Little Boys Come from the Stars is satire at its best. Set in an unnamed country in equatorial Africa, it tells the story of Michel, a precocious teen dubbed Matapari (“trouble”) because of his extraordinary birth. Though his father is a reclusive scholar, his mother a pious though confused Catholic, and his uncle a shameless opportunist determined to gain power in the shifting politics of their post-colonial nation, Matapari remains an unsullied child who wears Reeboks, drinks Coke, reads Japanese comics, and watches Rambo. But when his family becomes the nucleus of the revolution for democracy, Matapari proves to be the ideal narrator for this story of violent upheaval and bloody corruption–a voice whose ironic innocence makes bearable and even humorous the awful realities of the world it describes.
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