Présentation de l'éditeur
Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence so piercingly that few readers will feel they've ever encountered
Africa
so immediately. The eight-year-old narrator of "An Ex-Mas Feast" needs only enough money to buy books and pay fees in order to attend school. Even when his twelve-year-old sister takes to the streets to raise these meager funds, his dream can't be granted. Food comes first. His family lives in a street shanty in
Nairobi
,
Kenya
, but their way of both loving and taking advantage of each other strikes a universal chord.
In the second of his stories published in a
New Yorker special fiction issue, Akpan takes us far beyond what we thought we knew about the tribal conflict in
Rwanda
. The story is told by a young girl, who, with her little brother, witnesses the worst possible scenario between parents. They are asked to do the previously unimaginable in order to protect their children. This singular collection will also take the reader inside
Nigeria
,
Benin
, and
Ethiopia
, revealing in beautiful prose the harsh consequences for children of life in Africa.
Akpan's voice is a literary miracle, rendering lives of almost unimaginable deprivation and terror into stories that are nothing short of transcendent.
Revue de presse
"Awe is the only appropriate response to Uwem Akpan's stunning debut,
Say You're One of Them, a collection of five stories so ravishing and sad that I regret ever wasting superlatives on fiction that was merely very good. A." (
Entertainment Weekly (EW Pick / Grade A)
Jennifer Reese 2008-01-00)
"[A] startling debut collection... Akpan is not striving for surreal effects. He is summoning miseries that are real.... He fuses a knowledge of African poverty and strife with a conspicuously literary approach to storytelling filtering tales of horror through the wide eyes of the young." (
The New York Times
Janet Maslin)
"Uwem Akpan's searing
Say You're One of Them captures a ravaged
Africa
through the dry-eyed gaze of children trying to maintain a sense of normalcy amid chaos." (
Vogue
Megan O'Grady)
"The humor, the endurance, the horrors and grace-Akpan has captured all of it.... The stories are not only amazing and moving, and imbued with a powerful moral courage-they are also surprisingly expert.... Beautifully constructed, stately in a way that offsets their impoverished scenarios. Akpan wants you to see and feel
Africa
, its glory and its pain. And you do, which makes this an extraordinary book." (
O Magazine
Vince Passaro)
"Uwem Akpan, a Nigerian Jesuit priest, has said he was inspired to write by the 'humor and endurance of the poor,' and his debut story collection...about the gritty lives of African children - speaks to the fearsome, illuminating truth of that impulse." (
Elle
Lisa Shea)
"Haunting prose.... A must-read." (
Kirkus Reviews (starred review))
"Uwem Akpan's stunning short story collection,
Say You're One of Them, offers a richer, more nuanced view of Africa than the one we often see on the news....Akpan never lets us forget that the resilient youngsters caught up in these extraordinary circumstances are filled with their own hopes and dreams, even as he assuredly illuminates the harsh realities." (
Essence
Patrik Henry Bass)
"In the corrupt, war-ravaged
Africa
of this starkly beautiful debut collection, identity is shifting, never to be trusted...Akpan's people, and the dreamlike horror of the worlds they reveal, are impossible to forget." (
People
Kim Hubbard)
"All the promise and heartbreak of
Africa
today are brilliantly illuminated in this debut collection..." (
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
John Marshall)
"Akpan's brilliance is to present a brutal subject through the bewildered, resolutely chipper voice of children...All five of these stories are electrifying." (
NPR's "Fresh Air"
Maureen Corrigan)
"...a tour de force that takes readers into the lives glimpsed in passing on the evening new
