Publishers Weekly
11/14/2022
Brew-Hammond delivers an impressive anthology of short stories, essays, and poetry by writers from across Africa. In the Sudanese writer Reem Gaafar’s “Finding Descartes,” a school teacher becomes an activist after meeting a smart, young boy who ought to be in school, but isn’t. Rwandese-born Namibian Rémy Ngamije follows the protagonist of “Fulbright” to Columbia University from Namibia, where his excitement about the land of Frank Sinatra, the Notorious B.I.G., and getting to “find out what a New York minute is” is tempered by anxiety over white supremacist violence. Other standouts include the sparse and powerful poem “Denouemont” by Nigerian poet Dami Ajayi, which draws haunting inspiration from a discarded face mask: “Your fate reminds me of breath/ & George Floyd lying on asphalt,/ an American knee weighing/ against his neck.” There’s no shortage of strong imagery, such as in Nigerian American Enuma Okoro’s story “The Heart of the Father,” which imagines a pastor whose clothes are “like Moses’s face... when he comes down from the mountain.” As with most anthologies, some entries are better than others—next to the gems are those that run too long or lean on unearned twists. On the whole, though, there’s much to savor. (Jan.)
From the Publisher
"This is an anthology that sings, a wonderful look at the relationships and connections that sustain us, give us life, make us who we are. This smart, generous collection is a true gift." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"The experience of reading this anthology is joyful, important, and highly recommended." — Booklist
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2022-12-14
A cross-genre anthology with a wide breadth of writing by African and African diaspora authors.
Brew-Hammond presents an anthology of works with a common theme of relations—which, she writes in an introduction, “obfuscate the convenient and comfortable narratives we tell ourselves about who we are” and “trounce boundaries erected by religion, class, race, and rhetoric.” The book collects short stories, essays, and poems, and the range is impressive. In the story “Lagos Wives Club,” New York–based author Vanessa Walters follows Simone, a woman who has moved from the U.K. to Nigeria with her husband and finds it difficult to fit in: “But seven years later, she still felt like a visitor. A foreign object. She would never be of this place.” Walters’ writing is nuanced and sensitive, and the story ends with a realistic sense of doubt and unbelonging. Rémy Ngamije’s subtly effective story “Fulbright” takes place on a flight to the U.S., where the Namibian narrator, a Fulbright scholar, is on his way to study at Columbia Law School. Ngamije does an excellent job balancing the student’s excitement (“I’ll have a hot dog on a corner. Bagels, burgers, soda, milkshakes—I might even watch an ice hockey game”) with his fears (“I worry I’ll be another Amadou Diallo…I don’t want to be another Black man waiting to become a white chalk outline on a curb somewhere”). The anthology closes with a gorgeous essay-poetry hybrid from Togolese author Ayi Renaud Dossavi-Alipoeh, who reflects beautifully on the importance of language to our lives: “We live in words as we sleep in bed….We clothe every moment of our existence with them, every form of our thoughts, every fold of our brains.” Brew-Hammond is herself an excellent author—as her own contribution, a short story, proves—and she has a great eye for quality writing; every selection in the anthology is at least solid, and most are remarkable. This is an anthology that sings, a wonderful look at the relationships and connections that sustain us, give us life, make us who we are.
This smart, generous collection is a true gift.
