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OCTOBER '22 LIBRARY REVIEWS

CULTURE (COASTAL AFRICA)

Afro Surf by Mami Wata, 2020
R1200 from The Book Lounge

Afro Surf is, to borrow publisher-creator Mami Wata’s own description, “a visual mindbomb”.  But it’s much more than the glorious creative direction by award-winning designer and artist Peet Pienaar. It’s a current chronicle of the history of surfing on the continent and a revelation that the sport is not just the domain of its blonde-haired archetype. University of California history professor Kevin Dawson writes in the book’s introduction that in the 1640s, a German goldsmith working for the Dutch West India Company watched children in what is now Ghana ride waves on wooden boards. From its Kickstarter campaign (which overshot its target by 300% in 75 days), to its global book deal and staggering sales, reviews in The Guardian and the New York Times, and – perhaps most notably – its commitment to donating 100% of all royalties to surf therapy organisations Waves for Change and Surfers Not Streetchildren, Afro Surf’s ripple effects are wonderfully far reaching. GB

FICTION (MOROCCO)

The Country of Others by Leïla Slimani, 2021
R325 from Clarke’s Bookshop

It was during the frenzied aftermath of the publication of her bestselling novel Lullaby that the French-Moroccan writer Leïla Slimani discovered the difficulty of answering questions around her identity. Her most recent novel, The Country of Others, is partly her quest to remedy that, and partly an ode to her interracial grandparents, with whose story she was fascinated from childhood, and which she says she knew she would one day share with the world. The Country of Others is the story of Mathilde, a feisty Frenchwoman who falls in love with a Moroccan soldier and follows him to live in rural Morocco. As the country struggles for independence from the French colonialists, so Mathilde’s desire for autonomy conflicts with her adopted country’s repressive and chauvinist culture. The complexity of being an outsider is masterfully wrestled with through the main character’s relationship to her stifling community and her marriage. Yet, as the novel moves lightly from one character to the next, it’s the universal language of loneliness that brings intimacy and immediacy to this remarkable story. LC

FICTION (MOROCCO)

The Country of Others by Leïla Slimani, 2021
R325 from Clarke’s Bookshop

It was during the frenzied aftermath of the publication of her bestselling novel Lullaby that the French-Moroccan writer Leïla Slimani discovered the difficulty of answering questions around her identity. Her most recent novel, The Country of Others, is partly her quest to remedy that, and partly an ode to her interracial grandparents, with whose story she was fascinated from childhood, and which she says she knew she would one day share with the world. The Country of Others is the story of Mathilde, a feisty Frenchwoman who falls in love with a Moroccan soldier and follows him to live in rural Morocco. As the country struggles for independence from the French colonialists, so Mathilde’s desire for autonomy conflicts with her adopted country’s repressive and chauvinist culture. The complexity of being an outsider is masterfully wrestled with through the main character’s relationship to her stifling community and her marriage. Yet, as the novel moves lightly from one character to the next, it’s the universal language of loneliness that brings intimacy and immediacy to this remarkable story. LC

CULTURE (TANZANIA)

Zanzibar by Aline Coquelle, 2020
R1950 from Pezula

Kenya has the Lamu archipelago; Tanzania has Zanzibar, a cluster of islands at the the crossroads of cultures, with African, Indian and Arabian influences. Shot over a period of twenty years by French photographer Aline Coquelle and with a foreword by renowned Kenyan-born Italian photographer Mirella Ricciardi (author of the 1974 classic, Vanishing Africa), this is a tribute to the island’s beauty. Arguably, the purpose of Assouline coffee table books like Zanzibar is to transport the reader to an exotic reality, rather than to expose problematic postcolonial realities, and this is very much the case here. That said, from the streets of Zanzibar’s historic quarter Stone Town, to pristine white beaches, lagoons, mangroves and vanishing cultures, this book is worth its weight in visual inspiration. GB

ART (SOUTH AFRICA)

Irma Stern: African in Europe, European in Africa by Sean O’Toole, 2021
R685 from Clarke’s Bookshop

This meticulously researched book by art critic Sean O’Toole is the best possible general introduction to Irma Stern’s art and life that anyone could ask for. Divided into six chapters that deal with the artist’s output and experiences (largely) chronologically, and beautifully designed and printed – the colour plates are gorgeous – the book is very visually appealing in spite of its neat, readable size. What’s more, you needn’t have a degree in art history to enjoy the text: O’Toole’s lucid prose makes Irma Stern easy to read as well as informative and illuminating. He assesses Stern’s work and her changing place within the canon of South African art history with an astute eye, exploring multiple viewpoints on the artist’s aesthetics with politically compassionate clarity. RA

ART (SOUTH AFRICA)

Irma Stern: African in Europe, European in Africa by Sean O’Toole, 2021
R685 from Clarke’s Bookshop

This meticulously researched book by art critic Sean O’Toole is the best possible general introduction to Irma Stern’s art and life that anyone could ask for. Divided into six chapters that deal with the artist’s output and experiences (largely) chronologically, and beautifully designed and printed – the colour plates are gorgeous – the book is very visually appealing in spite of its neat, readable size. What’s more, you needn’t have a degree in art history to enjoy the text: O’Toole’s lucid prose makes Irma Stern easy to read as well as informative and illuminating. He assesses Stern’s work and her changing place within the canon of South African art history with an astute eye, exploring multiple viewpoints on the artist’s aesthetics with politically compassionate clarity. RA

ART (SOUTH AFRICA)

Irma Stern Nudes, 1916-1965 by Michael Godby, 2021
R368 from Clarke’s Bookshop

University of Cape Town Emeritus Professor Michael Godby authored this fascinating monograph to accompany the exhibition of the same name – which he also curated – at the Sanlam Art Gallery in Cape Town last year. The book offers a wealth of original research based on the Stern archives at the National Library in Cape Town, and provides a comprehensive overview of a subject that was one of Stern’s key ongoing interests as an artist, in spite of this area of her work being relatively little explored by critics to date. More suited to readers who already have some familiarity with Stern’s art and work, this is a book that art aficionados and amateur artists will treasure, as it contains a number of beautiful reproductions of her inspiring and seldom-seen drawings, as well as other works that are less well-known. RA

ESSAYS (ZIMBABWE)

Black and Female by Tsitsi Dangarembga, 2022
R245 from The Book Lounge

Zimbabwean writer and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga is the author of a trio of critically acclaimed novels. She’s also a political activist who was unjustly found guilty of “provoking violence” – via an entirely peaceful protest – by a court in her country just a week ago. For the first time, she has here turned her hand to the essay form, and the three thought-provoking pieces published in this slim volume trace her development as a black female creative person, skilfully knitting her own experiences into the wider story of colonial and post-colonial oppression. These impassioned essays blend the personal and the political to brilliant effect, providing a cogent and timely analysis of the devastating, long-term effects of empire on the bodies and psyches of the people it brutally subjugates. RA

ESSAYS (ZIMBABWE)

Black and Female by Tsitsi Dangarembga, 2022
R245 from The Book Lounge

Zimbabwean writer and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga is the author of a trio of critically acclaimed novels. She’s also a political activist who was unjustly found guilty of “provoking violence” – via an entirely peaceful protest – by a court in her country just a week ago. For the first time, she has here turned her hand to the essay form, and the three thought-provoking pieces published in this slim volume trace her development as a black female creative person, skilfully knitting her own experiences into the wider story of colonial and post-colonial oppression. These impassioned essays blend the personal and the political to brilliant effect, providing a cogent and timely analysis of the devastating, long-term effects of empire on the bodies and psyches of the people it brutally subjugates. RA

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