GABI SAHNER's reviews books about Africa that are heart-rending, yet worthwhile.

WE usually associate Africa with endless savannas, deserts, rain forests and bountiful wild life as well as breathtaking landscapes. But how about the parts of Africa that have been riddled by civil war and bedevilled by disasters, both natural and man made?

The books above are no easy read, but worthwhile, making one aware that we live in relative paradise. All books are available at MPH Bookstores or any good bookstores throughout Malaysia.

Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan
354 pages, published by Little, Brown and Company

Uwem Akpan was born and raised in Nigeria, studied philosophy and was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 2003.
He went on to study creative writing at the University of Michigan. His book consists of a stunning collection of stories on the lives of children in different African nations, seen through the eyes of the children who suffer the brutality of genocide, religious conflicts and extreme poverty.

The individual stories range from the depiction of a street family’s grinding poverty in Kenya to the illegal trading of children in Gabon and inter-religion conflicts in Nigeria and Ethiopia, not to forget the Hutu-Tutsi tribal conflict in Rwanda.

Beautifully written, heart rending and compelling with a hefty emotional punch, the book has a bitter-sweet touch, which makes you aware that even though these stories are fiction, they mirror real-life conflicts in the countries concerned.

The author also makes you conscious of the fact that the rest of the world has stopped looking and listening to this suffering.

Proceeds from the sale of the books will go to the author’s religious order, the Jesuits.

Heart of Darfur by Lisa French Blaker
346 pages, published by Hodder & Stoughton

Have you ever heard of Dafur in western Sudan, a country the size of France? (with size being its only similarity). Caught up in civil war, her people are being uprooted and facing extreme poverty and hopelessness, with nowhere to turn to for refuge.

New Zealander Lisa works for Medecins Sans Frontiers, an international organisation that sends health workers to the most desperate places in the world.

Trained as a nurse, Lisa spent nine months on a mission that has so far been the toughest in her life. In her own words, “It seemed like a vision of hell.”

Together with her Sudanese colleagues, she treated children with machete and gun wounds, babies with chronic dehydration and malnutrition, patients stricken with pneumonia and malaria and girls as young as 13 giving birth, with only the most basic of modern healthcare.

A heart rending tale about a continent that we know so little about, frustrating but also fulfilling for Lisa as she tries to ease the suffering of the people of Dafur.

The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu
228 pages, published by Riverhead Books, New York

This novel is set in Washington D.C. and is about Sepha Stephanos, an immigrant, who is originally from Ethiopia.

He fled the turmoil of the Ethiopian revolution, after having witnessed his father being brutally beaten to death. He now runs a failing grocery store in a decaying suburb of Washington.

Ken, the Kenyan, and Joseph, the Congolese, are the only friends that Sepha can count on, sharing with them his feelings of frustration and a bitter nostalgia for their home countries.

That is until the arrival of a young white woman and her mixed-raced little daughter, who disturb the delicate balance of the neighbourhood and provoke some self examination by Sepha.

“How was I supposed to live in America when I had never really left Ethiopia?” questions Sepha, the protagonist.

The isolation and frustration of immigrant life is thoughtfully portrayed and investigated in this award-winning fictional debut from Dinaw Mengestu. It is a deeply felt novel that deserves to be read.