My reading journal will begin this morning, when I have an hour or so before I leave for church, with a number of books that I read over the holidays and will return to the library today. I will try to provide just enough detail on each, with some evaluative comments, to be useful when I look back in a few years trying to remember "that story collection about growing up in Entebbe."
Baingana is a new name to me. (And also to Google, it appears: when I tried a search with one character missing it helpfully suggested, "did you mean 'vagina'? No, not at all.) This is one of a number of books I am reading as possibilities to assign for my spring course on African Thought and Culture (Philosophy 226) at Calvin, in which I always ask the students to supplement readings specifically addressed to philosophical topics (the political implications of Africa's colonial history, the relevance and viability of traditional wisdom traditions and their relation to academic philosophy, the meaning of race) with some memoirs and literary works, which provide a vivid sense of how 20th and 21st century Africans understand their lives and their prospects in relation to their societies and the rest of the world. This (and the next book reviewed) were suggested to me by colleagues at the Africa Network national conference, which I invited to meet at Calvin in early November.
Baingana is a Ugandan who completed graduate work both in law and in writing in the US, and she received an artist grant from the Washington, DC, Arts and Humanities Commission, suggesting that she now lives in the DC area. Her loosely linked stories all describe the experiences of a young girl growing up in Entebbe (just outside Kampala, in central Uganda) and then negotiating the challenges of adolescence, boarding school, and university, and of the discovery of sex and romance and other complications of adulthood, set in Uganda except for a story about being "Lost in Los Angeles." No doubt they are autobiographical in a general way but not in the particular events and characters.
Strengths of the stories: they are recounted in a direct and personal way, recreating the experiences of a young woman unsure of her place between parents and peers, between strict rules and high expectations of her father (somewhat remote, but respected) and new opportunities that come with new environments. "Passion" is a particularly vivid recollection of schoolgirl life, with much talk of what boys and girls want from each other and a very funny description of the main character's silly (and ultimately rebuffed) attempt to secure the sexual interest of a teacher. "A Thank-You Note" offers a much darker perspective on sexuality, and it is the most disturbing, if not the most successful, story in the collection: it is a note from a woman to her former lover who has infected her with AIDS. The title story is about a young woman who has outgrown her conservative Christian inhibitions and becomes involved with a young British export merchant--his business is the tropical fish of the title--with ambiguous consequences.
Weaknesses: unlike some of the blurbers I did not find the author's voice particularly compelling or distinctive, and the religious and moral dimensions of her characters' lives were hardly mentioned, let alone explored in a thoughtful or insightful way. There is a lot to be learned here about the many conflicting demands on someone who seeks to remain part of an African culture and an African family while making a new life in the global economy. But this is not a book I will be adding to my reading list (or to my shelf of indispensable African fiction).in Los Angeles.
Baingana is a new name to me. (And also to Google, it appears: when I tried a search with one character missing it helpfully suggested, "did you mean 'vagina'? No, not at all.) This is one of a number of books I am reading as possibilities to assign for my spring course on African Thought and Culture (Philosophy 226) at Calvin, in which I always ask the students to supplement readings specifically addressed to philosophical topics (the political implications of Africa's colonial history, the relevance and viability of traditional wisdom traditions and their relation to academic philosophy, the meaning of race) with some memoirs and literary works, which provide a vivid sense of how 20th and 21st century Africans understand their lives and their prospects in relation to their societies and the rest of the world. This (and the next book reviewed) were suggested to me by colleagues at the Africa Network national conference, which I invited to meet at Calvin in early November.
Baingana is a Ugandan who completed graduate work both in law and in writing in the US, and she received an artist grant from the Washington, DC, Arts and Humanities Commission, suggesting that she now lives in the DC area. Her loosely linked stories all describe the experiences of a young girl growing up in Entebbe (just outside Kampala, in central Uganda) and then negotiating the challenges of adolescence, boarding school, and university, and of the discovery of sex and romance and other complications of adulthood, set in Uganda except for a story about being "Lost in Los Angeles." No doubt they are autobiographical in a general way but not in the particular events and characters.
Strengths of the stories: they are recounted in a direct and personal way, recreating the experiences of a young woman unsure of her place between parents and peers, between strict rules and high expectations of her father (somewhat remote, but respected) and new opportunities that come with new environments. "Passion" is a particularly vivid recollection of schoolgirl life, with much talk of what boys and girls want from each other and a very funny description of the main character's silly (and ultimately rebuffed) attempt to secure the sexual interest of a teacher. "A Thank-You Note" offers a much darker perspective on sexuality, and it is the most disturbing, if not the most successful, story in the collection: it is a note from a woman to her former lover who has infected her with AIDS. The title story is about a young woman who has outgrown her conservative Christian inhibitions and becomes involved with a young British export merchant--his business is the tropical fish of the title--with ambiguous consequences.
Weaknesses: unlike some of the blurbers I did not find the author's voice particularly compelling or distinctive, and the religious and moral dimensions of her characters' lives were hardly mentioned, let alone explored in a thoughtful or insightful way. There is a lot to be learned here about the many conflicting demands on someone who seeks to remain part of an African culture and an African family while making a new life in the global economy. But this is not a book I will be adding to my reading list (or to my shelf of indispensable African fiction).in Los Angeles.
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