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jessv's review against another edition
Nothing against the writing itself but I've learned that anthologies might not be for me. My memory is so bad, there is no way I'll remember anything about 10-page contributions in a 1200 page book. I enjoyed many of the individual stories, so I might come back to this for some short snippets to read in between novels.
kingabee's review against another edition
4.0
How do you even review a book like this?
With its over 200 contributors from all over the world, representing every genre of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and plays, it is even possible to sum it up coherently?
Of course not, and trying to would do these authors a disservice, because while united by their ethnicity, their creative expression is a rainbow of ideas.
It featured way too many fantastic pieces for me to even try to list them all, so please excuse this very limited selection I will focus on in my review. I mostly selected literary fictional pieces, as those are the easiest for me to review. However, this collection features a tremendous number of fantastic autobiographical entries that made me want to read more, and regret they weren’t excerpts from full-length memoirs. There were also fragments of books I have already read but it was a pleasure to re-read them.
First of all, let me talk about two criminally underrated authors who are in my top 10 favourite authors and are featured in this collection:
Esi Edugyan is a true marvel of fierce intelligence and unrestrained imagination and I recommend you read anything she writes – I believe she's incapable of producing a dud. In this anthology she shares some meditations on solitude and writing that are beautiful and inspiring.
The other author whose praises I’m going to sing is Yvvette Edwards who masters complex emotions and can make you cry without emotionally manipulating you. I still remember reading her book at 5am on the train to the airport and crying my eyes out (it’s memorable as I don’t cry over books). Here she gives us a poignant story about grocery shopping and the Windrush scandal in one.
Now, I’m not going to review the poetry in this collection, as I know precious little about poetry, but I need to mention Agnes Agboton whose poem Omega (translated from Spanish by Lawerence Schimel) completely undid me. I’ve read it at least 20 times and it is now one of my favourite poems
(“I’m afraid that one day we might sink
Into the sadness of a rainy afternoon […])
Of course, a shoutout to Bernardine Evaristo, whom I discovered about five minutes before the world discovered her when she was shortlisted for (and eventually won) the Booker Prize. I’m a little peeved because there is a stupid side of me that likes to keep amazing authors all to herself, especially authors that grew up in the neighbourhood I now call home (shoutout to Woolwich, London).
And since we are on Woolwich, let’s talk about Zoe Adjonyoh. She is a chef and writes mostly about food but in this collection she gives us ‘A Beautiful Story’ (and it just that, touching and beautiful) about meeting up with her father in Costa Café next to Woolwich DLR station – a place I pass twice a day (or I did, back when we were still able to leave the house). I now have bought her ‘Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen’ cookbook as well.
I could go on forever – my copy is teeming with index flags, but I wouldn’t know where to stop. I really liked memoir pieces by Nana-Ama Danquah, Nah Dove and Lesley Lokko and I can see my Ghanaian bias is becoming more and more evident. But even though, for some reason I gravitate towards all things Ghanaian, I enjoyed how varied geographically this book was. Often anthologies of this type suffer from being US-centric (most things in the world seem to suffer from being US-centric), so it was really nice to see American authors making room for the rest of the world.
I recommend this collection as a permanent addition to your book collection.
With its over 200 contributors from all over the world, representing every genre of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and plays, it is even possible to sum it up coherently?
Of course not, and trying to would do these authors a disservice, because while united by their ethnicity, their creative expression is a rainbow of ideas.
It featured way too many fantastic pieces for me to even try to list them all, so please excuse this very limited selection I will focus on in my review. I mostly selected literary fictional pieces, as those are the easiest for me to review. However, this collection features a tremendous number of fantastic autobiographical entries that made me want to read more, and regret they weren’t excerpts from full-length memoirs. There were also fragments of books I have already read but it was a pleasure to re-read them.
First of all, let me talk about two criminally underrated authors who are in my top 10 favourite authors and are featured in this collection:
Esi Edugyan is a true marvel of fierce intelligence and unrestrained imagination and I recommend you read anything she writes – I believe she's incapable of producing a dud. In this anthology she shares some meditations on solitude and writing that are beautiful and inspiring.
The other author whose praises I’m going to sing is Yvvette Edwards who masters complex emotions and can make you cry without emotionally manipulating you. I still remember reading her book at 5am on the train to the airport and crying my eyes out (it’s memorable as I don’t cry over books). Here she gives us a poignant story about grocery shopping and the Windrush scandal in one.
Now, I’m not going to review the poetry in this collection, as I know precious little about poetry, but I need to mention Agnes Agboton whose poem Omega (translated from Spanish by Lawerence Schimel) completely undid me. I’ve read it at least 20 times and it is now one of my favourite poems
(“I’m afraid that one day we might sink
Into the sadness of a rainy afternoon […])
Of course, a shoutout to Bernardine Evaristo, whom I discovered about five minutes before the world discovered her when she was shortlisted for (and eventually won) the Booker Prize. I’m a little peeved because there is a stupid side of me that likes to keep amazing authors all to herself, especially authors that grew up in the neighbourhood I now call home (shoutout to Woolwich, London).
And since we are on Woolwich, let’s talk about Zoe Adjonyoh. She is a chef and writes mostly about food but in this collection she gives us ‘A Beautiful Story’ (and it just that, touching and beautiful) about meeting up with her father in Costa Café next to Woolwich DLR station – a place I pass twice a day (or I did, back when we were still able to leave the house). I now have bought her ‘Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen’ cookbook as well.
I could go on forever – my copy is teeming with index flags, but I wouldn’t know where to stop. I really liked memoir pieces by Nana-Ama Danquah, Nah Dove and Lesley Lokko and I can see my Ghanaian bias is becoming more and more evident. But even though, for some reason I gravitate towards all things Ghanaian, I enjoyed how varied geographically this book was. Often anthologies of this type suffer from being US-centric (most things in the world seem to suffer from being US-centric), so it was really nice to see American authors making room for the rest of the world.
I recommend this collection as a permanent addition to your book collection.
zippz's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
3.25
The sheer scope and diversity of the essays, poems, and stories in this book is amazing. Every piece is thoughtful and expanded my view of the world. I loved the poetry and essays especially. Personally, however, I'm not a fan of excerpts- I think the pieces loose something in their removal of context.
jcampbell's review against another edition
emotional
medium-paced
4.5
A fantastic collection of works by various authors. The works encompassed everything; short stories, extracts, poems, and essays. I really enjoyed being able to read the works of a variety of authors the majority of whom I was unfamiliar with.
I definitely have a list of authors to look up and read more from.
I definitely have a list of authors to look up and read more from.
notesonbookmarks's review against another edition
5.0
2 contributors a day, about 10 pages. This took us 3 months and 13 days to read, but we DID IT! While not every contribution landed for me (that would be impossible) I'm still giving this 4.5 stars for the amazing depth and breadth. If I were editor, I'd change a few things about arrangement, but otherwise, excellent.
helenabythebook's review
I’m going to casually pick this up over time as it should be read 😅
eves_reads_'s review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
ka_timbuktu's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
slow-paced
5.0
The Bible of black African women letters from Cape to Cairo & the diaspora
jadenalex's review against another edition
I got the book originally thinking it was only poetry. Since it was also prose, I just read the poetry from it before returning it to the library. I’m sure the rest was good but I was specifically seeking out poetry at the time I put it on hold, so that’s what I was interested in getting from the anthology.