Recommendations based on "Den Afrikanske Farm"

“Papa explains the war like this: ‘When the elephants dance, the chickens must be careful.’ The great beasts, as they circle one another, shaking the trees and trumpeting loudly, are the Amerikanos and the Japanese as they fight. And our Philippine Islands? We are the small chickens.”Once in a great while comes a storyteller who can illuminate worlds large and small, magical and true to life. When the Elephants Dance introduces us to the incandescent voice of Tess Uriza Holthe, who sets her remarkable first novel in the waning days of World War II, as the Japanese and the Americans engage in a fierce battle for possession of the Philippine Islands. The Karangalan family and their neighbors huddle for survival in the cellar of a house a few miles from Manila. Outside the safety of their little refuge the war rages on—fiery bombs torch the beautiful Filipino countryside, Japanese soldiers round up and interrogate innocent people, and from the hills guerillas wage a desperate campaign against the enemy. Inside the cellar, these men, women, and children put their hopes and dreams on hold as they wait out the war, only emerging to look for food, water, and medicine.Through the eyes of three narrators, thirteen-year-old Alejandro Karangalan, his spirited older sister Isabelle, and Domingo, a passionate guerilla commander, we see how ordinary people must learn to live in the midst of extraordinary uncertainty, how they must find hope for survival where none seems to exist. They find this hope in the dramatic history of the Philippine Islands and the passion and bravery of its people. Crowded together in the cellar, the Karangalans and their friends and neighbors tell magical stories to one another based on Filipino myth and legend to fuel their courage, pass the time, and teach important lessons. The group is held spellbound by these stories, which feature a dazzling array of ghosts, witches, supernatural creatures, and courageous Filipinos who changed the course of history with their actions. These profoundly moving stories transport the listeners from the chaos of the war around them and give them new resolve to fight on.With When the Elephants Dance Holthe has not only written a gripping narrative of how Alejandro, Isabelle, Domingo and their community fight for survival, but a loving tribute to the magical realism that infuses Filipino culture. The stories shared by her characters are based on the same tales handed down to Holthe from her Filipino father and lola, her grandmother. This stunning debut novel is the first to celebrate in such richness and depth the spirit of the Filipino people and their fascinating story and marks the introduction of a talented new author who will join the ranks of writers such as Arundhati Roy, Manil Suri, and Amy Tan.

Mahlangeni, the Tsonga word for "meeting place", is one of the most remote ranger stations in the Kruger National Park. Far from everywhere, this isolated corner of the wilderness was home for eleven years to Kobie Kruger, wife of the ranger in charge of the station, and their their three daughters. Running a household and raising a family in a place where leopards, elephants, snakes and the like are your only neighbours, where you have no telephone, and where a trip to town means first crossing a river full of hippos and crocodiles, is hardly a straightforward business. But Kobie Kruger tackled each problem with undaunted pragmatism and an energy that gives new meaning to word resourceful.

Er is aan het begin van de eenentwintigste eeuw nauwelijks een roeriger natie dan Congo, het reusachtige land in het hart van Afrika, dat barst van de grondstoffen die onontbeerlijk zijn in onze moderne tijd – én van de gruwelijke conflicten. Hoe kon de vroegere, relatief rustige kolonie van België, sinds 1960 onafhankelijk, zo veranderen? David Van Reybrouck beschrijft voor het eerst de verbijsterende geschiedenis van Congo, van ruim voor de komst van de ontdekkingsreiziger Stanley tot en met de invloed van China in de laatste tien jaar en de recente economische crisis. Van 1885 tot 1908 werd het land bestierd door koning Leopold ii, die een fortuin verdiende met de exploitatie van rubber.De kolonisatie door België in de periode van 1908 tot 1960 zorgde voor industrialisatie en infrastructuur, maar werd ook gekenmerkt door paternalisme, zo niet betutteling. De onverhoedse overgang van kolonie naar onafhankelijke staat rond 1960 is een adembenemend verhaal vol idealisme en gekonkel. Het nieuwe land stortte zich in een turbulent avontuur dat steeds wilder en chaotischer werd en na tweeëndertig jaar dictatuur onder Mobutu leidde tot een van de dodelijkste conflicten sinds de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Van Reybrouck baseert zich niet alleen op zeldzaam archiefmateriaal en baanbrekend onderzoek, maar vooral ook op honderden gesprekken die hij met Congolezen voerde.Zijn ooggetuigen gaan van eeuwlingen tot kindsoldaten, van rebellenleiders tot smokkelaars, van ministers tot maniokverkoopsters. Hun verhalen heeft de auteur in zijn grote geschiedenis geïntegreerd.

THE NEW YORK TIMES #1 BESTSELLEROPRAH BOOK CLUB PICK'One of the best books I have ever read in my entire life. I haven't felt this way since I first read Beloved . . .' Oprah WinfreyThe unmissable debut novel by the critically acclaimed author of Between the World and Me and We Were Eight Years in Power - a richly imagined and compulsively page-turning journey to freedomHiram Walker is born into bondage on a Virginia plantation. But he is also born gifted with a mysterious power that he won't discover until he is almost a man, when he risks everything for a chance to escape. One fateful decision will carry him away from his makeshift plantation family - his adoptive mother, Thena, a woman of few words and many secrets, and his beloved, angry Sophia - and into the covert heart of the underground war on slavery.Hidden amidst the corrupt grandeur of white plantation society, exiled as guerrilla cells in the wilderness, buried in the coffin of the deep South and agitating for utopian ideals in the North, there exists a widespread network of secret agents working to liberate the enslaved. Hiram joins their ranks and learns fast but in his heart he yearns to return to his own still-enslaved family, to topple the plantation that was his first home. But to do so, he must first master his unique power and reclaim the story of his greatest loss.Propulsive, transcendent and blazing with truth, The Water Dancer is a story of oppression and resistance, separation and homecoming. Ta-Nehisi Coates imagines the covert war of an enslaved people in response to a generations-long human atrocity - a war for the right to life, to kin, to freedom.'I was enthralled, I was devastated. I felt hope, I felt gratitude, I felt joy... [Ta-Nehisi Coates] is a magnificent writer' Oprah Winfrey

A Young Woman From Nigeria Leaves Behind Her Home And Her First Love To Start A New Life In America, Only To Find Her Dreams Are Not All She Expected. Ifemelu -- Beautiful, Self-assured -- Left Nigeria 15 Years Ago, And Now Studies In Princeton As A Graduate Fellow. She Seems To Have Fulfilled Every Immigrant's Dream: Ivy League Education; Success As A Writer Of A Popular Political Blog; Money For The Things She Needs. But What Came Before Is More Like A Nightmare: Painful Departure From Family; Humiliating Jobs Under A False Name. She Feels For The First Time The Weight Of Something She Didn't Think About Back Home: Race. Obinze -- Handsome And Kind-hearted -- Was Ifemelu's Teenage Love. He'd Hoped To Join Her In America, But Post-9/11 America Wouldn't Take Him. His Journey Leads Him Through Back Alleys Of Illegal Employment In London; To A Fake Marriage For The Sake Of A Work Card; And Finally To A Set Of Handcuffs As He Is Exposed And Deported. Yet Once Home He Too Finds Success -- As The Kind Of 'big Man' In Lagos He'd Scorned In His Youth. One Day, Answering A Text Message From Obinze That She Cannot Resist, Ifemelu Decides To Return Home, Only To Discover She's Become An 'americanah' -- A Different Version Of Herself, One With A New Accent And Attitude. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

A NYTBR Editor’s Choice“This is a book of radical empathy, crossing many borders – not just borders that separate nations, but also borders of form, borders of meaning, and borders of possibility. It is powerful and humane and deserves to find a wide, wandering readership.” — Mohsin Hamid, author of Exit WestIn this extraordinary book, an acclaimed young war reporter chronicles a dangerous journey on the smuggler’s road to Europe, accompanying his friend, an Afghan refugee, in search of a better future.In 2016, a young Afghan driver and translator named Omar makes the heart-wrenching choice to flee his war-torn country, saying goodbye to Laila, the love of his life, without knowing when they might be reunited again. He is one of millions of refugees who leave their homes that year.Matthieu Aikins, a journalist living in Kabul, decides to follow his friend. In order to do so, he must leave his own passport and identity behind to go underground on the refugee trail with Omar. Their odyssey across land and sea from Afghanistan to Europe brings them face to face with the people at heart of the migration crisis: smugglers, cops, activists, and the men, women and children fleeing war in search of a better life. As setbacks and dangers mount for the two friends, Matthieu is also drawn into the escape plans of Omar’s entire family, including Maryam, the matriarch who has fought ferociously for her children’s survival.Harrowing yet hopeful, this exceptional work brings into sharp focus one of the most contentious issues of our times. The Naked Don’t Fear the Water is a tale of love and friendship across borders, and an inquiry into our shared journey in a divided world.

It's the early 1990s and three young people are looking to change their lives, and perhaps also the world. Attracted to the ambitious global peacekeeping work of the UN, Andrew, Ken and Heidi's paths cross in Cambodia, from where their fates are to become inextricably bound.Over the coming years, their stories interweave through countries such as Rwanda, Bosnia, Somalia and Haiti - war-torn, lawless places where the intervention of the UN is needed like nowhere else. Driven by idealism, the three struggle to do the best they can, caught up in an increasingly tangled web of bureaucracy and ineffectual leadership. As disillusionment sets in, they attempt to keep hold of their humanity through black humour, revelry and 'emergency sex'. Brutal and moving in equal measure, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) explores pressing global issues while never losing a sense of the personal. Deeply critical of the West's indifference to developing countries and the UN's repeated failure to intervene decisively, the book provoked massive controversy on its initial publication. Kofi Annan called for the book to be banned, and debate was sparked about the future direction of the UN. Brilliantly written and mordantly funny, it is a book that continues to make waves.

Libro usado en buenas condiciones, por su antiguedad podria contener señales normales de uso

In April of 1994, nearly a million Rwandans were killed in what would prove to be one of the swiftest, most terrifying killing sprees of the 20th century. In Murambi, The Book of Bones, Boubacar Boris Diop comes face to face with the chilling horror and overwhelming sadness of the tragedy. Here, the power of Diop’s acclaimed novel is available to English-speaking readers through Fiona Mc Laughlin’s crisp translation and a compelling afterword by Diop. The novel recounts the story of a Rwandan history teacher, Cornelius Uvimana, who was living and working in Djibouti at the time of the massacre. He returns to Rwanda to try to comprehend the death of his family and to write a play about the events that took place there. As the novel unfolds, Cornelius begins to understand that it is only our humanity that will save us, and that as a writer, he must bear witness to the atrocities of the genocide.

'This is a very personal book, about being alone and lost'. In 1975 Kapuscinski's employers sent him to Angola to cover the civil war that had broken out after independence. For months he watched as Luanda and then the rest of the country collapsed into a civil war that was in the author's words 'sloppy, dogged and cruel'. In his account, Kapuscinski demonstrates an extraordinary capacity to describe and to explain the individual meaning of grand political abstractions.