Africa Archives - The Gilmore Guide to Books https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/tag/africa/ Connecting Books and Readers One Review at a Time Tue, 16 Apr 2024 19:45:04 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/cropped-books-on-table-2-150x150.jpg Africa Archives - The Gilmore Guide to Books https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/tag/africa/ 32 32 38398750 No Heaven for Good Boys https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2021/01/no-heaven-for-good-boys/ https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2021/01/no-heaven-for-good-boys/#respond Fri, 29 Jan 2021 05:39:23 +0000 https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/?p=15328 In Senegal, young boys are often sent from their rural villages to Dakar, a city where they have opportunities for religious and secular education not found at home. Most often it begins when the child is ten, but in the case of seven-year-old Ibrahimah when Marabout Ahmed saves his life, his father, Idrissa, agrees to […]

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]]> https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2021/01/no-heaven-for-good-boys/feed/ 0 15328 Winter 2021 Books I’m Ready to Read https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2021/01/winter-2021-books-im-ready-to-read/ https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2021/01/winter-2021-books-im-ready-to-read/#comments Wed, 06 Jan 2021 05:08:43 +0000 https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/?p=15224 New year, new books! As much as I’m ready for things to be different in 2021, there is a change I’m not looking forward to in the book world. A combination of COVID and the economy means publishers have been getting a lot stingier about sending advance copies of books to book bloggers. For the […]

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]]> https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2021/01/winter-2021-books-im-ready-to-read/feed/ 10 15224 A Girl is a Body of Water https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2020/09/a-girl-is-a-body-of-water/ https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2020/09/a-girl-is-a-body-of-water/#respond Wed, 30 Sep 2020 04:38:13 +0000 https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/?p=14868 I came upon Jennifer Makumbi’s novel, A Girl is a Body of Water, in my efforts to further diversify my reading. It’s a multi-generational saga centered around a young Ugandan woman named Kirabo. The novel begins in the 1970s when she’s 12. She lives in a sprawling rural compound with her grandparents and many relatives. […]

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]]> https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2020/09/a-girl-is-a-body-of-water/feed/ 0 14868 His Only Wife: A Novel https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2020/09/his-only-wife-a-novel/ https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2020/09/his-only-wife-a-novel/#comments Mon, 07 Sep 2020 04:44:11 +0000 https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/?p=14798 In a small town in Ghana, Afi Tekple lives in a house with her widowed mother. It’s in a compound owned by her avaricious uncle and his many wives and their children. Afi did not go to university, but she loves to sew and has been studying and working as a seamstress. But is this […]

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]]> https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2020/09/his-only-wife-a-novel/feed/ 2 14798 8 Fall 2020 Books I’m Ready to Read https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2020/09/8-fall-2020-books-im-ready-to-read/ https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2020/09/8-fall-2020-books-im-ready-to-read/#comments Wed, 02 Sep 2020 04:28:48 +0000 https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/?p=14758   September is here and fall (sort of) so I’ve got to pull myself out of my summer funk and get re-energized for reading. I feel as if I need to keep apologizing, because despite my best efforts at taking review breaks, I’m still struggling to get my mojo back and to post regularly. I […]

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]]> https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2020/09/8-fall-2020-books-im-ready-to-read/feed/ 7 14758 She Would Be King https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2018/09/she-would-be-king/ https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2018/09/she-would-be-king/#respond Mon, 17 Sep 2018 07:54:06 +0000 http://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/?p=11577 An unlikely trio comes together in the fight for a new nation in She Would Be King, Wayétu Moore’s debut novel about Liberia. There is 18-year-old Gbessa, exiled from her small West African village as a witch, who survives the bite of a poisonous snake.  June Dey is a 15-year-old Virginian slave, who kills two […]

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]]> https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2018/09/she-would-be-king/feed/ 0 11577 Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2017/09/stay-with-me-ayobami-adebayo/ https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2017/09/stay-with-me-ayobami-adebayo/#comments Tue, 05 Sep 2017 07:51:43 +0000 http://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/?p=9286 Stay With Me begins in the middle, which is when, after four years of marriage but no children Akin is being pushed by his mother to take another wife. He loves Yejide, but to not have children is incomprehensible in their society and a source of anguish to his wife. When he does give in it […]

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]]> https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2017/09/stay-with-me-ayobami-adebayo/feed/ 4 9286 It’s Not You, It’s Me: Mini-Reviews https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2017/08/mini-reviews-7/ https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2017/08/mini-reviews-7/#comments Fri, 25 Aug 2017 07:12:16 +0000 http://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/?p=9235 Plausibility is a subjective concept, especially in reading. There are premises, plots, and characters in novels I love that make other readers put the book down. Today’s mini-reviews exemplify the term because both novels contain characters and situations that I could not believe in and so impacted my ability to enjoy the book as much […]

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]]> https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2017/08/mini-reviews-7/feed/ 2 9235 Under the Udala Trees https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2015/10/under-the-udala-trees/ https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2015/10/under-the-udala-trees/#comments Mon, 05 Oct 2015 07:18:28 +0000 http://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/?p=4462   In Under the Udala Trees Ijeoma is only twelve years old when the civil war in Nigeria begins and her mother must leave her behind while she tries to establish a life for them in the north, a safer part of the country. It is 1968 and they live in Biafra, a southern state […]

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]]> https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2015/10/under-the-udala-trees/feed/ 6 4462 A Dancer in the Dust https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2014/08/dancer-in-the-dust/ https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2014/08/dancer-in-the-dust/#respond Fri, 22 Aug 2014 07:41:50 +0000 http://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/?p=3171   Ray Campbell is a risk assessment manager when A Dancer in the Dust begins but it is his time as an aid worker in Africa decades ago that forms the foundation of the novel. As a young man assigned to the newly independent country of Lubanda he is filled with idealism and a desire […]

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