Uwem Akpan (Photo: Comfort Ukpong, Little, Brown & Company)
The news from Africa can sound as old and hard as time.
But what if you were a child, in the midst of it? In the midst of loving and hoping, and seeing and growing up … and living fresh through hunger and killing, genocide in your parents’ bedroom, glue-sniffing with your mom on Christmas Day.
Nigerian writer and Jesuit priest Uwem Akpan’s new short story collection brings us Africa, shatteringly, through the eyes of children facing slavery, fear, death. It is a revelation.
This hour, On Point: A new voice from Africa. Uwem Akpan and “Say You’re One of Them.”
-Tom Ashbrook
* * *
Guest:
Uwem Akpan, Nigerian-born writer, author of the new short story collection “Say You’re One of Them.” You can read and listen to an excerpt from the book at NPR.org. And you can listen to the song “Agbalagba,” by Grammy Award-winning world music star Angelique Kidjo, inspired by “Say You’re One of Them.”
Tags: Africa, books, fiction, Uwem Akpan
I subscribe to your Podcast but I seem to have lost the podcast to the program of July 10, 2008, interviewing Uwem Akpan. How can I get a podcast of this program ? Powerful.
Posted by Walter Brownridge, on December 24th, 2008 at 10:16 AM[...] of a mother to her young daughter as she ponders her own extinction in Rwanda. Nigerian author Uwen Akpan uses his exceptional talents as a writer to capture the thoughts and feelings of children living in [...]
Posted by Antidote for Despair is Hope « rippling pond, on January 2nd, 2009 at 9:49 PM