Welcome to Litsy!

A strange story of a boy growing up in late 1970s Somalia, and after being passed from his adopted mother to his wealthier aunt and uncle, must choose between the university and fighting in the insurgency against Ethiopia. His mother is originally from Ethiopia, making for some interesting dynamics where the person he is closest to is identified as 'the enemy'. Weirder still is how the close quarters of their housing affects their relationship 👇

Great story to teach children about the power of their inner conscious

“There is a voice inside of you that whispers all day long, I feel that this is right for me, I know that this is wrong.”

This poem is about a narrator who listens to the voice inside their head and decides to follow it. This poem teaches the great lesson that kids should listen to their inner voice and trust their instincts

3/5
Written in 1956, it's a novel about the life of a houseboy under colonialism.
From the first pages we learn the tragic end of the houseboy, then we get to read his diary: how he came to be a houseboy, his daily life, etc.
Segregation, hypocrisy, racism, black/white relationships are the main themes.
It's a level B1 read in French, some words/phrases may be difficult for a non-native.

It's Amos Tutuola so it's bonkers! 🤪
While all of the novels I've read by Tutuola are episodic, this one is actually a collection of short stories, folklore retellings with a bit less of the darkly macabre & horror that inhabits his other works, which isn't to say people don't get eaten, bits chopped off them or get transformed into creepy-crawlies.
Perhaps familiarity affects my perception: I found these marginally less interesting but still 3½⭐

“If we continue to pay "bad" for "bad", bad will never finish on earth.”

I guess Tutuola's thought is a reframing of "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind." It's from a tale that channels a similar vibe to the Judgement of Solomon story, though the wisdom lies not with the king in this version.

And now for something completely different...

A short volume of Amos Tutuola's stories drawn from Nigerian Yoruba folklore 🇳🇬

Not told in a “standard” western style, it is a story of women‘s relationships, centered on Esi Sekyi – her first marriage to smothering husband Oko, her second polygamous marriage to Ali, and her lifelong friendship with Opokuya. The theme of changes is augmented with glimpses of Opokuya‘s and Ali‘s marriages. Each relationship blends tradition and modernity, none entirely successfully. But it portrays the possibilities for modern African women.

Almost a year after the first case, Dr Philip Taiwo is asked by his sister to investigate the disappearance of a pastor's wife.

As with the first book, this is not an action-packed pacy thriller, it's a slow build look at the moral decay that can hide below the polished surface. The storyline deals with the 'mega-churches', racism, corruption & the proverbial 'wolves in sheep's clothing'. (continued)