Preparing for a 1-2 week long sick leave. Also have 5 books from NetGalley. Do you think this is enough? 🫣
Two stories have stayed with me since reading this short book (although they are all memorable): the title story Igifu—Hunger and almost the opposite, The Glorious Cow, somewhat of an ode to the cow and the elixir that is milk. If you‘ve never felt starvation, Igifu describes it in agonizing detail from the perspective of a young girl praying her mother can find food each day, and sleeping, sleeping to deal with the stomach pangs. When life ⬇️
A terrible photo but isn‘t it nice to know the good ole USA isn‘t the only country banning books. Genocidal #Rwanda also banned books. 😡 #foodandlit @Catsandbooks
Imagine receiving this warning from your mother before heading off to school each day. #Rwanda #foodandlit @Catsandbooks
So appropriate this last day of April reading about how precious milk is in #Rwanda for #foodandlit. For example, from the BBC: “Unique to Rwanda, milk bars reflect a little-known truth about how intrinsic cows and milk are to Rwandan culture.” I‘ve truly discovered that in this month‘s books. @Catsandbooks
pick(2020) It's a collection of five stories set in and around the Rwandan genocide. It's a gut-wrenching theme, Mukasonga's prose is graceful and restrained, and the stories will break your heart. The last story, “Grief,“ centered on a woman who attends funerals of strangers in search of comfort for the unobserved deaths of her own family, broke mine. This is what stories are for, so much that I found it hard to take more than one or two at a time
You were a displaced little girl like me, sent off to Nyamata for being a Tutsi, so you knew just as I did the implacable enemy who lived deep inside us, the merciless overlord forever demanding a tribute we couldn't hope to scrape up, the implacable tormentor relentlessly gnawing at our bellies and dimming our eyes, you know who I'm talking about: Igifu, Hunger, given to us at birth like a cruel guardian angel ...
#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl
Reading Barzakh, a fantasy/SF novel by Mauritanian author Moussa Ould Ebnou. Doing a bit of research on Aoudaghost/Awdaghost, a city lost to the desert in the Middle-Ages, and on the Sahel region is helping a lot w/ timeline & geography.
Pic by Luca Abbate from https://wildmanlife.com/aoudaghost-economic-hub-of-the-sahara/ This page contains pics & detailed info & matches quite closely the descriptions in the book. Useful.
#Mauritania
pick#FeelinTheLove Day 26: #SisterLove - This shared womanity or sense of girlhood is evident in the tagged book I read for #DecolonizeBookshelves - irrespective of one‘s skin color, to be female is to belong to “the ranks of the wretched.” One of the really great titles I read from the list of “Decolonize Your Bookshelf in 50 Books.” My full review: https://wp.me/pDlzr-opq
