Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan

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(Hardcover)

  • Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
  • Pub. Date: June 2008
  • ISBN-13: 9780316113786
  • Sales Rank: 18,402
  • 368pp
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Hardcover - Large Prin - Large Print$33.95
Paperback - Reprint$11.99
 
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Synopsis

Uwem Akpan's first published short story, "An Ex-mas Feast," appeared in The New Yorker's Debut Fiction issue in 2005. The story's portrait of a family living together in a makeshift shanty in urban Kenya, and their attempts to find gifts of any kind for the impending Christmas holiday, gives a matter-of-fact reality to the most extreme circumstances--and signaled the arrival of a breathtakingly talented writer.

"My Parents' Bedroom" is a Rwandan girl's account of her family's struggles to maintain a facade of normalcy amid unspeakable acts. In "Fat­tening for Gabon," a brother and sister cope with their uncle's attempt to sell them into slavery. "Luxurious Hearses" creates a microcosm of Africa within a busload of refugees and introduces us to a Muslim boy who summons his faith to bear a treacherous ride through Nigeria. "What Language Is That?" reveals the emotional toll of the Christian-Muslim conflict in Ethiopia through the eyes of childhood friends. Every story is a testament to the wisdom and resilience of children, even in the face of the most agonizing situations our planet can offer.

The New York Times - Janet Maslin

…[a] startling debut collection…[Akpan] fuses a knowledge of African poverty and strife with a conspicuously literary approach to storytelling, filtering tales of horror through the wide eyes of the young. In each of the tales in Say You're One of Them a protagonist's childlike innocence is ultimately savaged by the facts of African life.

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Biography

Uwem Akpan was born in southern Nigeria. He was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 2003 and received his MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan in 2006. In 2007, he began a teaching assignment at a seminary in Harare, Zimbabwe.

"It is not merely the subject that makes Akpan's...writing so astonishing, translucent, and horrifying all at once; it is his talent with metaphor and imagery, his immersion into character and place....Uwem Akpan has given these children their voices, and for the compassion and art in his stories I am grateful and changed." --Susan Straight, Washington Post Book World (front page review)

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Say You're One of Themby Anonymous

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July 08, 2008: 'Fiction that gives the children of Africa a voice' is what this book is called. These are voices that are difficult to listen to from our sheltered lives. This book is for anyone who ever said, 'Why didn't I ever hear about this?, when an injustice is publicized.