Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan

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(Hardcover)

  • Pub. Date: June 2008
  • 368pp

    Reader Rating: (17 ratings)

    Detailed Rating: "Permanent Library" See All

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    Product Details

    • Pub. Date: June 2008
    • Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
    • Format: Hardcover, 368pp

    Synopsis

    Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence so piercingly that few readers will feel they've ever encountered Africa so immediately.  The eight-year-old narrator of "An Ex-Mas Feast" needs only enough money to buy books and pay fees in order to attend school. Even when his twelve-year-old sister takes to the streets to raise these meager funds, his dream can't be granted. Food comes first. His family lives in a street shanty in Nairobi, Kenya, but their way of both loving and taking advantage of each other strikes a universal chord.
    In the second of his stories published in a New Yorker special fiction issue, Akpan takes us far beyond what we thought we knew about the tribal conflict in Rwanda. The story is told by a young girl, who, with her little brother, witnesses the worst possible scenario between parents. They are asked to do the previously unimaginable in order to protect their children. This singular collection will also take the reader inside Nigeria, Benin, and Ethiopia, revealing in beautiful prose the harsh consequences for children of life in Africa.
    Akpan's voice is a literary miracle,rendering lives of almost unimaginable deprivation and terror into stories that are nothing short of transcendent. 

    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 Ikot Akpan Eda in southern Nigeria. After studying philosophy and English at Creighton and Gonzaga universities, he studied theology for three years at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa. He was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 2003 and received his MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan in 2006. "My Parents' Bedroom," a story from his short story collection, Say You're One of Them, was one of five short stories by African writers chosen as finalists for The Caine Prize for African Writing 2007. Say You're One of Them won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book (Africa Region) 2009 and PEN/Beyond Margins Award 2009, and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. In 2007, Akpan taught at a Jesuit college in Harare, Zimbabwe. Now he serves at Christ the King Church, Ilasamaja-Lagos, Nigeria.

    Customer Reviews

    Worth the Time and Experienceby Ms_Bennett

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    October 20, 2009: I'm not usually a fan of regional literature because I often feel excluded from the action; like there's something going on and I'm not savvy enough to understand it. "Say You're One of Them" is written in such manner that I am inside every hut and lean-to; I have become an observer of life in another country and another situation. Though I know that some of the events in the stories happen all of the time, it's easy to ignore them because it's not happening to me. The author puts the reader in a postion where it is impossible not to understand the plight of these characters and the lenghts they go through to survive.

    I'm only half way through but I know it's worth my time to finish this one. Definetly worth a full retail purchase.

    Sorry, but this one didn't hold my interest....by balletlove

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    October 20, 2009: I started out with a great attitude reading this book. I liked the idea of the short stories. I enjoy the author's writing style very much and did find the details of characters' lives in Africa very informative, and at times, astounding, and heart breaking. I liked the first story very much - a touching picture of the sacrifices that family members are willing to make for each other under terrible every-day life circumstances in Africa.

    As for the second story, I was intrigued at first but then it became tedious and too long to get the tragic point across. I did complete the story but felt it could have been more effectively told in fewer pages. From there, I have put the book down and have yet to pick it back up again. Maybe I will try again at some point... This is a good one to read if you want to realize just how completely spoiled we are here in the US.


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