4.4 ish and invaluable. Some of the stories are excellent and a couple are meh, as you would expect from any anthology, but all give insight and evoke a visceral something (even if it's "what the hell is happening with this dragonfly?") And since those insights and somethings are glimpses of places and languages many United Statesian-Euro-reading-in-English peeps rarely encounter, this book is interesting and vital. I also think it's well-edited with the sections and maps, and the non-fiction an...

What interested me the most is that I was drawn to certain regions with Western and Northern particularly drawing my interesta good primer

Startlingly depressing and beautiful at the same time, there is more in this book than is assumed by it's small stature.

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Great little introduction into the diverse writers of the content. Deffo, deffo recommend. Well structured and balanced between well known writers like Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda and J.M Coetzee with fresh new writers, some of which published for the first time in this book. Every single story or essay reflects the complex fabrics that make up the African nation. Beautifully put together. Oh and I particularly loved the essay by Mia Couto. I look forward to reading more of his work.

Very interesting.... A very vivid and new outlook to the African continent and its writers. Its taken me a long time (very long) to get through though. This is partly attributed to procrastination though.

Really interesting; pieces range from philosophical to literary, adventure to the mundanity of everyday life, funny to sad as hell. All around good read.

Rating should say "really like it" - not past tense - because I think it's an excellent collection of stories, essays and excerpts from longer works but haven't read all of it. Not a chance it can begin to cover Africa, yet it offers vivid glimpses of the continent and contemporary life there that help to correct stereotypes both old and new. Having said that, I confess that I haven't read all the short stories since I can't seem to make myself like that form. Not even by author's I like in The

wonderful writing from africa adding weight that indeed african writing is ready world attention.

Came across this while getting ready to move. We get all sorts of books due to the nature of the job. Many are duds, but sometimes we get a gem. I'd put this in the latter category. This is an anthology of contemporary African writing, ranging from short stories and essays to snippets from longer works. Works include both fiction and nonfiction. The quality varies but for the most part I found it enjoyable. There was only one story I found irritating; the author had a severe case of "run-on sent...

A fantastic collection of about 30 short stories from African authors all around the world. I definitely will return to this to search for the full titles by many of these amazing writers.

Oh, it's good. I just wasn't in the mood for heavy-duty Africa. Me and every other fat and happy resident of the industrialized world, I guess.

I've never read an 'anthology" like this before. A few of the selections were excellent and interesting, and I liked almost everything in the 'West Africa' section. I really struggled with the stuff in the second half of the book. The fiction that is just a selection from a longer work was hard for me to get interested in. Overall it was worth the effort. I'm probably a typical American in my gross ignorance of African history and culture, so this was at least a baby step in the right direction

An anthology of nonfiction, short stories, and chapters from novels, written in Africa mostly in the past fifteen or twenty years. This is the second and more recent such anthology I have read this year. It seems to me as if the nations of Africa are producing much of the most interesting work in contemporary literature. The essays were the most interesting, an old one by Chinua Achebe, one on "the Senghor complex", one on "the Politics of Reading", and one by Mia Couto on the value of multiple

Great collection, added many more books to my wishlist...

Africans set down in English, whether by birth or choice. ‘Contemporary’ is pushing it a bit, since these pieces are from the last sixty years, but the scope raises the bar. Achebe laid the ground for Anglophone (and Francophone) African writing when he mocked the incommensurability people, who said we could not speak to each other.

Angola (Dragonfly) by Ondjaki"Sunday was, for the doctor, a deeply personal word, a wellspring.""People will be crazy, or sane....when they want everything to become music."Cameroon (The Senghor Complex) by Patrice Nganang"I always return to what is for me a simple fact, despite it not being a commitment.""One day we will recognize this simple truth: Rwanda is the grave of Negritude.""Today the face of power in Africa is difficult to imagine without the hand of the West.""Genocide is, in essence...

An excellent collection. I didn't love all the pieces equally, but appreciated the diversity of voices and the bits of insight into African experiences. A terrific introduction to a group of writers with varied and interesting literary approaches.

While the writing in this book is powerful, I was really frustrated with the number of novel excerpts in it. I was hoping for more stand-alone short stories so that I could experience many complete stories while traveling from one region to the next within the pages. Instead, this was more of a "novel sampler." However if you've never read any writing from the African continent, this is a great introduction.

Went straight to the last piece in the book by Ivan Vladislavic. I was not disappointed. Best short story I've read since Juan Villoro's "Coyote." Vladislavic has such a weird, but natural way of crafting narrative through objects and places, maps and neighborhoods. He is able to pick up on profound resonances found in simple things: garden walls, house paint and in this case a bench. Amazing.Stories read:Mohammed Neseehu Ali (Ghana): The manhood testBinyavanga Wainaina (Kenya): from Discovering...