Crows circle, straight out of a novel by Kenya’s Nobel-nominee Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Only, the crows are circling the hotel pool, not the bush. …more

According to Europa Edition’s website, Elena Ferrante, one of Italy’s most important and acclaimed contemporary authors, has successfully shunned public attention and kept her whereabouts and her true identity concealed. I understand.

Troubling Love is a brilliant rendering of a woman who looks too closely at love and sex.

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I grabbed An African in Greenland by Tete-Michel Kpomassie from the fabulous New York travel bookstore, Idlewild, after my event with Stephen Elliott. I’d heard about the book for years as an incredible read for anybody who adores anthropology adventure stories. Yes!

Reissued by the New York Review of Books in 2001, and well translated from the French, it opens in Togo with Kpomassie attacked by a snake while throwing coconuts out of a tree. Not a bad set-up. …more