Now Out: Best of Naija Stories Volume 1

Naijastories.com is the leading community for Nigerian writers and book lovers, combining elements of a writing critique website and a social networking site. Of Tears and Kisses, Heroes and Villains is Volume 1 of the ‘Best of NaijaStories’ series. The 30 stories featured in this anthology were all originally published on this website between March 2010 and March 2011.



Read on NAIJASTORIES.COM – 200 NSpoints per story

Buy Paperback from the NaijaStories Createspace Store

Buy in Kindle format and Print from Amazon.com

Buy the NOOK version from Barnes&Noble online

Buy the eBook from Smashwords.com

**If you live in Nigeria and want the book delivered in PDF to your inbox, please contact admin@naijastories.com for payment details (via Zenith Bank and GTBank).

REVIEWS

These are stories about us or about our neighbours or something we’ve encountered in the news. They are what our friends tell us, their pain and joy, their passion and rage, their yearning and their cry against injustice. I enjoyed lots of the stories not just because of their simplicity and brevity but also for freshness they bring to storytelling and public discourse.

- Sylva Nze Ifedigbo. (Author, The Funeral Did Not End)

Here we are, with our abortions, our bereavement, our lust, our petty showdowns, our pederasts, our In-Law wahala, our problems chatting up girls in the diaspora, our memories of childhood, our fights, our incest, our love, our examination stress, our metafictional accounts, our encounters with university campus cults, our broken families, our… well, you get the idea. We rob banks, but we also eat salty beans to show our children we love them.

- Tade Thompson (Writer/Editor)

These short stories are not constrained by the need to attain fame. They all are, first of all, good works written with sharp perspectives that are related to various societal issues. There is a unique allure in every story. They have not been sifted through a Western colander. Support this anthology and show that there is a worthiness of effort in putting it together. This anthology is indeed the birth of writers that have newly been empowered. Go get a copy for yourself.

- Joseph Omotayo (Blogger/Book Critic)

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New Book: A Time To Heal by Seye Oke

A Time to Heal (2011) is an inspirational novel set in Historical Africa of the early 60’s. The story borders on the tale of two young lovers, Tori and Chidi, bond by the covenant of marriage but separated by the realities of ethnic differences. A Time to Heal is a bold story that sets out to show the healing power of forgiveness and love. Embracing the multi-cultural nature of the African society to appreciate its diversity and re-evaluate its glitches, A Time to Heal casts a flood light on the debris that weakens the development of our societies starting with the smallest and most significant unit, the family. This creative work takes readers through a journey of uncertainties and excitement as it narrows in on the triumphs and failure experienced by Toriola and Chidi in the face of a civil war.


In A Time to Heal, Chidi finds the very essence of his existence tested when he is called on to fulfill a family obligation that exists beyond his nuclear family. He finds himself on a journey of self-discovery as his close companions, Dozie, Azuka and Jude, lure him to fight for a course he has no faith in. Chidi’s decision excludes Tori from his plans and ultimately from his life. In search for consolation, companionship and support, Tori rekindles her soured relationship with her parents, and clutches to the warmth offered by a stranger. The individual paths chosen by this young couple widens as time pass by, as each struggle to understand and uphold their new found ‘self’. Chidi gives in to the clarion call of his kindred to join in the fight for their recognition and respect against superior forces, leaving Tori to re-discover the true meaning of family, loyalty and love. Consumed by the heart ache of loneliness, Tori question every value she had ever upheld as she finds herself torn between loving another and waiting for the one that betrayed her love.

A Time to Heal tells a compelling truth simplified to inspire the average reader in an enchanting yet revolutionary way. This book is now available in soft back, hard back cover and eBook format from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Westbow Press and other online resellers.

Website: Find the book on Amazon here

An online PhD in writing or literature is an option for people who have a passion for books. Superior writing such as this often requires advanced knowledge and training.

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New Book: "Dreams at Dawn" Anthology of Short Stories from Fidelity Bank's International Creative Writing Series (Nigeria)

Dreams at Dawn - stories from Fidelity Bank's 2010 International Creative Writing Workshop series was launched on June 24 at the Lagos Resource Center. Edited by Helon Habila, Tsitsi Dangarebga and Madeleine Thien, the book contains 14 short stories including James Eze’s The Last Good Man in America, Eghosa Imasuen's et Hair, Nnadozie Duke Onyekuru’s Upside Down, Elvis Iyorngurum’s Scars of Our Last Day, Tolu Oginlesi’s The Funeral, Stanley Azuakola’s Penitence, Uche Peter Umez’s Face Like A Mask, and Emilia Udom’s No Fault of Mine.


Toni Kan, author of ‘Nights of the Creaking Bed’, described the stories in this collection as "tinged with nostalgia and regret but mostly regret. The characters that people this collection are men and women blindsided by circumstance, people who wonder how they have come to the sorry passes that their lives have become. The stories speak directly to the heart of what it is to be Nigerian at this very moment with all the dysfunction and anomie and rage. These stories mine the depths of our collective anxieties, our unspoken fears and hysteria. They speak directly to the things that keep us awake at night."

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Banipal Magazine Releases Banipal 40: Libyan Fiction

Banipal publishes its fortieth issue, and by amazing coincidence the issue celebrates Libyan literature at this extraordinary historical moment of uprising and change in the Arab world, especially in Libya. Page 1 is given over to a statement by hundreds of Arab intellectuals, writers and journalists that is circulating online, a declaration of “full solidarity with the Arab peoples who have gone out into the streets to demand their legitimate rights”.


With 135 pages of terrific reading from both Libya’s foremost and emerging fiction writers, introduced by Omar Abulqasim Alkikli on The Libyan Short Story and Ibrahim Ahmidan on The Libyan Novel, the feature presents a wide range of works by 17 authors from inside and outside Libya, as well as a profile of the pioneer literary figure Ali Mustafa al-Musrati, and other articles.

The hard-hitting and compelling short stories draw on life experiences, on family tales, on loss, emotions and fears, dreams, travelling, exploring different cultures, growing up, relations between the sexes. They also have equally intriguing titles, such as Omar el-Kiddi’s The wonderful short life of the dog Ramadan, Ghazi Gheblawi’s The Rosy Dream, Mohammed al-Asfar’s The Hoopoe, Ahmed Fagih’s pyschological drama Lobsters, Najwa Binshatwan’s His Excellency the Eminence of the Void, Azza Kamil al-Maghour’s The Bicycle, Mohammed al-Arishiya’s The Snake Catcher, Mohammed al-Anaizi’s He was Holding a Rosary. Giuma Bukleb gives us two tales set in North London, while Omar Abulqasim Alkikli and Redwan Abushwesha provide much food for thought with their very short satirical stories.

The excerpts and chapters from novels include Saleh Snoussi’s historical saga, set in Ottoman times, Valley of the Wind, Hisham Matar’s new work, written in English, Anatomy of a Disappearance, Wafa Al-Bueissa’s Hunger has Other Faces, Ibrahim al-Koni’s New Waw, about the winged people – birds of the desert, Mohammed Mesrati’s work-in-progress Mama Pizza, whose hero is Ali Guevara, and Razan Naim Moghrabi’s Women of the Wind, which was longlisted for the 2011 International Prize for Arabic Fiction.

Banipal 40 also includes works by award-winnning authors from Morocco, Oman and Lebanon, respectively Abdelkarim Jouiti, Jokha al-Harthi, Abdo Wazen, plus an in-depth interview with Lebanese novelist Alawiya Sobh.

Contact Information:

For inquiries: samuel@banipal.co.uk

Website: http://www.banipal.co.uk/

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New Book - America in An Arab Mirror: Images of America in Arabic Travel Literature, 1668 to 9/11 and Beyond

This distinguished anthology presents for the first time in English travel accounts by Arab writers who have visited America between 1668 and 2009. The view of America which emerges from these accounts is at once fascinating and illuminating, but never monolithic. The writers hail from a variety of viewpoints, regions, and backgrounds, so their descriptions of America differently engage and revise Arab pre-conceptions of Americans and the West. The country figures as everything from the unchanging Other, the very antithesis of the Arab self, to the seductive female, to the Other who is both praiseworthy and reprehensible.


About the Authors/ Editors

Kamal Abdel-Malek is a Professor of Arabic Literature at the American University of Dubai.

Mouna El Kahla, a specialist in language pedagogy, is the coordinator of the Arabic program at the Australian University of Wollongong, the Dubai branch.

Contact Information:

Website: click here

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Look Where You Have Gone to Sit: an Anthology of Poetry by 19 New Ghanaian Writers

The Writers Project of Ghana is pleased to announce that their first anthology of poetry by new Ghanaian writers is off the press and will be available in bookstores soon.

“Look Where You Have Gone to Sit” features the work of nineteen new writers, and presents exciting writing across many different themes.


“Look Where You Have Gone to Sit” was edited by Martin Egblewogbe and Laban Carrick Hill, and published by Woeli Publishing Services in Accra.

Writers Project of Ghana intends to continue their efforts to put out more anthologies of Ghanaian writing. Later this year, they will launch their call for their next anthologies for 2011, which will be released in 2012. They expect to publish an anthology of poetry and another of short stories.

Contact Information:

For inquiries: martin@writersproject.com

Website: http://writersprojectghana.com

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New Book - Bantu Letters: an Anthology of Mpumalanga Idigenous Language Poetry

Bantu Letters, Mpumalanga’s very first indigenous language anthology is brought to you by Ten Workers Media under the direction of Goodenough Mashego. Bantu Letters is a collection of poetry/ written by bantus in Sepulana, isiNdebele and isiSwati languages spoken in the province of Mpumalanga.


The book was launched on April 2 at the Kriel Rugby Fields. For more information, contact goodynuff@thepub.co.za

More information here.

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New Book: "There is a Place" Poetry Anthology (South Africa)

There is a Place is a riveting collection of poems by ten fertile wordsmiths anchored to the Northern Cape, either as residents or observers. In this slim volume edited by Vonani Bila, the stunning poets seem to concur that the gaping big hole in Kimberley is a painful site that reminds the poor and working class communities of South Africa’s glaring economic inequality and the brutality of Apartheid’s mining industry. The poets recount their memories of the city of Kimberley, the Northern Cape landscape in general and of course the heroic scribe and struggle icon Sol Plaatje in such a breathtaking manner.

Other concerns that worry these young and emerging poets include xenophobia, the worsening of farm worker conditions, domestic cruelty against women and children, foiled reconciliation, corruption in the tender system, HIV/Aids that’s devouring the nation before our eyes and the shameful consumption tendencies of the black petty bourgeoisie who possibly make departed liberation fighters like Steve Biko, Oliver Tambo and Robert Sobukwe turn on their graves.

Although this collection does not pretend to represent the entire body of writing in the Northern Cape, it is fairly the latest mirror of the best new writing sprouting from the creative nucleus of the province. The Department of Sport, Arts and Culture should be congratulated for supporting this noble initiative, and for allowing Room to Read to publish this marvelous book.

What makes this collection exciting is the inclusion of extremely young voices like Gladys Oliphant, Lesego Moitsemang, Nosipho Mtabani and Priscilla Mvelase who have been active participants in the Creative Writing workshops organized by the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture. It is equally rewarding to hear the more formidable voices of David wa Maahlamela, Gontse Chaane, Sabata-mpho Mokae and Mosimanegape Sehako.

There is a Place is available from Room to Read. We hope this book will be made available in all the public libraries in the country.

More information here.

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New Book: Emerging Arab Voices (Saqi Books)

"This is a well chosen collection of some of the best Arab writers I've come across, with a broad spectrum of themes, well chosen and beautifully rendered into English."—Raja Shehadeh, author of Palestinian Walks

In November 2009, the International Prize for Arabic Fiction organized a workshop for eight critically acclaimed writers from Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates.

This bilingual volume brings together the pieces produced during this workshop, showcasing the creativity of a younger generation of Arab writers. A range of styles and themes are explored: from Egyptian social realism to a tale from the deserts of Darfur, a grim Tunisian allegory, family drama in Saudi Arabia, and a story about home and exile in Sana’a.

Includes a foreword co-written by Inaam Kachachi, an Iraqi born writer whose debut novel The American Granddaughter was shortlisted for the 2008–2009 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, and the Lebanese author Jabbour Douaihy, whose novel June Rain was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2007–2008.




About the Editors

Peter Clark: Peter Clark is a Middle East specialist, a Trustee of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction and a contributing editor of Banipal. He has translated fiction, history, drama and poetry from Arabic since 1980.

Inaam Karachi: Inaam Kachachi was born in Baghdad in 1952. Her debut novel, 'The American Granddaughter', was shortlisted for the 2008–2009 International Prize for Arabic Fiction.

Jabbour Douaihy: Jabbour Douaihy was born in 1949 in Lebanon. He is the author of a collection of short stories and two novels. Douaihy’s 'June Rain' was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2007–2008.

More information here.

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New Book - ANA Review: An Annual Journal of the Association of Nigerian Authors

The Association of Nigerian Authors represents Nigerian creative writers at home and abroad. It was founded in 1981 with the novelist Chinua Achebe as President. Its aims and objectives are to encourage and promote Nigerian literature; to encourage the collection, reading and transcription of oral literature available to the public through translation from the original language into other Nigerian and non-Nigerian languages; and to promote the interest of writers in all that concerns their profession and well-being and to protect their rights as writers.

It produces ANA Review: An Annual Journal of the Association of Nigerian Authors dedicated to scholarly criticism, book reviews, essays, interviews, tributes, travelogues and creative writing.

This year, the preface to ANA Review was written by Hyacinth Obunseh. The new issue features poetry by Dumbiri Frank Oboh, Tade Ipadeola, Ahmed Maiwada, Henry Ajumeze, Benjamin Ubiri, Aj. Daggar Tolar, Akunna Vivian Fadola; and short stories by Alpha Emeka and Olubunmi Julius-Adeoye.

Read Tosin Gbogi's review here.

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New Book: Man of the House and other New Short Stories from Kenya

A Keele University lecturer has released a book promoting new Kenyan writers and their work.

Man of the House and other new short stories from Kenya is the fourth in CCC Press’s series of World Englishes Literature Fiction, which aims to promote emerging writers unknown in the West.



Edited and introduced by Keele University’s Dr Emma Dawson, Man of the House and other new short stories from Kenya will be published on January 31.

The 15 stories in the collection tackle themes including politics, reality television, love, family, identity, and money. Writers include Mukumu Muchina, Shalini Gidoomal and Rasna Warah.

Dr Dawson appeared on breakfast television in Kenya to call for stories for the anthology and was inundated with submissions from new and established writers. She also worked with publishing house and writers’ collective Storymoja in Nairobi, and gave lectures at the University of Nairobi and Moi University in Eldoret.

“It’s an exciting time for Kenyan writing,” says Dr Dawson. “Everyone is talking about a revival in the African literature scene and Kenya is producing more new writing than other East African countries. They’ve come through their election strife and there’s now a burst of people expressing the new Kenya.”

Stories from Dr Dawson’s anthologies of works from Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya have been submitted for the prestigious Caine Prize for African Writing.

She is currently editing an anthology of short stories from Malaysia, to be published later this year as part of the same series, and is also working on a book called Reading New India, which will be published by Continuum in summer next year to celebrate 65 years of India’s independence.

* Man of the House and other new short stories from Kenya, edited with an introduction by Emma Dawson, is published by CCC Press, priced £12.99.

More information here.

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New Book - Best European Fiction 2011

“Best European Fiction is an exhilarating read.”—Time

The launch of Dalkey’s Best European Fiction series was nothing short of phenomenal, with wide-ranging coverage in international media such as Time magazine, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Financial Times, and the Guardian; glowing reviews and interviews in print and online magazines such as the Believer, Bookslut, Paste, and the Huffington Post; radio interviews with editor Aleksandar Hemon on NPR stations in the US and BBC Radio 3 and 4 in the UK; and a terrific response from booksellers, who made Best European Fiction 2010 an “Indie Next” pick and created table displays and special promotions throughout the US and UK.


For 2011, Aleksandar Hemon is back as editor, along with a new preface by Colum McCann, and with a whole new cast of authors and stories, including work from countries not included in Best European Fiction 2010.

About the Editor

Aleksandar Hemon is the author of The Question of Bruno, Nowhere Man, and The Lazarus Project, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2008. Born in Sarajevo, Hemon visited Chicago in 1992, intending to stay for several months. While there, Sarajevo came under siege, and he was unable to return home. Hemon wrote his first story in English in 1995. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003 and a “Genius Grant” from the MacArthur Foundation in 2004. He lives in Chicago with his wife and daughter.

Buy the book here.

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New Book: 20 Under 40: Stories from The New Yorker

In June 2010, the editors of The New Yorker announced to widespread media coverage their selection of “20 Under 40”—the young fiction writers who are, or will be, central to their generation. The magazine published twenty stories by this stellar group of writers over the course of the summer. They are now collected for the first time in one volume.

The range of voices is extraordinary. There is the lyrical realism of Nell Freudenberger, Philipp Meyer, C. E. Morgan, and Salvatore Scibona; the satirical comedy of Joshua Ferris and Gary Shteyngart; and the genre-bending tales of Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss, and Téa Obreht. David Bezmozgis and Dinaw Mengestu offer clear eyed portraits of immigration and identity; Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, ZZ Packer, and Wells Tower offer voice-driven, idiosyncratic narratives. Then there are the haunting sociopolitical stories of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Daniel Alarcón, and Yiyun Li, and the metaphysical fantasies of Chris Adrian, Rivka Galchen, and Karen Russell.

Each of these writers reminds us why we read. And each is aiming for greatness: fighting to get and to hold our attention in a culture that is flooded with words, sounds, and pictures; fighting to surprise, to entertain, to teach, and to move not only us but generations of readers to come. A landmark collection, 20 Under 40 stands as a testament to the vitality of fiction today.


About the Editor

Deborah Treisman has been the fiction editor of The New Yorker since 2003, and was deputy fiction editor for five years prior to that.

More information here.

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New Book: The Best American Short Stories 2010

Review

"A short fiction juggernaut." (Wall Street Journal)



Product Description

Edited by the award-winning, best-selling author Richard Russo, this year’s collection boasts a satisfying “chorus of twenty stories that are by turns playful, ironic, somber, and meditative” (Wall Street Journal). With the masterful Russo picking the best of the best, America’s oldest and best-selling story anthology is sure to be of “enduring quality” (Chicago Tribune) this year.

About the Editors

RICHARD RUSSO is the author of seven novels, a collection of short stories, and numerous screenplays. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls in 2002.

HEIDI PITLOR is a former senior editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Her fiction has been published in Ploughshares, and she is the author of the novel The Birthdays.

More information here.

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Groundbreaking New Book: The Poets Laureate Anthology

The first anthology to gather poems by the forty-three poets laureate of the United States. As a record of poetry, The Poets Laureate Anthology is groundbreaking, charting the course of American poetry over the last seventy-five years, while being, at the same time, a pleasure to read, full of some of the world’s best-known poems and many new surprises. Elizabeth Hun Schmidt has gathered and introduced poems by each of the forty-three poets who have been named our nation’s poets laureate since the post (originally called Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress) was established in 1937. Poets range from Robert Pinsky, William Carlos Williams, and Elizabeth Bishop to Charles Simic, Billy Collins, and Rita Dove. Schmidt’s spirited introductions place the poets and their poems in historical and literary context and shine light on the interesting and often uneasy relationship between politics and art. This is an inviting, monumental collection for everyone’s library, containing much of the best poetry written in America over the last century.

About the Authors

Elizabeth Hun Schmidt, a former poetry editor at the New York Times Book Review, is the editor of the acclaimed anthology Poems of New York and The Poets Laureate Anthology. She lives in New York City and currently teaches American literature at Sarah Lawrence College.

Billy Collins was a Poet Laureate of the United States.

More information here.

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New Book: No Serenity Here (an anthology of African poetry translated into Chinese, edited by Kaiyu Xiao)

No Serenity Here, a contemporary anthology of African poetry, was launched during the Shanghai Biennale in October 2010. Original poems in English, French, Portuguese, Arabic and Amharic will be published alongside their Chinese translations. The volume includes Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, along with voices from 25 African countries, and was translated by a team of Chinese poets under the guidance of Kaiyu Xiao.


Edited by Xiao in China, Isabel Ferrin-Aguirre in Berlin and Phillippa Yaa de Villiers in Johannesburg, No Serenity Here celebrates established writers such as Ama Ata Aidoo (Ghana), Makhosazana Xaba and Lebo Mashile (South Africa), Veronique Tadjo (Cote d’Ivoire) and Fatima Naoot (Morocco), and introduce lesser known yet brilliant voices like TJ Dema (Botswana), Shailja Patel (Kenya) and Tania Tome (Mocambique), as well as Amanda Hammar and Joyce Chigiya (both from Zimbabwe).

Besides the veterans like Soyinka (Nigeria), Kofi Anyodoho (Ghana), Chirikure Chirikure (Zimbabwe), James Matthews (South Africa) and Keorapetse Kgositsile (South Africa’s Poet Laureate, whose poem lent the title to the anthology), the volume also showcases the prodigious talents of Shabbir Bhanoobhai (South Africa), Nii Ayikwei Parkes (Ghana), Tolu Ogunlesi and Obododimma Oha (Nigeria), Stanley Onjezani Kenani (Malawi) and Beaven Tapureta (Zimbabwe), Keamogetsi Molapong and Dorian Haarhoff (Namibia), Hama Tuma and Alemu Tebeje Ayele (both from Ethiopia).

Published by World Knowledge Publishers and commissioned by artist and philanthropist Mr Hu, the tri-continental project also received support from the Jiang Nan Art and Design Foundation and the Moonchu Foundation.

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Now Out: AGNI Portfolio of African Fiction

This landmark gathering of stories from Djibouti, Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa, the Gambia, and elsewhere creates an unexpected portrait of the African continent—political, sexual, religious, commercial, and literary—by writers such as Abdourahman A. Waberi, Henrietta Rose-Innes, Helon Habila, Doreen Baingana, Chuma Nwokolo, Jr., and Monica Arac de Nyeko.


More information here.

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New Book: The 100 Best African American Poems

Hear voices contemporary and classic as selected by New York Times bestselling author Nikki Giovanni.


Award-winning poet and writer Nikki Giovanni takes on the impossible task of selecting the 100 best African American works from classic and contemporary poets. Out of necessity, Giovanni admits she cheats a little, selecting a larger, less round number.

The result is this startlingly vibrant collection that spans from historic to modern, from structured to freeform, and reflects the rich roots and visionary future of African American verse. These magnetic poems are an exciting mix of most-loved classics and daring new writing. From Gwendolyn Brooks and Langston Hughes to Tupac Shakur, Natasha Trethewey, and many others, the voice of a culture comes through in this collection, one that is as talented, diverse, and varied as its people.

"African American poems are like all other poems: beautiful, loving, provocative, thoughtful, and all those other adjectives I can think of. Poems know no boundaries. They, like all Earth citizens, were born in some country, grew up on some culture, then in their blooming became citizens of the Universe. Poems fly from heart to heart, head to head, to whisper a dream, to share a condolence, to congratulate, and to vow forever. The poems are true. They are translated and they are celebrated. They are sung, they are recited, they are delightful. They are neglected. They are forgotten. They are put away. Even in their fallow periods they sprout images. And fight to be revived. And spring back to life with a bit of sunshine and caring. " - Nikki Giovanni

Read: Gwendolyn Brooks, Kwame Alexander, Tupac Shakur, Langston Hughes, Mari Evans, Kevin Young, Asha Bandele, Amiri Baraka.

Hear: Ruby Dee, Novella Nelson, Nikki Giovanni, Elizabeth Alexander, Marilyn Nelson, Sonia Sanchez, and many, many, more.

About the Editor:

Nikki Giovanni is an award-winning poet, writer, and activist. She is the author of more than two dozen books for adults and children, including Bicycles, Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea, Racism 101, Blues: For All the Changes, and Love Poems. Her children's book-plus-audio compilation Hip Hop Speaks to Children was awarded the NAACP Image Award. Her children's book Rosa, a picture-book retelling of the Rosa Parks story, was a Caldecott Honor Book and winner of the Coretta Scott King Award. Both books were New York Times bestsellers. Nikki is a Grammy nominee for her spoken-word album The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection and has been nominated for the National Book Award. She has been voted Woman of the Year by Essence, Mademoiselle, and Ladies' Home Journal. She is a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech, where she teaches writing and literature.

More information here.

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Contest: Win Elmore Leonard’s New Book Djibouti

Deadline: 22 October 2010


Fans of FX’s JUSTIFIED know Elmore Leonard as the creator of the character Raylan Givens, a U.S. Marshall from Leonard’s novels Pronto and Riding the Rap. What you may not know is that Leonard’s career spans sixty years, forty-four novels, twenty-one feature film adaptations, and three honorary doctorates!

Turning eighty-five October 11th, the “Dutch” Leonard has not lost a step. In Djibouti (William Morrow; available 10/12/2010), Leonard departs Detroit and L.A. for the Horn of Africa, where Somali pirates own the seas, al-Qaeda operatives lurk in the streets, and loyalty is scarcer than clean drinking water. Young American filmmaker Dara Barr is fresh off an Oscar® win for her documentary on Hurricane Katrina and anxious for a new challenge. With her six-foot-seven cameraman and confidant Xavier LeBo, at her side, she embarks on a journey into the heart of Djibouti, intent on pulling the covers off the shadowy world of modern-day piracy.

You can read an excerpt from Djibouti at the book’s official site. Pop Culture Zoo has three copies to give away! To enter to win, simply email us your full mailing address (US residents only, no PO Boxes) with the subject line “ELMORE LEONARD” by Friday, October 22nd at 11:59 PM PST.

Please help us celebrate Elmore Leonard’s 85th birthday on October 11th by tweeting your good wishes to him. You may mention @elmoreleonard and use #happybdaydutch in your tweet. Learn more about Elmore Leonard and Djibouti by watching this brief YouTube video and catch Timothy Olyphant as Raylan Givens in season two of JUSTIFIED which premieres on FX in 2011.

More information here.

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