UJAMAA GRANDMAS book club meets via Zoom about every six weeks. The group selects a book about Africa and shares insights and thoughts about the book in the meeting. With the E-news for information about what’s next.
If you have any questions, or would like to join in , send please send an email with BOOK CLUB in the subject line to message@ujamaagrandmas.com.
NEXT UP! – To be announced or message us for more info.
BOOK CLUB October 2021 selection.
Stay With Me by Nigerian author Ayobami Adebayo
The unforgettable story of a marriage as seen through the eyes of both husband and wife, Stay With Me asks how much we can sacrifice for the sake of family. Ever since they first met and fell in love at university, Yejide and Akin have agreed: polygamy is not for them. But four years into their marriage Yejide is still not pregnant. She assumes she still has time – until her in-laws arrive on her doorstep with a young woman they introduce as Akin’s second wife. Furious, shocked, and livid with jealousy, Yejide knows the only way to save her marriage is to get pregnant.
BOOK CLUB September 2021 selection.
If You Want to Make God Laugh by Bianca Marais
Members who attended one of Bianca’s talks, either the one sponsored by UJAMAA GRANDMAS or another, may be particularly interested in this discussion. Bianca grew up and worked in South Africa before moving to Canada, and thus has an intimate perspective on the beauty and the struggles of that country.
BOOK CLUB July 2021 selection.
Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi.
Homegoing is a novel about race, history, ancestry, love and time, charting the course of two sisters torn apart in 18th century Africa through to the present day.
Two half sisters, Effia and Esi, unknown to each other, are born into two different tribal villages in 18th century Ghana. Effia will be married off to an English colonist, and will live in comfort in the sprawling, palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle, raising “half-caste” children who will be sent abroad to be educated in England before returning to the Gold Coast to serve as administrators of the Empire. Her sister, Esi, will be imprisoned beneath Effia in the Castle’s women’s dungeon, before being shipped off on a boat bound for America, where she will be sold into slavery.
Road Trip Rwanda: A Journey into the New Heart of Africa by Canadian Will Ferguson.
This non-fiction memoir has the author travelling in Rwanda 20 years after the genocide with his friend and cohort Jean-Claude Munyezamu, a man who escaped Rwanda just months before the killings began.
This book was the BOOK CLUB May 2021 selection.
Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin
This story takes place in Rwanda. This book is a quick read, with a loveable main character, while addressing serious themes. The book has received several posiitve reviews, including the following from the Globe and Mail – https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/baking-cakes-in-kigali-by-gaile-parkin/article4216164/
This book was the BOOK CLUB May 2021 selection.
This Mournable Body, by Tsitsi Dangarembga of Zimbabwe
This book was among those recommended by the Lonely Planet in a post shared in the January E-News, and was long-listed for the 2020 Man Booker Prize. The Calgary Public Library calls it “a searing novel about the obstacles facing women in Zimbabwe, by one of the country’s most notable authors”.
Availability: The book is available at the Library, at Pages on Kensington and Shelf Life Books.
This book was the BOOK CLUB April 2021 selection.
28 Stories Of AIDS In Africa by Stephanie Nolen
When we think of the grandmothers we are working to help in Africa, their children, grandchildren, families and friends, how much can we grasp of the impact of HIV/AIDS on their lives from our sheltered viewpoint?
Stephanie Nolen was the Globe and Mail correspondent inAfrica for six years and wrote this very readable book of personal encounters with 28 different lives.
The book was written in 2007 and many advances have been made in the ensuing years but along with miracle drugs has also come worldwide economic turmoil which has meant the situation and root causes remain largely unchanged. The book is available in the Calgary Public Library.
We Are All the Same by Jim Wooten
Nkosi Johnson was the face of children with AIDS in South Africa. Given a home by a white South African family, he was given the opportunity to speak about living with AIDS at a time when the South African leaders were ignoring the crisis in their midst. Articulate and self-possessed, he talked about our shared humanity and needs. ‘We are all the same’.
Wooten interweaves the story of Nkosi with the history of blacks in South Africa and the stories of other Africans with AIDS. By giving AIDS in South Africa a face, Nkosi makes it impossible for the reader not to feel compassion for all the children suffering like this.
This book provides the stories to humanize the crisis in Africa.
Heaven Shop by Deborah Ellis
Binti, a thirteen year-old girl in Malawi, is very happy with her life. The youngest of three children, she stars in a radio show called ‘Gogo’s Family’, attends a private school and mocks her older sister for being madly in love with her boyfriend. Her mother has died some years earlier and her father runs ‘The Heaven Shop’, a coffin-making business which shows no sign of ever being short of work.
Her world is turned upside-down by the illness and subsequent death of her father. Her family is separated and it is only when she goes to live with her grandmother that things begin to improve.
This is a Young Adult book which deals honestly with some of the ways that young girls can be infected with AIDS and the consequences of this devastating disease. It’s a quick read which explains why the Stephen Lewis Foundation is doing all it can to help the grandmothers of Africa.
Recommended for those who want an introduction to AIDS in Africa.
Grassroots
This twice yearly publication highlights pertinent subjects relating to the Foundation and their work in Africa. Twice a year, the Foundation publishes Grassroots which is available on their website. Read it online or sign up to have every new edition of Grassroots come directly to your email inbox HERE.
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