Maw Books Giveaway

First look carefully at this child’s face.  Now I would like to invite you to go read Natasha’s passionate post and review of this important book and cause.  She is even offering a book giveaway of four winners for reading it.  Each person will win two books so that’s eight books she is giving away!  She’s generous like that!  Her website is Maw Books.

Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan

Say You’re One of Them is a powerful collection of short stories.  Told from the perspective of young children, the collection takes us into the brutality of the childrens’ lives in Africa.  Each story is a slow awakening to unbelievable horrors for both the child and the reader.  The first story, An Ex-Mas feast, looks at a poverty-striken family that must rely on their twelve year old daughter’s income to survive.  She has to prostitute herself for food and money but she is trying to earn enough money so her younger brother can go to school.  The children in “Fattening for Gabon” are being prepared for sale into slavery by their uncle.  In “What Language Is That?” two little Ethiopian girls are best friends until their parents suddenly say they cannot speak to each other anymore because one is Muslim and the other is Christian.  In “Luxurious Hearses”, a Nigerian boy from the north is trying to escape to relatives in the south on a bus filled with the same religious animosity that he hopes to escape.  The final story, “My Parent’s Bedroom”, describes the violence between the Rwandan Hutus and Tutsis as seen through the eyes of a young girl who has mixed parentage.

For me, the most powerful story is the last.  I will forever hold the powerful images of a toddler playing in his slain mothers blood.  Each story is a work of fiction, but is based on real situations that have transpired.  In the Afterword, written by a pastor who knows the author, Uwem Akpan, the writer offers his belief that the publication of these stories is a bold attempt to enlighten readers about children of Africa, which in turn may create a passionate desire to create a safer place for children all over the world.  After laying down this book, I know I am one of those affected people, and I thank Pastor Akpan for this powerful lesson.
Uwem Akpan was born in Ikot Akpan Eda in southern Nigeria.  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 included in this, his first book, was one of five short stories by African writers chosen as finalists for The Caine Prize for African Writing.