Buchi Emecheta, Nigerian Novelist, Dies at 72

Buchi Emecheta, Nigerian Novelist, Dies at 72 - The New York Times

Buchi Emecheta, a British-based Nigerian writer who, in “Second-Class Citizen,” “The Joys of Motherhood” and other novels, gave voice to African women struggling to reconcile traditional roles with the demands of modernity, died on Jan. 25 at her home in London. She was 72.  The cause was dementia, her son Sylvester Onwordi wrote in the British magazine New Statesman.

Ms. Emecheta (pronounced BOO-chee em-EH-cheh-tah) came to the attention of British readers in the early 1970s when New Statesman began running her accounts of the travails of a young Nigerian woman in London. Adah, a thinly disguised version of the author, lived in a dreary apartment, worked menial jobs to support her young children and abusive husband, studied at night and weathered the slights meted out by a racist society. Buoyed by ambition and pluck, she remained undaunted.

“In the Ditch,” a novel based on those columns, appeared in 1972.  With the publication two years later of a second Adah novel, “Second-Class Citizen,” critics in Britain and the United States hailed the arrival of an important new African writer. Like her immediate predecessor Flora Nwapa, Ms. Emecheta revealed the thoughts and aspirations of her countrywomen, shaped by a patriarchal culture but stirred by the modern promise of freedom and self-definition.

Books & Reviews

It seems today every man and his dog has a blog reviewing books - some are professional reviewers, many are amatuers.  Many blog / review on a regular basis - others infrequently.  I would tend to lump myself in the latter of the two categories - an infrequent amatuer.  I don't get paid to review, I don't actively seek out works to review (I have on a couple of topics that have interested me), and I don't often post a review on every book I have read (I just don't have the time!). I have been approached to review books - some just don't interest me so I don't accept - occasionally one will spark my interest and I will accept.  Trouble is, once publishers (mainly located in UK and USA) realise that I am located in Australia, they quickly lose interest - like we don't read down under!

Anyway, I have posted a few reviews of books I have read here on this blog, Women of History, but now I will post mainly on my other blog, Melisende's Library (and also on Goodreads).

Melisende's Library will feature articles on authors I like, reviews of books I have read, posts on books / collections I own or on books or all things book-related that interest me.  To this end, I am going to collate those reviews I have posted here and send them over to the Library.  

You may find my taste rather eclectic - my favourite genre is history (and the women who have featured) but it is not limited to any particular time or country; however, having developed a passion for reading at an early age, I have gone through reading "phases" - eg: crime, mystery, historical fiction, biography, fantasy, sci-fi, series.  I have probably covered a lot of genres and my own personal Library reflects this.

I also have a passion for collecting books - okay I might be a bit OCD in this area - I collect (or hoard) books - can't throw away anything, even from childhood.  New or old books; printed or e-books; the good, the bad, the ugly - I have them all - and have read about 50% of what I actually own (like I said, not enough time!).

Hope you might spare a few moments and drop into the Library.

Obit: Marjorie Chibnall

From the Telegraph:

She was known for her many studies of Anglo-Norman history, including, most notably, her mighty six-volume edition and translation of the Norman chronicler Orderic Vitalis’s Ecclesiastical History, published between 1969 and 1980 — the product of 30 years of painstaking work.

Her first publications, a series of papers on alien priories (English religious houses under the control of a mother house abroad) began before the Second World War, and she continued to publish into her 90s. Her last book The Normans, published in 2006 when she was 91, won praise from a reviewer in the Times Literary Supplement as “a masterly work, the most elegant and concise account of Norman history currently in print”.

Was Dickens Anti-Women?

From the Mail Online:

For all his genius, the writer was an abusive husband who seduced a woman 26 years his junior and virtually abandoned his children.

Yet, as we near his bicentenary, we should remember that this was a man tortured by the memory of poverty as a child, thin-skinned, cruel to his wife (Catherine Hogarth), dismissive of his children, a slave to overwork and, ultimately, victim of an early death, worn out not least in the effort to support himself, his estranged wife, and his mistress (Ellen Ternan)and her family.

His is a very Victorian story of social mobility, sexual hypocrisy, and tortured genius.

Of Interest:

Dickens in Swizterland

Dickens in America

Writers & Their Books

From Maria Popova at The Atlantic:

As a hopeless bibliophile, an obsessive lover of bookcases, and a chronic pursuer of voyeuristic peeks inside the minds of creators, I'm utterly spellbound by Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books—a vicarious journey into the personal libraries of thirteen favorite authors, who share their collections of childhood favorites, dusty textbooks, prized first editions, and beloved hardcovers, along with some thoughts on books, reading, and the life of the mind.

Alongside the formidable collections—featuring Alison Bechdel, Stephen Carter, Junot Díaz, Rebecca Goldstein and Steven Pinker, Lev Grossman and Sophie Gee, Jonathan Lethem, Claire Messud and James Wood, Philip Pullman, Gary Shteyngart, and Edmund Whit—are short interviews with the authors about the books most important to them (including their top 10), their style of organization, and their thoughts on what the future of books might hold. (Cue in writers on the future of books.) The interviews are prefaced by Leah Price's fascinating brief history of bookshelves, from the rise of the vertical book on a horizontal shelf to how social bookmarking services are changing our relationship with tagging and indexing information.

Reading & Writing History

As I have been reading alot lately, it got me thinking about all those books written about history over the centuries.  As time has progressed and modern scholarship improved, these past tomes have been discarded as being not relevant and historically incorrect.  But are they.

Consider: most contemporary sources are now considered flawed (by our modern standards of scholarship) and yet are still a valuable resource for the historian and writer.  They reflect the time in which they were written; often the bias of the author; and the availability of information at hand (often localised).  And these "primary" sources are still considered more noteworthy than some "secondary" sources.

Which brings me to my next point.  Should all "secondary" sources be dismissed outright just because modern scholarship has more to add.  Again, I think these "secondary" sources are just as valuable, reflecting not only the scholarship of their author (as with the "primary" sources) but also prove to be a study of the current values of society at that time.

Yes, we should look to improve upon what was written before - and we today have the advantage of access to so much more than some writers who came before us.  Technology is a wonderful thing - so many previously inaccessable tomes are now available so freely over the internet.  No longer do we have to pore over unwieldly tomes in dimly lit archives, travel miles to the nearest library to access some book only available to scholars at universities - unless we want to.  Much of what we need comes at the touch of a button (or keyboard).

My pet gripe is with authors who poo-poo at works considered "outdated" should actually take a closer look them and not just base their opinions upon those of others.   Doing your own research is one of the joys of history - discovering some little piece of long-hidden information, tucked away in a book considered "out of fashion".  No book should be discounted based solely upon it's age.  Many of these early books provided a great introduction into history - they have their place and their value.

Which brings me to another point - historical fiction.  Have you noticed how much historical fiction has come along.  A few decades ago, artistic license was flourishing - readers didn't demand greater authenticity and attention to detail from their fiction writers - how that has changed today.  More and more authors are bringing the past to life in their tomes of fiction - so much so, it is becoming increasingly difficult to assess what is fact and what is fiction.  Some "non-fiction" actually reads like it should have been deemed "fiction" and vice-versa! 

And we are becoming more critical of our fictional authors - demanding they stick to details and admonish them when they leave the path.  Possibly because history itself has entered something of a renaissance - the more we read, the more we feel the need to read and explore further.  Not a bad thing in my opinion.

Case of the Kerry Babies

From Cork University Press:

To mark International Women’s Day, this introduction from a new book by NELL MCCAFFERTY plots how the ‘medieval’ treatment of Joanne Hayes in the Kerry Babies case acted as a catalyst for change.

A group of men put a young unmarried woman on the stand and questioned her about the exact circumstances of the conception and birth and death of her newborn baby. She came from a tiny village in the west of Ireland.

It was medieval, but it happened in 1985. The probing of the woman’s sexual history brought the men gathered around her to such a fever pitch that she collapsed.

Latest Releases

Latest Literary Releases:

A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century (2008) by Upinder Singh (Review here)

Edward IV and the Wars of the Roses by David Santiuste (Pen and Sword Books Ltd) (Author interview here)

Border Watch by Helene Young (Hachette)

Must You Go? My Life with Harold Pinter by Lady Antonia Fraser (Hachette)

Germaine Greer: Lacks Female Understanding

From the Australian:

GERMAINE Greer was wrong about women: wrong about their attitude to romance, about how they would wield power, and how they would organise things, if allowed to rule to world.

Most of all, however, she was wrong about their desire for what she called "fripperies" -- shoes, pretty clothes, and make-up -- which they indulge in now more than ever.

These are the conclusions of the writer Louis Nowra in an essay in the independent The Monthly magazine marking the 40th anniversary of the publication of Dr Greer's seminal feminist text, The Female Eunuch.

The book, published in Australia in May 1970, and in London in October 1970, was a key text of the women's liberation movement. It has never been out of print, and has been translated into 11 languages. Sales figures are difficult to find, but they are in the millions. Dr Greer was in Sydney for the Writers' Festival last May and all her shows were sold out.

Nowra, an essayist and playwright, argues that Dr Greer must, however, be disappointed in the world of contemporary women, for it does not resemble the model she envisioned. Women are, for the most part, married, and have children. They live in nuclear families, in the suburbs. Their orientation is capitalist.

Nowra's critique of Dr Greer neither starts nor ends with The Female Eunuch, however. He says Dr Greer is now a "befuddled and exhausted old woman" who reminds him of his demented grandmother. "There is no doubt that fame and celebrity have seduced Greer," he writes. "She will say and do anything to get noticed."

Pearl Cleage: Song for Coretta

From Freep. com:

She was watching television when the women came to her.

The news program showed thousands of people, mostly women, lined up in the rain to pay their respects to Coretta Scott King after her death in 2006.

Pearl Cleage wondered about those women, from all walks of life, united by that moment in history. So Cleage (pronounced cleg) did what she's done since childhood: She made up a story.

That story, about five fictional women whose lives intersect in the damp funeral line, became a play called "Song for Coretta," which is being presented at the Detroit Repertory Theatre through March 21.

Library Visit

Having about an hour to kill this morning, I dropped into my local library - a place I have long neglected for the past six months (though quite possibly more).

I managed to pick up a little light reading:

* Barbarians to Angels: The Dark Ages Reconsidered by Peter S Wells
I knocked this one over today - and was much impressed. A concise narrative of times long considered "dark" and "barbaric". Nice and to the point and not a bit long-winded. Highly recommended.

* Bad Girls & Wicked Women by Jan Stradling
Nice retelling of some of the more notorious "bad girls" from history - Messalina, Belle Starr, Empress Cixi, but to name a few. About two-thirds through this one and will no doubt finish tonight. Highly enjoyable.

* Moriarty by John Gardner
I love Sherlock Holmes and his nemisi, Moriarty so looking forward to this one.

* Marie & Mary by Nigel Tranter
Novel about Marie de Guise and her daughter, Mary Queen of Scots.

* The Templar by Paul Doherty
Novel of the Crusades by a masterful writer of medieval whodunnits.

* Mary Tudor: The Tragical History of the First Queen of England by David Loades.
Biography of "Bloody" Mary.

So, some more reading to add to my list whilst currently reading John Fox's marvellous biography on Jane Whorwood (spy to Charles I).

TODAY: Meet Michelle Cameron

From North Jersey:
On Saturday, Jan. 9, at 2 p.m., author Michelle Cameron will be at the Morris County Library, 30 E. Hanover Ave., Whippany, for a reading and discussion of her latest historical novel, "The Fruit of Her Hands," based on the life of Cameron’s 13th-century ancestor, a renowned Jewish scholar of medieval Europe. Book signing afterwards.

To reserve seats, call 973-285-6930 or go to www.mclib.info/author.html.

Author: Du Lala

From AFP:

Du Lala is a brash, 30-something Chinese woman who successfully breaks the glass ceiling in the macho corporate world.

She is also the title character in a novel that has been a breakout literary hit in China and an unofficial handbook for ambitious career women in the Asian nation, now the world's third largest economy.

"The Story of Du Lala's Promotion" was such a success that the author -- herself once a young professional like her protagonist -- quickly churned out "Du Lala 2: Splendid Days", which was equally well received.

She uses a pseudonym, Li Ke, to maintain a bit of privacy amid the excitement over her books.

Li Ke's [her pseudonym] first book has already been adapted for the theatre, and a television series is in the works for this year.

The author was in ninth place on China's list of best-paid writers in 2009, having earned 3.5 million yuan (513,000 dollars).

Author: Guida Jackson

From Global News Wire:

Women Leaders of Africa, Asia, Middle East, and Pacific, a comprehensive biographical reference for use in high school or beyond, is the first of a two-volume set that covers the lives and careers of powerful women leaders throughout history.

Volume I: Women Leaders of Africa, Asia, Middle East, and Pacific brings more than a hundred women leaders, including tribal queens and Muslim queens who ruled in their own right, from obscurity into the limelight. With its alphabetically and regionally arranged entries, this thoroughly researched book presents women, both famous and little known, who held the reins of power on two continents, one subcontinent, and many Pacific islands. Its companion, Volume II, covers Women Leaders of Europe and the Western Hemisphere.

In easy-to-read entries with suggestions for further reading, Jackson describes wise and altruistic stateswomen as well as rapacious and blood-thirsty killers. Their similarities and differences illustrate the many facets of leadership and power in both ancient and contemporary times. These stories reveal how women acquired and used power to serve their country, satisfy their own desires, or simply, by hook or by crook, maintain their own authority.

Interview: Elizabeth Gilbert

From the Houston Chronicle:

The success of Elizabeth Gilbert's last book, Eat, Pray, Love, was stupendous.

A memoir of her solitary trip through Italy, India and Indonesia, Eat, Pray, Love struck a chord with women that still resonates. By the end of the book, Gilbert had shed the ghost of her first marriage and fallen hard for Felipe, an older, Brazilian man. Reading along, millions of women cheered.

Those same readers are expected to flock to see the upcoming film with Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem in leading roles.

Today marks the release of Gilbert's second memoir, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage. The book does double duty. It looks at the history of Western marriage and picks up a few years after Eat, Pray, Love ends.

Gilbert and Felipe have been living in Philadelphia. But after a business trip overseas, Felipe, an Australian citizen, is denied re-entry to the United States at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. The easiest way for him to remain is to marry Gilbert. But he needs a fiancé visa and, until he gets it, he cannot return.

Sentenced to wed, Gilbert travels with Felipe for 10 months and researches the institution she vowed never to enter into again.

Louisa May Alcott

From The LA Times Guide:

For those who know Louisa May Alcott only as the author of some of the most enduring classics of children's literature, "Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind 'Little Women' " will be a revelation. For those already familiar with Alcott's Transcendentalist-boho childhood, her sensational tales of love and horror under the pen name A.M. Barnard and her refusal to diminish her personal and economic freedom by marrying, the dramatically reenacted documentary gives life and texture to a woman of extraordinary talent and determination who became as great a celebrity in her day as J.K. Rowling is in ours.

With Elizabeth Marvel as Alcott and Jane Alexander playing a family friend and early biographer, the film relies on the copious correspondence from the writer and her family, most notably her father, Bronson Alcott, with commentary from Alcott scholars including novelist Geraldine Brooks, who won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2006 for "March," a fictional imagining of what happened to Mr. March, the father of all those little women, during his stint as a minister in the Civil War.

A Little Bit of History

Just a few snippets of what's making news in the world of history:

From the Times Online:

A medieval book is to become the first item from a British national museum to be returned to its rightful owners under a new law governing looted artefacts.

The Benevento Missal, which was stolen from a cathedral in southern Italy soon after the Allies bombed the city during the Second World War, has been in the collection of the British Library (formerly the British Museum Library) since 1947. After a change in the law, it could be back in Italy within months, according to The Art Newspaper.

From BBC News:

A hoard of silver coins hidden in a Northamptonshire field during the Wars of the Roses has fetched more than £29,000 at auction.

The 186 coins, found in Brackley in 2005, were sold at Morton and Eden by the metal detector enthusiast who found them and the owner of the field.

It is thought they were hidden in the summer of 1465 by someone who went into hiding during the dynastic civil war.

From the Telegraph:

A copy of Edgar Allan Poe's first book fetched $662,500 at a Christie's auction in New York, smashing the previous record price for American literature.

The copy of "Tamerlane and Other Poems", published by Poe anonymously in 1827 when he was just 13, had been estimated to sell for between $500,000 and $700,000 (£ 302,000 to £442,000).

Death of Jane Austin

From CNN News:
It is a truth universally acknowledged -- or nearly so -- that Jane Austen, the author of "Pride and Prejudice," died of a rare illness called Addison's disease, which robs the body of the ability to make critical hormones.

Katherine White doesn't believe it. White, herself a sufferer of Addison's disease, has studied Austen's own letters and those of her family and friends, and concluded that key symptoms just don't match what's known about the illness.

The disease -- a failure of the adrenal glands -- was unknown in Austen's day, first having been identified nearly 40 years after she died in 1817 at the age of 41.

White is not the first to dispute the theory that Addison's disease killed Austen. British biographer Claire Tomalin suggested in a 1997 book that lymphoma was the culprit.

White finds that, too, unlikely. She suspects the answer is much simpler: tuberculosis.

Books: Yes More!

As Christmas is upon us - way too soon I might add - here are some more books of interest - at least to me - that you might like to add to your Santa's List:

• Lustrum by Robert Harris
• The Australian Light Horse by Roland Perry
• Heart's Blood by Juliet Marillier
• Mr Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange
• The Pocket Book of Boosh by Julian Barrett & Noel Fielding (I love the Mighty Boosh!)
• Rebels & Traitors by Lindsay Davis
• Legionary by Philip Matyszak
• The Book Theif by Markus Zusak
• Tell It To The Squirrels by Judy Kolt
• Changing My Mind by Zadie Smith

And a copy of reviews that might also interest:

• Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wreath by Caribousmom
• Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire by Judith Herrin by Khanya

Reading for the New Year

Some interesting reads and soon to be released reads:

• Sunset Oasis by Bahaa Taher
• Child Life in Colonial Times by Alice Morse Earle
• Our Times: The Age of Elizabeth II by AN Wilson
• The Lady in the Tower: The fall of Anne Boleyn by Alison Weir
• The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani
• The Splendor of Silence by Indu Sundaresan
• Women in India: Retrospect and Prospect by K. Shanthi
• Women, Race & Class by Angela Y Davis
• Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund
• Two Old Women by Velma Wallis
• Queen Anne: A Biography by Anne Somerset
• The Toss of a Lemon by Padma Viswanathan
• The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein by Peter Ackroyd
• Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada (Trans: Michael Hofmann)
• The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
• Ayn Rand and the World She Made by Anne C Heller
• Dorothea Lang: A Life Beyond Limits by Linda Gordon
• The Last Empress: Madam Chiang Kai-Shek and the Birth of Modern China by Hannah Pakula
• When Everything Changed: The Amazing Jounrey of American Women from 1960 to the Present by Gail Collins

Can't wait for some upcoming releases for 2010!