Juggling Truths

"My name in Monei Ntuka and this is the story of my childhood in the village of Mochudi, in the then British Bechuanaland Protectorate, in the mid to late sixties. It is, of course, not the whole story of my youth, for didn't my grandmother Mma-Tseitsi, mother of my father, tell me many times, A tongue can talk until numb with fatigue, but it can never tell the whole story'? And didn't she gently admonish me saying, Child of my child, a good story teller knows when to stop, just as a dreamer knows when to wake up.' In any event, a look at self can never be a full stare; it has to be a series of glimpses."

Laurali Nixon is a cool, gifted, highly respected teacher who is assigned to tutor a student who is equally gifted - and geeky and disturbed. She decides to take matters into her own hands, only to become an unwilling player in a re-activated crime investigation. Visceral yet fun-loving, sordid yet spiritual and poetic, and always authentic, this novel deeply probes the professional and personal levels of this complex teacher-student relationship. Based on real events, well-researched, it would make a wonderful movie.

Travel & holiday guides.

Mary Lederer provides a valuable critical/historical survey of the genesis and development of the English novel in Botswana. This book comes as a timely correction of the notion that Botswana has no sustained fiction written in English, thus filling a gap that has existed for a long time in the literature of that country.

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1.7, University of Duisburg-Essen, language: English, abstract: In 2002, Unity Dow’s book The Screaming of the Innocent was published. It deals with the topic of ritual murder in Botswana and gives detailed descriptions of the South African belief in witchcraft, traditional healing and ritual murder. Since the book is not based on a true story it is interesting to find out whether the themes Dow writes about are fictitious as well or if they can be related to Botswana’s every-day life. In an interview Unity Dow claims that ritual murder actually still happens in Southern Africa. This essay will have a closer look on some relevant passages of the book The Screaming of the Innocent and will relate them to the religion, the witchcraft belief, the belief in witchdoctors and the topic of ritual murder in Botswana. A comparison will show whether there are parallels between the fictitious story of the book and the real life in this specific area of Southern Africa.

This book examines the role of African intellectuals in the years since the end of colonialism, studying the contribution that has been made by such individuals, both to political causes and to development within Africa. Studying the concept of the "intellectual" within an African context, this book explores the responses of such individuals to crucial issues, such as cultural identity and knowledge production. The author argues that since the end of colonialism in Africa, various, often intertwining, factors, such as nationalism and co-option, have been used by black politicians or the political elites to muddle the roles and functions of black African intellectuals. Focusing on these confused roles and functions, the book posits that, over the years, most intellectuals in Africa have found the practice of "cheerleading" for a political cause more productive than making valuable contributions towards dynamic and progressive leadership in their countries. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of African studies, politics, and development studies.

What can literary theory reveal about discourses and practices of human rights, and how can human rights frameworks help to make sense of literature? How have human rights concerns shaped the literary marketplace, and how can literature impact human rights concerns? Essays in this volume theorize how both literature and reading literarily can shape understanding of human rights in productive ways. Contributors to Theoretical Perspectives on Human Rights and Literature provide a shared history of modern literature and rights; theorize how trauma, ethics, subjectivity, and witnessing shape representations of human rights violations and claims in literary texts across a range of genres (including poetry, the novel, graphic narrative, short story, testimonial, and religious fables); and consider a range of civil, political, social, economic, and cultural rights and their representations. The authors reflect on the imperial and colonial histories of human rights as well as the cynical mobilization of human rights discourses in the name of war, violence, and repression; at the same time, they take seriously Gayatri Spivak’s exhortation that human rights is something that we "cannot not want," exploring the central function of storytelling at the heart of all human rights claims, discourses, and policies.