She Is Africa

From one of Africa’s most influential and eloquent essayists, a posthumous collection that highlights his biting satire and subversive wisdom on topics from travel to cultural identity to sexuality “A fierce literary talent . . . [Wainaina] shines a light on his continent without cliché.”—The Guardian “Africa is the only continent you can love—take advantage of this. . . . Africa is to be pitied, worshipped, or dominated. Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed.” Binyavanga Wainaina was a pioneering voice in African literature, an award-winning memoirist and essayist remembered as one of the greatest chroniclers of contemporary African life. This groundbreaking collection brings together, for the first time, Wainaina’s pioneering writing on the African continent, including many of his most critically acclaimed pieces, such as the viral satirical sensation “How to Write About Africa.” Working fearlessly across a range of topics—from politics to international aid, cultural heritage, and redefined sexuality—he describes the modern world with sensual, emotional, and psychological detail, giving us a full-color view of his home country and continent. These works present the portrait of a giant in African literature who left a tremendous legacy.

While providing critical perspectives on women, gender, sex and sexuality, and the colonial encounter, she considers how it was possible for this woman to take on the office and responsibilities of a traditionally male role.

"When severe draught hit her village in Zimbabwe, Elizabeth, then eight, had no idea that this moment of utter devastation would come to define her life purpose. Unable to move from hunger, she encountered a United Nations aid worker who gave her a bowl of warm porridge and saved her life. This transformative moment inspired Elizabeth to become a humanitarian, and she vowed to dedicate her life to giving back to her community, her continent, and the world. Grounded by the African concept of ubuntu--"I am because we are"--I Am a Girl from Africa charts Elizabeth's quest in pursuit of her dream from the small village of Goromonzi to Harare, London, New York, and beyond, where she eventually became a Senior Advisor at the United Nations and launched HeForShe, one of the world's largest global solidarity movements for gender equality. For over two decades, Elizabeth has been instrumental in creating change in communities all around the world; uplifting the lives of others, just as her life was once uplifted. The memoir brings to vivid life one extraordinary woman's story of persevering through incredible odds and finding her true calling--while delivering an important message of hope and empowerment in a time when we need it most"--

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have become ubiquitous in the development sector in Africa and attracting more academic attention. However, the fact that NGOs are an integral part of the everyday lives of men and women on the continent has been overlooked thus far. In Africa, NGOs are not remote, but familiar players, situated in the midst of cities and communities. By taking a radical empirical stance, this book studies NGOs as a vital part of the lifeworlds of Africans. Its contributions are immersed in the pasts, presents and futures of personal encounters, memories, decision-making and politics.

A world musical story is set from Africa to New York. It is a story of music and struggle Mirembe Destiny's life begins when a white lady visits her school deep down in an African village, she dons her a bible, diary and a gift book. (Journey to the centre of the Earth by Jules Verne.) These change her life forever. She starts recording her daily experiences in the diary. All is well until the death of her father who leaves no heir since he had no boy child which culture requires, Destiny's dreams start fading as her mother is evicted from their house and family property is shared by relatives. However through her singing talent, she earns a place at one of Africa's most prestigious schools. Taken in a foster home, each time she has to run away from trouble until one time his foster father tries to rape her, when she makes a narrow escape, she runs into the loaming night until she decides to give up on life. She is saved, given a new life and a new world. While she thinks her story is the worst, as a journalism intern, she visits the D.R.Congo where 48 women are raped every hour, she shares experiences with women and girls and she feels so touched, when she returns home, it takes her a month to recover from the shock but desperate to do something to save the situation. She visits refugee camps and children centres and makes a campaign in papers. When she wins the continental World Vocal Superstar search to represent Africa at the grand finale in New York where each continent is represented by one person, she uploads her diary on social media as part of the obligations of the contestants. To her surprise, her story earns world-wide attention, she gets over 50, 000,000 likes on Facebook. She is yet to prove to the world what she can do, her dreams come alive as she meets all her stars, the American president hears about the much publicised show and also decides to attend, each media company in the world is focusing on this grand finale, the show is written down in history as the most viewed event. Can she defy all the odds and she becomes the champion? The competition is too stiff, well as she must be new in this game, the world does not care, find out in this magically written story that has touched a number of people in the world.

In Out of Africa, author Isak Dinesen takes a wistful and nostalgic look back on her years living in Africa on a Kenyan coffee plantation. Recalling the lives of friends and neighbours—both African and European—Dinesen provides a first-hand perspective of colonial Africa. Through her obvious love of both the landscape and her time in Africa, Dinesen’s meditative writing style deeply reflects the themes of loss as her plantation fails and she returns to Europe. HarperTorch brings great works of non-fiction and the dramatic arts to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperTorch collection to build your digital library.

‘I am an African woman. That’s not a political statement. I am not a Whoopee Goldberg or an Oprah Winfrey, a middle-class American in search of an identity or asserting a political right. I am a woman and I am African. That is all there is to it, and that is my tragedy.’In Douala, Cameroon, an African woman relates her life as a woman of Africa to a white oil company worker. Her story can be seen as an experience which encompasses a range of issues that affect women in Africa today, it touches upon Aids tribal prejudice, prostitution, poverty and ignorance.Viewing her life through the conflicting filters of religion and cynicism, her narrative is entertaining and moving. She relates, with no trace of self-pity, her life as a Biafran refugee, as a women in modern Cameroon and as an uneducated Anglophone in today’s Douala.The story she tells starts from her birth during the refugee crisis of Biafra. She grows to be a willful child who realises there is life outside the ghetto. The book follows her as she develops into a young woman whose singular, eccentric and colourful character drives her to embrace life furiously. In doing so she challenges the social norms of her society.Rarely self-analytical, she forces an almost existentist path through her limitations, frequently falling along the way but always pulling her self back up without a trace of despair. Through the force of her character she overcomes obstacles to succeed in her dream to become A Woman of Africa.This is an important new novel – and a fictionalised reworking of real life stories told to author Nick Roddy in Douala by Biafran refugees. Nick’s own experiences in the region also inform this novel – while writing it he was kidnapped by MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) and held captive in the Jungle for 3 weeks. Nick still spends part of each year living and in Douala.

The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda is comprised of the policies, protocols and practices enacted by a wide range of actors inspired by, or under the auspices, of the UN Security Council resolutions adopted under the title of ‘women and peace and security’. Since the adoption of the first resolution in 2000, resolution 1325, there have been nine others, each of which elaborates or extends aspects of the original resolution. This book provides a forward-looking collection of scholarship on the WPS agenda in two halves. The first half of the book presents a series of essays that each provide a glimpse of the rich and insightful research on WPS being undertaken in and about different contexts, to demonstrate the importance of centring the "local" as a site of knowledge production in the WPS agenda. The essays presented in the second half of the book also engage questions of knowledge production, documenting the exploratory methods in use in WPS scholarship, and highlighting those topics engaged at the hinterlands of what is a broad field – topics that gesture at the future of research in this area. The chapters in this book were originally published as special issues of the International Feminist Journal of Politics.