Say You're One of Them
by Uwem Akpan
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Book Reviews of Say You're One of Them
Book Review: A powerful story teller
Summary: 5 Stars
Hachette Book Group USA has put out another book that I fell in love with. (The first set of books from Hachette that caught my attention were those by Stephenie Meyer. I was thrilled to learn that Twilight is being made into a movie set to open on December 12, 2008!) This latest book, Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan, was a more difficult read, though a call to action that is timely and necessary. The book is a collection of 5 short stories by Akpan, a Jesuit priest originally from Nigeria who is now living and teaching in Harare, Zimbabwe.
Akpan's is certainly not the first set of stories to chronicle the trouble life of people across Africa. What is unique about the collection is that it is told entirely from the perspective of children. Because of their resiliency, children are able to see the light and dark, simultaneously, in many situations where adults see only one aspect or the other. Children are on a quest for joy, for resolution, and most certainly for peace. As Frank McCourt said in the trilogy of books about his own life, children keep moving forward because it's the only thing they know how to do. Akpan's characters embrace that philosophy and take us along with them for the journey.
To be sure, the circumstances are horrifying - tribal wars, destruction, rape, poverty, starvation. I sometimes had to put the book down because each page is so densely packed with raw emotion and brutally honest storytelling. There is no sugar-coating here. What kept me coming back and reading late into the night was Akpan's intensely visual story telling that has us bear witness to what's happening in countries all across Africa. We are unable to turn away as we make our way through the book and we feel compelled, even obligated, to do something, to say something, to change something. Through literature, he found his voice while also giving a voice to those who are unable to speak for themselves.
Say You're One of Them was recently reviewed in USA Today. And today, there is a front page article in USA Today on Americans who are finding purpose in Africa.
Book Review: Let's Take Care of Our Children
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Book Review: uneven but worthy voice to Africa's children
Summary: 4 Stars
Akpan seeks to give voice to Africa's suffering children.* Each of his stories portrays children or adolescents caught in the midst of an African tragedy, whether it's Rwanda's genocide, child trafficking in West Africa, or the grinding poverty of street life in Kenya.
Each of the stories delves and yield insight into challenges that most Western readers can barely fathom. Akpan strives and often succeeds in capturing the confusion, uncertainty, and stress that life imposes on many of the world's children. Not all the stories are equally captivating: Luxurious Hearses drags while My Parents' Bedroom is excellent (while almost inconceivably tragic).
Here are the stories, from the strongest to the weakest. I highly recommend the top two and recommend the rest.
1. My Parents' Bedroom - Rwandan genocide
2. An Ex-mas Feast - street family in Kenya
3. Fattening for Gabon - child trafficking in West Africa
4. What Language Is That? - religious strife in Ethiopia
5. Luxurious Hearses - violence in Nigeria
I hope that Akpan keeps writing. I will read.
Professional reviews readily available:
New York Times: Charles Taylor (from Liberian warlord to NYT book reviewer!), "Can I Get a Witness?" 27 July 2008
Entertainment Weekly: Jennifer Reese, "Say...," 6 June 2008
PopMatters: Carolyn Fanelli, "Say You're One of Them," 29 August 2008
Chicago Tribune: Alan Cheuse, "Say You're One of Them," 31 May 2008
O, the Oprah Magazine: Vince Passaro, "Amazing Grace," June 2008
The Independent (UK): Alastair Niven, "Say...," 11 July 2008
Book Review: Say... you're one of them!
Summary: 5 Stars
When psychologists treat childhood victims of trauma - war, violence or sexual abuse - they will often use props such as dolls or drawings to re-enact the event in a safe environment without judgment. These five stories are in a way voices of the child victims of Africa, told through the prop of fiction (a doll, a drawing), empty of ideological or political concern. Uwem Akpan has given nameless invisible victims a voice that is understandable and easily empathetical by people everywhere.
The title is a portmanteau. It can be read as "Say your one them", as in, when the bad guys come, say your one of them to save yourself. Or with a change of emphasis, it can be read as "Say.. you're one of them!" One is defensive and inclusive, the other is offensive and exclusive, the two meanings can be found in all the stories. In other words, Africa has many divisions, but it can also be made whole by finding a common humanity, if one chooses to see it that way.
This is a good book and I recommend it. If your short for time the two best stories are "Fattening for Gabon", about an uncle who sells his two younger family members into slavery. It's novella length but as the story slowly unfolds, it imperceptibly descends into a living nightmare, ending with a piercing scream that echoes forever. "My Parent's Bedroom" about the genocide in Rwanda has very powerful imagery that - like the scream in the first story - will haunt and become iconically associated in your mind with the traumas of Africa.
Book Review: May the children's voices be heard!
Summary: 4 Stars
"Say You're One of Them" is a powerful collection of five short stories written by a Jesuit priest, Nigerian-born Uwem Akpan, who is currently a seminary teacher in Zimbabwe. The five stories contained within this book are all narrated by children, and it is a credit to Akpan that he is able to tell us these incredibly poignant and heartwrenching stories through the points of views of children, and to be able to so in an authentic manner.
Among the stories that really affected me emotionally was "An Ex-Mas Feast", the story of a family that suffers from poverty [as is the case in most parts of Africa], a family where the mother resorts to giving her kids glue to sniff just to stave off hunger, and where the main source of income is through prostitution by the 12-year-old daughter. We know these things happen, yet reading about it here just makes it all the more real and cries out for some sort of action. The stories in this book cover a myriad of problems in Africa - poverty, hunger, AIDS and its repercussions, the sexual exploitation of the young,genocide etc.
It is my fervent hope that this book will help give a true voice to the children of Africa, and be a call to action to help the people in Africa move from suffering and hopelessness towards a future with hope.