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Writing the Ancestral River is an illuminating and unusual biography of the Kowie River in the Eastern Cape This tidal river runs through the centre of what used to be called the Zuurveld, a formative meeting ground of different peoples who have shaped our history: Khoikhoi herders, Xhosa pastoralists, Dutch trekboers and British settlers. Their direct descendants continue to live in the area and interact in ways that have been decisively shaped by their shared history. Besides being a social history, this is also a natural history of the river and its catchment area, where dinosaurs once roamed and cycads still grow. As the book shows, the natural world of the Kowie has felt the effects of human settlement, most strikingly through the establishment of a harbour at the mouth of the river in the 19th century and the development of a marina in the late 20th century. Both projects have had a decisive and deleterious impact on the Kowie. People are increasingly reconnecting with nature and justice through rivers. Acknowledging the past, and the inter-generational, racialised privileges, damages and denials it established and perpetuates, is necessary for any shared future. By focusing on this `little' river, the book raises larger questions about colonialism, capitalism, `development' and ecology, and asks us to consider the connections between social and environmental injustice.
When Paul and Dominique are sent to boarding schools, their idyllic childhood on a South African farm is over. Their parents' leftist politics has made life impossible in the local town school. Angry schoolboy Paul is a promising poet, his sister his confidante. But his literary awakening turns into a descent. He flees the oppression of South Africa, only to meet his death in London. Dominique Botha's poignant debut is an elegy to a rural existence and to her brother - both now forever lost. The novel is based on true events.
A New York Times bestseller and Oprah's Book Club Pick-the unique and deeply moving saga of four generations of African-American women whose journey from slavery to freedom begins on a Creole plantation in Louisiana. Beginning with her great-great-great-great grandmother, a slave owned by a Creole family, Lalita Tademy chronicles four generations of strong, determined black women as they battle injustice to unite their family and forge success on their own terms. They are women whose lives begin in slavery, who weather the Civil War, and who grapple with contradictions of emancipation, Jim Crow, and the pre-Civil Rights South. As she peels back layers of racial and cultural attitudes, Tademy paints a remarkable picture of rural Louisiana and the resilient spirit of one unforgettable family. There is Elisabeth, who bears both a proud legacy and the yoke of bondage... her youngest daughter, Suzette, who is the first to discover the promise-and heartbreak-of freedom... Suzette's strong-willed daughter Philomene, who uses a determination born of tragedy to reunite her family and gain unheard-of economic independence... and Emily, Philomene's spirited daughter, who fights to secure her children's just due and preserve their dignity and future. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, Cane River presents a slice of American history never before seen in such piercing and personal detail.
The unexpected and moving story of an American journalist who works to uncover her family’s long-buried Jewish ancestry in Spain. Raised a Catholic in California, New York Times journalist Doreen Carvajal is shocked when she discovers that her background may actually be connected to conversos from Inquisition-era Spain: Jews who were forced to renounce their faith and convert to Christianity or face torture and death. With vivid childhood memories of Sunday sermons, catechism, and the rosary, Carvajal travels to the centuries-old Andalucian town of Arcos de la Frontera, to investigate her lineage and recover her family’s original religious heritage. In Arcos, Carvajal comes to realize that fear remains a legacy of the Inquisition along with the cryptic messages left by its victims. Back at her childhood home in California, she uncovers papers documenting a family of Carvajals who were burned at the stake in the 16th-century territory of Mexico. Could the author’s family history be linked to the hidden history of Arcos? And could the unfortunate Carvajals have been her ancestors? As she strives to find proof that her family had been forced to convert to Christianity six hundred years ago, Carvajal comes to understand that the past flows like a river through time—and that while the truth might be submerged, it is never truly lost.
From the award-winning author: A “wonderfully ambitious” novel of West Africa, told through the struggles and dreams of four extraordinary women (The Guardian). When a cousin offers Abie her family’s plantation in the West African village of Rofathane in Sierra Leone, she leaves her husband, children, and career in London to reclaim the home she left behind long ago. With the help of her four aunts—Asana, Mariama, Hawa, and Serah—Abie begins a journey to uncover the past of her family and her home country, buried among the neglected coffee plants. From rivalries between local chiefs and religious leaders to arranged marriages, manipulative unions, traditional desires, and modern advancements, Abie’s aunts weave a tale of a nation’s descent into chaos—and their own individual struggles to claim their destiny. Hailed by Marie Claire as “a fascinating evocation of the experience of African women, and all that has been gained—and lost—with the passing of old traditions,” Ancestor Stones is a powerful exploration of family, culture, heritage, and hope. “This is [Forna’s] first novel, but it is too sophisticated to read like one.” —The Guardian
After an 11-year-old Nigerian boy leaves his small village to live with his uncle in the city, he is exposed to a range of new experiences and becomes fascinated with crossing the Niger River on a ferry boat.
BLACKTREKKING: My Journey Living in Latin America is a riveting, coming-of-age story profiling author Stephanie Claytor's decision to move to a completely foreign country by herself, not just once but twice. From the time Stephanie was a baby, she spent many summers on family vacations exploring the United States with her family. As Stephanie became an adult, she made the decision to live abroad and learn Spanish. From love and heartbreak to violence, culture shock and exploration of racial identity, Stephanie details her time blossoming into an adult while living in both the Dominican Republic and Colombia. This moving travel memoir weaves in tips for how to stay safe while living abroad, as well as how to have a good time and maximize the experience. A naturally inquisitive storyteller and an award-winning multimedia reporter by trade, who has worked at numerous television stations across the United States, Stephanie put her journalism skills to work and shares never heard before interviews from displaced Colombians and from members of maroon communities. She intertwines the stories of others who have fought for years to be recognized. Many of her personal adventures will have you laughing and reflecting, while simultaneously inspiring you to walk away with a greater understanding of Dominican and Colombian culture.
This astonishing novel takes us on a journey along the river of one family's history, carving a course across two centuries and three continents, from ancient Africa into today's America. Here, through the lives of Mother Africa's many daughters, we come to understand the real meaning of roots: the captive Proud Mary, who has been savagely punished for refusing to relinquish her child to slavery; Earlene, who witnesses her father's murder at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan; Big Momma, a modern-day matriarch who can make a woman of a girl; proud and sassy Cinnamon Brown, whose wild abandon hides a bitter loss; and smart, ambitious Alma, who is torn between the love of a man and the song of her soul. In The River Where Blood Is Born, the seen and unseen worlds are seamlessly joined--the spirit realms where the great river goddess and ancestor mothers watch over the lives of their descendants, both the living and those not yet born. Stringing beads of destiny, they work to lead one daughter back to her source. But what must Alma sacrifice to honor the River Mother's call?
THE BLOOD RUNS LIKE A RIVER THROUGH MY DREAMS transports readers to the majestic landscapes and hard Native American lives of the desert Southwest and into the embrace of a way of looking at the world that seems almost like revelation. Born to a storytelling Native mother and a roughneck, song-singing cowboy father, Nasdijj has lived on the jagged-edged margins of American society, yet hardship and isolation have only brought him greater clarity--and a gift for language that is nothing short of breathtaking. Nasdijj tells of his adopted son, Tommy Nothing Fancy, of the young boy's struggle with fetal alcohol syndrome, and of their last fishing trip together. It is a heartbreaking story, written with great power and a diamondlike poetry. But whether Nasdijj is telling us about his son, about the chaotic, alternately harrowing and comical life he led with his own parents, or about the vitality and beauty of Native American culture, his voice is always one of searching honesty, wry humor, and a nearly cosmic compassion. While Nasdijj struggles with his impossible status as someone of two separate cultures, he also remains a contradiction in a larger sense: he cares for those who often shun him, he teaches hope though he often has none for himself, and he comes home to the land he then must leave. THE BLOOD RUNS LIKE A RIVER THROUGH MY DREAMS is the memoir of a man who has survived a hard life with grace, who has taken the past experience of pain and transformed it into a determination to care for the most vulnerable among us, and who has found an almost unspeakable beauty where others would find only sadness. This is a book that will touch your soul.
2022 Choice Outstanding Academic Title The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere is a reclaimed history of the deep past of Indigenous people in North and South America during the Paleolithic. Paulette F. C. Steeves mines evidence from archaeology sites and Paleolithic environments, landscapes, and mammalian and human migrations to make the case that people have been in the Western Hemisphere not only just prior to Clovis sites (10,200 years ago) but for more than 60,000 years, and likely more than 100,000 years. Steeves discusses the political history of American anthropology to focus on why pre-Clovis sites have been dismissed by the field for nearly a century. She explores supporting evidence from genetics and linguistic anthropology regarding First Peoples and time frames of early migrations. Additionally, she highlights the work and struggles faced by a small yet vibrant group of American and European archaeologists who have excavated and reported on numerous pre-Clovis archaeology sites. In this first book on Paleolithic archaeology of the Americas written from an Indigenous perspective, The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere includes Indigenous oral traditions, archaeological evidence, and a critical and decolonizing discussion of the development of archaeology in the Americas.