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=GLOBAL ISSUES=

**Non-fiction**
Woods, Donald. //Biko.// - Subjected to 22 hours of interrogation, torture and beating by South African police on September 6, 1977, Steve Biko died 6 days later. Donald Woods, Biko's close friend and a leading white South African newspaper editor, exposed the murder helping to ignite the black revolution.

Mathabane, Mark. //Kaffir Boy.// - Recreates the author's boyhood experiences in South Africa.

//McCord, Margaret. The Calling of Katie Makanya.// - A biography of Katie Makanya who was born at the height of Colonialism in South Africa in 1873, who worked as an interpreter for Dr. James McCord, a white doctor who had come to treat the Zulus, and who died at the age of 83 with apartheid firmly in place.

**Drama**
Fugard, Athol. //Blood Knot and Other Plays.// - Presents 3 plays by South African playwright Athol Fugard, in which he explores close family relationships strained under by the harshest of economic and political conditions.

Fugard, Athol. //My Children! My Africa!// - An impatient black youth, his "old-fashioned," teacher, and a young white woman learn from each other about the human trauma that lies at the heart of South Africa's system of apartheid in 1984.

Fugard, Athol. //Statements : Sizwe Bansi is Dead ; The Island.// - Presents 3 plays written in the early 1970s by South African dramatist Athol Fugard in which he explores life under the laws of apartheid.

Soyinka, Wole. //Death and the King's Horseman.// 1975 drama about Elesin, the chief horseman of the king of a Nigerian village who loses the respect of the villagers when he fails to take steps to follow his dead ruler into the afterlife.

**Fiction**
Brink, André Philippus. //A Dry White Season.// - In his quest for truth into the suicide of a black friend, a white schoolteacher finds officially condoned murder in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Courtenay, Bryce. //The Power of One.// - The story of Peekay, an English boy living in South Africa during World War II who learns about prejudice and slavery through friendship.

Gien, Pamela. //The Syringa Tree : A Novel.// - Young Elizabeth Grace, the privileged daughter of a part-Jewish doctor and his wife in South Africa in the 1960s, learns firsthand about the cruelties of apartheid when her beloved Xhosa nanny, Salamina, is forced to carry permission papers to enter white areas, and must hide her newborn baby from authorities.

Gordimer, Nadine. //The Lying Days.// - Helen Shaw is the daughter of white middle-class parents in a small gold-mining town in South Africa. As Helen comes of age, so does her awareness grow of the African life around her. Her involvement, as a bohemian student, with young Africans leads her into complex relationships of emotion and action in a culture of dissension.

Nanji, Shenaaz. //Child of Dandelions.// In Uganda in 1972, fifteen-year-old Sabine and her family, wealthy citizens of Indian descent, try to preserve their normal life during the ninety days allowed by President Idi Amin for all foreign Indians to leave the country, while soldiers and others terrorize them and people disappear.

Paton, Alan. //Cry, the Beloved Country : A Story of Comfort in Desolation.// - In search of missing family members, Zulu priest Stephen Kumalo leaves his South African village to traverse city of Johannesburg in the 1940s. With his sister turned prostitute, his brother turned labor protestor and his son, Absalom, arrested for the murder of a white man, Kumalo must grapple with how to bring his family back from the brink of destruction.

**Short Stories**
Naidoo, Beverley. //Out of Bounds : Seven Stories of Conflict and Hope.// - Seven stories, spanning the time period from 1948 to 2000, chronicle the experiences of young people from different races and ethnic groups as they try to cope with the restrictions placed on their lives by South Africa's apartheid laws.

**Non-fiction**
Beah, Ishmael. //A Long Way Gone : Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.// - In the more than fifty violent conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them." Ishmael Beah, now 26 years old, tells a story: at the age of 12, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By 13, he'd been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts.

**Fiction**
Iweala, Uzodinma. //Beasts of No Nation : A Novel.// - Agu, a young boy in an unnamed West African nation, is discovered by guerrilla fighters after his mother and sister escape and his father is brutally murdered. He is then forced into becoming a soldier at the mercy of a treacherous terrorist leader.

Stratton, Allan. //Chanda's Wars.// Chandra Kabelo, a teenaged African girl, must save her younger siblings after they are kidnapped and forced to serve as child soldiers in General Mandiki's rebel army.

**Non-fiction**
Keane, Fergal. //Season of Blood: A Rwandan Journey.// Story of the author's journey into Rwanda in 1994 as part of a BBC team recording a documentary on the country's genocidal war, recalling the horrors of the conflict that resulted in the murder of up to one million Tutsis by the Hutus in only 100 days.

Ilibagiza, Immaculée//. Left to Tell : Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust.// The true story of Immaculée Ilibagiza who endured the murder of her family as a result of genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and how she was able to later forgive those who had killed them.

Keane, Fergal. //Season of Blood.// - Story of the author's journey into Rwanda in 1994 as part of a BBC team recording a documentary on the country's genocidal war, recalling the horrors of the conflict that resulted in the murder of up to one million Tutsis by the Hutus in only 100 days.

Marlowe, Jen. //Darfur Diaries : Stories of Survival//. In 2003, the Sudanese Liberation Army in Darfur after years of oppression took up arms against the Sudanese government. The government and allied militias answered the rebellion with mass murder, rape and the wholesale destruction of villages and livelihood, resulting in one of the world's largest humanitarian and political crises.

**Fiction**
Combres, Elisabeth. //Broken Memory : A Novel of Rwanda.// - Five-year-old Emma witnesses the brutal murder of her mother during the 1994 genocide massacres in Rwanda and seeks shelter with an aging Hutu woman; but years later when war ends, Emma's fears continue to haunt her as she finds the courage to begin her healing.

Jansen, Hanna. //Over a Thousand Hills I Walk with You.// - Political troubles unleashed a torrent of violence upon the Tutsi ethnic group. Jeanne's family, all Tutsis, fled their home and tried desperately to reach safety. They--along with nearly 1 million others--did not survive. The only survivor of her family's massacre, Jeanne witnessed unspeakable acts. But through courage, wits, and sheer force of will, she survived.

Stratton, Allan.//Chanda's Secrets.// Chandra struggles with the deaths of those around her and the shame of being molested as she continues her education and cares for her siblings and friend Esther, amidst the poverty and AIDs epidemic that plague her African homeland.

Stassen, Jean-Philippe. //Deogratias: A Tale of Rwanda.// - A graphic novel that describes the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda in 1994 through the eyes of a boy named Deogratias, a Hutu, who is in love with Benigne, a Tutsi.

**Non-fiction**
Haskins, James. //Bound for America: The Forced Migration of Africans to the New World.// Discusses the European enslavement of Africans, including their capture, branding, conditions on slave ships, shipboard mutinies, and arrival in the Americas.

Lester, Julius. To Be a Slave. A compilation, selected from various sources and arranged chronologically, of the reminiscences of slaves and ex-slaves about their experiences from the leaving of Africa through the Civil War and into the early 20th century.

Fiction
Brink, Andre.//A Chain of Voices.// Galant, a slave in nineteenth-century South Africa, leads an uprising when a promise of freedom is not granted, but instead, Galant is captured and put on trial for his actions in 1825.

Pate, Alexs. //Amistad.// A novelization of the film "Amistad," a fact-based story of the 1839 mutiny on board a Spanish slave ship,which resulted in a trial before the Supreme Court during which former American president John Quincy Adams argued in favor of freedom for the slaves.

**Non-fiction**
Marlowe, Jen. //Darfur Diaries : Stories of Survival.// - In 2003, the Sudanese Liberation Army in Darfur took up arms against the Sudanese government. The government answered the rebellion with mass murder, rape and the wholesale destruction of villages, resulting in one of the world's largest humanitarian and political crises. Up to 2 million people were displaced; 400,000 people killed. In October and November, 2004, after watching woefully inadequate media coverage on the crisis in Darfur, a team of 3 independent filmmakers trekked to Darfurian refugee camps in eastern Chad and crept across the border into Darfur.

Dau, John. //Lost Boy, Lost Girl : Escaping Civil War in Sudan.//- John Bul Dau and his wife, Martha, describe the hardships they experienced, including violence, famine, and war, while growing up in the Sudan and explain how they escaped the region to start a new life.

Deng, Benson. //They Poured Fire on us from the Sky : The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan.// - Presents the stories of three young men who as children in the late 1980s were forced from their homes by war in the Sudan and traveled, along with thousands of other boys, nearly one thousand miles in search of refuge, surviving hunger, illness, and human and animal predators.

**Fiction**
Akinti, Peter. //Forest Gate.// Teenagers James and Meina live in harsh conditions in a London community made up of Somalian refugees and recount the tragedies from the pasts while they seek out a new home. Includes a guide for reading groups and an essay by the author.

Akpan, Uwem. //Say You're One of Them.// - A collection of short stories that celebrate the resilience and wisdom of children in third world countries. "My Parents' Bedroom" is a Rwandan girl's account of her family's struggles to maintain a facade of normalcy amid unspeakable acts. In "Fat­tening for Gabon ," a brother and sister cope with their uncle's attempt to sell them into slavery. "Luxurious Hearses" creates a microcosm of Africa within a busload of refugees and introduces us to a Muslim boy who summons his faith to bear a treacherous ride through Nigeria. "What Language Is That?" reveals the emotional toll of the Christian-Muslim conflict in Ethiopia through the eyes of childhood friends. Every story is a testament to the wisdom and resilience of children, even in the face of the most agonizing situations our planet can offer.

Cooney, Caroline. //Diamonds in the Shadow.// The Finches sponsor an African refugee family of 4, all of whom have been scarred by the horrors of civil war, and who inadvertently put their benefactors in harm's way.

**Non-fiction**
Barnes, Virginia Lee. //Aman : The Story of a Somali Girl.// - This is an intimate look at the girlhood of a 20th-century Somali. At eight, Aman was circumcised; at 13,she was married to an older man who attempted to deflower her with a knife. By 17 she had been raped, been divorced twice, borne two children, and lost one. Repeatedly, she ran from a culture that she both respected yet found too restrictive.

Holloway, Kris. //Monique and the Mango Rains.// Kris Holloway recounts her friendship with Monique Dembele, a midwife Kris met while working for the Peace Corps in a West African village, describing Monique's passion for her work and her efforts to make life better for the village's women and children.

Kristof, Nicholas and Sheryl WuDunn. //Half the Sky : Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.// Tells the stories of women in Africa and Asia who have been victims of sex trafficking and forced prostitution, gender-based violence, and maternal mortality, and shows how girls' education and micro-finance can change their lives while providing a boost to the economies of developing countries.

Nthunya, Mpho 'M'atsepo. //Singing Away the Hunger : The Autobiography of an African Woman.// A South African woman, tells about her life, providing a picture of conditions in the country over the years, and revealing the experiences of women who are bound by African traditions.

**Fiction**
Dangarembga, Tsitsi. //Nervous Conditions.// Tambu, an adolescent girl living in colonial Rhodesia during the 1960s, tries to overcome her station in the patriarchal society of Zimbabwe and her allotted role as a woman by attending the missionary school run by her wealthy, British-educated uncle.

Farmer, Nancy. //A Girl Named Disaster.// While fleeing from Mozambique to Zimbabwe to escape an unwanted marriage, Nhamo, an eleven-year-old Shona girl, struggles to escape drowning and starvation and in so doing comes close to the luminous world of the African spirits.

Maraire, J. Nozipo Nkosana. //Zenzele : A Letter for My Daughter.// - In an extraordinary novel--written as a letter from a Zimbabwean mother to her daughter, a student at Harvard--Maraire transforms the lessons of life into a lyrical narrative about love, war, separation, and the very meaning of being a woman.

Walker, Alice. //Possessing the Secret of Joy//. - After submitting to the ritual genital mutilation her people practice, Tashi makes her way in the world, mourning the loss of sexual pleasure.

Williams, Michael. //Now is the Time for Running.// When soldiers attack a small village in Zimbabwe, Deo goes on the run with Innocent, his older, mentally disabled brother, carrying little but a leather soccer ball filled with money, and after facing prejudice, poverty, and tragedy, it is in soccer that Deo finds renewed hope.

Williams-Garcia, Rita. //No Laughter Here.// - In Queens, New York, ten-year-old Akilah is determined to find out why her closest friend, Victoria, is silent and withdrawn after returning from a trip to her homeland, Nigeria.

**Non-fiction**
Maathai, Wangari. //Unbowed : A Memoir.// - From the first African woman--and the first environmentalist--to win the Noble Peace Prize comes her powerfully inspiring memoir. Founder of the Green Belt Movement Maathai recounts the obstacles and motivations that have guided her to lead a singularly uncommon life.

Fiction
Forester, C.S. //The African Queen.// Allnut and Rose, a disreputable Cockney and an English spinster missionary, wend their way down a river in Central Africa in a rickety, asthmatic steam launch, and are gradually joined together in a mission of retaliation against the Germans.

**Non-fiction**
Dinesen, Isak. //Out of Africa ; and, Shadows on the Grass.// The author describes her life on a coffee plantation in Kenya for seventeen years before returning to Denmark in 1931 to write.

McCord, Margaret. //The Calling of Katie Makanya : A Memoir of South Africa.// - A biography of Katie Makanya who was born at the height of Colonialism in South Africa in 1873, who worked as an interpreter for Dr. James McCord, a white doctor who had come to treat the Zulus, and who died at the age of 83 with apartheid firmly in place.

**Fiction**
Achebe, Chinua. //Things Fall Apart.// - Set in an Ibo village in Nigeria, the novel recreates pre-Christian tribal life and shows how the coming of the white man led to the breaking up of the old ways.

Conrad, Joseph. //Heart of Darkness.// - Presents the classic novel by nineteenth-century British author Joseph Conrad about Marlow, an adventurer and seaman and his physical and psychological journey into Africa where he witnesses the brutality of the natives by white traders.

Kingsolver, Barbara. //The Poisonwood Bible : A Novel.// - In 1959, Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist, takes his 4 young daughters, his wife, and his mission to the Belgian Congo -- a place, he is sure, where he can save needy souls. But the seeds they plant bloom in tragic ways within this complex culture. Set against one of the most dramatic political events of the 20th century -- the Congo's fight for independence from Belgium and its devastating consequences that chronicles the disintegration of family and a nation.

Ngugi, James. //Devil on the Cross.//- This remarkable and symbolic novel centers around Wariinga's tragedy and uses it to tell a story of contemporary Kenya faced with the "satan of capitalism." The novel was written secretly in prison on the only available material -- lavatory paper. It was discovered when almost complete.

Naipaul, V. S. //A Bend in the River.// In an African country that has suffered revolution and civil war and that is headed by a man of almost insane energy and crudity, one restless, reflective, and isolated villager and his friends uneasily submit to the tide of events.

Non-fiction
Kamkwamba, William. //The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.// The author details how he ignored naysayers and was able to bring electricity and running water to his Malawian village when he built a makeshift windmill out of scrap metal and spare parts.