SAY YOU'RE ONE OF THEM

Uwem Akpan
Little, Brown
ISBN 978 0 316 11378 6
358 pages
$23.99


Reviewed by Susan Straight

The parents in Uwem Akpan's first collection of stories, set in present-day Africa, make sacrifices and deals that might seem unimaginable to readers in other parts of the world. After finishing this book, I wandered for days staring at my three daughters and countless nephews and nieces, seeing how fragile and dangerous their lives could easily become in a time of war, starvation and betrayal.

What if the sacrifice of our own lives weren't enough to ensure the survival of our progeny? That is often the case in Akpan's Africa. These five stories -- set in Nigeria, ...



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