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SAY YOU'RE ONE OF THEM
By: Uwem Akpan
Little, Brown and Company
June 2008
On Sale: June 9, 2008
368 pages
ISBN: 0316113786
EAN: 9780316113786
Hardcover
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Fiction
Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence so piercingly that few readers will feel they've ever encountered Africa so immediately. The eight-year-old narrator of "An Ex-Mas Feast" needs only enough money to buy books and pay fees in order to attend school. Even when his twelve-year-old sister takes to the streets to raise these meager funds, his dream can't be granted. Food comes first. His family lives in a street shanty in Nairobi, Kenya, but their way of both loving and taking advantage of each other strikes a universal chord. In the second of his stories published in a New Yorker special fiction issue, Akpan takes us far beyond what we thought we knew about the tribal conflict in Rwanda. The story is told by a young girl, who, with her little brother, witnesses the worst possible scenario between parents. They are asked to do the previously unimaginable in order to protect their children. This singular collection will also take the reader inside Nigeria, Benin, and Ethiopia, revealing in beautiful prose the harsh consequences for children of life in Africa. Akpan's voice is a literary miracle, rendering lives of almost unimaginable deprivation and terror into stories that are nothing short of transcendent.
 Media BuzzFresh Air - NPR - December 17, 2008
Tell Me More - June 23, 2008
Fresh Air - NPR - June 19, 2008
Fresh Air - NPR - June 18, 2008
All Things Considered - June 3, 2008
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