A Basket of Leaves
Encyclopedia
A Basket of Leaves is a 2007 collection of essays by Geoff Wisner
. It is a literary tour of Africa and there is an essay on a book for all 54 countries on the continent.
Angola
Benin
Botswana
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cameroon
Cape Verde
Central African Republic
Chad
Comoros
Geoff Wisner
Geoff Wisner is a book reviewer, editor, and writer. Wisner is a graduate of Harvard University and is the author of A Basket of Leaves: 99 Books That Capture the Spirit of Africa , published by . His articles appear in publications such as the Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, Wall...
. It is a literary tour of Africa and there is an essay on a book for all 54 countries on the continent.
Included book reviews
Algeria- The Sheltering SkyThe Sheltering SkyThe Sheltering Sky is a 1949 novel by Paul Bowles. The story centers on Port and Kit Moresby, a married couple originally from New York who travel to the North African desert accompanied by their friend Tunner...
by Paul BowlesPaul BowlesPaul Frederic Bowles was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator.Following a cultured middle-class upbringing in New York City, during which he displayed a talent for music and writing, Bowles pursued his education at the University of Virginia before making various trips to Paris... - The Savage Night by Mohammed DibMohammed DibMohammed Dib was an Algerian author. He wrote over 30 novels, as well as numerous short stories, poems, and children's literature in the French language. He is probably Algeria's most prolific and well-known writer...
- Algerian White by Assia DjebarAssia DjebarAssia Djebar is the pen-name of Fatima-Zohra Imalayen , an Algerian novelist, translator and filmmaker. Most of her works deal with obstacles faced by women, and she is noted for her feminist stance. Djebar is considered to be one of North Africa's pre-eminent and most influential writers...
Angola
- Mayombe by PepetelaPepetelaArtur Carlos Maurício Pestana dos Santos is a major Angolan writer of fiction. He writes under the name Pepetela....
- Another Day of LifeAnother Day of LifeAnother Day of Life is a non-fiction record of three months of the Angolan Civil War by the Polish writer Ryszard Kapuściński.It is made up of a notable description of the degradation of the Angolan capital, Luanda, an analysis of the various weaknesses of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of...
by Ryszard KapuscinskiRyszard KapuscinskiRyszard Kapuściński was a Polish journalist and writer whose dispatches in book form brought him a global reputation. Also a photographer and poet, he was born in Pińsknow in Belarusin the Kresy Wschodnie or eastern borderlands of the second Polish Republic, into poverty: he would say later that...
Benin
- The Viceroy of OuidahThe Viceroy of Ouidah-Summary:Chatwin's novel, detailing the life of a slave trader named Francisco Manuel da Silva, is loosely based on the life of an historical Brazilian, Francisco Felix de Sousa, who became a powerful personage in Wydah or Ouidah, the so-called Slave Coast of West Africa, now Benin and Togo...
by Bruce ChatwinBruce ChatwinCharles Bruce Chatwin was an English novelist and travel writer. He won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel On the Black Hill...
Botswana
- When Rain Clouds Gather by Bessie HeadBessie HeadBessie Emery Head is usually considered Botswana's most influential writer.-Biography:Bessie Emery Head was born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, the child of a wealthy white South African woman and a black servant when interracial relationships were illegal in South Africa...
- Whites by Norman RushNorman RushNorman Rush is an American novelist whose introspective novels and short stories are set in Botswana in the 1980s. He is the son of Roger and Leslie Rush...
Burkina Faso
- Of Water and the Spirit by Malidoma Patrice SomeMalidoma Patrice SomeMalidoma Patrice Somé is a West African writer. He was born in Dano, Burkina Faso, among the Dagara.At the age of four he was kidnapped by Jesuit missionaries, to be raised in their boarding school, and given an education. The missionaries were attempting to train black Africans who might convert...
Burundi
- The True Sources of the Nile by Sarah Stone
Cameroon
- Mission to Kala by Mongo BetiMongo BetiAlexandre Biyidi Awala , known as Mongo Beti, was a Cameroonian writer.- Life :Though he lived in exile for many decades, Beti's life reveals an unflagging commitment to improvement of his home country...
Cape Verde
- The Fortunate Isles by Basil DavidsonBasil DavidsonBasil Risbridger Davidson MC was a British historian, writer and Africanist, particularly knowledgeable on the subject of Portuguese Africa prior to the 1974 Carnation Revolution....
Central African Republic
- Song fron the Forest by Louis SarnoLouis SarnoLouis Sarno is an American author. In the mid-1980s he lived among a Bayaka Pygmy clan in the Central African Republic, and recorded their music. His experiences were published as Song From The Forest, which was included among the "99 books that capture the spirit of Africa" by Geoff Wisner.Louis...
Chad
- Komoon! by Heinrich Oberjohann
Comoros
- Last of the Pirates by Samantha WeinbergSamantha WeinbergSamantha Fletcher is a British Green politician, and under her maiden name of Samantha Weinberg, a novelist, journalist and travel writer. Educated at St Paul's Girls' School and Trinity College, Cambridge, she is the author of books such as A Fish Caught in Time: The Search for the Coelacanth and...
Reviews
- American Library Association - NEW PUBLICATIONS by George Eberhart, C&RL News, Vol. 70, No. 1 (January 2009)
- London Review Bookshop (2007)
Interviews
- Laura Reviews ... Laura Cococcia interviews Geoff Wisner (April 2009)