Customer Reviews

Bitterness (An African Novel from Zambia)

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Tribe and social affiliations and the student riots at the University of Zambia, in a captivating and intelligent story about love, political involvement and individual responsibilities: This is one of the most realistic and passionate contemporary novels about the life of young people in today's Africa, written by Malama Katulwende, a Zambian poet and intellectual. It describes the seeming incompatibility of old African traditions and modern life, depicts the political struggle of Zambia's students, and the hope and despair of the book's main character, his family, lover, and friends. Based on real events, this novel provides an insight into African history, daily life, and culture, at the example of an oppressive society. Imagine Europe's revoltes of 1968 in Austral Africa...

Malama Katulwende's literary works display his vivid connection with our ancestral past, inspire and evoke feelings of patriotism and the much needed enthusiasm for the future on a continent that is facing so many challenges. (Mbuyu Nalumango; Editor of "Under the African Skies - Poetry from Zambia") ---

Themes about Negritude or the Black experience... echo real experiences of people who have been tied by a common doom - slavery, racism, colonialism and underdevelopment... So when we define Africanness as a historical fact or phenomenon, we're talking about the African personality as a collective person pitted against his past, his present and his future. We're saying: What are we about in relation to what we have gone through? This is a question that exacts answers. (Malama Katulwende; in: "Bitterness")