WANT TO STAY ALIVE? By James Hadley Chase

This is one of Chase's most popular works, in Africa - over the decades as senior citizens here tell us! What a trio of young crooks we have here- the evil unconscionable Poke Toholo who goes on a killing spree, Chuck, amoral and cruel but not in the Toholo class, and Meg, essentially hapless but who has to go along with the two other men. Toholo not only has a grievance against the rich, but has a scheme to make money, capitalising on their fears - at least it was a lot of money when this book was published decades ago. Toholo the Indian with his slight figure with rippling muscles spreads incredible panic as he is not coy to kill with ruthless frenzy. Apparently the police can not even protect potential witnesses as Toholo wipes humans out without any sense of remorse. Tom Lepski the tough cop is on his trail, helped a bit by a woman 'seer', not that Lepski is anything but sceptical and single minded himself. At last Toholo and Chuck meet their end, though Meg's travails seem to go on...

- Paul Lothane

SO LONG A LETTER. By Mariama Ba

What price the lot of African women under what has been patent patriarchal domination for years on end? Or specifically the plight of Moslem women in the continent? Of course this work excellently deals with this, and has rightly been considered something of a masterpiece for decades now. The author- now late- knew the subject matter inside out, and her 'long letter ' here to a female friend lays everything bare. How does a woman feel after being shoved aside by her husband for a very young woman, one who could easily have been her own daughter in age? What can a woman do? How does she bear the comprehensive humiliation? How does she survive? How does she hold onto her own children - no longer kids - and still endeavour to bring them up the right way? This magnificent work illuminates all this with monumental empathy and pathos in its stride. 

The author is a superb writer, and introspective and quite blunt to boot. She is aware of her status as an African woman who has had 12 children! But she is still very much a woman. As she writes later on in this work, "...I said it teasingly, rolling my eyes round. Eternal woman, even in mourning, you want to make a strike, you want to seduce, arouse interest" . Her excellent narrative certainly arouses our interest, which include the vagaries of her own brood. We share her shock as she suddenly discovers one of her own daughter smoking: "... A woman's mouth exhaling the acrid smell of tobacco instead of being fragrant.  A woman's teeth blackened with tobacco instead of sparkling with whiteness' Despite her apparent broad-mindedness and stoic approach, one cannot but wish our narrator all the best...