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...

TEBOGO AND URIAH HEEP

Book: Tebogo and Uriah Heep
Written by Omoseye Bolaji

ISBN:  978 – 0 – 620 – 79380 – 3  

Reviewer: Paul Lothane

Another Tebogo Mokoena adventure…many years after the last one (Tebogo and the bacchae) came out. For me I wondered whether there would be a patent – and painful – deterioration in the powers of the author. Would the story have enough elements of mystery to make it a success? I was not to be disappointed.

In Tebogo and Uriah Heep, the author sets the tone from the very beginning with a powerful opening chapter (the longest chapter in the work). We are already embroiled in the mystery of the tragic end of Bra Uriah’s daughter, Anne. The tension reaches a dynamic, almost frightening peak at the end of the (first) chapter:

‘…   Biggie appeared to be about to announce that we should be leaving, when Uriah said: "Sirs, I humbly implore you to follow me to another section of this wretched house. I never show the room to people, but somehow I believe you should be exceptions...shall we?".

I had a premonition of disaster, but I quickly told myself not to be childish, or melodramatic. Surely Bra Uriah, despite being rather "strange" could not wish to harm us?

Biggie and I followed Uriah to a makeshift room at the very back of the "house". The door was locked, and Uriah opened it.  

"Kena, Sirs," he said. I hated it, but my heart was beating faster than normal. Biggie was ahead of me, as we entered the room. The first thing that came to my mind was that this was something of a shrine. Items of female clothing were scattered all over, with toy dolls, trinkets, beads, small bags, and minuscule underwear. I saw coloured pencils and crayons. My heart nearly skipped a beat when I saw a blood-soaked bed-sheet in a corner...and smears of blood on the adjacent wall.

"What the h--- !" Biggie said, disoriented.

But Uriah was looking very placid and reverential. He said: "Sirs, this room always reminds me of my dear daughter. I believe the whites call it memorabilia, souvenirs...nothing to be afraid of. The items here contain stuff of my girl as she grew up..." He stared at me.  

I was mopping my brow. He said to me: "Nothing to be afraid of, Sir Mokoena. I loved my daughter...".   

"It's...just the blood that unnerved me a bit," I said. "I..."

Uriah said: "it's my blood," he said. “I had to do it. Had to suffer too once I heard what happened to her. Cut myself rather sharply on the legs and bled like a pig...not that I wanted to kill myself; I can assure you that I am a humble man, and not the suicidal type,".  

Then something happened that sent shivers up my spine. Uriah suddenly fell onto the floor and began to hammer on it with his fists. He was like an animal in intense agony; a keening, traumatised creature.

"Ntate Modimo!" He bawled. "Why did this have to happen? My little girl did not deserve this. Why could I not have been there to be killed instead of you? Why?" He rolled on the floor, delicately caressing the items in the room. 

Biggie mopped his brow too. "Maybe we've overstayed our welcome," he said. "Let's go, motswalle,".  

I nodded….’

Subsequently we read about Tebogo trying to shed more light on the goings-on at Dealesville town. He speaks with a number of people who might be suspects – or probably not. The interaction between two women – Matshidiso and Nthabiseng – is brilliantly done (though both of them are never physically brought together!) But Tebogo talks to them both separately, and we feel that maybe either of them might have killed Anne? Consider this short passage between Tebogo and Nthabiseng:

‘…I had decided not to refer to the allegation of her (Nthabiseng) stealing clothes - at least not now. Anyway, she herself said now: "She (Matshidiso) was a dangerous woman, even telling lies about me and others. Men can be so stupid, taken in by that woman's fake smiles... She should have been considered a suspect too, at least...". 

I stared at her. "Suspect? You don't mean as in Anne's death...". 

"That's exactly what I mean," Nthabiseng said. "She could be dangerous too. I remember the day she angrily fought with Anne and said to her: 'Ke tla ntsha mala a gago, ke be ke go tshopa ka o ne mo thamong yagago,’

I winced. What she had said translates exactly into: "I will take out your intestines and drape them around your neck!" Or in correct English: "I'll have your guts for garters...".  

Nthabiseng was looking at me, a sneering expression on her face. "You don't want to believe me eh...well that's exactly what her so-called best friend said to Anne weeks before she was killed... I did not tell the police this of course..." ‘

Ingredients/elements like this serve to make this new work a shining success, another mini-masterpiece by the author.

FURTHER GLIMPSES INTO AFRICAN LITERATURE

Review by: Tiisetso Thiba

The year 2018 started (specifically in South Africa) with the agony of losing one of the legends of literature Professor Keorapetse Kgosietsile, who had breathed and eaten poetry and grew the literature for better... but his legacy will continue to recite poetry eternity. 

Back to the main subject, early this year two heavy weight writers Ishmael Soqaga an avid pan-Africanist  and lover of African Literature whose work has been featured in various blogs, published in different journals and editor of Further Glimpses Into African Literature whose first edition was published in 2015. This new book is stated to be a sort of sequel to the earlier one.

The  Associate editor is a writer who needs no introduction to the industry, Chief O. Chief Bolaji who has written and published more than 30 books, he has been a journalist and editor in various publications for many years here in South Africa before he went back home to Nigeria. He received many accolades regarding his outstanding work and he has been a mentor to many emerging writers and his advice makes those writers realized their dreams by publishing their books. 

The book Further Glimpses Into African Literature cover is very attractive with Giraffe reaching the top of the tree while the sun is resting and displaying a beautiful orange colour. And the book is dedicated to man of letters Flaxman” Moalusi Jacob Qoopane who died in 2017. Moalusi was well known as Flaxman to society, writers and book lovers at large. Many people knew Flaxman as a journalist and literary gallery owner situated in his home in Bloemfontein. This gallery attracts many people from afar to come and have a glimpse of his terrific work. He has been around in this industry for many decades and while in exile during apartheid time he continues to write poems, books and articles and continue to do so when he came back home.   

Bolaji and ‘whiz’ Soqaga combined the reviews and literary profiles written on different African writers like, Ferdinand Oyono, Wole Soyinka, Charles Mungoshi, Ellen Banda-Aaku, Vonani Bila, Keorapetse Kgositsile and Flaxman Qoopane to name minimal. Apparently, many of the writers books reviewed in this book are late, and few of them are still alive like Tiisetso Thiba (this reviewer!) and Vonani Bila to name a few.

I believe wordsmith Soqaga is not aware that, in this freshly book he has done reviews in most  African female writers than in African male writers and is where I find his soft spot and that is not wrong to be precisely and it can be his preference and I know he is open to whole African literature. While Bolaji tries to strike a balance of his reviews by adding a share equal reviews and literary profiles. 

“However, in contrast today Africa experiences hiatus in literature. Such situation apparently attracts many questions as why literature in the past was affectionately appreciated by wide population in Africa and the world. In Contrary, what is happening today in African literature is completely incoherent” Soqaga stated a burning point in literary profile of Shehu Sanni, who is a much revered politician and activist of human rights from Nigeria. Today technology is affecting African literature because rather using that technology to read books they are using it for all sorts of wrong reasons.

This book, considering its thematic corpus, is supposed to be more than 72 pages, as Africa is very rich with the works of writers who are late and alive whom I believe should be included in the book. Though the work of this two renowned writers is continue to impress the world and be used in various university. With the brilliant writing style of Chief Bolaji one will definitely agree that he has iota many books and seen the moons in the literature passing by.

This type of book needs to be published annually to enrich knowledge of society about the African writers and their work because I believe others will agree that other writers profiled in this book they never heard about them before, though their works speaks volumes in the whole world.

BUT A SHORT TIME TO LIVE. By James Hadley Chase

For me this book has parallels with ‘More deadly than the male’, also penned by Hadley Chase. The idea of a decent, naive young man meeting an attractive, calculating ruthless young woman resonates again. Chase sure knows how to present and unravel such men as hapless fools who lose it all! They become enchanted with femme fatale and somehow cannot extricate themselves from the maelstrom they find themselves in. How Harry in this work can not discern that his Claire is a cheap whore beggars belief.

Yet it has to be admitted that Claire here does like Harry and realises he was a fine gentleman; she wanted to do good things for him, buy him nice things, which she does - the problem is that she never told him what she was all about, and he was too daft to piece it together himself. She also has a highly developed streak of irresponsibility, a penchant for getting them into trouble. And how she does so! 

Hence at the end - just like in More deadly than the male - Harry loses it all despite being the good one, as he even dies so young. Many pundits reckon Chase was somewhat a misogynist, but it must be the other way round, since men often suffer extraordinarily in his works! Again, think of the end of EVE too with the spineless guy savagely whipped!

- Paul Lothane