africa fiction

Hardcover. NY, Dial Books, reprint, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, lightly worn dust jacket, 686 pages. The Uncle Remus tales, originally written down by Joel Chandler Harris, were first published over a hundred years ago, and serve as the largest collection of African-American folklore. In this four-book series, Julius Lester masterfully retains the flavor of the tales, while dropping the heavy dialect of the Harris originals and adding contemporary language and references-- ensuring that the stories will be understood and enjoyed by new generations of readers. The stories are beautifully illuminated by the slyly humorous full-color and black-and-white art of Jerry Pinkney.

NY, Penguin Press, 1st US, 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 156 pages. 1st American edition of the Nobel laureate's 1st book published in the US. This is a paperback original, near fine in black pictorial wraps with the pages typically age-toned. Waiting for the Barbarians, written during the apartheid regime in South Africa, examines and questions the legitimacy of colonialism through the eyes of its protagonist, an unnamed Magistrate who governs a province that borders lands inhabited by a population of so-called barbarians. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Longmans Green and Company, 1st, 1946, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 145 pages. Black & white Illustrations by Avery Johnson, End papers illustrated. Light soil to cloth cover. corners a bit bumped.

Hardcover. NY, Doubleday, reprint, 1953, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 333 pages, blue cloth, later printing, first published in 1935. Black titles on spine. Name stamp on inside front cover. Paper tanning but a clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1st US, 1901, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth stamped in 3-colors plus gilt on front cover and spine, 393 pages plus publishers ads in rear. with twelve b&w illustrations by William Rainey, and a map.

NY, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1st, 1941, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: Fair, Hardcover, 160 pages. Ten black & white illustrations by Paul Bransom. Previous owner's signature on title-page. Dust jacket with large chunks gone from top edges. closed tears, soil. Story of a giant volcano eruption in the African jungle'

Hardcover. Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 145 pages. Gordimer examines the tension for a writer between life's experiences and narrative creations. She tries to unravel the mysterious process that breathes "real" life into fiction by exploring the writings of revolutionaries in South Africa and the works of Naguib Mahfouz, Chinua Achebe and Amos Oz. Ending on a personal note, Gordimer reveals her own experience of "writing her way out of" the confines of a dying colonialism.

Hardcover. NY, W. W. Norton & Company, reprint, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 363 pages. Introduction by Melvin van Peebles. Originally published in 1953 as "Cast the First Stone" which was edited and changed by the publisher and now has been restored to how Himes intended it to be "with its raw honesty and startling compassion entirely intact." His novel of Jimmy Monroe portrays an African American prisoner who must endure racism, homosexuality, and prison corruption, all of which test the limits of his sanity, his capacity for suffering, and his definition of love. Clean copy.

Chicago, A.C. McClurg & Co., 1st, 1901, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 224 pages. B/w illustrations by Walter Bobbett. Scarce. Brown pictorial cover with spine slightly cocked. Light edgewear to top and bottom spine, internally very good. A collection of stories told by natives on the East Coast of Africa. Translated from the Swahili by the author.