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Title	:	Say You're One of Them
Author	:	Uwem Akpan
Book Format	:	Hardcover
Book Edition	:	Deluxe Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 358 pages
Published	:	September 18th 2009 by Little, Brown and Company (first published June 5th 2008)
Categories	:	Fiction. Cultural. Africa. Short Stories

Say You're One of Them

Uwem Akpan

Hardcover | Pages: 358 pages

Rating: 3.52 | 14134 Users | 2339 Reviews

Explanation Supposing Books Say You're One of Them

Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence so piercingly that few readers will feel they've ever encountered Africa so immediately. The eight-year-old narrator of "An Ex-Mas Feast" needs only enough money to buy books and pay fees in order to attend school. Even when his twelve-year-old sister takes to the streets to raise these meager funds, his dream can't be granted. Food comes first. His family lives in a street shanty in Nairobi, Kenya, but their way of both loving and taking advantage of each other strikes a universal chord.

In the second of his stories published in a New Yorker special fiction issue, Akpan takes us far beyond what we thought we knew about the tribal conflict in Rwanda. The story is told by a young girl, who, with her little brother, witnesses the worst possible scenario between parents. They are asked to do the previously unimaginable in order to protect their children. This singular collection will also take the reader inside Nigeria, Benin, and Ethiopia, revealing in beautiful prose the harsh consequences for children of life in Africa.

Akpan's voice is a literary miracle, rendering lives of almost unimaginable deprivation and terror into stories that are nothing short of transcendent.

Define Books During Say You're One of Them

Original Title:	Say You're One of Them
ISBN:	0316113786 (ISBN13: 9780316113786)
Edition Language:	English
Setting:	Benin Kenya Ethiopia …more Rwanda Nigeria Africa …less
Literary Awards:	Guardian First Book Award Nominee for Longlist (2008), Dayton Literary Peace Prize Nominee for Fiction (2009), PEN Open Book Award (2009), Paris Book Festival for Compilation/Anthology (2010), Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Fiction (2009) Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book in Africa (2009)

Rating Regarding Books Say You're One of Them

Ratings: 3.52 From 14134 Users | 2339 Reviews

Critique Regarding Books Say You're One of Them

It wasn't until I read the afterward that I noticed that all of the stories in this book where written from the perspective of children. I'm not really sure how I missed that. And in each story, the ending is hard to take. Incredibly hard.The first two stories surprised me with a new way of looking at a topic: I hadn't really though about a child choosing a brothel because she thinks it would be better than streetwalking or that children sold into slavery would spend so long being prepped for

Uwem Akpan is a man acquainted with grief. He is a Jesuit priest from Nigeria, and these stories, all beautifully written from the point of view of children, are intended to help people see that "the situation of Africa is very urgent."That is putting it mildly. It took me months to finish this book; for long stretches of time I became reluctant to pick it up again. The violence in the stories is as or more brutal than any I've read. But it is very far from the gratuitous pap that is fed to us

Uwem Akpan graphically portrays horrendous conditions in several African countries -- child trafficking; prostitution; rape; murder, religious conflict; Sharia-mandated amputations; starvation; etc. These stories are no doubt grounded in fact, but two defects in the collection detract from its potential power. First, the various narrators describe terrible circumstances in such a detached reportorial, matter-of-fact way that the lack of emotional engagement has the unfortunate effect of

just picked up from the library.Read the three short-ish ones and they, particularly 'My Parent's Bedroom' have knocked me down with their power...later: still reeling from this one. He's not the greatest writer in the world - the three short pieces are superbly done, but the longer pieces - novellas really - are too long, repetitive, relying on exposition too much. But that doesn't seem to matter, you forget the difficulties of dealing with the odd dialects, French and 'African' English because

What I learned from this book is that I need to know more about the history and political situation in Africa. Akpan has a gift for writing from the viewpoint of children who suffer due to poverty and violence. It is my fault, not his, that I didn't understand these stories better. I am somewhat familiar with the terrible violence that has occurred in Rwanda due to tribal conflict. Thus the story, "My Parent's Bedroom", was very clear to me. It was also terribly frightening. The first story I

Stories of abused and battered children in Africa are legion, but few cut as close to the bone as this collection by Uwem Akpan. His five tales, two of which are novella length, are told with the uninhibited, truth-filled voices of the children involved. Each one takes place in a different country but the theme is universal: the biggest challenge faced by children in Africa is staying alive.Akpan, a Jesuit priest with an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan, piles on details

"Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence so piercingly that few readers will feel they've ever encountered Africa so immediately. The eight-year-old narrator of "An Ex-Mas Feast" needs only enough money to buy books and pay fees in order to attend school. Even when his twelve-year-old sister takes to the streets to raise these meager funds, his dream can't be granted. Food comes first. His family lives in a street shanty in Nairobi, Kenya, but their way of both