Petina Gappah's An Elegy for Easterly wins Guardian First Book Award 2009

It's now official, what many of us have rightly anticipated. Petina Gappah has won a major literary prize for her collection, An Elegy for Easterly.
"A Geneva-based international trade lawyer whose poignant, humane and funny collection of stories about her home country, Zimbabwe, has impressed critics was tonight named winner of the Guardian First Book Award."
Good Luck, Petina. Many more are on your way.

The new black celebrity authors

Hei, have you read this? I find it oddly interesting. Sandile Memela is a senior marketing manager for the Department of Arts & Culture in South Africa. He seems to be of the opinion that all criticism of black experience amounts to a betrayal. Hmmm! He seems to be particularly offended by Zakes Mda's writing especially his latest novel,Black Diamonds. I like Zakes Mda. Surely I was frustrated by his Heart of Redness (too historical, postmodernist), depressed by The Whale Caller (an experiment in arts for arts sake - you can't get me interested in a man having an imaginary sex with a whale - give me a break), but, friends, his Ways of Dying is just brilliant. It's one of the best ten books written by Africans in the past fifty years.
Anyway, here is what Sandile Memela has to say. ENJOY!

The Education of a British-Protected Child - Charles Larson

CHARLES R. LARSON. This name sounds familiar, right? Those of us with a minimal knowledge of the history of the reception of Things Fall Apart will not easily forget Larson. Yes, his sharp criticism of the novel helped shape the discourse that would emerge in the course of the past 50 years. Now, the same Larson is again one of the first few to take on Achebe's latest offering: The Education of a British-Protected Child. Oh, he likes the book. SEE WHY!