Say You're One of Them

After reading this painfully affective collection of profound short stories, written from the point of view of children from five different countries in Africa, every complaint we might make about our lives seems insignificant. In his stunning literary debut, Uwem Akpan, a Jesuit priest who was born and raised in Nigeria, evokes the casual atrocities of life in modern Africa, horrors whose edges are honed by the dull resignation with which the characters accept them. In one story, an eight-year-old boy in Kenya tries to rectify the guilt he feels from knowing that his 12-year-old sister is selling her body to support her family and his education. Another tale adds a morbid twist to a fairy tale theme, as a brother and sister in Gabon realize that their uncle is attempting to fatten them up to be sold into slavery. The most wrenching story depicts the crimson chaos of the Rwandan genocide, as seen through the eyes of the young daughter of a Hutu-Tutsi marriage. Akpan writes with riveting wisdom and emotional density, prudently ignoring the temptation for authorial flourish as he presents each horrific scene in the lucid prose of a child.