Sarah Ladipo Manyika Reviews "Harare North"

Here is a review of Harare North by Sarah Ladipo Manyika, a Zimbabwean (or Nigerian) writer based in San Francisco. Sarah Ladipo Manyika grew up in Nigeria and has lived in Kenya, France, and England. She holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and teaches literature at San Francisco State University (not very far from where I used to teach, if that counts for anything). Her writing includes published essays, academic papers, book reviews and short stories. Sarah's first novel, In Dependence, is published by Legend Press (2008)

I enjoyed "Mr Wonder", one of her stories (in Women Writing Zimbabwe),where a wife capitalizes on the guilty conscience of her cheating husband to have him sponsor an expensive vacation in San Francisco. And as the plot unfolds (first in Zimbabwe, then in California) we learn so much about ambition and its obstacles.

Manyika's focus in the Harare North review is different from (and soberer than)most that have been published in the big UK papers. She knows what she is talking about. Not to say that there is anything wrong with not knowing what you are talking about when you review a book, because any reader response tends to have its merits, etc, but I like how she focuses on the language use in the novel. She writes:

"Such a potpourri [of speech patterns]runs the risk of being confusing or distracting. Yet this same language might be interpreted as part of the novel's brilliance for it reflects a protagonist who has appropriated London's many speech patterns, thereby making it difficult to put him into the straitjacket of one single immigrant experience. The protagonist becomes an everyman, albeit not a likeable one, who captures the reader's attention and compels them to keep reading."

Her review is important because she brings a writer's perspective to her reading of the novel and her understanding of the issues is informed by her first-hand knowledge of the Zimbabwean situation. We need more reviews like this one.

There is so much that I can say about the language use in Harare North, and I just realized (again) that a review is the wrong medium if you have a lot to say about a book.