Based on a true story. Fictional account of Aminata, a young girl abducted from her village in Mali in 1755, and who, after a deathly journey on a slave ship, is sold to a plantation owner in South Carolina, who rapes her. She is brought to New York, where she escapes her owner, and finds herself helping the British by recording the details of all the freed slaves on the British side in the Revolutionary War in 'The Book of Negroes' (a document in the National Archives at Kew). Aminata is sent to Nova Scotia to start a new life, but finds more hostility, oppression and tragedy. Separated from her one true love, and suffering the unimaginable loss of both her children who are taken away from her, she eventually joins a group of freed slaves on a harrowing odyssey back to Africa, and ends up in London as a living icon for Wilberforce and the other Abolitionists. 486pp, UK. DOUBLEDAY.

Epic story of the fictional African state of Nakem struggling at the hands of native lords. With an introduction by Christopher Wise. 268pp, TEXT IN FRENCH, FRANCE. LE SERPENT A PLUMES.

Following in the tradition of Montesquieu's The Persian Letters, Ouologuem looks at France through the eyes of its African subjects. French text. 218pp, FRANCE. LE SERPENT A PLUMES, 2842613953

A presentation of substantial excerpts from the author's translation of a performance of the Sunjata epic by Djanka Tassey Conde. Includes an informative introduction, notes and suggestions for further reading. Notes, 206pp, USA. HACKETT PUBLISHING COMPANY.

Perhaps one of Africa's most controversial writers, Ouologuem won the Prix Renaudot in 1968 for his novel The Duty of Violence. This reader, which also includes the first ever English translations of A Black Ghostwriter's Letter to France and an excerpt from his erotic novel, A Thousand and One Bibles of Sex, is provocative in content and highly indicative of the skill and style with which Ouologuem writes. Translated from the French and edited by Christopher Wise. 338pp, USA. AFRICA WORLD PRESS.