Leddy Library News

February’s 5 Books You Should Read: 5 Books You Should Read for Black History Month from Dr. Mohamed Hassan Mohamed

Is it history, is it fiction? It is both! Here are five books that demonstrate the futility of separating art from history—i.e. blessed are those who take their art with a dose of history and vice-versa! The witnesses are two historians, two novelists and a journalist.

Dr. Mohamed Hassan Mohamed is as assistant professor at the University of Windsor who teaches African History. He holds a P.HD in history from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada (2004). His area of specialty is northwestern Africa (the historic Maghrib and Bilad al-Sudan).

Patricia E. Lorcin, Imperial Identities (1995, 1999): DT298, K2.L57.

This book will surprise those familiar with the ongoing clamour over the “veil” in France (parliament & media). If you believe that this is, indeed, a postmodern `clash of civilizations’ this historian will certainly disappoint you. You will discover that it is a mundane case of old wine in new bottles—i.e. a replay, albeit in France, of what happened in (colonial) Algeria.

Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration to the North (1969): PJ7862.A564.M313.

This novel has been described as `an Arabian nights in reverse.’  It is wonderfully written and superbly translated—it is poetic but it is not poetry. It complements Lorcin’s Imperial Identities in the sense that it fictionalizes the same illusions about the `clash of civilizations’.

Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost (1998): DT655.H63

Leopold turned the Congo into a private fief and in the process, instituted the reign of terror that inspired Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.  Heart of Darkness shocked Journalist Adam Hochschild and led him to embark on the investigation that also confirmed his worst expectations—i.e. this is a case of art `imitating’ reality. He made the recent turmoil in the Congo (and Rwanda) less `surprisingly’ than the news industry tended to suggest.

Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers (2001): DT450.435.M35.

Most readers either heard of this genocide from the press or `saw’ its recreation in Hollywood: Hotel Rwanda.  Historian Mamdani put this genocide in its broader context, and in the process, he also made it “thinkable.”  It comes across as a sequel in the very history that both evokes and belies the noble sentiment of “never again.”

Nadine Gordimer, July’s People (1981): PR9369.3G6.

In 1981, Gordimer (the South African Nobel Laureate), treated her audience to another sequel in an anthology that fictionalizes apartheid. This novella is a portrayal of the `worst case’ scenario for the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa—i.e. it is a `forecast’ of what happened a decade later. But then it also anticipates the kind of magnanimity displayed by those who steered The Truth and Reconciliation Commission—Desmond Tutu and co.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 8th, 2011 at 12.01pm by Heidi and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.