Say You're One Of Them By Uwem Akpan Is Oprah's Latest Book Club

Oprah's book club pick: Say You're One of Them
The new pick for Oprah's Book Club appears to be "Say You're One of Them," Uwen Akpan's collection of short stories about the lives of African children. News reports in The Washington Post and other media provide a peek at the pick, which Oprah plans to announce later today on her show. (Update: Oprah has made the pick official.) It's been a while between picks -- the last one, about a year ago, was David Wroblewski's "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle." It became an instant best seller, of course.

Akpan's book should be a refreshing counterpoint to the frenzy over "The Lost Symbol." (I shudder to think what would have happened if Oprah had chosen Dan Brown's book for her club -- the resulting storm would have been like the earth and moon colliding.)

If you want to get a head start on Akpan's book, you can read two of the stories, "An Ex-Mas Feast" and "My Parents' Bedroom," on The New Yorker's website. And here's Akpan describing his collection, as it was being written: "I would like to see a book about how children are faring in these endless conflicts in Africa. I would like to really know how kids are dealing with the genocide in Darfur. What is the torment like for a child who went through the tsunami? I would like to get into the head of a kid soldier in Sierra Leone. It is scary and painful. And the world is not looking."

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
         
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/books/blog/2009/09/oprahs_book_club_pick_say_your.html

Just watched Oprah and heard it. This should make front page. Seun please take note.

The novel is almost guaranteed to be an instant bestseller. This will be a great financial windfall for him. And he is the first African whose novel has been choosen on Oprah's book club. Kudos to him.

Just read one story out of the book.
Sad. It almost drove me to tears . .almost

The writing was rather domestic, and the dialogue,
too much for me.

Still, its worth reading.

I thought she considered all Nigerians as worthless thieves? Why get happy over anything she does.

Yes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uwem_Akpan

Am proud of the dude.

And so what?

it was only a matter of time, until they turned it tribal

*sigh*

WHO CARES !!!!!!!!!!!!!! My book is on kiss my as.s dot com

Good news! shows Nigeria has got lot of stuffs to offer.

It was only a matter of time until they turned it Religious

Domestic, well. ,  as in 'tame' 'safe'

Too much dialogue. .just as it implies

i dont like many books were the characters
constantly talk to each other in "" <present time>

I saw this was the most searched  stuff on yahoo, yay, the guy is going to help me get ass. When I tell girls that i am from nigeria this what they would think about, not 419

This was hilarious! Got me laughing crazily,

Anyway, good job done by Uwem. I will be ordering the book soonest.

shameful.

Good one. I'd love to get a copy.