Book Bag: Stories Trace Powerful Ties to African Motherlands

reviews by Sharon Shervington

The Thing Around Your Neck
Written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This collection of 12 short stories, like the author’s two novels, has won wide critical acclaim here and abroad. At first glance one might imagine the title story is about that peculiar type of torture in Africa called “the necklace,” but that is not so. It is a strange love story about a young woman who comes to America only to have her dreams shattered. Then she meets a man and her life changes again. Whether Ms. Adichie is talking about familial love, crime and the tragedy that has followed in the wake of political catastrophe in Nigeria, or the varied difficulties Nigerian women experience in coming to America, Ms. Adichie has the ability to shine a bright beam of light into the lives of people we might otherwise never know about. Even readers who don’t generally like short stories will find these complicated yet always complete gems captivating. A sequel by this winner of a 2008 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship would be welcome.

Knopf, 218 pages $24.95

A Princess Found –
An American Family, an African Chiefdom, and the Daughter Who Connected Them All
Written by Sarah Culberson and Tracy Trivas

Sarah Culberson grew up in West Virginia in a close and loving
family. But when the time was right, and she was still quite small, her
white parents revealed to her that she was adopted. For a long time
that didn’t matter to the star athlete and homecoming queen. But, at
least in part because her golden skin and kinky hair marked her as an
outsider in the very white community where she was reared, she needed
to know more. The first part of the book alternates chapters on her
early life with horrific ones about what happened to her blood family
during the civil war in Sierra Leone in the 1990s.

Fortunately, her adoptive parents had prepared well for the
moment when Sarah would come to them, searching for herself.
Eventually, she meets the families of her white mother (who was
deceased) and of her black father, many of whom had immigrated to the
U.S. But the bulk of the book follows Sarah to Sierra Leone where she
meets her father and extended family. Though beautiful, it is like
another world, without even running water. The war has destroyed
everything the family had including the school where her father was
principal. The story of how Culberson helps them with a foundation she
founds and a steadfast commitment to this very different family is just
lovely.

St. Martin’s Press, 351 pages, $25.99

Nelson Mandela: The Authorized Comic Book
By the Nelson Mandela Foundation with Umlando Wezithombe

Nelson Mandela is the kind of personal and political leader and
hero whose life will inspire people for years, if not centuries, to
come. This homage to Mr. Mandela begins with his childhood, his many
adventures and the early direct impact that the white supremacist
government had on his proud family. In fact when he was quite young,
the family was forced off its rich land. His education as a lawyer, his
life with Winnie and his heroic transformation from prisoner to
president are all here in this beautifully wrought “comic book.”  

W.W. Norton & Company, 193 pages, $27.95