Say You're One of Them

Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This isn't a feel-good book. But it is a book that expands your world-view and changes you fundamentally. This book is a collection of short-stories told from the point of view of different children in different parts of Africa. Each of them have trials we can only begin to comprehend--poverty, ethnic cleansing, slavery. What Akpan does is put the problems of Africa into a form that at once intrigues and repulses, but one that you cannot ignore--the emotional resonance with which he writes makes these problems as intimately yours as it is the children's about whom he writes.
I must admit when I started with the first story "An Ex-mas Feast"--I was really confused. It took awhile for me to grasp that verbiage he used in conversation was the way they talked, and not editorial errors (sometimes I'm slow). And the events in the story seemed muddled and extraneous, but maybe that's just how his child narrator perceived it. "Luxurious Hearses" does double duty as a harrowing tale of refugees trying to escape ethnic cleansing in one part of the country(only to realize that the killing was occurring at their destination as well) and as an allegory of the religious/political make-up of the country. "My Parents Bedroom" is emotionally gut-wrenching but the one that stays with you is one of the longer stories: "Fattening for Gabon"--excellent all the way around.

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