My Parent's Bedroom (A Story from Say You're One of Them)

Name: My Parent's Bedroom (A Story from Say You're One of Them)
Brand: Hachette Audio
Availability: InStock
Author: Uwem Akpan
ISBN: 9781600243035

Author: Uwem Akpan

Narrator: Robin Miles

Unabridged: 1 hr 6 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Little, Brown & Company

Published: 06/09/2008

Categories: Fiction, Short Stories

Synopsis

Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence so piercingly that few readers will feel they've ever encountered Africa so immediately. The eight-year-old narrator of "An Ex-Mas Feast" needs only enough money to buy books and pay fees in order to attend school. Even when his twelve-year-old sister takes to the streets to raise these meager funds, his dream can't be granted. Food comes first. His family lives in a street shanty in Nairobi, Kenya, but their way of both loving and taking advantage of each other strikes a universal chord.
In the second of his stories published in a New Yorker special fiction issue, Akpan takes us far beyond what we thought we knew about the tribal conflict in Rwanda. The story is told by a young girl, who, with her little brother, witnesses the worst possible scenario between parents. They are asked to do the previously unimaginable in order to protect their children. This singular collection will also take the reader inside Nigeria, Benin, and Ethiopia, revealing in beautiful prose the harsh consequences for children of life in Africa.
Akpan's voice is a literary miracle, rendering lives of almost unimaginable deprivation and terror into stories that are nothing short of transcendent.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Paul on April 10, 2021

I like books that take me out of my comfort zone – this one threw me out violently – within ten pages I no longer knew where my comfort zone was. I forgot I ever had one. Here we have five stories set in five different African countries, each from the perspective of children, and each focusing laserl......more

Goodreads review by Dave on July 05, 2008

Stories of abused and battered children in Africa are legion, but few cut as close to the bone as this collection by Uwem Akpan. His five tales, two of which are novella length, are told with the uninhibited, truth-filled voices of the children involved. Each one takes place in a different country b......more

Goodreads review by Chuck on September 22, 2009

Uwem Akpan graphically portrays horrendous conditions in several African countries -- child trafficking; prostitution; rape; murder, religious conflict; Sharia-mandated amputations; starvation; etc. These stories are no doubt grounded in fact, but two defects in the collection detract from its poten......more

Goodreads review by Allison on October 27, 2008

I decided to read this book because of popular review. People loved it. Time loved it. Essence loved it. Entertainment Weekly loved it. Maybe I should have checked my sources--all owned by Time Inc. (duh)--but I figured that a book generating this much positive press would be worth reading. I won't g......more

Goodreads review by Mariah Roze on September 05, 2019

"Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence so piercingly that few readers will feel they've ever encountered Africa so immediately. The eight-year-old narrator of "An Ex-Mas Feast" needs only enough money to buy books and pay fees in order to attend school. Even when......more

Quotes

"Awe is the only appropriate response to Uwem Akpan's stunning debut, Say You're One of Them, a collection of five stories so ravishing and sad that I regret ever wasting superlatives on fiction that was merely very good. A."—Jennifer Reese, Entertainment Weekly (EW Pick / Grade A)

"[A] startling debut collection... Akpan is not striving for surreal effects. He is summoning miseries that are real.... He fuses a knowledge of African poverty and strife with a conspicuously literary approach to storytelling filtering tales of horror through the wide eyes of the young."—Janet Maslin, The New York Times

"Uwem Akpan's searing Say You're One of Them captures a ravaged Africa through the dry-eyed gaze of children trying to maintain a sense of normalcy amid chaos."—Megan O'Grady, Vogue

"The humor, the endurance, the horrors and grace-Akpan has captured all of it.... The stories are not only amazing and moving, and imbued with a powerful moral courage-they are also surprisingly expert.... Beautifully constructed, stately in a way that offsets their impoverished scenarios. Akpan wants you to see and feel Africa, its glory and its pain. And you do, which makes this an extraordinary book."—Vince Passaro, O Magazine

"Uwem Akpan, a Nigerian Jesuit priest, has said he was inspired to write by the 'humor and endurance of the poor,' and his debut story collection...about the gritty lives of African children - speaks to the fearsome, illuminating truth of that impulse."—Lisa Shea, Elle

"Haunting prose.... A must-read."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Uwem Akpan's stunning short story collection, Say You're One of Them, offers a richer, more nuanced view of Africa than the one we often see on the news....Akpan never lets us forget that the resilient youngsters caught up in these extraordinary circumstances are filled with their own hopes and dreams, even as he assuredly illuminates the harsh realities."—Patrik Henry Bass, Essence

"In the corrupt, war-ravaged Africa of this starkly beautiful debut collection, identity is shifting, never to be trusted...Akpan's people, and the dreamlike horror of the worlds they reveal, are impossible to forget."—Kim Hubbard, People

"All the promise and heartbreak of Africa today are brilliantly illuminated in this debut collection..."—John Marshall, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

"Akpan's brilliance is to present a brutal subject through the bewildered, resolutely chipper voice of children...All five of these stories are electrifying."—Maureen Corrigan, NPR's "Fresh Air"