The Literature Police by Peter McDonald makes it on to the Guardian’s Christmas book list, nominated by Amit Chaudhuri as the best book about Africa this year.
Amit ChaudhuriJudging the Man Booker International prize this year meant that I discovered many works, including Evan S Connell’s superb Mr Bridge and Mrs Bridge (both North Point Press). The winner, Alice Munro, herself published a new collection, Too Much Happiness (Chatto & Windus), in 2009, full of the acuity that age gives, but which she seemed to have come to possess incredibly early. The best writing from south Asia may have made the quietest entries: Aamer Hussein’s novella, Another Gulmohar Tree (Telegram Books), and Sunetra Gupta’s novel, So Good in Black. And one of the most compelling books about Africa this year was not a novel, but a study of censorship in apartheid South Africa, Peter D McDonald’s The Literature Police.
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Image courtesy St Hugh’s College
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