….unknown author from among the Kipsigis people of Kenya, circa 1978
Translated by Richard Chowning

There was a father who would often return from a hunting expedition with a live animal as a present for his children. One day he brought them an elephant. The children loved riding him. Another day he brought them a lion. The children loved getting warm by snuggling up against him at night.
Then one day, the father brought home a large python.

The children stood back from the slithering snake. “Why have you brought home this terrible animal,” cried his wife. It is too dangerous for the children. “They will be alright. This snake is different from others.” As if on cue, the snake open his mouth wide and said, “Come. Climb inside me and I will take you for a ride.”

The children backed up, in fear. “Go ahead,” the father said. Soon, the oldest son slowly laid down in front of the snake and allowed the animal to swallow him feet first.

The python slithered out into the pasture, up a tree, back down again, and finally came to a stop in front of the family vomited the boy out. “It was great fun. It was so warm inside. Try it,” the eldest son said.

Soon the children were begging to be the next to take a ride in the snake.

The mother was no longer alarmed. She was convinced that the snake would always vomit up the children.

The next afternoon, the father looked out the door of the hut and said, “Wife, where have all the children gone?”


She came to the door for a look. “That python has a full stomach under the shade of the far tree. He’ll soon come vomit them up.”

They waited the rest of the afternoon and evening, yet the children remained within the snake. By the time the sun went down, snake’s stomach was back to normal. The children were gone, forever.

……………………
Sin and Satan will not always spit us out to try again. There will come a day when it swallows us up. Do not play with the serpent he is a deceiver.

Several nominations and awards for his first published short story collection had to have pleased Uwem Akpan, but his fortunes literally came gushing in when Say You’re One of Them (Oprah’s Book Club) was selected by Oprah Winfrey for her book club earlier this year (2009).

Akpan was born in Ikot Akpan Eda, in southern Nigeria.  He is the son school teachers who grew up, did most of his village mates, speaking English and his mother tongue, Annang.  That is where his conformity stopped.  He was ordained a Jesuit Priest after completing studies at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa in Nairobi, Kenya, studied Humanities at Campion House, a scholarly Jesuit community attached to Creighton University, and pursued philosophy at Gonzaga University in Washington State for two years.

In 2001, Akpan returned to the United States to cap off his education with
a MFA degree in creative writing from the University of Michigan.  He is presently teacher at a seminary in Zimbabwe.

Say You’re One of Them (Oprah’s Book Club) is a collection of short stories are windows into contemporary Africa today for children in some of the most trying situations: living on the street, child trafficking, genocide, and ethnic cleansing.  The characters are children, but the stories are written for adults, not that Father Akpan uses any vulgar language or flaunts sex, but he brings you into their very shocking lives.  The title of the collection is not a title from one of the short stories, but if you Say You’re One of Them as you read, you will experience life in a very different way than you ever imagined.  Even though I have seen a lot in Africa in my 25 years there, Akpan, thourgh mostly first person narratives (one unique second person piece) gave me a taste of danger and vulnerability that I had never known at such a deep level.

This should be a ‘must read’ for every politician, professor, mover and shaker, even every compassionate human being.  “To see, to feel, to hear, to smell and to touch” the world of these children may compel us to do something so that other children will not find themselves in similar circumstances.


Akpan was taken by the plight of street children in Nairobi when he was at seminary there.  “An Ex-Mass Feast” is the first story in the collection and his first work to find print when it was published in the New Yorker in 2005.  “An Ex-Mass Feast” has been posted, in its entirety, on Akpan’s official website.  Give it a read.  I am confident you will want to buy the collection. 

“Say You’re One of Them is a bold attempt to enlighten readers about children in Africa, fueled by a passionate desire to create a safer place for children all over the world,” says the Most Reverend Camillus Etokudoh, in the Afterword.

The Oprah’s Book Club edition of Say You’re One of Them comes complete with a short Reading Group Guide and interview with Akpan.

This is just the beginning of the career of who I think will be one of Africa’s great creative writers, in fact Akpan might have already achieved literary greatness.

Of course this is not the beginning of stories of Africa. There have been multitudes of articles, stories and books written about Africa. I do welcome you to the beginning of Stories of Africa website and blog which is a home for we who reading and writing about Africa.

Reporters share the daily events from the continent: the challenges, disasters, victories and lessons. We will carry a daily RSS news feed from BBC’s Africa service, but our emphasis will be on the reporters themselves. We will highlight the stories behind the stories, the careers of those who write the new.  Jeff Koinange, Hilary Ng’weno, and Amin Mohamed are the first of many we will feature.  We encourage you to give your own observations and ratings of these reporters in the comment boxes. Suggest other reporters for us to feature.

The scholars of Africa help us remember the past and plan for the future. On the Stories of Africa we will be looking into the life work of some of these scholars and detailing much of their writing. The initial featured scholars (Kwame Appiah, Ali Mazrui, and John Mbiti) are only a toenail of an elephant compared to the entire wealth of scholars who have written of Africa, her people and land. We will be adding new scholars periodically, further we solicit you to give us the names of your favorite scholars, who might even be yourself.

Through fiction and poetry, the story tellers of Africa carry us into the heart and soul of what it is to be African or to live among Africans. The light of their insights has flashed a light on what others have ignorantly referred to as the Dark Continent. Some readers may be familiar with the story tellers we present this month (Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Wole Soyinka, Njabulo Ndebele, Nadine Gordimer, Leopold Senghor, and Mazisi Kunene), but most of Africa’s fiction writers are unknown to the rest of the world. Our task is to give their work exposure. No doubt, you have a favorite fiction writer or poet.  Tell us about him or her. If you are one who is blessed with a muse from Africa and wish to share your fiction here, we may feature you and your work.

I lived in Africa for more than twenty-five years. Sixteen of them were in Kenya among the Kipsigis people. Nine were among the Aja people of Benin. I researched and traveled in more than a dozen countries. I am an avid reader of reports, articles, and stories from Africa and have written over a hundred of myself.

Lets begin to share the stories of Africa.

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