Africa Speaks

by Mark Goldblatt

"A salaam aleichem, in the name of Allah, the merciful, the compassionate, the one true God. Yo, yo, yo, I'd like to send a shout out to my people, to my kings and queens. You know what I'm saying? My... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 157962037X
• ISBN13: 9781579620370
• Release Date: February 2002
• Publisher: Permanent Press (NY)
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.9" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

startling and challenging

I found this book compelling and convincing. Its stark portrayal of the logical consequences of the rap ethos, its bleak humor, and its engaging characters take this beyond the question of idiom or stereotype. Whether posturing for the interviewer or puzzling out the mystery of racism, Africa Ali and his cohorts seem desperate to tell their stories, and it seems to me that those stories -- authentic or not -- deserve to be told. If the stories frighten the whites and frustrate the blacks, so much the better.Novels may be the ideal space in which to consider and encounter otherness. Africa's life and language are alien to me, and so is urban black culture in general. Reading this novel, knowing it was written by a white man, forced me to decide where my own sympathies (and pathologies) might be located. If rap were turned into narrative, would it be like this? If I find these characters sympathetic, does that make me a racist because, as some reviewers have said, they are stereotypes? Or does it mean that I have broken through the stereotypes to their humanity? Maybe the important thing is to be asking the question. This novel startled and challenged me, and that's a good thing.Unfortunately, the controversy over whether a white man can legitimately write a novel about black culture speaks volumes about the strangle-hold identity politics has taken on America: perhaps our desire for authenticity, and our wish that the oppressed might speak for themselves, has closed doors to creativity that ought to be left open. In any case, I plan to teach this book in my class on Contemporary American Literature, and let the students debate the question.

Judge for yourself

I wouldn't be writing this review except for the last couple of reviews which imply that Goldblatt should not have written this because he's white, or that he doesn't get the language of hip hop exactly right. I read this book right after it came out, and I am a big time fan of hip hop, and I can tell you he got the language just right. Not to say he got it exactly the way it's spoken on the street. If he tried to do that, the book would have been dated before it ever got published--since hip hop slang changes every week. (That's one of hip hop's strengths.) What Goldblatt does is he invents a kind of essential hip hop language--close enough to sound real but still understandable to non-hip hop fans. Then he uses that language to tell the story of Africa Ali, who is the main narrator. The things Africa says may not be pretty, but they're true in the way that only fiction can be true; they're true to the character of Africa. It's easy to say, but I'll say it anyway: I personally guarantee you'll laugh out loud and cry out loud in the course of reading this book. You'll love every character in the book, and you'll root for them, and you'll read the book over and over just to hear their voices again. This is everything ia classic should be. And if you don't read it because other readers, with axes to grind, put you off it, it will be your loss.

Realism with Heart

This book is superb. Although it is ostensibly a satire on black culture, it achieves a warmth and humanity that is usually alien to that genre. The characters are deeply engaging, so much so, that their failings are not to be sneered at, but rather lamented. It is as if the author has taken us behind the often grim exterior of "blackness" and revealed the humor, the humanity, and most importantly, the squandered potential that lies behind. And we owe that insight to the fact that this writer has great compassion for his characters. The novel is satire at its most educative, and most humane. The book also moves at an incredible pace. Part of that is derived from the gripping storyline as it is advanced by the protagonist in his monologues. It is also due to Goldblatt's adept handling of black speech. The editorial blurb on the book jacket asserting that Goldblatt "has an ear for idiom" is an understatement, indeed. I highly recommend this novel.

Painful truth

So how does a mature Jewish professor dare to write a novel in street dialect about a young black man, and how could it be done well? Well, the first question doesn't require an answer. He did it. And the second is answered by the book. It's fine.But what is its value? What does fiction do, at its best? It allows us to inhabit a person that we could hardly understand otherwise. Here we have white America's worst nightmare depicted: a young tough smart black man who doesn't give a damn. Now black writers may feel that Goldblatt is poaching on their reservation. But foreignness can give a writer an advantage. And there's another advantage here to not being black. A black writer has a complex reaction to this character too. He or she is as likely to be afraid of such guys as a white; plus there's some group solidarity - don't expose this side of our people in front of the outsiders. Or there's irritation at someone who is squandering his opportunities ; or there's a desire to use this character to beat up on white readers, scare them or make them feel guilty. The white author is free of those possible hang-ups.An author may love his characters or hate them, or he may take sides. Love some, hate others. Dickens and Tolstoy I consider to be obvious examples of writers who love their characters; they love even their villains. For hatred it's hard to match Evelyn Waugh. (A Handful of Dust would be the absolute indicator.) Here's the amazing thing about Africa Speaks. Goldblatt loves his character. He gives so much detail of the life so quickly. Violent crime, wasted educational opportunities, intolerable attitudes toward women and sex, nonsensical racist rant, these are unfortunate details in a man who may not be lovable, but is loved anyway. But how do I know Goldblatt loves Africa Ali? Chuang Tzu and the fishes. The Chinese philosopher walking along the stream comments on the joy of the fishes. His companion complains that he couldn't possibly know that. He responds that he knows by the joy he feels watching them.So here's what this book does. It lets urban middle class white readers enter into a relationship of love with a character that they see every day, but will never be close to. This is not the relationship they will have with the pathetic Bigger Thomas, for sure. Easy Rawlins, Mosley's detective hero, may be enjoyable, and likable but no more real than a TV cop. And not BAD. Black male figures in literature are either not the man we fear, or not a man we can love. Africa Ali is both. Isn't that something.The unobtrusive frame of the story is that Africa has volunteered to state his view of life to a sociology prof with a tape recorder who buys him Chinese lunch. Africa isn't the only character. On days when he can't make it he sends friends. A promiscuous black woman who loves him, an ambitious young man working a menial job to start a normal life, and a pompous young Afrocentric university student. Th

Read it if you care about literature

This may not be the Great American Novel, but it's as close as anyone's gotten in the last 25 years, and it's damn sure closer than any of the bloated 800 page monstrosities critics like to put up on that pedestal. Face it--race is THE subject, for better or worse, of American writing, and this book tackles it with no holds barred. It's an ugly, brutal, heartbreaking, absolutely truthful book. If other readers (and critics) have a problem with that, it's their loss.