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Give Me a Dog's Life Any Day: African Absurdities II

by Hama Tuma

187 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-2686; ISBN 1-4120-2137-5; US$19.00, C$23.00, EUR14.95, £11.00

You want to get even at the pompous politicians of all sorts who have made the lives of ordinary people miserable? This books places dictators on the receiving end - for once...

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about the book      about the author      excerpt      catalogue info

About the Book Give Me a Dog's Life Any Day, the second book of African Absurdities by Hama Tuma, is a collection of satirical articles on the African and the world political reality, of the double standards that exist, the follies of governments and politicians and of citizens too. There is parody here, ironic laughter at the very serious problems of Africa, a call to ponder on the failures of governance, the lack of democracy using the prism of irreverent satire. Nothing is sacred; the pompous leaders are made fun of and their naked state exposed. Book II of African Absurdities goes even farther than Book I in poking fatal fun at African leaders, their patrons in the West and at life in general. This is a book that will entertain and make you laugh but it will be the laughter of the knowing, the victim, the conscious and the one who is keen on justice but is realistic enough to know that this world is not fair to the weak and the defenseless.

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About the Author Hama Tuma was born in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia, in 1949. A conscience that refused to sleep made him a militant for democracy and justice and made sure he would have a troubled life. Three governments in Ethiopia have banned him and inadvertently helped him to sharpen his satirical pen. A novelist and a poet, Hama Tuma has written (in English) The Case of the Socialist Witchdoctor and Other Stories (Heinemann 1993), Of Spades and Ethiopians and Eating an American (poetry collections) and other books in his own language. Hama Tuma has traveled extensively though he is now "based" in Paris where he lives with his wife and a daughter.

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Excerpt

The line between the real and the absurd, the divide between what we call our life and what is actually in the realm of the ridiculous is often quite thin in Africa, a continent plagued by more than its share of misery and suffering. Hama Tuma's book plunges into this maze of the real and the absurd with the dagger of the satirist, not to cause fatal damage (maybe only to the dictators, who knows?) but to prod and, as you laugh or smile, to make you ponder.

This is not a dull political treatise, no. Not a diatribe either. What Hama Tuma does is to take nothing as out of bounds and to boldly declare that all of the self styled Emperors and tin pot dictators are actually naked though they may wear Armani and Saville Row suites or traditional dresses in silk. There is no malice in the book. Indignation? Yes. Anger? Surely. A call to say no to injustice? Definitely. The satirical articles in this book are political without being tracts or dull.

African Absurdities actually deals with the absurdities of life, of double standards that wound the weak, of prejudices and racism subverting the humanity of all peoples and, above all, of the African people who have been unfortunate enough to be burdened by absurd and cruel dictators. It is a book you will enjoy whether you have closely followed political developments or not.

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Catalogue Information

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