How Dare the Sun Rise by Sandra Uwiringiyimana

How Dare the Sun Rise: Memoirs of a War Child by Sandra Uwiringiyimana
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A powerful and moving memoir about Uwiringiyimana's experiences in the Congo, a Burundi refugee camp, and finally New York. Her story is important and she's a very relatable writer.

The horrifying thing is that the ethnic cleansing in the Congo has barely slowed down. In January of 2019: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-46896159. In general, all the news from The DR of Congo is bad: https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cvenzmgylgwt/democratic-republic-of-congo.

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Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a memoir only of Trevor Noah's childhood in South Africa during and immediately after apartheid. Really interesting to read a personal account of living under apartheid by a person uniquely situated inside the insanity and hypocrisy of it all.

He stops before his comedy career and that was really disappointing. There wasn't even a mention of how his career began.

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Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was pretty interesting in that it was significantly different in both form and substance than what I usually read. Although substance-wise, I recently read a discussion of The Iliad and its pre-Christian culture having an ethics not of kindness and mercy but rather of strength and beauty, and it reminds me of this sort of narrative.

On the other hand, though Okonkwo often commits terrible acts, the reader is not alone in his judgment. There is often a villager who voices the wrongness of his action. And when Okonkwo is opposing the missionaries, I found myself suddenly sympathetic to him.

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We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a short book about the basics of feminism, which the author explains with much humor and kindness.

I especially like when she discusses that oppression based on class does not negate oppression based on gender. To my eyes, though most do not agree with me, the most recent American election played class off gender to the ultimate detriment of the poor, the middle class, and women. It would be great to hear her talk more about how the oppression of one group contributes to the oppression of other groups.

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