severe relapse, yet moments of epiphany emerge as if hurled from the crevices of Broken Glass’s mind. Mabanckou is surgical with his use of incoherence—faint allusions will reward the most patient of readers as the text unravels. Perhaps only comparable to his own memoir, The Lights of Pointe-Noire (see WLT, Sept. 2016, 99–100), Broken Glass reflects Mabanckou’s concern with an individual ’s ability to digest the worst experiences living may propose. No chronicle is particularly critical, but each one dives deep into the persistence of survival when only the sparsest threads of it remain. There is no individual considered without damage, many to an irreparable extent, but their tales convey an undeniable meaning, one that Mabanckou readily distills within his text. Broken Glass is not Mabanckou’s best work, but it is a welcome reissue for anyone to trace the author’s present success. Throughout the text lie hallmarks of Mabanckou’s career, and in tandem with The Lights of Pointe-Noire, Broken Glass is one of the best jumping-off points to explore the auteur. Daniel Bokemper Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Tanella Boni The Future Has an Appointment with the Dawn Trans. Todd Fredson. Lincoln. University of Nebraska Press. 2018. 73 pages. I was introduced to the riveting work of Tanella Boni, a critically acclaimed Ivorian poet and novelist, while reading A Rain of Words (2009), considered the first comprehensive bilingual anthology of poetry written by women from French-speaking Africa. Aware that English-speaking readers hear so little from francophone African poets, let alone francophone women poets, I was drawn to Boni’s female point of view describing the ethnocultural violence tearing apart Africa, in general, and the Ivory Coast, in particular. The Future Has an Appointment with the Dawn is Boni’s first full-length volume of poems to be translated into English and continues Boni’s quest to find “letters / for the perfect word.” The age-old conflict between good and evil is played out in Boni’s juxtaposition of such themes as the magnificence of the natural world, young lives full of promise, and the “rare pearls in the water of Kindness,” with the current Ivorian political state of affairs, where “the hands of plenty . . . / weave their barbed wire” and where “daily lives [are] placed among the objects for sale / at the market rapacious for our distressed skins.” This compact collection is composed of two main sections, entitled “Land of Hope” and “A Murdered Life,” with units that can stand alone but which work together to create a powerful and almost overwhelming narrative of horrific proportions. Boni’s language is restrained and sparse, but a deep lyricism infuses the texts. None of the poems are titled, and, except for a capital letter at the start of each unit, there is no other punctuation. Though Boni never gives in to self-pity or hopelessness, neither does she allow herself the luxury of giving in to false hope. Indeed, while she maintains a desire Moniza Alvi Blackbird, Bye Bye Bloodaxe Books After being shortlisted multiple times for the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Whitbread Poetry Award, and many others, Moniza Alvi returns with this surreal, whimsical collection of poetry inspired by her parents, and particularly by her father’s emigration from Pakistan. A succession of elegant shape poems imitating the wings and branches associated with their avian subjects, these poems pay homage to Alvi’s formative figures through the eyes of both child and adult. Ben Berman Then Again Vine Leaves Press This fascinating set of tryptic prose sketches by US author and poet Ben Berman is barely the size of a pamphlet, yet it contains worlds. If you have ever wondered what it would be like to walk through the succession of portals so many children’s cartoons present into a multitude of lives, each lasting merely a surveyed minute, this pocket book is for you. Crossing the world both geographically and personally, the title belies itself—no two are the same. Nota Bene WORLDLIT.ORG 79 for hope, she is careful to differentiate a desire for hope and hope itself. Unflinchingly , she ends the book on a somber note: “How to...
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Jul 25, 2024
Zhuohui Zhao 
Open Access
