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Baking Cakes in Kigali (Hardcover)

by Gaile Parkin (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
RRP: £12.99
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Atlantic Books (1 Jan 2009)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1843549859
  • ISBN-13: 978-1843549857
  • Product Dimensions: 22.8 x 14.4 x 3.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 183,199 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description

Meet Angel Tungaraza, professional cake-baker, amateur matchmaker, an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on. "Baking Cakes in Kigali" is a uniquely charming, funny and touching novel of life, life and food set in a country recovering from unimaginable terror and violence.Angel Tungazara has recently moved to Rwanda from her native Tanzania. With her husband, Pius, and the five orphaned children of their late son and daughter, she is hardly short of things to do. But she still finds time to pursue her hobby and her passion, her small but increasingly successful business, baking individually-designed cakes for the parties and celebrations of her neighbours and their friends."Baking Cakes in Kigali" introduces the unique and irresistible Angel, a fairy godmother who seemingly works miracles for her friends and neighbours; but she is also irresistibly manipulative, if always of course for the best.Angel is entirely aware that many of the Rwandans around her have witnessed and survived horrors she can barely imagine. But she also knows that their lives continue, that they also have reasons to celebrate, to be joyous and to be happy. As she gets to know her neighbours and as they tell her their stories, she comes to realise how much each of them has to mourn as well as how much they have to celebrate. And, finally, she comes to accept how much that is true of her too...


About the Author

Gaile Parkin was born and raised in Zambia, and studied at universities in South Africa and England. She has lived in many different parts of Africa, including Rwanda, where Baking Cakes in Kigali is set. She is currently a freelance consultant in the fields of education, gender and HIV/AIDS.
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Customer Reviews

54 Reviews
5 star:
 (24)
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 (18)
3 star:
 (9)
2 star:
 (1)
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 (2)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (54 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Truth, reconciliation and celebration cakes, 9 Jan 2009
By Tealady2000 (Edinburgh) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)      
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
This style of this book is very much akin to the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series and Angel (the cake-maker in question) is very similar in many ways to Precious Ramotswe - wise, diplomatic, gently philosophical and traditionally built. But this story is set against a backdrop of unimaginable suffering - the Rwandan genocide and the subsequent AIDS epidemic. Each character has a different, often heart-breaking, story to tell. Ultimately though this book celebrates the endurance of the human spirit and remains humorous and up-beat. Angel's business thrives because, despite everything, people still have things to celebrate. Angel herself is a wonderful character, always ready to see the best in others and to do what she can to improve their situations. I really learned a lot from this book!
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing..., 31 Dec 2008
By Z. Herbert "solaan" (Lancashire, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)      
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
Set in Rwanda, the intriguing quality of this novel lies in its incongruity: it deals with the aftermath of genocide with a surreal serenity. There is nothing in the writing style that is tense, ugly or staccato; what shocks is how matter-of-fact the characters are about the horrors they have endured. They have all been touched intimately by war and have for the most part survived in one fashion or another.

It is this question of survival that forms the leitmotif for the whole book. The various methods people use are explored through the experiences of the protagonists. The author offers no opinion on the 'correct' way but simply suggests how such unfortunates manage to survive at all.

The main character, Angel, is well-defined and believable in her calm manner and common-sense approach to her situation. I found some of the minor characters difficult to distinguish one from another because they are sketched almost thumbnail against the backdrop of compound life and not clearly enough defined on introduction.

It is hard to comment on the plot because there is not really a definable start-middle-end. The action strolls along much like life itself, which gives the book a familiar and almost insubstantial feel.

Towards the end, I felt a tighter editing would have helped as the prose meanders a little; the outline, vague to start with, grows fuzzy as it nears the horizon.

All in all, I found this novel easy to read, enlightening and sensitively written. It addresses a very difficult subject without any pathos or hysteria and is written with a lightness of touch that is refreshing.

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Life & Cake, 7 Jun 2009
By Steven Brown - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
I was attracted to this book because it looked like an Alexander McColl Smih, only pink; what could be better! In truth I expected a poor man's knock off, but was pleasantly surprised.

It's the turn of the millenium and our heroine, Angel Tungaraza, has recently relocated from her Tanzanian home to Rwanda where her husband Pius has taken up a university lecturing post. From their two bedromed apartment in an ex-pat compound in Kigali, Angel raises her five orphaned grand-children, helps her neighbours out of pickles, and runs her thriving cake business.

In each chapter, Angel invites you into her sitting room, pours you a cup of cardamom tea, offers you a cupcake, and gets down to the business of putting her corner of the world to rights through the medium of cake. The disappointed parents of baby girl Goodenough, the teenage rape victim turned prostitute, the genocide survivor reunited with long lost family, and the wedding of Hutu Leocadie and Tutsi Modeste, all provide occasions for one of Angel's delicacies, washed down with a few wise words and a gentle nudge in the right direction.

This is a heart warming book with a serious theme that belies the sugar coating of the cover and the cakes. Through the stories of her friends and neighbours and her own family tragedies, Angel struggles to make sense of the twin evils of genocide and AIDS. What she finds is that, somehow, life goes on.

I would thoroughly recommend this life afirming read.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A delightful read....
"Baking Cakes in Kigali" is about Angel Tungaraza who runs a small business in Rwanda baking cakes for special occasions and when people come to order their cakes they tell her... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Tickle On The Tum

5.0 out of 5 stars Bittersweet and Unforgettable.
This book has been an absolute joy to read; it is both heart-rending and heart-warming in equal measure - I couldn't put it down! Read more
Published 2 months ago by H. Buckley

4.0 out of 5 stars a taste of Rwanda
This book is very similar to the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency Series, by Alexander McCall Smith, and if you enjoy that series, this will not disappoint. Read more
Published 2 months ago by B. Roche

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting tales
Baking Cakes in Kigali features a likeable middle-aged woman called Angel who bakes beautiful celebration cakes. Read more
Published 2 months ago by TheLibrarian

3.0 out of 5 stars A bit long but ok-ish novel/recipe book
The writer, Gail Parkin, was born in Zambia and lives in Africa, and writes her first novel. Pretty impressive CV I suppose, you would think she deserves that her novel be read at... Read more
Published 2 months ago by W. Ahmad

1.0 out of 5 stars A Poor Imitation
A VERY poor imitation if The Number One Ladies' Detective Agency. Although set in a different part of Africa and dealing with different issues you cannot miss the fact that Angel... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Soraya

4.0 out of 5 stars A humourous recipe for life
It's always nice when you read a simple book which has heart and a feel-good factor. The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency was a book in such a vein and now we have Baking Cakes in... Read more
Published 3 months ago by J. Cronin

5.0 out of 5 stars Great read
If you like the No 1 Ladies detective agency you'll love this! My Mum loved it too, a book for all generations! An easy read for a holiday perhaps>
Published 3 months ago by Jessica R. Mytum

5.0 out of 5 stars Better Than Eating Cake
Fans of the Number One Ladies Detective Agency will love this book. Angel Tungaraza not only runs her cake making business, looks after her five orphaned grandchildren and copes... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Lisa Main

5.0 out of 5 stars A fine book by a 'professional somebody'
It has a good title, and fortunately more.

When I came to the end of Gaile Parkin's brilliant debut novel I was genuinely quite sad at having to say goodbye to the... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Mo

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