News From Home [Paperback]

i couldnt put this book down when i started it. every story is so good. i love reading Sefi Atta's books because she has the ability to transport you directly to the setting of whatever story she is writing.

New From Home is a collection that shows the promise of a writer rather than her full realisation (assuming writers are ever fully realised). It is just as well that it is called a collection not for the obvious reason that it contains different stories but because of the clear - and progressive - grip the writer has over each story. Sefi Atta has opinions to get across and she is rearing to go right from the jump off.
Poverty and religiosity are vividly drawn in The Miracle Worker in a good example of Complication and Reverses. Hailstones From Zamfara and Spoils are indictments of the controversial Sharia Law in the eponymous Zamfara and an unnamed Islamic community. In Lawless a group of frustrated Nigerians students embark on an avenging mission. Twilight Trek follows the journey of a young Francaphone African through North Africa en route to Europe and his friendship with a woman from Bamako who is on her way to Rome to go into prostitution.
There is a change in setting. A Temporary Position and News From Home are set in London. So are parts of Madness in the Family and Last Trip except for Green which is set in the States.
With these shift in setting comes a shift in tone and themes. Characters are either preoccupied by the immigrant experience or overwhelmed by it. These are all honourable attempts at exploring issues that affect Africans today. There is a directness in tone and purpose in all these stories.
What they suffer from the most is didacticism. Atta wants to raise or reinforce - depending of your level of ignorance - the reader's awareness. She wants to impress the debilitating effects they have on ordinary folks and the society at large. She often takes a hammer to it and end up instructing where she wants (or should) be informing. She pleads where she could have been subtle.
Sometimes she is forthright as though afraid that the reader might miss the point of the narrative. A character in Hailstones From Zamfara accused of adultery a sin punishable by stoning needless of proof is told (and so is the reader) that `'...elsewhere in the country they are writing about you in the newspapers, calling this a barbaric injustice...''. This comes towards the end of the story, after a number of some excesses of Sharia Law have been broached namely childhood marriages, intolerance of non-believers, gruesome punishments, and the unevenness of the Sharia court itself.
Spread through all the stories this heavy handedness has a cumulative effect that could prove daunting to some. It makes for a claustrophobic read that is humane in its intentions but preachy in its execution.
That said, what is most admirable about this collection is its range and boldness. The style is unpretentious. The sentences, when concise and punch especially in the novella Yahoo Yahoo, results in a machine gun prose that is satisfyingly rich. The novella, the least didactic, is the most fulfilling read. The energetic prose is reminiscent of Okri of the Stars of New Curfew and Famished Road era, not least for its child narrator's charged attitude and that one reference to the later, but for the rhythm, the humour, the breeziness and eloquence of the sentences.
Internet fraud and domestic clashes are debated without the occasional slap in the head to make sure the point hits home.
News From Home displays Atta's strengths (and politics) as well as her early unrefined activism. And I dare any writer - established or not - to say they have exhibited both at early stages of their careers. The comparisons with Adiche are inevitable. And the notion that no one writes contemporary Nigeria like Sefi Atta is misguiding.
But what is undeniable is that we have an important writer who is fearless in her pursuit and unceasing in her quest to meaningful stories. And we her readers are the better for it.

Returning to the scene after her highly accomplished debut novel 'Everything Good Will Come' Sefi Atta proves with her second book, a collection of short stories called 'News from Home' that she is a literary force with whom to be reckoned. Writing with a deceptive ease and lack of pomposity, she makes reading the meaty issues she tackles, so effortless. I have to disagree with the previous review that accused Atta of being 'preachy' or didactic. The topics she chooses to cover are not entirely palatable. She should be commended for example on having the courage to analyse and critique the hypocrisies of Sharia law. What's more Atta's not afraid to create characters that the reader can dislike with near-relish (Toyosi in 'Lawless' for example, the narrators husband in 'Madness in the Family' or the protagonist in Twilight Trek)or likeable rogues such as Augustine in 'Yahoo, Yahoo'. It's difficult to discuss the sort of subjects in 'News..' without coming across as hard-hitting sometimes. These are heavy matters whether Atta weighed in with her own opinion or not. Plus it is disingenuous to suggest that a writer or any creative person for that matter, could or should divorce themselves entirely, including their viewpoints, from their output. 'News from Home' is not lacking in subtlety as we're lead to believe by Geekstreet- in fact quite the opposite.

That said there is a prevailing sense of cynicism that casts a shadow over some of the collection as evident in 'The Miracle Worker'. Although it does not completely hinder enjoyment, it can grate. 'A Temporary Position' makes some interesting observations about office politics British-style, but there's something a bit over-the-top about the narrator that strays dangerously close to stereotyping at times.

Nevertheless 'News from Home' is overall a highly sophisticated collection which proffers some fascinating insight into a world of issues. I concur that the novella 'Yahoo, Yahoo' is one of the finer moments of the compilation, Atta's ability to speak so convincingly in the voice of diverse protagonists, reaching its apex in the depiction of the teenaged boy at the centre of the story.

Unlike Geekstreet I don't believe the comparisons with Chimamanda are amiss. As talented as she is, Adichie is not the final word in literature from the African continent. Indeed Atta's exploration of the assimilation of African migrants into western society - particularly American 'culture'-and what stands to be lost in the process is as pertinent as anything in 'The Thing Around Your Neck'(it's interesting to note that like Adichie, Atta writes at least one of her stories in the second person, an approach that has the tendency to isolate- even irritate the reader- rather than draw them in completely. A blip in an otherwise near-faultless narrative technique).

I have wondered why Atta is not as celebrated as Adichie when she is every bit as skilled and so far more consistent in the quality of her output. Alongside 'The Thing Around Your Neck' and Petina Gappah's 'An Elegy for Easterly', 'News from Home' joins a canon of recent, very well executed short story collections by female writers from the African Diaspora.