Vitabu Books

During the summer of 2014, I signed up for "Story of the Week" by The Library of America. The first email that landed in my inbox was " Storming the Capital " by George R. Gleig (1796–1888), which is excerpted from The War of 1812: Writings from America's War of Independence . It is the tale of an eighteen-year-old British officer who witnessed the sack of Washington on August 24–25, 1814.  Since 2014, I have received more than 450 emails from The Library of America's Story of the Week. To mark each season, I have made it a tradition to select stories sent during periods of the year that are special to me—for example, Christmas, Easter, springtime, midwinter, and American Independence.  On July 5, 2015, I first read " The Special Type " by Henry James (1843–1916). It's from Henry James: Complete Stories 1898–1910 . The narrator, a portrait painter, serves as the go-between in a situation involving an American millionaire estranged from his wife...

Left to right, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Kenyan author and academic, and  Handel Wright, author of this tribute to one of Africa's literary giants. Wright is a professor and director of the Centre for Culture, Identity & Education at the University of British Columbia. Wright has published extensively on African cultural studies. Read on... The great Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o has passed away .     Ngugi is one of the figures who made me fall in love with African literature. I read his novels in high school, and it was from "Weep Not, Child" and "A Grain of Wheat" that I first learned about Kenya. And when I later attempted to write about African cultural studies as a PhD student, his work, in general and especially his collectively authored play, "I Will Marry When I Want," and the Kamirithu Centre, were instrumental in my articulation of what African cultural studies could be. One never thinks they will actually get to meet their heroes, so I was beside ...