An Irish-American woman, who had lived in Niger, returns after seventeen years to visit her daughter Zara, who works in a village clinic treating children who are suffering from starvation.

Water, Life, and Profit offers a holistic analysis of the people, economies, cultural symbolism, and material culture involved in the management, production, distribution, and consumption of drinking water in the urban context of Niamey, Niger. Paying particular attention to two key groups of people who provide water to most of Niamey’s residents - door-to-door water vendors, and those who sell water in one-half-liter plastic bags (sachets) on the street or in small shops – the authors offer new insights into how Niamey’s water economies affect gender, ethnicity, class, and spatial structure today.

A frame story, By the Still Waters is ultimately the story of post- colonial Nigeria recapitulated in the struggles of a brave teenage girl, not only to salvage her broken dreams from her country’s smoldering ruins, but also to rebuild the dreams of her country women. “Udo”, the heroine of By the Still Waters means “Peace” in English language. But far from what her name connotes and contrary to her long held dreams of good life and the aspiration and hopes of her loving parents, something apposite and quite sinister stood between her and the attainment of the well-intended plans and expectations. The tyranny of repressive values; fortune’s double cast, indifferent and wicked relations and the mother of them all, the aged village Chief who was forced on her as a suitor made something to snap in her. She simply took to flight. To where? Indeed, no contemplation! Being under aged, inexperienced and disadvantaged, her various adventures and wanderings actually took her through thick and thin and balanced her precariously for some time on the edge of doom! But guided by virtue, good family upbringing, will to succeed against all odds, and to a greater or lesser extent, faith in God, she not only succeeded in securing the sound education and training she had desired, the security of a home she missed, and the love of her life she yearned for all the while; but also the happy re-union with her family, minus her father. She had swum in massive waves of oppression for some time, and emerged a survivor from the raging depths of tumultuous existence. Now, Freedom’s Voice for women trapped in the hard places of life, she continues her walk quietly beside the still waters of life!

“The new generation of twenty-first-century African writers have now come of age. Without a doubt Habila is one of the best.”—Emmanuel Dongala In the oil-rich and environmentally devastated Nigerian Delta, the wife of a British oil executive has been kidnapped. Two journalists—a young upstart, Rufus, and a once-great, now disillusioned veteran, Zaq—are sent to find her. In a story rich with atmosphere and taut with suspense, Oil on Water explores the conflict between idealism and cynical disillusionment in a journey full of danger and unintended consequences. As Rufus and Zaq navigate polluted rivers flanked by exploded and dormant oil wells, in search of “the white woman,” they must contend with the brutality of both government soldiers and militants. Assailed by irresolvable versions of the “truth” about the woman’s disappearance, dependent on the kindness of strangers of unknowable loyalties, their journalistic objectivity will prove unsustainable, but other values might yet salvage their human dignity.

One of a series of titles that take an in-depth look at various countries around the world, covering each country's physical geography, natural environment, politics, and more.

Born in 1900 in French West Africa, Malian writer Amadou Hampâté Bâ was one of the towering figures in the literature of twentieth-century Francophone Africa. In Amkoullel, the Fula Boy, Bâ tells in striking detail the story of his youth, which was set against the aftermath of war between the Fula and Toucouleur peoples and the installation of French colonialism. A master storyteller, Bâ recounts pivotal moments of his life, and the lives of his powerful and large family, from his first encounter with the white commandant through the torturous imprisonment of his stepfather and to his forced attendance at French school. He also charts a larger story of life prior to and at the height of French colonialism: interethnic conflicts, the clash between colonial schools and Islamic education, and the central role indigenous African intermediaries and interpreters played in the functioning of the colonial administration. Engrossing and novelistic, Amkoullel, the Fula Boy is an unparalleled rendering of an individual and society under transition as they face the upheavals of colonialism.

The author has been conscious for several years of the problems of flooding, erosion, and other natural constraints in the Delta. These are his experiences, his knowledge of the coastal Niger Delta region. His MPhil and PhD research were on these problems. Above all, he was born and grew up in the delta, which gave him the determination to find solutions to the problems that have been giving the authorities the excuse to neglect the region, since its independence in 1960. The influence that these scourges exercise on the region is as much human as the topography of the environment and the morphology of the towns. He believes that there are solutions and engaged himself in finding these solutions.