LIBRARY

“Please allow me to introduce myself…” Sympathy for the Devil. The Rolling Stones, 1968

Any present-day study of the West African Peoples is handicapped by the fact that their cultures did not leave written records, only word-of-mouth stories passed down from generation to generation. As a result, much of the information available is filtered by the interpretations of non-African writers who might not know what they are talking about. However, an approximation is better than nothing. This collection of books also includes works that have helped the author understand the Demon to some small extent.

BACKGROUND

Benvenuto, Jeff; Hinton, Alexander; Woolford, Andrew (editors). Colonial Genocide in Indigenous North America. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2014.

Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood. New York: Random House, 1966.

Ellis, Alfred Burton. The Yoruba-Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa: Their Religion, Manners, Customs, Laws, Languages, Etc. Whitefish, Montana: Kessinger Publishing, LLC. No publishing date given. First published in 1894. Alfred Burton Ellis (1852–1894) was a British Army officer and ethnographer. This book is a reprint of a scholarly work on life in the area of Africa now called Nigeria, in the 19^th century.

Hoess, Rudolf et al. KL Auschwitz Seen by the SS. Oswiecimiu: Publications of Panstwowe Muzeum, 1972. An exploration of the mind of the Demon.

Mann, Kristin. Slavery and the Birth of an African City: Lagos, 1760-1900. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2010.  This well documented and scholarly work gives the details of the rise of Lagos as a center of the slave exportation trade and the subsequent takeover by Great Britain.

Nketia, J. H. Kwabena. The Music of Africa. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1974. This interesting work gives many details of African music, including lyrics and even scores of the songs, and photographs of musicians and their instruments.

Rediker, Marcus. The Slave Ship: A Human History. New York: The Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2007. This work gives detailed information about the conditions on the slave ships that carried Africans to the American continents.

Stehr, Emily, Compiler. Interesting History of Lagos [Nigeria]. Lexington, Kentucky: No publisher given, 2018. This amazing little book, only a quarter inch thick, was a revelation to me. It consists entirely of actual verbatim transcripts of letters or diaries of Europeans who traveled to the vicinity of Lagos, Africa in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Single sentences in these writings inspired me to whole chapters. I believe that Ms. Stehr may have published this book herself. She is the author of dozens of interesting histories, but she herself remains anonymous.

Stone, Richard Henry. In Africa’s Forest and Jungle: Six Years Among the Yorubas. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2010. This first-hand account was recorded as a diary by an American missionary from 1859 to 1869, in the area of Africa within present-day Nigeria, with reproductions of original photographs taken about 1860. First published in 1899.

Tallus, Frank. Hidden Minds: A History of the Unconscious. New York: Arcade Publishing, date unknown. This interesting book traces the investigation of the unconscious mind from Buddha up to modern scientific research, both of which sources seem to agree, that we humans don’t really exist in exactly the way we imagine and would prefer.

Thompson, Robert Farris. Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy. New York: Random House, Inc., 1983. This book gives fascinating descriptions of the art of Africa and the connections between the art and the religion and spirituality of the region, and also with some references to the transplanting of African forms to the New World as a result of the slavery diaspora.

Trafzer, Clifford; Hyer, Joel. Exterminate Them: Written Accounts of the Murder, Rape and Enslavement of Native Americans during the California Gold Rush. East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University Press, 1999.

McCutcheon, Marc. The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in the 1800s. Cincinnati: F&W Publications, Inc., 1993.

Varhola, Michael O. Life in Civil War America. Cincinnati: F+W Media, Inc., 2011.

Innumerable websites on the Internet were an inexhaustable source of information for WhippoorwillO, for the ordinary details of life in colonial America.

LIVES

Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself. Lexington, Kentucky: Freeriver Community, 2017. First published in 1789 in London. This book is a first-hand account by an African of his life in Africa and thereafter, but he did not come from the area within present-day Nigeria. However, his account is excellent.

Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years a Slave. New York: Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., 2013. First published in 1853 in New York. This is a personal account of a Black man abducted from his work and family in New York State and enslaved in southern United States on a cotton plantation for twelve years. An excellent and first-hand account of slavery in this country.

Hurston, Zora Neale. Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2018. Due to censorship, this book was not allowed to be published during Ms. Hurston’s life, and was finally published in 2018.  In this excellent book, Ms. Hurston effaces her own contribution almost entirely, letting Kossola tell the heart-breaking tale of his life in slavery.

Bradford, Sarah. Harriet, the Moses of her People: A Biography of Harriet Tubman. Independently published: 2020. This biography was first published in 1869 based on personal interviews with Harriet Tubman. There have been many editions and publishers of this story.

There are many more personal records written by slaves in America and elsewhere. In spite of the earnest efforts of the White Masters, slaves persisted in learning to read and write and tell their stories. See especially the autobiographical writing of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs.

LETTERS FOUND IN BOTTLES

Many of the writers below have put out multiple works. I have chosen the works most relevant and familiar to me.

Achebe, Chinua. 2017. Things Fall Apart. New York: Penguin Random House, LLC.

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. 2012. Purple Hibiscus. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.

Aidoo, Ama Ata. 1993. Changes- A Love Story. New York: The Feminist Press at The City University of New York.

Atwood, Margaret. 1996. Alias Grace. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.

Barth, John. 1967. The Floating Opera. New York: Anchor Books.

Berger, Thomas. 1989. Little Big Man. New York: Dell Publishing.

Bronte, Emily. 2003. Wuthering Heights. New York: Penguin Putnam, Inc.

Bulawayo, NoViolet. 2022. Glory. New York: Penguin Random House, LLC.

—. 2013. We Need New Names. New York: Little, Brown and Co.

Camus, Albert. 1942. The Stranger. New York: Alfred Knopf.

Capote, Truman. 1948. Other Voices, Other Rooms. New York: Random House.

Conrad, Joseph. 1990. Heart of Darkness. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc.

—. 2007. Lord Jim. New York: Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. First published 1871. This translation 2008. Demons. New York: Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Emecheta, Buchi. 1975. Second Class Citizen. New York: George Braziller, Inc.

—. 1976. The Bride Price. New York: George Braziller, Inc.

—. 1979. The Joys Of Motherhood. New York: George Braziller, Inc.

—. 1977. The Slave Girl. New York: George Braziller, Inc.

Gyasi, Yaa. 2017. Homegoing. New York: Penguin Random House, LLC.

—. 2020. Transcendent Kingdom. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Head, Bessie. 1974. A Question of Power. Harlow, Essex, England: Pearson Education Limited.

Hurston, Zora Neale. 1990. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc.

Jackson, Shirley. 1948. The Lottery. First published in The New Yorker. New York: Conde Nast, Advance Publications

Le Guin, Ursula K. 2004. A Wizard of Earthsea. New York: Random House, Inc.

—. 2008. The Lathe of Heaven. New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc.

-. 1975. The Dispossessed. New York: Avon Books.

Lee, Harper. 2002. To Kill A Mockingbird. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.

Levy, Andrea. 2005. Small Island. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

—. 2011. The Long Song. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Melville, Herman. 1851. Moby-Dick, or, The Whale. New York: Harper Brothers.

Mengiste, Maaza. 2010. Beneath The Lion’s Gaze. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., Inc.

—. 2020. The Shadow King. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., Inc.

Morrison, Toni. 2004. Beloved. New York: Random House, Inc.

Nabokov, Vladimir. 1955. Lolita. New York: Olympia Press. This is the only novel I am familiar with where evil is portrayed as comical, thus implying a second layer to depravity. The work was hailed as a masterpiece…but of what? Was it all sarcasm? A subtle jibe at American morality?

Nwapa, Flora. 1966. Efuru. Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heinemann Educational Books, Inc.

Phillips, Delores. 2004. The Darkest Child. New York: Soho Press, Inc.

Poe, Edgar Allan. 1843. The Tell-tale Heart. First published in The Pioneer: A Literary and Critical Magazine Vol. 1 No. 1. Philadelphia: Drew and Scammell.

Puzo, Mario. 1969. The Godfather. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

Shakespeare, William. 1600. Hamlet.

Shelley, Mary. 1818. Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus. London: Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor and Jones.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. 1886. The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde. London: Longman’s, Greene and Co.

Styron, William. Sophie’s Choice. New York: Random House. No date given.

Tolkien, J. R. R. 2018. The Lord Of The Rings. New York: Penguin Random House, LLC.

Vera, Yvonne. 2002. Without A Name. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.