Alphabetical Africa (New Directions Books)

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The novel is not a post-colonial commentary on the state of the continent -- or at least that is not its primary focus. From the east and southeast, it is surrounded by the Indian Ocean, from the west by the Atlantic Ocean.

Thus J and Y are pronounced [ d͡ʒ] and [ j] as in English, while Ɔ, Ɛ and Ŋ are pronounced [ ɔ], [ ɛ] and [ ŋ] as in the IPA. A clever experimental novel, in which Abish limits the number of letters of the alphabet he can use for the start of words in each chapter.It uses the ‘;’, semicolon to resolve a problem and gets us away from having to use 3, ), c, when we could easily type ɛ, ɔ, ŋ. The solution is to use the character sound to effect the representation using a semicolon ‘;’ before the sound to create the character.

It's worth reading twice or three times too just to figure out what words Abish had to excise or replace with synonyms because of his letter limitations.Er denkt in Sätzen, deren Logik und Witz letztlich nicht durch die Einschränkungen seiner Regel erklärbar sind - und dass diese Sätze in der Übersetzung von Jürg Laederach auch einmal einen Salto mehr vollführen, ist nur teilweise daraus zu erklären, dass er durch den alphabetischen Zwang mitunter größere Umwege gehen muss. The class was taught by the most eccentric and engaging genius of a professor I ever had, the late great, Dr. After the 26th chapter, which uses all 26 letters like a normal book, each subsequent chapter loses one letter (the 27th chapter uses every letter except Z, the 28th chapter uses every letter except Z and Y, etc. The neatest thing going on here is that in the early chapters, you, the reader, are very aware of the constraints. I really liked the idea of the formula behind this - it made me think of Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters which I greatly enjoyed.

This structural device is a central element of the novel and is reflected in the title, "Alphabetical Africa," which hints at the book's linguistic playfulness.

Below is an alphabetical list of all African countries, along with capitals and the state names as they are known within each country or in local official languages. Good lines: "But even invented countries follow a common need, as each country heads for a common memory, a common destiny, a common materiality.