LIGHT ON A DARK SECRET: Inter-racial Love Drama in Apartheid-Era South Africa

Insightful, Revealing and Shocking!

A glimpse of what it was truly like to live and love under the repressive regime of Apartheid.

5 Mar 2013 20:58 Africa/Lagos

New Book by Pulitzer Centre Award-Winning Essayist

LONDON, March 5, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Abela Publishing has pleasure in announcing the publication of LIGHT ON A DARK SECRET by Glynnis Hayward a Pulitzer Centre award-winning essayist. This is a book about inter-racial relationships and their consequences in apartheid-era South Africa. The Foreword has been written by Ken Andrew, former South African Opposition M.P. and human rights advocate.

WHAT'S BEEN SAID ABOUT THE BOOK

Insightful, revealing, shocking! A glimpse of what it was truly like to live and love under the repressive regime of Apartheid.

Light on a Dark Secret is a vivid reminder of apartheid's injustice and its far-reaching effects.

The title is very appropriate. "Light on a Dark Secret" made me think about my own values.

I really loved this book! It was very well written and kept me engrossed, I didn't want to put it down. I particularly liked how the story was told from the perspective of the different characters. Brought me to tears in a few places.

Read it!

ABOUT THE BOOK

In 1982, Fran Walker was born in California and given up for adoption. Twenty years later, she is on a quest to find her biological parents and solve questions that have plagued her since childhood.

1980 was a difficult time in apartheid-era South Africa for those who opposed government policies; it was extremely dangerous to act outside the law. As a bi-racial couple in a country governed by strict laws of racial segregation, Valerie and Johan's love affair was clandestine. The consequence of their forbidden love, if discovered, would be immediate incarceration. A child from such a union was unthinkable. Discovering she is pregnant, Valerie is faced with imminent exposure. Unable to communicate with Johan, who is being closely monitored by the police, she makes decisions that will have far-reaching consequences. Her actions, as well as those of her mother, Sharon Spencer, and Grace Walker - Fran's adoptive mother, raise the question: More than biology,what does it take to be a mother?

Fran despairs when, amidst prejudice and recrimination, her search discovers a family alienated and broken. But the journey to South Africa is a coming of age for her when she falls in love with a fellow student. She gains insights which help her understand and forgive the circumstances that surrounded her birth.

Four women are the storytellers and each narrates her perspective of events that began in 1980, when two students fell in love in South Africa. In addition to Fran, the women are her birth mother, biological grandmother, and adoptive mother.

TITLE: Light On A Dark Secret
ISBN: 978-1-9009302-10-5
AUTHOR: Glynnis Hayward
PAGES: 346
FORMAT: Paperback & Kindle eBook
PUBLISHED: 2013
WEBSITE: http://www.abelapublishing.com/GlynnisHayward.html

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A South African born novelist and essayist, Glynnis Hayward now calls the San Francisco Bay Area home. However her work shows that Africa still features high in her affections and interest. "Light on a Dark Secret" is her third novel and is available both on Kindle and in paperback.

In addition to her first two novels, she has had many magazine articles published online. In 2008 she won an award from the PULITZER CENTER on Crisis Reporting for her essay that discussed how stigma and discrimination perpetuate the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The award recognized her contribution to help increase awareness of under reported international news.

In 2013, she was invited to become a member of South African PEN, a branch of PEN International. PEN International operates on all six continents and is the representative body for literature at UNESCO and the United Nations.

Glynnis is currently working on her next book, also set in her native South Africa.

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

To contact the publisher, email John Halsted at books@abelapublishing.com Books for the USA, Canada and Mexico are printed on mainland USA. Books for the UK, Ireland and Europe are printed and distributed from the UK. Books for Australia, New Zealand and nations in the South Pacific are printed in Australia. All books are printed using paper which promotes environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world's forests thereby reducing our carbon Footprint. See http://www1.lightningsource.com/chainofcustody/

CONTACT: +44(0)7951952062




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The Holocaust Novel of 14-Year-Old Author Christopher Huh

25 Feb 2013 14:30 Africa/Lagos

14-Year-Old Author Christopher Huh Debuts Keeping My Hope, A Historical Fiction Graphic Novel About the Holocaust

GERMANTOWN, Md., Feb. 25, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Christopher Huh, an 8th grade middle school student, has just published a new hand-drawn historical fiction graphic novel about the Holocaust, Keeping My Hope. To write Keeping My Hope, Christopher spent over 1,000 hours conducting research on WWII and the Holocaust. It took him about a year and a half to complete the book.

The storyline circles around the life of Ari. Ari is a teenager whose entire life is turned upside down by the horrors of the Holocaust. He and his family are torn apart and moved to Auschwitz, where the reader gains an inside look at what prisoners in the concentration camps suffered through. However, even with these atrocities, the power of friendship shines through and gives Ari hope to keep surviving through the darkest blizzards of terror. Informative yet touching, Keeping My Hope spreads the message of how powerfully racism and prejudice can affect those around us.



Christopher says, "I started out writing Keeping My Hope just for myself. I wanted to organize and retain the knowledge that I gained from my research by creating an illustrated story. By creating these characters and giving them life, I felt like I was participating in history. Learning about WWII and the Holocaust in this way was not only fun for me but also helped me to remember what I'd learned. As the pages accumulated, I began to show my drawings to people around me and after much support, I decided to turn my work into a published book. I hope to share the valuable lessons I have learned through my book."

His teacher Ms. Schiller says, "This is one-of-a-kind book. Christopher has captured history in a new way, reaching out to the younger generation. Readers of all ages will be touched by the story."

Informative yet touching, Keeping My Hope provides another opportunity for people of all ages to learn about the Holocaust and its impact on countless people.

Keeping My Hope is available at
www.amazon.com/author/christopherhuh
Title: Keeping My Hope
Author: Christopher Huh
Published date: February 18, 2013
ISBN-13: 978-1479348831

About Christopher Huh:
Christopher Huh has enjoyed drawing and creating stories since he was very young. Christopher has never taken an art or creative writing class and takes pride in his unique drawing style and being a self-taught author. Keeping My Hope is Christopher's first book. Besides drawing and writing, he enjoys watching movies, listening to music, playing the viola and the piano, and playing tennis. Christopher is a second generation Korean-American born and raised in the US. For more on the author, please visit his website at www.keepingmyhope.com.

This press release was issued through eReleases® Press Release Distribution. For more information, visit http://www.ereleases.com.

SOURCE Chris Huh

CONTACT: Christopher Huh, +1-301-814-6372, ChristopherHuh [at] gmail.com

Web Site: http://www.keepingmyhope.com




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Five Books Advance to the 2013 Lionel Gelber Prize Shortlist

19 Feb 2013 15:00 Africa/Lagos

Five Books Advance to the 2013 Lionel Gelber Prize Shortlist

TORONTO and WASHINGTON, February 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Patricia Rubin, President of the Lionel Gelber Prize Board, today announced the 2013 prize shortlist:

Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956 by Anne Applebaum (Washington, DC and Poland)
The Second Nuclear Age: Strategy, Danger, and the New Power Politics by Paul Bracken (Connecticut, USA)
Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else by Chrystia Freeland (New York City, USA)
Ghosts of Empire: Britain 's Legacies in the Modern World by Kwasi Kwarteng (London, England)
From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia by Pankaj Mishra (London, England)

"These five books offer fresh perspectives from the past that bring deeper understanding of current global issues, and compelling perspectives on the future that speak of things to come. The wisdom of this small crowd is worth the world's attention," said Jury Chair William Thorsell.

The 2013 prize jurors are: Jury Chair William Thorsell (Toronto, Canada), Daniel W. Drezner (Medford, USA), Gaynor Lilian Johnson, Ph. D. (Manchester, UK), Walter Russell Mead (Annandale-on-Hudson, USA), and Margaret Wente (Toronto, Canada).

About the Lionel Gelber Prize: Presented annually by The Lionel Gelber Foundation, in partnership with Foreign Policy Magazine and the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, the Lionel Gelber Prize is a literary award for the world's best non-fiction book in English on foreign affairs that seeks to deepen public debate on significant international issues.

For further information:

Media Contact: June Dickenson: junedickenson@cogeco.ca / +1-905-689-0388
Prize website: http://www.utoronto.ca/munk/gelber/
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Invisible Giants: Changing the World One Step at a Time

6 Feb 2013 09:00 Africa/Lagos

Invisible Giants: Changing the World One Step at a Time, a Book by Lindsay Levin, is Out on 5th March

LONDON, February 6, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

"An extraordinary, warts-and-all account designed to jump leaders into 21st century realities." John Elkington, Executive Chairman, Volans Ventures; Co-founder of Environmental Data Services (ENDS) and SustainAbility

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130206/594060-a )

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130206/594060-b )

Invisible Giants is a book about leadership, choices in life and the potential in everyone to make a difference. Author Lindsay Levin, who founded the social enterprise Leaders' Quest in 2001, tells the stories of some of the people she has met through her work, and their impact on the world.

Levin takes readers on a journey from Canary Wharf to the streets of Mumbai, and from a high-security prison in Johannesburg to Chengdu, where thousands of new tower blocks are transforming the city. We meet individuals who are overcoming obstacles, and often their own frailties, to change the lives of those around them.

The invisible giants of Levin's story are grassroots leaders who, despite a lack of education and resources, are re-energising their communities, and business executives who strive to integrate purpose alongside profit, in the face of institutional resistance. They are female activists in slums campaigning to end the exclusion of girls from school, and environmentalists tackling the effects of industrialisation on the world's ecosystem. They are also ordinary Israelis and Palestinians committed to peaceful coexistence who are delivering a courageous and sometimes unpopular message to their own people.

"In my experience, people have infinite potential to grow and to create. I have written this book to try and share some of this optimism," says Levin.

After 15 years as a successful entrepreneur, Levin founded the social enterprise Leaders' Quest in 2001, to bring together people from all disciplines and sectors who want to use their unique influence to create positive change in the world. Her work has brought her into contact with an extraordinary range of leaders from across the world - some highly visible, and some not.

"Our work at Leaders' Quest is about bringing people together - from CEOs to grassroots activists - to learn from the unfamiliar and recognise the capacity they have to improve the world around them. The lives of these invisible giants have struck a chord with me. Not because they are inherently more virtuous than high profile leaders, but because their stories are rarely told and because they have a vital role to play in creating a brighter future."

"The book is also the story of my own quest to ask: "what really matters?" and to find out where the answers can take me."

Invisible Giants is published by Vala and will be available to buy online, at high street bookshops, or directly from the publishers at http://www.valapublishers.coop/invisiblegiants , from March 2013. It costs £16.99, and all the author's royalties go to the Leaders' Quest Foundation, a registered charity.

A launch event will be held on Tuesday 5th March at London's Paramount, on the 31st floor of Centre Point, 101-103 New Oxford Street (right next to Tottenham Court Road tube station), from 6.30pm until 8.30pm. It will be a stimulating gathering of corporate and community leaders, including some of the invisible giants who feature in the book. Lindsay will be speaking about the book and her work and taking part in a short Q&A.

The event is free but places are strictly limited. To reserve a place, please contact Richard.roberts@leadersquest.org.

What readers are saying

"Generous, deeply personal and beautifully written." Tom Glocer, former CEO, Thomson Reuters

"An important and enjoyable read for business leaders who want to better understand the complex relationships between people, culture, attitudes and opportunities that shape our world. Invisible Giants challenges us to think differently about business and the role of leaders. Reading it is, in itself, an inspiring journey, with wonderful stories of exceptional people beating the odds to accomplish extraordinary things." Bob Bechek, Worldwide Managing Director, Bain & Company

"It's not about privileged do-gooders who clamour for media attention, but "karmayogis": people who bring about change in quiet and purposeful ways. Truly inspiring, with powerful lessons for everyone." Anu Aga, Chairperson, Teach For India ; Director, Thermax Limited

About the author

After 15 years as a successful entrepreneur, Lindsay Levin founded Leaders' Quest in 2001, to connect leaders from all disciplines and sectors, and explore solutions to global issues.

A strong NGO advocate, her work ranges from searching for new initiatives that address poverty and environmental sustainability, to helping businesses redefine values and shift culture.

From 2008 to 2012 she was Chair of the International Steering Committee of OneVoice, a conflict resolution movement working to strengthen civil society in Israel and Palestine, and she regularly facilitates workshops and dialogues in the region.

About Leaders' Quest

Leaders' Quest works with people from all walks of life - from CEOs of multinational companies, to grassroots organisers - who use their unique influence to create positive change in the world. It designs experiential learning journeys which enable them to ask tough questions about business, society and their own leadership, and look for answers together. It runs programmes in Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe and the Middle East.

Find out more at: http://www.leadersquest.org

About the publisher

The Vala Publishing Co-operative is an adventure in community supported publishing. They publish high quality books that explore and celebrate the human spirit with brave and authentic ways of thinking and being.

Vala is co-owned and democratically managed by its members.

Find out more at: http://www.valapublishers.coop

Media contact

For more information, to order a review copy of Invisible Giants, or to schedule an interview with Lindsay Levin, please contact either Richard.roberts@leadersquest.org or melanie.george@leadersquest.org, or call +44(0)208-948-5208.




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Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

From the award-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun, a dazzling new novel: a story of love and race centered around a young man and woman from Nigeria who face difficult choices and challenges in the countries they come to call home.
As teenagers in a Lagos secondary school, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. Their Nigeria is under military dictatorship, and people are leaving the country if they can. Ifemelu—beautiful, self-assured—departs for America to study. She suffers defeats and triumphs, finds and loses relationships and friendships, all the while feeling the weight of something she never thought of back home: race. Obinze—the quiet, thoughtful son of a professor—had hoped to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London.
Years later, Obinze is a wealthy man in a newly democratic Nigeria, while Ifemelu has achieved success as a writer of an eye-opening blog about race in America. But when Ifemelu returns to Nigeria, and she and Obinze reignite their shared passion—for their homeland and for each other—they will face the toughest decisions of their lives.
Fearless, gripping, at once darkly funny and tender, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story set in today’s globalized world: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s most powerful and astonishing novel yet.

“An incredibly readable and rich tapestry of Nigerian and American life, and the ways a handful of vivid characters—so vivid they feel like family—try to live in both worlds simultaneously. As she did so masterfully with Half of a Yellow Sun, Adichie paints on a grand canvas, boldly and confidently, equally adept at conveying the complicated political backdrop of Lagos as she is in bringing us into the day-to-day lives of her many new Americans—a single mom, a student, a hairdresser. This is a very funny, very warm and moving intergenerational epic that confirms Adichie’s virtuosity, boundless empathy and searing social acuity.”
< b> —Dave Eggers, author of A Hologram for the King.

“Adichie’s great gift is that she has always brought us into the territory of the previously unexplored. She writes about that which others have kept silent. Americanah is no exception. This is not just a story that unfolds across three different continents, it is also a keenly observed examination of race, identity and belonging in the global landscapes of Africans and Americans. If Joyce had silence, exile and cunning for his defense, Adichie has flair, loss and longing. And Adichie is brave enough to allow the story to unfold with a distinct straightforward simplicity that never loses its edgy intellect.”

—Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin.











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New Book Daniel's Secret Uses Biblical Numbers to Reveal Shocking End Times Truths

31 Jan 2013 14:35 Africa/Lagos

New Book Daniel's Secret Uses Biblical Numbers to Reveal Shocking End Times Truths
Author JW Farquhar identifies Creation's Holy Trifecta as only pathway to salvation

FORT MILL, S.C., Jan. 31, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- In a dialogue between a doubting Thomas and an inspired Daniel Veritas, Daniel interprets the Bible through the scripture of Genesis I using three authorities of interpretation: the image of God, the likeness of God, and the numbers of God. In this way biblical authority is maintained, because foundational scripture interprets the Bible instead of human speculation.

Never before has such a complete solution to the mysteries of the Bible been placed on the doorstep of humanity with a Genesis I foundational theology that is validated again and again by all the God-breathed numbers in the Bible.

When the Bible is interpreted with biblical authority we see a divine plan where:

a foundational theology perfectly reconciles all scripture to itself,
faith and reason become partners,
science and scripture perfectly support each other,
evolution becomes a non-issue,
Old and New Testaments have an astonishing new harmony,
an amazing numbered pathway for salvation is exposed,
the restoration of the original one-mind church becomes reality.

Daniel's Secret draws its title from the Book of Daniel's sealed prophetic vision of 2300 evenings and mornings that science tells us is exactly 77 moon-months for the 77 Face of God counted exactly 7 evenings and 7 mornings on the Creation's seventh day. Bible numbers expert and author, JW Farquhar, validates this interpretation mathematically with the 77 77 77 natural descending genealogy of the Son of Man in the Gospel of Matthew, the 77 ascending genealogy of the Son of God in the Gospel of Luke that leads back up to God, and then again and again with many more 77 biblical references to Jesus.

Destined for the End Times, Daniel's Secret God of Creation has remained hidden from humans for millennia, despite being completely introduced in the Bible's first six sentences, despite another six-fold introduction in the Creation's six days, and despite being numbered 777 on the Creation's seventh day as the Holy Trifecta, that repeats and repeats in the Bible forever.

The signs for Israel's Messiah are now here on earth, because numbers cannot lie. Sometimes a picture is worth 10,000 words.

For more information call JW Farquhar at 803-517-0451 or see http://www.revelationofgenesis.org or contact fwillis@mark7publishing.com

This press release was issued through eReleases® Press Release Distribution. For more information, visit http://www.ereleases.com.

SOURCE JW Farquhar

Web Site: http://www.revelationofgenesis.org




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Wole Soyinka Speaks Of Africa in New Book

A member of the unique generation of African writers and intellectuals who came of age in the last days of colonialism, Wole Soyinka has witnessed the promise of independence and lived through postcolonial failure. He deeply comprehends the pressing problems of Africa, and, an irrepressible essayist and a staunch critic of the oppressive boot, he unhesitatingly speaks out.

In this magnificent new work, Soyinka offers a wide-ranging inquiry into Africa's culture, religion, history, imagination, and identity. He seeks to understand how the continent's history is entwined with the histories of others, while exploring Africa's truest assets: "its humanity, the quality and valuation of its own existence, and modes of managing its environment—both physical and intangible (which includes the spiritual)."

Fully grasping the extent of Africa's most challenging issues, Soyinka nevertheless refuses defeatism. With eloquence he analyzes problems ranging from the meaning of the past to the threat of theocracy. He asks hard questions about racial attitudes, inter-ethnic and religious violence, the viability of nations whose boundaries were laid out by outsiders, African identity on the continent and among displaced Africans, and more. Soyinka's exploration of Africa relocates the continent in the reader's imagination and maps a course toward an African future of peace and affirmation.

“The Nigerian 1986 Nobel Laureate (Literature) offers a slender, hopeful volume about his native continent’s potential for healing the world’s spiritual ills. . . . A brief but eloquent plea for peace.”—Kirkus Reviews

(Kirkus Reviews )

“A fascinating, urgent appraisal of Africa’s relationship to the world. . . . Pitched to a general reader but with implications for specialists as well, this is necessarily big thinking laced with the subtle insights and analogies of a gifted writer, and a stirring defense of the ‘spiritual aspirations’ of human beings for freedom and peace.”—Publishers Weekly

(Publishers Weekly )

"Of Africa is an intellectually robust, book-length essay that attempts to unravel the paradoxes and contradictions plaguing Nigeria and, by extension, Africa. . . . Soyinka’s motivation for writing Of Africa was his search for an African humanism that could counter the deadly consequences of religious fanaticism. He urges Africans to remember their continent’s traditions and recognize that tolerance is at the center of African spirituality.”—George Ayittey, Wall Street Journal

(George Ayittey Wall Street Journal 20121103)

“Among the Africans who deserve some kind of secular sainthood is Wole So­yinka. . . . Vast injustices remain [in Africa], but the continent is lucky to have fearless men and women of conscience, like Soyinka, who are so acutely aware of them.”—Adam Hochschild, New York Times Book Review

(Adam Hochschild New York Times Book Review 20121104)

 “Soyinka does not deceive himself about the profound problems that Africa faces today. But [the book’s] overall tenor . . . is optimistic, emphasizing Africa’s capacity to inspire authentic spirituality (the continent, he reminds us, is ‘filled with religions that point the way to the harmonization of faiths’) and resilient, life-embracing humanity.”—Booklist

(Booklist 20121115)

“The playwright and human rights activist defends Africa against its condescending critics, offering both sweeping reflections and clear-eyed assessments.”—Editors’ Choice, New York Times Book Review

(New York Times Book Review )

“Of Africa offers a well-conceived vision for the potential healing of the continent. . . . Soyinka's inquiry arrives at one impassioned plea--tolerance. Africa's various sects, he tells us, must come to the collective bargaining table with an embrace of its tradition and innate differences in order to truly become whole.”—Nancy Powell, Shelf Awareness

(Nancy Powell Shelf Awareness )

Soyinka's perspective “is helpful in guiding readers to a different way of looking at much that is Africa, and, as such, Of Africa is an eloquent and useful starting point for readers.”—M. A. Orthofer, The Complete Review

(M. A. Orthofer The Complete Review )

“The Nobel laureate and Nigerian playwright tries to rescue Africa from racism, ignorance, and stereotype in this forceful manifesto.”—The Daily Beast

(The Daily Beast 20121112)




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