Say You're One of Them (Oprah's Book Club)

Each story in this jubilantly acclaimed collection pays testament to the wisdom and resilience of children, even in the face of the most agonizing circumstances.

A family living in a makeshift shanty in urban Kenya scurries to find gifts of any kind for the impending Christmas holiday. A Rwandan girl relates her family’s struggles to maintain a facade of normalcy amid unspeakable acts. A young brother and sister cope with their uncle’s attempt to sell them into slavery. Aboard a bus filled with refugees—a microcosm of today’s Africa—a Muslim boy summons his faith to bear a treacherous ride across Nigeria. Through the eyes of childhood friends the emotional toll of religious conflict in Ethiopia becomes viscerally clear.

Uwem Akpan’s debut signals the arrival of a breathtakingly talented writer who gives a matter-of-fact reality to the most extreme circumstances in stories that are nothing short of transcendent.

• Gilgamesh: A Verse Narrative
• Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography--The True Story of a Black Youth's Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa
• Memoirs of a Geisha: A Novel
• Neverwhere: Author's Preferred Text
• Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science
• Start Something That Matters
• Intermediate Algebra
• Civilization and Its Discontents
• Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?
• The Kite Runner