OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# A Soldiers Embrace

A Soldier's Embrace (1980) by Nadine Gordimer This is a poignant and deeply personal novel about the love between a white South African soldier and a black Xhosa girl. The story centers on their passionate affair during the apartheid years and the difficulties they face when they are forced to break up. Despite the obstacles, they continue to love each other deeply, until the day he is sent to fight in the liberation struggle and she is left behind. The book is ultimately a tribute to the power of love, even in the face of great adversity.

## Quotes

* There were two soldiers in front of her, blocking her off by their clumsy embrace(how do you do it, how do you do what you've never done before) and the embrace opened like a door and took her in -- a pink hand with bitten nails grasping her right arm, a black hand with a big-dialled watch and thong bracelet pulling at her left elbow. Their three heads collided gaily,musk of sweat and tang of strong sweet soap clapped a mask to her nose and mouth.They all gasped wityh delicious shock.She put up an arm around each neck, the rough pile of an army haircut on one side, the soft negro hair on the other, and kissed them both on the cheek. The embrace broke.
** Page 8
* An accolade, one side a white cheek, the other a black. The white one she kissed on the left cheek, the black one on the right, as if these were two sides of one face.
** p.10
the story turns to the lawyer's career now that he would not be fighting liberal cases for the blacks against the unjust regime. Three pages later, however, the story returns to her, with a faint trace of guilt. The newspapers are saying how a few days earlier, these very same soldiers might have been expected to rape her.
* She had not kissed on the mouth,she had not sought anonymous lips and tongues inthe licence of festival.Yet she had kissed Watching herself again,she knew that She did not tell what happened not because her husband would suspect licence in her
** Page 11
* The ugly mansions of the rich who had fled stood empty on the bluff above the sea.
** decoding the classics
* She avoided walking past the barracks because of the machine guns the young sentries had in place of rifles.
** decoding the classics

## External links

* bartleby
* Wikisource — Name of Book or Play
* CSE
* Goodreads
# The Age of Magic

The Age of Magic is a 2014 novel by Nigerian writer Ben Okri. It won the Bad Sex in Fiction Award in 2014.

## Quotes

* What if by sheer repetition we become the person we most often pretend to be? Does that mean there is no authentic self? Are we made of habits, compressed by time, like layered rocks?
** Being oneself
* Maybe true travel is not the transportation of the body, but a change of perception, renewing the mind.
** Travel
* Inverse of the word live is evil.
** Talking about how live is written evil when looked from the end
# A play of giant

A play of giants is a play by Wole Soyinka, Africa's first Nobel Prize winner in 1986."A Play of Giants" is a satire that takes aim at dictators in Africa, including the notorious Idi Amin. Set at the New York embassy, the play ingeniously portrays a gathering of dictatorial African leaders, highlighting their absurdities and follies as they attempt to navigate cooperation and decision-making. Through sharp wit and clever dialogue, the play-offers a scathing commentary on power, politics, and the human condition, inviting audiences to reflect on the nature of tyranny and its impact on society. It was published on January 1, 1984.

## Quotes

* "Man is a bird without wings and a tree without roots."
* The ground that man walks on, has it not always been there?
* "We are the giants who bestride the world like a colossus, while others are mere mortals."
* Power is transient, but the deeds of those who wield it can leave an indelible mark on history.
# Astonishing the Gods

Astonishing the Gods is a novel by Nigerian writer Ben Okri.
On 5 November 2019 BBC News listed Astonishing the Gods on its list of the 100 most influential novels.

## Quotes

* The law is simple. Every experience is repeated or suffered till you experience it properly and fully the first time.
** Karma
* I love your loneliness. It is brave. It makes the universe want to protect you.
** Admiralty for loneliness
* When you stop inventing reality then you see things as they really are.
** Reality
* I kept looking forward the answer to things. I kept looking, and I never saw, and I became lost. I lost myself, lost my own reality.
** Lost in one's reality
# Adé: A Love Story

Adé: A Love Story is the debut novel of writer Rebecca Walker, first published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2013.

## Quotes

* I had too much power, I thought. I might consume him out of my own curiosity simply because I could. I could stay or go. He could not. He had too much power, I thought. He could reject me. He could break me in two.
* What the heart desires is medicine to itself.
* You are my first love.” And then, “You will be my only love.
# Dangerous Love (novel)

Dangerous Love is a 1996 novel by Ben Okri set in Lagos of the 1970s. The novel is a remake of an earlier book, The Landscapes Within (1981).

## Quotes

* Bad things will happen and good things too. Your life will be full of surprises. Miracles happen only where there has been suffering. So taste your grief to the fullest. Don’t try and press it down. Don’t hide from it. Don’t escape. It is life too. It is truth. But it will pass and time will put a strange honey in the bitterness. That’s the way life goes.
** Reality of life
* So long as a canvas is empty its potential is infinite… The empty canvas can become a gateway into the landscape of nightmares or a vision of sensual bliss.
** Bringing out potential
* If your work can surprise you then you have started something worthwhile.
** Book 1
* For your reflections reflect on the things you do. And the things you do reflect on you.
** Book 3
* Quiet people are the most dangerous.
** Book 4
* Craft is important. The greater the idea, the greater the craft you need.
** Conversation between Dr Okocha and Omovo
* Our society is a battlefield. Poverty, corruption and hunger are the bullets. Bad governments are the bombs.
** Talking about bad government
* Be like the tortoise- grow a hard shell to protect your strong heart. Be like the eagle- soar above your pain and carry the banner and the wonder of our lives to the farthest corners of the world. Build your strength. Destiny is difficult.
Comparing how one should live life like a tortoise
* Responsibility is active. Vigilant. Actions become character and character becomes destiny. . .the moment you see something is wrong, you have a responsibility.
** Responsibility
# God's Bits of Wood

God's Bits of Wood is a 1960 novel by Senegalese author Ousmane Sembène. It is a fictional treatment based on an historic railroad strike in colonial Senegal of the 1940s. It was written and published in French under the title Les bouts de bois de Dieu. The book deals with several ways that the Senegalese and Malians responded to colonialism. The book casts a critical regard towards accommodation, collaboration, and overall idealization of the French colonials. At the same time the story details the strikers who work against the mistreatment of the Senegalese people.

## Quotes

* God forgive me, I had forgotten Maimouna
(Chapter 3, Page 27)
* Today, I will bring back something to eat.”
** (Chapter 3, Page 34)
* I told you yesterday, Rama, that I couldn’t do anything more for you, or for any of the striker’s families.”
** (Chapter 4, Page 42)
* Striking brutally through the cloud curtain, like the beam from some celestial projector, a single ray of light lashed at the Koulouba, the governor's residence, poised like a sugar castle on the heights that bore its name
** (Page 1)
* The faces seemed to have lost all trace of personality. As if some giant eraser had rubbed out their individual traits they had taken on a common mask, the anonymous mask of a crowd."
** (Page. 7)

## External link

* -God's Bits of Wood
# Zambia shall be Free

Zambia Shall be Free (First published 1962) is a political autobiography by Zambia's first president Kenneth Kaunda published as part of the Heinemann African Writers Series.The biography is a critique of colonial rule, and the power of democracy in liberating the varied people ruled in the new Zambia.

## Quotes

* I would ask which was more important, to prepare someone meals and beds or to share them? Was it not common sense that the person who prepare your meals and made your bed and looked after you was controlling your life? How stupid it was for everyone to say you may control my life but I will not sit at the same table with you because you are stinking or because you are black
** Page 41.
* African are people not cattle to be herded together and driven here and there.
** Page 59.
* When people understand a cause, become prepared to suffer for that cause and see glory and honour in such suffering, it is indeed just impossible to suppress them or the cause they stand for.
** Page 68.
* If the Government cannot without demoralizing so badly it's own people, then that government is no good and it must give way to people who can.
** Page 115
* Nothing can be achieved anywhere and in any field without good Organization.
** Page 152.
* Some of these Salisbury prisoners used to say plainly that they were better off where they were than outside. They would argue they could never hope to find work, they could be harassed by the Police for passes, tax receipts and many other things. A society that drives some of its citizens to think that way is rotten and needs burying.
** Page 134.
* The Whiteman lords it over us in all walks of life not because he happens to be white but because he is better organized than we are, that is his secret.
** Page 152.
* If you drive an animal into a corner and torment it, you may expect that in it's fear and rage it will slash back at you.
** Page160.
* For a long time, I have led my people in the shouts of KWACHA (the dawn). We have been shouting it in the darkness, now there is the Grey light of dawn on the horizon and I know that Zambia Shall be Free!
** Page 160.
# Ola rotimi

== The Gods Are Not To Blame is a 1968 play and a 1971 novel by Ola Rotimi.[1] An adaptation of the Greek classic Oedipus Rex, the story centres on Odewale, who is lured into a false sense of security, only to somehow get caught up in a somewhat consanguineous trail of events by the gods of the land.
It is not changing into the lion that is hard, it is getting the tail of a lion Page 7 Kolanut last long in the mouths of them who value it. Page 7 When the chameleon brings forth a child, is not that child expected to dance? As we have made you King, act as King. Page 9 When the rain falls on the leopard, does it wash off its spots? Has the richness of kingly life washed off the love of our King for his people? Page 10 My people. Children of our fathers. Sickness is like rain. Does the rain fall on one roof alone? No. Does it fall on one body and not on another? No. Whoever the rain sees, on him it rains. Does it not? It is the same with sickness. Page 10 It is sickness that man can cure, not death Page 12 To get fully cured one needs patience. The moon moves slowly but by daybreak it crosses the sky. Page 14
By trying often, the monkey learns to jump from tree to tree without falling. Page 14
The horns cannot be too heavy for the head of the cow that must bear them. Page 20
Until the rotten tooth is pulled out, the mouth must chew with caution. Page 21
When the frog in front falls in pit, others behind take caution. Page 23
== External links == https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gods_Are_Not_to_Blame https://freduagyeman.blogspot.com/2011/07/quotes-for-friday-from-ola-rotimis-gods.html?m=1
# Everyday Is for the Thief

Everyday Is for the Thief ( first Published in 2007) Is a novel by Nigerian-American author Teju Cole. The unnamed protagonist of the novel returns to Lagos after fifteen years in New York City, only to find himself changed by living abroad and confused by the city.

## Quotes

* I suddenly feel a vague pity for all those writers who have to ply their trade from sleepy American suburbs, writing divorce scenes symbolized by the very slow washing of dishes.
* Hey, hey young guy, why trouble yourself? They'll take your money anyway, and they'll punish you by delaying your passport. Is that what you want? Aren't you more interested in getting your passport than trying to prove a point?
** Page 12.
* I have mentally rehearsed a reaction for a possible encounter with such corruption at the airport in Lagos. But to walk in off a New York street and face a brazen demand for a bribe: that is a shock I am ill-prepared for.”
** Chapter 1, Page 7.
* I have taken into myself some of the assumptions of life in a Western democracy—certain ideas about legality, for instance, certain expectations of due process—and in that sense I have returned a stranger.”
** Chapter 3, Page 17.
* Precisely because everyone takes a shortcut, nothing works and, for this reason, the only way to get anything done is to take another shortcut.”
** Chapter 3, Page 19.
# The Train from Rhodesia

The Train from Rhodesia (1952) by [[Nadine The story concerns a young married couple, in which the young woman is interested in a carved lion an old native has to sell but claims the price is too high. Her husband later bargains with this old native and obtains the lion for an unfairly low price, which causes his wife to feel isolated and confused towards this complex society regarding racism. At first the story did not seem to deal with racial problems, but with the use of symbolism and imagery Gordimer was able to illustrate the racial discrimination and the social divide between middle and upper class citizens and the poor African natives in South Africa.

## Quotes

* The young man outside. But he is not part of the unreality; he is for good now. Odd…somewhere there was an idea that he, that living with him, was part of the holiday, the strange places. The heat of shame mounted through her legs and body and sounded in her ears like the sound of sand pouring. Pouring, pouring. She sat there, sick. A weariness, a tastelessness, the discovery of a void made her hands slacken their grip, atrophy emptily, as if the hour was not worth their grasp. She was feeling like this again. She had thought it was something to do with singleness, with being alone and belonging too much to oneself.She sat there not wanting to move or speak, or to look at anything even; so that the mood should be associated with nothing, no object, word, or sight that might recur and so recall the feeling again….Smuts blew in grittily, settled on her hands. Her back remained at exactly the same angle, turned against the young man sitting with his hands drooping between his sprawled legs, and the lion, fallen on its side in the corner.The train had cast the station like a skin. It called out to the sky, I’m coming, I’m coming; and again, there was no answer.
* The train came out of the red horizon and bore down towards them over the single straight track.
** Page 43
* Creaking, jerking, jostling, gasping, the train filled the station.
** Page 43
* Between its vandyke teeth, in the mouth opened in a roar too terrible to be heard, it had a black tongue.
** Page 44

## External links

* 123help me
* goodreads
* supersummary
# Sizwe Banzi Is Dead

Sizwe Banzi Is Dead (1972) is a play by Athol Fugard written collaboratively with two South African actors, John Kani and Winston Ntshona, both of whom appeared in the original production. Its world première occurred on 8 October 1972 at the Space Theatre, Cape Town, South Africa. Its subsequent British première won a London Theatre Critics Award for the Best Play of 1974. Its American première occurred at the Edison Theatre in New York City, on 13 November 1974. It has been ranked among the best plays ever made as a deceptively light and humane play that outlasts the apartheid era.
# Ways of Dying

Ways of Dying (Published in 1995) is a novel by Zakes Mda a South African novelist and playwright. The text follows the wanderings and creative endeavors of Toloki, a self-employed professional mourner, as he traverses an unnamed South African city during the nation's transitional period.

## Quotes

* It is not different, really, here in the city. Just like back in the village, we live our lives together as one. We know everything about everybody. We even know things that happen when we are not there; things that happen behind people’s closed doors deep in the middle of the night. We are the all-seeing eye of the village gossip. When in our orature the storyteller begins the story, ‘They say it once happened…’ we are the ‘they’. No individual owns any story. The community is the owner of the story, and it can tell it the way it deems it fit.
** Page 12.
* You have always been good at creating beautiful things with your hands.
** Page 67.
* We are like two hands that wash each other.’
** Page 69.
* By the time he has finished, every inch of the walls is covered with bright pictures – a wallpaper of sheer luxury.
** Page 111.
Men, on the other hand, tend to cloud their heads with pettiness and vain pride. They sit all day and dispense wide-ranging philosophies on how things should be. With great authority in their voices, they come up with wise theories on how to put the world right. Then at night they demand to be given food, as if the food just walked into the house on its own. *When they believe all the children are asleep, they want to be pleasured. The next day they wake up and continue with their empty theories.
** Page 176.
* In those days, they did not allow people of his colour onto any of the beaches of the city, so he could not carry out his ablutions there, as he does today”
** Page 112.
* Funerals were held only on Saturday and Sunday mornings those days, because death was not as prevalent then as it is at present”
** Page 136.
* It is strange how things don’t change in these shanty towns or squatter camps or informal settlements or whatever you choose to call them”
** Page 138).
* hymns flow into one another in unplanned but pleasant segues” - **Page 136.
* You see, they say they are fighting for freedom, yet they are no different from the tribal chief and his followers. They commit atrocities as well”
** Page 167.
* We go for what we call a joll. All it means is that we engage in an orgy of drinking, raping, and stabbing one another with knives and shooting one another with guns”
** Page 20.
* When they believe all the children are asleep, they want to be pleasured. The next day they wake up and continue with their empty theories.
** Page 176.

## External Links

https://anzlitlovers.com/2013/08/04/ways-of-dying-1995-by-zakes-mda/
# Our husbands has gone mad again

Our husband has gone mad again by Ola Rotimi in the year 1999. The play revolves around a former military Major, named Lekoja-Brown, who enters into politics in contemporary Africa. Lekoja-Brown struggles in the political world which he doesn't fully understand while been driven more by vanity than patroitism. His struggles in the political world brings about comic results through the novel.
Lekoja-Brown's problems worsens at the arrival of his American wife, who finds out he has married two more women while she was away. As the Major struggles with his political and marital challenges, his story captures the prevailent issues found in the political landscape and highlights themes such as ambition, opportunism, and the absurdity of politics.
* A man who cannot control his wife is like a chief who cannot control his subjects.
* When a man's wife is mad, the whole town knows, but when a man is mad, only his wife knows.
* A madman is like a child, he speaks the truth without knowing it.
* When a man's beard is on fire, he does not worry about whose axe is sharp.
* A man who has no respect for his wife is like a farmer who has no respect for his farm.
Rotimi's use of humor, satire, and traditional Nigerian proverbs to explore themes of marriage, gender roles, and social expectations in the play.

## External links

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gods_Are_Not_to_Blame.
# There was a country

There Was a Country is a personal account by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe of the Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Biafran War. It is considered one of the defining works of modern African non-fiction released in October 2012.

## Quotes

* Some people flinch when you talk about art in the context of the needs of society thinking you are introducing something far too common for a discussion of art. Why should art have a purpose and a use? Art shouldn't be concerned with purpose and reason and need, they say. These are improper. But from the very beginning, it seems to me, stories have indeed been meant to be enjoyed, to appeal to that part of us which enjoys good form and good shape and good sound.
* There is a moral obligation, I think, not to ally oneself with power against the powerless.
* People from different parts of the world can respond to the same story if it says something to them about their own history and their own experience.
* Every generation must recognize and embrace the task it is peculiarly designed by history and by providence to perform.
* Writing has always been a serious business for me. I felt it was a moral obligation. A major concern of the time was the absence of the African voice. Being part of that dialogue meant not only sitting at the table but effectively telling the African story from an African perspective - in full earshot of the world.
* The triumph of the written word is often attained when the writer achieves union and trust with the reader, who then becomes ready to be drawn into unfamiliar territory, walking in borrowed literary shoes so to speak, toward a deeper understanding of self or society, or of foreign peoples, cultures, and situations
* There was another epidemic that was not talked about much, a silent scourge—the explosion of mental illness: major depression, psychosis, schizophrenia, manic-depression, personality disorders, grief response, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorders, etc.—on a scale none of us had ever witnessed.

## Categories

[[Category:Literary works]