Art of Darkness

By Lev Grossman

Uwem Akpan is a Jesuit priest from Nigeria. His first book, a collection of longish short stories called SAY YOU'RE ONE OF THEM (Little, Brown; 358 pages), is one of the most highly praised literary debuts of the year. It is a stunning book by a writer of immense gifts, and I couldn't in good conscience recommend it to anybody.

The stories are set in sub-Saharan Africa--Rwanda, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya. Akpan's method is to present scenes of extreme violence and degradation from a child's point of view. A young boy watches his sister practice prostitution; a man sells his niece and nephew into slavery; a girl looks on as her Tutsi father kills her Hutu mother with a machete. And so on. These stories are so frightening and upsetting, and offer so little in the way of closure or consolation, that you wonder what the point is of subjecting yourself to them--they exist at the border between realism and snuff. There's a basic sense that art is supposed to make of the world that Say You're One of Them--gorgeously written as it is--does not. You could read it, but why? Kiss your family, enjoy a hot shower, and donate the price of a hardcover book to charity instead.