|
|
Sudan's Kola Boof (born Naima Bint Harith) is slowly but surely becoming the new black woman writer that "lots of people love to hate". Remember back in the 70's and 80's when authors like Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, Gayl Jones and even Toni Morrison were widely cursed and demonized for the skeletons they exposed? Well now we have the strangely fabulous and daring Kola Boof (she's a sexy feminist literary babe slash African warrior girl slash historian) and she's already getting death threats by the ton! Why is her work so confrontational?
Miss Boof claims it's because she was adopted and raised by Black Americans. She credits her teen years in the lower class Anacostia Park section of Washington D.C. with giving her "the nerve and skill of a hornet".
In her native Sudan, they recently told her that if she ever tries to return, she will be killed on the spot (Ms. Boof has joined Dr. John Garang's SPLA in an effort to end Arab-Islamic slavery and oppression of Black Africans in Sudan). Born on the Nile River to archeologist Harith Bin Farouk (an Arab-Egyptian of "hemetic" ancestry) and his only wife Jiddi (a blue black Gisi-Waaq princess of Somalia's Oromo nomads), Kola Boof came to America after her parents were murdered by "the murhaleen" (because her father, Arab-Islamic himself, spoke out against the slavery he had witnessed). Kola was then put up for adoption by her Egyptian grandmother, who felt that Kola's skin was too dark for assimilation with the rest of the family.
Ms. Boof now considers herself "half African, half Black-American" and has used the pain and tragedy of her life to create a distinctive, sometimes "angry" but always outspoken "womanist" voice that champions the survival (whole) of the African race, and especially, the affirmation of black women-their beauty, worth and innate goodness. Kola Boof refuses to compromise on her "blood-black" message and signifies it by insisting she be photographed "topless" for the back covers of her books-in honor of the animist nilotic goddess-based African religion that she embraces.
In 2004, Kola Boof will see the American release of three of her best books. "Nile River Woman", a collection of her best and most controversial poems drops on February 10th. The reissue of "Long Train to the Redeeming Sin", her acclaimed bestselling short story collection that was forced out of print the entire year of 2003 after her publisher was firebombed by Dragons for Jihad in Morocco, returns on March 9th...and the English translation (by Said Musa) of Kola's provocatively erotic Black American historical romance "Flesh and the Devil" will be released stateside on May 11th in hardcover.
Boof's long awaited autobiography, however, "Diary of a Lost Girl", has yet to find a publisher...and citing "artistic differences" and racial disagreements...Kola Boof turned down deals with both Simon and Shuster and Random House and remains determined to publish a version of the book that is true to her character and her vision as an artist.
�Solomon Amadou/Editor "Diary of a Lost Girl"
Read an Interview with Kola Boof: Words with the Author of "The Best Black Book of 2006"
Diary
of a Lost Girl
Click to order via Amazon
Diary of A Lost Girl
Author: Kola Boof
ISBN: 1-59232-012-0
Format: 448 pages Hardcover
Publication Date: February, 2007
Publisher: Seaburn
Read a Review of Diary of a Lost Girl by Kam Willaims
Read a Review of Diary of a Lost Girl by Chris Stevenson of The Buffalo Criterion
Kola Boof's long awaited autobiography "Diary of a Lost Girl" is nothing less than magnificent. Many will be spellbound by more than 90 pages detailing her terrifying experience as Osama Bin Laden's former mistress, but the Sudanese-born Novelist/Poet writes even more profoundly about the hardships of being vaginally circumcised, about witnessing her birth parents killed in her presence as a small child, about slavery and Arabism in Sudan, about being adopted and raised in the U.S. by African Americans, about her quest for true love, and in one particularly daring chapter, about her hopes for the future of her sons.
Add to that years of psychiatric treatment, a struggle with manic anger and quite a few daring romances other than Bin Laden and you've got the perfect ingredients for a feature film.
Readers will find themselves fascinated as innocent young Naima Bint Harith tragically becomes the vitriolic complicated temptress Kola. A doomed movie starlet, feminist activist and "kept woman"...who ultimately emerges as the loving mother, outspoken novelist/poet and professional cook that we know today as Kola Boof.
Throughout the book, Kola speaks in a voice so utterly naked, truthful and unpretentious that it's impossible not to fall in love with her.
"Diary of a Lost Girl" is a powerful autobiography that you won't soon forget.
�Kurt Rampling (editor)
Flesh and the Devil: A
Novel by Kola Boof Translated from the Arabic by Said Musa
Click to order via
Amazon
ISBN: 0971201978
Format: Paperback, 352pp
Pub. Date: May 2004
Publisher: Door of Kush
"Flesh and the Devil is the perfect companion piece for those who've enjoyed
Toni Morrison's Beloved and Edward P. Jones's The Known World...but what sets
this lush romantic novel apart from those American classics....is that this one
is written by a North African woman. I found myself both shocked and numbed by
the clarity of Boof's understanding of chattel slavery, black humanity and black
love. This is not only the most graphic slave novel I've ever read, but it's
also a passionate, passionate love story. Black women.....are going to love this
book!"
�Alicia Banks, Eloquent Fury
Nile
River Woman
Click to order via
Amazon
ISBN: 0-9712019-6-X
Format: Paperback $12.99
Release Date: Feb. 10th 2004
Publisher: Door of Kush Publications
For Black History month...African American media maverick Cornel Chesney is releasing the anthology of poems that got Kola Boof kicked out of Morocco in 1997 and threatened with death by Osama Bin Laden in 1998.
Re-titled "Nile River Woman" for America...the book features 28 brand new poems (including the college radio favorite "I Love My Man")... plus 30 classic poems detailing the trials and tribulations of Black Egyptians, Sudanese and Arabs of the Nile River valley. Poems like "The Conquering Lion", which details Malcolm X's impact on Sudan (he was called Red Rooster in Sudan) and poems like "The Children With African Hair", speak quite movingly about the love that some Africans feel for Black Americans. Most notable is Boof's inclusion of Queen Nefertiti's favorite "river song" — "The Written Words of Faceless Woman" ” which was originally written and sang in the 3rd century B.C. as a menstruation song.
Long Train to the redeeming
SIN Stories about AFRICAN women
Click to order via
Amazon
ISBN:
0971201900
Format: Paperback, 178pp
Pub. Date: April 2004
Publisher: Door of Kush
Read an AALBC.com Review (AALBC.com #1 Best Selling Book for 2002)
"The redeeming sin being courage�.
Courage is the chariot that redeems us in sin."
“Kola Boof
In the book of the women�they are dark and light, wide and shapely, thin
as reeds�their hair eats the sun and their eyes swallow the moon�these are
Black Women�the daughters of the earth's first garden. The mothers of God.
These are the stories that remind us where we came from and why we
came�stories that make us laugh�make us mad as hell�make us want to
cry�make us want to get up and eat. These are our reflections. Our love
and dreams, our sexual longing and prayers. Our goodness. Our deep eternal
beauty.
This is the LONG TRAIN�to the REDEEMING SIN
Contact Kola Boof:
Email Kola Boof at kolaboof_email@yahoo.com
Or write:
Kola Boof c/o DOOR OF KUSH
324 South Diamond Bar Blvd. Suite 504
Diamond Bar, California 91765
Related Links
Official Web Site - Kola Boof: Womanist Novelist Poet
http://www.kolaboof.com/
Kola's Agent:
http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/members/LuvAmerica/
Article by Kola in "Daily Voice"
http://thedailyvoice.com/voice/2008/03/sudan-needs-black-celebrities-000274.php
Peter Bergen "Lied" on KOLA BOOF
http://kolapress.1colony.com/
The
Kool Room - Hosted by Kola Boof
http://thumperscorner.com/discus/messages/11227/11227.html
Bint il Nil: Kola Boof's Best Poems
http://poetwomen.50megs.com
PRAVDA.Ru
http://english.pravda.ru/society/2002/07/26/33236.html
More Information on Kola Boof
http://mirrormax.i8.com/index.html
RAWSISTAZ Review
http://www.therawreviewers.com/TRR/Reviews/LongTrain.htm
TRANSCRIPT: Rita Cosby interviews Kola Boof on FOX NEWS BIG STORY WEEKEND.
http://mirrormax.i8.com/whats_new.html
On August 23rd, 2003...Kola Boof appeared on FOX NEWS top rated program "Big
Story Weekend with Rita Cosby". Boof, who had recently suffered a miscarriage,
spoke about her days as Osama Bin Laden's mistress, referring to him as a
combination of "Hitler and Ike Turner"...as well as a brilliant poet. Boof
pointed out that he "raped" her the first night they met. She also elaborated on
being taught in Sudanese elementary schools to "hate America".
