"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". IN JANUARY of 2003, unfortunately, the original African publisher of this book was firebombed by Arab Muslim fundamentalists who were outraged with Boof's earlier works, as well as this one. The book went out of print and Kola Boof was let go by the publisher. Although more than 100 newspapers around the world reported the firebombing of Kola Boof's publisher...only one (The New York Post) reported the story in the United States, and although the Sudanese born Kola Boof is an American citizen...there was virtually no concern for her situation from either the American writer's community or from American media, including black media outlets such as Essence Magazine, Black Issues Book Review or BET. Cornel Chesney, an African American businessman in Southern California became aware of Kola Boof's predicament through her sensational appearances on singer Stevie Wonder's KJLH RADIO program "The Front Page" hosted by renowned radio journalist Carl Nelson and immediately offered to start a publishing company for the sole purpose of publishing Kola Boof's works and bringing this important feminist, Afrocentric masterpiece back into print. This reissue of "Long Train to the Redeeming Sin" joins two other powerful works by Kola Boof, "Nile River Woman" and "Flesh and the Devil: A Novel"...as American raised author's first books released in the United States, the nation of her citizenship. Other fine work by Kola Boof can be found in Stephen Elliott's masterful short story collection, "Politically Inspired" where Boof appeared alongside Charles Baxter, Stuart O'Nan, Z.Z. Packer, Elizabeth Tallent, Anthony Swofford and Brian Gage.

Long Train to the Redeeming Sin: Stories About African Women

BOOF, KOLA

Literature & Fiction

Door of Kush

Released for the first time in the United States, "Nile River Woman" (a 2004 Black History Month Selection) is the provocative poetry collection that got its author, Kola Boof, kicked out of Morocco in 1997 and threatened with death by her former lover, Osama Bin Laden, in 1998. Widely regarded as a classic of Post-Colonial African literature, "Nile River Woman" (originally released as "Every Little Bit Hurts") tantalizes and engages the reader's imagination as Kola Boof uses conversational motifs, both political and sexual to conjure a dreamily erotic and angry bossa nova type landscape. Most of Boof's most famous poems are collected here--including the scary but poignant "Fly Away Sleeping", the sweetly hopeful "Black Beauty's Totem", the understated but evocative "Ebrig: Gone Dry", the hauntingly triumphant "Bint il Nil" and countless other gems...from the freshly original "The Conquering Lion" (A poem honoring Malcolm X) to Kola Boof's inclusion of Queen Nefertiti's favorite menstration song--"The Written Words of Faceless Women"--which was originally sang in the 3rd Century B.C. by Black women of the Nile River Valley. The 28 brand new poems that have been added to the collection (college radio favorite "I Love My Man" is included here) only further prove the viability and strength of Kola Boof's artistry. Boof's willingness to flaunt a surprising vulnerability along with her trademark rage and sex tease infuses the book with a futuristic edge that only enhances an already solid and powerful anthology. --Hans VolloKerk, Editor of the original version of "Nile River Woman" ("Every Little Bit Hurts").

Nile River Woman: The Very First Poems by Kola Boof

Poetry

Spanning several thousand years, tells the story of the passion between Prince Shango Ogun and Princess Ife Ife as they experience the story of creation in West Africa, the Atlantic slave trade, and life in modern-day America as happily married black American professionals, Shane Roberts and RooAmber Childress.

Flesh and the Devil

Musa, Said

PLEASE ORDER AMAZON.COM's 2007 "UNCUT" American edition of this book from Seaburn Books (ISBN: 1592320120).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.
Critically acclaimed for her powerful novels "Flesh and the Devil", "Pure Nigger Evil" and the classic short story collection, "Long Train to the Redeeming Sin"...I'm now convinced that there's no way Kola Boof could ever create a fictional character in one of her novels that is more glamorous, sad, enigmatic and intriguing than she herself is in real life.
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. 
ORDER THE 2007 "Uncut" American edition of this book from SEABURN BOOKS of New York (ISBN: 1592320120) 
--Kurt Rampling (editor)

Diary of A Lost Girl: The Autobiography Of Kola Boof

Biographies & Memoirs

Memoirs

Critically acclaimed yet embattled novelist KOLA BOOF ("The Sexy Part of the Bible", "Diary of a Lost Girl", "Flesh and the Devil") tells us how she really feels in this brutally honest deeply personal Black Girl sex memoir that bravely exposes the differences between African Feminism, Black Womanism and White American Feminism. Ultimately the book is a manifesto appealing to all women of any race, any sexuality and even includes legitimate representation of Transwomen. Ms. Boof starts with the question: "What if I had a daughter? What would I tell her about being a Woman and surviving in this world?" After being married to two millionaires (one Black, one White) and dating quite the list of male celebrities (Boof tries to downplay her history with Osama Bin Laden, however); Kola Boof definitely sounds like an expert on these matters and is one of the most entertaining wisdom-sharing public figures in literature today. It's a shame that corporate smear campaigns targeted at Boof after the Bin Laden scandal, Xenophobia and Ms. Boof's personal beef with U.S. White Media has relegated her to being something of an underground sensation. Truly, her level of talent and intellect deserves more attention. It's impossible to agree with everything Boof writes here. I have a few bones to pick with her. But her penchant for making us talk about topics we ordinarily wouldn't dare debate in public has become legendary. "Feminists Need Dick Too!" Strikes me as both the perfect beach read for young thinking women and confirmation for much older Black women that they were right about certain things all along. Men who are secure within themselves will love and enjoy the book as well.

FEMINISTS NEED DICK TOO!

Community & Culture

Underground/Unreleased

Number 7 on HEY, SMALL PRESS's Best Of 2011 list (heysmallpress.org)! "From the malignant forces of racism and sexism to corruption and cloning, Boof catwalks her way through a shrewdly satirical, erotic, and suspenseful novel of defiance." --Booklist "Boof spins surrealism, sci-fi, racial politics, feminism, religious debate, postcolonial theory, and more into a thought-provoking, suspenseful novel that manages to keep intriguing characters afloat in a roiling sea of crazy rhetoric." --Publishers Weekly "The most jubilant celebration of black African beauty so far seen in the English language." --Madison Smartt Bell, Boston Globe Following in the footsteps of her idols Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, Kola Boof asserts her own literary prowess with a chilling sociopolitical love story. Set in modern West Africa, Europe, and the United States, and featuring the kind of heroine readers rarely get to encounter in popular culture—beautiful charcoal-skinned Eternity, a spirited and diabolical young African hellcat whose life is stigmatized by a heart-stopping secret—The Sexy Part of the Bible is an erotically astute novel filled with mystery and adventure. Enveloped in the arms of a domineering Fela Kuti–type rap star and revolutionary named Sea Horse Twee, Eternity finds herself miraculously surviving several African rebellions—and in the interim, she powerfully unmasks the science of cloning, which becomes a powerful metaphor in the story. Kola Boof is the author of several novels and poetry collections, including Flesh and the Devil and Nile River Woman. Her writing has appeared in Harper's and the story collection Politically Inspired. Her autobiography, Diary of a Lost Girl, was published in 2006. She has been interviewed by MSNBC, FOX News, and CNN and has been featured in TV Guide, Time, New York Post, and The New York Times. She lives in southern California.

The Sexy Part of the Bible (Akashic Urban Surreal)

United States

Akashic Books Ltd

VIRGINS IN THE BEEHIVE

Independently published

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by BOOF, KOLA. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by BOOF, KOLA

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by BOOF, KOLA. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Long Train to the Redeeming Sin: Stories About African Women

Long Train to the Redeeming Sin: Stories About African Women

Nile River Woman: The Very First Poems by Kola Boof

Flesh and the Devil

Diary of A Lost Girl: The Autobiography Of Kola Boof

FEMINISTS NEED DICK TOO!

The Sexy Part of the Bible (Akashic Urban Surreal)

VIRGINS IN THE BEEHIVE