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The Cows of Shambat may be a long way from both Frantz Fanon's Uneven Ribs (1971) and Another Nigger Dead (1973), but Taban Lo Liyong remains an iconoclast, only a little more measured than before. His latest collection threads together public and private experiences that show a poet at once enraged and cynical about the mistreatment of Africa by the developed West and its institutions and at the same time relishing his personal experiences as he turns fifty.
The poet begins with the fantastical and symbolic in the title poem "The Cows of Shambat." In the section titled "Underdevelopment in Africa" Lo Liyong condemns colonialism and the bad influence of the West on Africans. In the rather prosaic yet interesting 'Open Letter to a Distant Friend" the poet in a lighthearted but highly critical style condemns the West for attempting to impose family planning on Africans. He also condemns both the World Bank for its relations with Africa and Canada for linking aid to the "awakening women" of Africa. He exposes the contradiction...