Onitsha Market Lit at Swann

 

Sale 2171 Lot 107(AFRICA.) LUMUMBA, PATRICE. The Last Days of Lumumba * The Sorrows of Lumumba. Two volumes, 8vo, original pictorial wrappers; covers faded, poor quality paper toned; ownership signature and the numerals “I” and “II” on the covers. Onitsha, Nigeria, circa 1961-1962  Estimate $250-350  first editions. scarce. OCLC locates four copies of the first title and only one of the second title. Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961), pan-Africanist, rebel leader and first freely elected leader of the Congo was a postal clerk and traveling beer salesman, until being caught up in the general African national movement of the mid 1950s. He rose through the MNC, or Mouvement National Congolais, to be its leader. Elected president in 1960, he was in power less than a year before being forced out of office, arrested and subsequently assassinated while in the custody of Katangan forces, backed by Belgium and the CIA. Lumumba was an inspiration to Africans still under the yoke of colonialism, as well as to the nascent Black Radical movements in the United States and West Indies.  On Thursday, February 26th at 10:30 a.m. Swann Gallery will be featuring two examples of the Onitsha Market Literature Life Turns Man Up and Down is about.  This is the first auction in many years African street lit in years and we’ll be following the sale with great interest.

Across 160th Street

 

 

 

The Private Library

In 2002 Bravo’s Arts and Minds shot this piece on my career as a private librarian.  The channel, then devoted to the arts, was purchased by NBC and remodeled into a vehicle for Reality based TV – Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Project Runway – and never showed in the US. 

 

My family and I have since moved from Brooklyn Heights to Sugar Hill in Washington Heights/Harlem, where in 2005 I opened Jumel Terrace Books.  The out-of-print and rare shop specializes in local history: African and American. 

 The Private Library is now in its 28^th year providing services to Bibliophiles: cataloguing, bibliography, appraisals, archival services, organization, moving, book searches and research.  We specialize in made-to-order and custom made libraries on all subjects.