Oprah's Book Club Selection

The Real “Queen of All Media,” Oprah Winfrey (or rather, her team of minions at Harpo) has decided on her Next Official Book Club selection.

“Say Your’e One of Them” by Uwem Akpan.

The book is a series of short stories told through the eyes of African children in five different countries (Kenya, Rwanda, Nigeria, Benin and Ethiopia) and delves into the the horrors and tragedies they encounter in their war-torn and impoverished homes. Oprah’s Book club has become much less of a priority since its inception in 1996 (when books were chosen on an almost monthly basis), and “Say Your’e One of Them” has been the only selection thus far in 2009. Oprah will no doubt use this as an opportunity to relaunch not only the club but her interest in the welfare of children in Africa, and there will probably be a whole series of fundraising and awareness initiatives surrounding the book. This is also the first time that Oprah’s Book Club has selected either a short story collection or a book by an African author, and it won’t take long for the Oprah effect to turn Akpan, a Nigerian Jesuit priest, into a multi-millionaire. Hopefully the book not only changes the author's life, but the minds of his readers and the lives of his subjects as well.