BOOK REVIEW

Koenings latest work of fiction is a collection of five long stories. Her first novel, Blue Taxi was a thought provoking tale set in East Africa in the fictional city of Vunjamguu, an amalgam for Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar with touches of Kampala (Mmegi April 21, 2007). In Theft she writes about a vague Indian Ocean Coast, "A City to the South and Usilie, Kudra Island in the last three of these five long stories. The first, Pearls to Swine is set in Belgium and the second, Wondrous Strange in England, but the ties to East Africa are strong.

Koenings grew up in East Africa, Europe and the United States of America (US). She did African Studies at Bryn Mawr College and then a doctorate at Indiana University in anthropology. Her fieldwork was in the islands off the coast of Tanzania. Then came a Masters in Fine Arts in Fiction and she now teaches creative writing at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts.