Kola Boof reads The Sexy Part of the Bible

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• Courtesy Akashic Books

The Sexy Part of the Bible is the sort of title that revels in misunderstanding. When you hear it, maybe you think "That bible-study textbook that is trying way too hard" or maybe you think it is erotica for true believers or maybe you just don't have any clue what to think. In any case, the book in question is none of the above, but rather a new novel from Sudanese-born author Kola Boof, made somehow more exciting by that deliriously ambiguous title.

Boof had some attention a few years back, when her memoir Diary of a Lost Girl (excerpted in Harper's), recounted being kept as Osama Bin Laden's mistress against her will. Still, it is hard to know what to expect from a book titled The Sexy Part of the Bible, until you come across this excerpt from the publisher.

Around the third page, we get this detail:

I see the skeletal dog with the human arm in its mouth, barely nourished enough to wag its tail as it runs away from the screaming mob. I see him, Stevedore, coming into the town square, only he's twenty years younger and resembles Richie Cunningham even more than he does now. Stevedore steps aside as the mutt he mistakes for a Dalmation runs past with my arm in its mouth. He's not surprised at all as he comes upon the sight of a frail, middle-aged Ajowan woman being kicked to death in the streets of DakCrete by the swallowers.

And that's when you know that this book must be as bewildering and overwhelming as the title. Be sure to catch Boof when she reads tonight, Mon. Aug. 1, at the Nubian Bookstore in the Southlake Mall. The reading gets started at 7 pm. You can find out more about The Sexy Part of the Bible from the publisher, Akashic Books.