Through the stories of three immigrant women, Drasla, Alina and Farida, the work throws light on the emotional complexity of those who leave their country. 

It is a female universe that in eradication cultivates conflicts and desires for the land of origin as well as for the landing place; strategies of survival, answers to lost feelings and conditions of diversity.  

Nevertheless the condition of these migrants illustrates the metaphor of risking one's own nature and own story, while forcing perceptions and knowledge for times and places to create a world in continuous transformation and imperfect development.    

The voices of the three characters are intense, committed in preserving their own identity in the face of their life projects and in confronting themselves with a new cultural and social reality that most often does not take them into consideration. The work of Valentina Acava Mmaka reflects the necessity for contemporary society of confronting diversity; an important point for the development of an intercultural society based on dialogue.

Drasla, Alina, Farida. 

Three acts,

Three women.

Three women, 

Three destinies. 

Three women who face their own experiences of being foreign and who struggle to make sure that their "being other" does not make them strangers; that it does not make them alien to themselves and to ‘others’. 

I nomi della pace. Amani - Emi 2004

Is is possible to talk about peace with a fable? To teach peace through a tale? Is it possible, while, towards the beginning of the Millenium, airplanes are thrown against skyscrapers and other airplanes, carriyng out a reprisal, are bombing entire countries?  

Unforgetable ingenousness, somebody will say. Yet in these times where the difficult words are used to hide the truth, and the significance of the simple words is distorted, a fable can help us to taste the essential things.

Sometimes a tale becomes poetry, as in the book of Valentina A. Mmaka, true poetry, the one which makes us to see beyond the reality, especially that which makes us to see the future which already exist now.  

Mapenzi and Mutamyao, the characters of this lovely dialogue on peace, makes us to understand the best of Africa. The Africa of the ancient knowledge and the young Africa which wants to grow and preserves all the innocence and freshness of the new.  

Let’s we put aside for a moment our speech of grown up  and let us to be brought by hand from Mapenzi e Mutamayo,  playing with them a dance round of peace.

Jabuni, il mistero della città sommersa - EMI 2003

In Africa, the sound of the red-eyed dove sings us out of our dreams. It is here that the Ibis calls and our spirits are charged for yet another busy day. This musical awakening cements our long established bond with our environment that releases a chemistry of salutary value to our congested existence.

While conservation organisations, like the East African Wild Life Society go to great lengths in their efforts to save threatened forests and wildlife, more efforts are required in creating environmental awareness. In fact such efforts would go to waste without sensitisation of the people for who conservation is for and by in the long term. Valentina Mmaka’s anecdote explores contentious issues in conservation in Kenya including the devastation of forests, marine and wildlife.

The revolutionary nature of the story not only creates awareness, but also provokes a reader to take action against environmental ruin.Here is a book since the ‘Animal Farm’ that animates all life form thus creating collective appreciation of the mutuality of the predicament. Likewise the solution is communally sought and effected through unity and affirmative action by all.

This book is a good read for the environmentally concerned and a suitable candidate as a schools English literature text.

Il mondo a colori della famiglia Bwanaval

How could have been the world without the existence of the thousands of varieties of shapes, and colours of which makes everything and everyone so unique and special? Maybe a boring and a flat world, as with absolute certainty asserts the magnificent Baobab on the Sabamom Island. If also you are curious to know how this splendid multicultural world was born, do like Florin and Aisha, and fly on board of the shell called Fantasy, to the far land of Africa, on the Island of Sabamom. Here in a remote time, a strange fact happened and so the night, the moon and the stars disappeared and for centuries its people lived under the light of the day.

     IN VIA DI RIEDIZIONE

L'ottava nota - Prospettiva  2002

Come sacerdotessa di oggi Valentina Acava Mmaka riunisce  l'immaginario femminile, ne ricompone il mondo, ricostruendo come in un mosaico , quel laboratorio  emotivo. razionale che è il pensiero delle donne ... Il continente in cui vive dei suoi versi. Valentina ha tracciato nella sua poesia il suo destino attenta a questo mondo, e dialogando con esso."     Marcia Theophilo

VALENTINA ACAVA MMAKA supports the project SCRITTORI PER LE FORESTE