R S Basi

Convictions of Faith by R.S. Basi has an interesting premise. The book is meant to describe the life of Kimpa Vita who was one of the people who initiated the African Independent Church movement. While the book does outline Kimpa Vita's life and how her beliefs and and religious questions threatened both her King and the Portuguese Capuchin monks, it fails to describe to the reader why her actions were so important. The author assumes the reader already knows a bit about the life of Kimpa Vita and the movement that began because of her actions, however this is never really discussed during the book. It would have been nice if an epilogue was included that reinforced her importance as a leader and a person. After reading Convictions of Faith a reader may want to read more about Kimpa Vita to fully understand her importance to the church and the people of the Kongo.… (mehr)

NOTE: I won a free eBook copy of this book in MOBI format from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers (April 2020).

This book has an interesting premise. It introduced me to a historical figure of whom I had never heard, as well as a historical era of which I knew little. I enjoyed the beginning of the novella the most because it introduced several characters and their backstories. However, as the book progressed, deeper character development was relegated to a secondary role. The latter half of the novella read like a play-by-play of the author's interpretation of historical events. There were also many philosophical and religious dialogues between characters that, while in spirit of the book's title, detracted from the flow of the story. I think "Convictions of Faith" would have worked better as a longer novel because it would have given the author room to fill out some of the other plot elements.… (mehr)