The second part of my virtual journey Around the World in 80 Books. I have crossed from Malta to Tunisia.
country 13: Tunisia
MacBain, Daughter, Disappeared.
Two alternating stories: in 1994, a young woman, Jane, travels to Tunisia in search of her sister Crystal, and in 2013, her daughter goes there in search of the father and aunt she has never known. Three Tunisian men appear in both stories, and I sometimes got confused about which story I was reading. Some scenes are set in a water sports centre, drawing on the author’s experience. A common theme is why people fail to tell the truth, and with what consequences.
country 14: Algeria
Albert Camus, The Plague.
Rereading this book at the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is fascinating to draw comparisons between Camus’ account of a fictional plague (complete with daily reports of the number of dead rats discovered) and the current situation. It is often read as an allegory of wartime France, which I probably suspected but only realized when I read the afterword. I like the way Camus depicts a number of characters (all men) responding to the lockdown in different ways; they are so different it was easy to remember which was which.
country 15: Niger
Ahmed Kemil, A Nomad in Two Worlds.
I am now seeing life in the Sahara Desert through the life story of a Tuareg nomad, from taking care of the youngest camels at the age of 7, to a visit to the USA for medical treatment. A remarkable and delightful little book.
country 16: Chad
Collins and Pomeroy, The Great Sahara Mousehunt was going to be my choice for Libya, but this expedition “without a purpose” in 1961 became much more interesting when they reached Chad and stayed in French military establishments etc. Before that, most of the time seemed to be spent managing breakdowns and getting bogged down in the sand.
So I rejigged the route to detour via Niger and Chad before finishing the book, and postponed my visit to Libya.
country 17: Libya
Ahmed Fagih, Homeless Rats. Picking up themes from the last two books (nomads and gerboas respectively), this fable has a lot to say about interaction between species, and between tribes within the human race.
country 18: Egypt (Africa/Middle East)
Yushi Nomura, Desert Wisdom: Sayings from the Desert Fathers.
Beautiful illustrations in Japanese ink-and-brush style, one of the few books in this journey I read in hardback (ex-Gothenburg University Library).
country 19: Sudan
Ninie Hammon, Sudan tells the story of a 10-year-old girl kidnapped from a village in what is now South Sudan and sold as a slave in the north. Amazingly, she is found and rescued.
country 20: Eritrea
Kevin Morley, Inside Eritrea – A Volunteer in East Africa
A middle-aged schoolteacher’s account of two years teaching and training teachers in two Etritrean villages. Interesting cross-cultural comparisons.
country 21: Djibouti
Elmore Leonard, Djibouti. What starts off as investigative journalism about Somali pirates turns out more dangerous and complicated. Little exploration of the motives.
But at least it’s set in Djibouti – unlike my first choice, The Lion of Djibouti which is mainly in Ethiopia and the USA.
country 22: Somalia
Ayaan Hirst Ali, Infidel. The author tells the story of her life as a Somali refugee in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Kenya before settling in Holland and obtaining Dutch citizenship – but the story is far from over!
Fascinating accounts of how her view of Islam changed.
country 23: Ethiopia
Mau Van Duren, The Coptic Caper. A Kenyan private detective is hired by the Marxist Ethiopian government to track down a missing mediaeval cross. The result has unexpected implications for church-state relations in both countries.
country 24: South Sudan
N Caraway, The Humanitarian: A Novel Set in South Sudan.
Richards (whose first name is never mentioned), on a final field trip before his contract is terminated, has “run out of places to hide myself in.” This raises some important questions about cross-purposes between international organizations and the local needs they are trying to address. Not a cheerful read, though there are some nice scenes with a Mexican priest.
country 25: Congo, Democratic Republic
Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible.
I tried to read this some years ago, but got bogged down in the early pages. Once I got used to the distinctive voices of the missionary’s wife and four daughters, I couldn’t put it down. The main action takes places in 1960. After the death of one girl, the family scatter in different directions, but the novel continues to show what happens to them, and to the country, over the next 35 years.
country 26: Burundi
Barbara Emrys, Red Clay of Burundi: Finding God, the Music, and Me. A diplomat’s daughter’s account of her teenage angst in 1960s Burundi.
country 27: Rwanda
Gaile Parkin, Baking Cakes in Kigali. A delightful story of a Tanzanian woman living with her husband and grandchildren in Rwanda. Making cakes for her neighbours’ special occasions, she learns a lot about them, about Rwanda, and about herself.
country 28: Uganda
Dilman Dila, Cranes Crest at Sunset. A light romance by a Ugandan author. Very readable, though I found the heroine’s mood swings implausible.
country 29: Kenya
Vaishnavi Ram Mohan, Kenya, Stuck Together. Same series as the last one, but more enjoyable, about two students who find themselves unwillingly sharing a flat
country 30: Tanzania
James Penhaligon, Speak Swahili, Dammit !. An account of the author’s childhood in a goldmining settlement in Tanganyika in the 1950s and 1960s. News of Lumumba’s imprisonment and Kennedy’s assassination reached the community by radio, making this narrative contemporaneous with The Poisonwood Bible (see above, 25) He learned to speak from the African nannies and small children playing under the shade of a big tree. Even when he was old enough to be sent to boarding-school, which he hated, he thought in Swahili. I found the first half of the book more amusing and interesting than the second, and my attention was flagging before the story ended with the closing of the mine.
country 31: Zanzibar
Gordon Wallis, The Snowman of Zanzibar A private eye is hired by a rich banker to find out what his son is up to, The son is about to take off for a beachside holiday in Zanzibar, and private eye is instructed to follow. Plenty of action and excitement, but neither subtlety nor surprise. Disappointing.
(Zanzibar is now part of Tanzania, but the conditions of the challenge allow inclusion of islands, which I have already done for Corsica (part of France) and Sardinia and Sicily (parts of Italy).)
country 32: Madagascar
Gerald Durrell, The Aye-Aye and I. In search of the aye-aye and other species endangered by deforestation.
country 33: Mozambique
Amy Gillespie, Six Years in Mozambique: Things I Haven’t Told Mom. Moved by the plight of orphans, she went there as a volunteer with a Christian charity and progressed to directing her own project.
country 34: Swaziland (Eswatini)
Gaile Parkin, When Hoopoes Go to Heaven is a sequel to Baking Cakes in Kigali, this time told from the viewpoint of Angel’s ten-year-old grandson who has become fascinated with wildlife and also thinks up some great ideas for solving the problems of life in a new country.
country 35: South Africa
J M Coetzee, Age of Iron. Set in 1986, a woman writes a letter to her daughter about being invaded: the cancer within, the vagrant sleeping in her yard whom she befriends, an increasingly hostile apartheid regime, and two teenage boys caught up in the township riots. The reader does not know if the vagrant will post the letter.
country 36 Lesotho
Tendai Murahwa, Saved by the King: A journey of self discovery from Menkhoaneng to Thaba Bosiu. Every year, hundreds of people retrace together the journey of King Moshoeshoe: a demanding three-day walk. Tendai Murahwa first undertook the journey for her 40th birthday, and repeats it for the next four years. The self-discovery takes a bit longer.
Returning to South Africa, to catch the boat to Sao Paolo, I am reading Jeff Dawson, No Ordinary Killing, a historical novel about the Boer War (1899).
Here is my African journey:
13 Tunisia; 14 Algeria; 15 Niger; 16 Chad; 17 Libya; 18 Egypt (also in Middle East); 19 Sudan; 20 Eritrea; 21 Djibouti; 22 Somalia; 23 Ethiopia; 24 South Sudan; 25 Congo DR; 26 Burundi; 27 Rwanda; 28 Uganda; 29 Kenya; 30 Tanzania; 31 Zanzibar; 32 Madagascar; 33 Mozambique; 34 Eswatini (Swaziland); 35 South Africa; 36 Leosotho; revisit South Africa
I had thought of visiting Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia, but it feels like time to move on, so I save those for another challenge.
Now for ATW3: The Americas and Antarctica.
emeritablog: life after work 