My African book project is starting to wrap up with We Need New Names: A Novelby NoViolet Bulawayo. It’s a coming of age story about modern Zimbabwe, involving a young girl whose childhood is spent in a nation in disarray. She eventually leaves for the United States, and then has to deal with the complications of… [Read More]
Blog
Category: Africa
Malawi: Growing Up In Malawi
Malawi is a small, young, and poor country. The nation has about 18 million people, almost 70 percent of whom are under age 24. No surprise, there aren’t a lot of cultural exports. I came across a UK indie band called Lake Malawi, but it’s not the same thing. For this stop in my ongoing exploration of Africa,… [Read More]
Madagascar: Lords and Lemurs
Alison Jolly was an anthropologist who specialized in lemurs. This put her in a unique position to study the very different groups of people in Madagascar, forming the centerpiece of Lords and Lemurs: Mad Scientists, Kings With Spears, and the Survival of Diversity in Madagascar. She made repeated trips over a period of almost 40 years for… [Read More]
Mozambique: A Treacherous Paradise
A Treacherous Paradise is an unlikely book. Henning Mankell was a Swedish writer best known for the Wallander series of detective stories. He split is time between Sweden and Mozambique; another Swede who traveled there told Mankell that at some point in the late nineteenth or early 20th century, a Swedish woman not only owned one of… [Read More]
Zambia: The Red Bag
The next stop on my quest to learn at least a little bit about every country in Africa is Zambia. Formerly known as Northern Rhodesia, this former British colony has been independent since 1964 and is a functional democracy. It should be wealthier than it is, because of its copper resources and agricultural productivity. However, a very… [Read More]
