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Title: Dancing with the Witchdoctor : One Woman's Stories of Mystery and Adventure in Africa by Kelly James ISBN: 0060933909 Publisher: Harperperennial Library Pub. Date: 03 December, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.64
Rating: 5
Summary: A woman of a thousand faces...
Comment: Kelly James has composed a remarkable adventure infused with deep humanity for her characters and deep regard for the heroines that emerge during her journeys. Each story becomes a quest in some Quixotic fashion, to find these women, whose destiny's are entangled with true human tragedy, on a continent that seems to know little else. Either by their death (Detour) or in their trancendence (Witchdoctor), James' Dulcinea's are women given over to events for which they have no control, but with which they encounter with courage and dignity that one hopes to be definitive of modern womanhood. A refreshing book that should be read by all, especially young women whose primary cultural exposure is represented by the empty decadence of Britney Spears and the Hollywood culture of narcissicism.
Rating: 5
Summary: Inspirational Adventures out of Africa
Comment: Dancing with the Witchdoctor is a marvelous book, all the more remarkable because it is Kelly James' first one. This account of some of her experiences as a private investigator in Africa reads like a well-crafted novel, a page turner at that. But as she says in the preface, these tales are not about her. James' aim is to tell the stories of women she met and the extraordinary ways they prevailed against the challenges of ordinary life in Africa in these troubled times. She succeeds with gusto.
James calls them "heroines," and does them proud. Among others, she introduces us to the Watusi women of Rwanda, to Moana of Mozambique, and to Lua, a Turkana woman who saves Kelly's life. The qualities James admires in these people come through in the text: courage, compassion, commitment. I found inspiration here.
The land, the elements themselves, have presence in Dancing with the Witchdoctor, notably the unceasing winds of Lake Turkana and the rainforest home of the mountain gorillas. The book smacks of Africa. The beat of life that drew James to that continent resounds in these pages.
This book defies categorization. One Seattle book store originally put it under travel, until an employee who had read it, said "no way." Another has it under World History for some reason. Call it an adventure story (which it is), and people think fiction. Say it's a memoir, and watch people yawn. It's by a woman about women, but it's not a "woman's book," or if it is, you certainly don't have to be a female to treasure it.
One category this book certainly fits: Damn Good Read!
Rating: 1
Summary: Myths of Africa
Comment: I lived in Beira, Mozambique for two years in the early 1980s, researching the history of women in that city, and I returned for a week-long visit at the end of that decade, so I was very interested to read Kelly James' account - her 24-hour visit to Beira some unspecific time in the 1980s makes up one chapter in this book. I found absolutely nothing that I recognized - not the hotel name, not the descriptions of the harbor, not the portraits of expatriates who were there, not the ubiquituous "shelters," nor her potted history of Mozambique - every detail rang false. By the time I finished this chapter I wondered if she had perhaps been somewhere else entirely, or had fabricated the visit out of whole cloth. I did not read any other chapters after the exceedingly disappointing experience with this one, as I have no trust in the observations or analysis of this author. I find it horrifying that this kind of writing that harks back to the "dark continent" stories of a century ago can still get published by major publishing houses. She has certainly written an adventure story, but I believe it belongs in the fiction aisle.
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Title: Dangerous Beauty: Life and Death in Africa: True Stories from a Safari Guide by Mark C. Ross ISBN: 0786866721 Publisher: Miramax Pub. Date: 2001 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Somebody's Heart Is Burning: A Tale of a Woman Wanderer in Africa by Tanya Shaffer ISBN: 1400032598 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: 13 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Last Breath: Cautionary Tales from the Limits of Human Endurance by Peter Stark ISBN: 0345441508 Publisher: Ballantine Books (Trd) Pub. Date: 02 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: The Bear's Embrace: A True Story of Survival by Patricia Van Tighem ISBN: 0375421319 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 04 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: East Along the Equator: A Journey Up the Congo and into Zaire by Helen Winternitz ISBN: 0871131625 Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press Pub. Date: 1987 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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