Archive - November 2010

Mark Brazaitis is the author of The Other Language: Poems, winner of the 2008 ABZ Poetry Prize. He is also the author of The River of Lost Voices: Stories from Guatemala, winner of the 1998 Iowa Short Fiction Award, and Steal My Heart, the novel that won the 2001 Maria Thomas Fiction Award given by Peace Corps Writers. Brazaitis served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guatemala from 1990 to 1993 and as a Peace Corps technical trainer in the same country from 1995 to 1996. Currently, he directs the Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program at West Virginia University. On December 7, 2010, Mark will be reading at the Kent State Student Center, Room 306, and answering questions about the Peace Corps! There’s a Facebook page for the reading: http://en-gb.facebook.com/event.php?eid=150186528348926&index=1 Check it out!

Often when an RPCV book is reviewed on this site and receives a negative review I get an angry email from the irate author who says something to the effect, “I wrote it, therefore, it is good!” Well, having published something like twenty-five books and received more than my ‘fair share’ of negative reviews, I can understand the feeling. But if a writer —  especially a ‘self-publishing writer — has the audacity (yes, audacity!) to publish anything and then put the book out into the market place for others to buy and read, then, well, they have to suffer the slings and arrows, and perhaps praise, for what they wrote. That’s what publishing is all about. But if you are George W. Bush and you write your memoir and it gets into the hands of George Packer (Togo 1982–83) to review it for The New Yorker . . . well, watch out. Packer does a . . .

Learn Thai With Me by RJ Huddy (Morocco 1981–82) XPat Fiction $12.00 (free to read online) 224 pages 2010 Reviewed by Thomas Coyne (Morocco 1981–82) SAUDI ARABIA IS A HARD PLACE TO WRITE ABOUT. The western mind gets easily distracted by such cultural flash points as hijabs and theocracies. The Saudi sensibility seems clannish; not so interested in advertising its lifestyle to the rest of the world. So surprise, Learn Thai With Me, the second novel from RJ Huddy, (a nom de plume of a Moroccan RPCV) is a rare example evoking the Saudi Arabia of the 1980’s. Of course, this is really a book about Americans — Degenerates Abroad perhaps — and not so much about Saudis or Thais. There are some other caveats. For one thing, Learn Thai With Me will not teach you much — if any — Thai. In fact, we are given not a single . . .

Bill Stein (Niger 1990-93) President of the Columbia River Peace Corps Association sent out a notice on upcoming meetings with RPCV authors.  Bill and his group are supporting our writers. Thanks, Columbia River! Monday, December 6, 2010:  Tinker, Irene: Crossing Centuries: A Road Trip Through Colonial Africa (2010).  The website now contains transit directions to Irene Tinker’s home in the Mirabella Portland. Wednesday, January 12, 2011: Moritz  Thomsen (Ecuador 1965-67) Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle (1969).   Note that this book was earlier slated for discussion in February. Mid-February 2011 (date TBA): Peter Hessler (China 1996-98): River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze (2001).  Peter Hessler will be at Powell’s City of Books on 2/15 reading from his latest book, Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory (2010), and he’s graciously offering to meet with us some time during his Portland visit that’s not booked by his publicist.  We’re . . .

Westport author David L. Meth [Korea 1971–72] reads from his new novel, “A Hint of Light,” at the Westport CT Public Library. Written by Nancy Burton for Patch.com When Westport writer David L. Meth was a Peace Corps volunteer in the early 1970s in Seoul, Korea, he “walked the streets” to pick up the cultural vibes. Now he has self published his first novel based on real characters who have haunted his psyche ever since. Meth gave a reading from his book, A Hint of Light, at the Westport Public Library on Monday, sharing passages of prose of sometimes exquisite piquancy. The main character is a street urchin named Byung-suk, who is 9 years old when the book opens. Byung-suk is the product of a tryst involving a Korean prostitute and a black American soldier stationed in Seoul. Byung-suk’s mother died in an alleyway during childbirth and he grows up a . . .

Visions of Place: Regionalism and Architecture Edited and co-authored by William Bechhoefer (Tunisia 1967–69) plus colleagues and former students University of Maryland School of Architecture, Preservation, and Planning $17.95 + $4.00 shipping (contact RoseMarie Tate rtate@umd.edu) 191 pages May, 2010 • Controlled Crash: An Airline Odyssey from Eels and Ethics to Blimps and Drunken Bears by Eldon Brown (Gabon 1962–63; Jamaica 1963–65) iUniverse $14.95 148 pages 2009 • From Microsoft to Malawi: Learning on the Front Lines as a Peace Corps Volunteer (Peace Corps experience) by Michael Buckler (Malawi 2006–08) Hamilton Books $19.95 228 pages November 2010 www.FromMicrosofttoMalawi.com • La Ranfla and Other New Mexico Stories (new paperback edition) by Martha Egan (Venezuela 1967–69) Papalote Press $15.00 200 pages November 2010 • A Wedding in Samar: A Memoir of an Early Peace Corps Experience, Philippines 1961–1963 by John Francis Halloran (Philippines 1962–63) Edited and introduced by John Durand (Philippines 1962–63) . . .

RECENTLY I INTERVIEWED STANLEY MEISLER, the author of  the forthcoming book When The World Calls: The Inside Story of the Peace Corps and its First Fifty Years. (The book will be published in February but you can go on-line now to Amazon.com and order your copy.) I asked  Meisler in this season of thanksgiving to give his view of agency, and asked him what he learned doing his research for this important book. Here is what Stan had to say. From the advantage points of time and distance how would you sum up the value (if any) of the Peace Corps? The Peace Corps has created an incredible resource of 200,000 Americans who know the developing world intimately. Take Africa, for example. In 1960, who in the US knew anything about Africa? Some missionaries. Some academics. When the Peace Corps was starting, I received a phone call from Berea College. They were going to train . . .

Emerging Africa: How 17 Countries Are Leading The Way by Steven Radelet (Western Samoa 1981–83) Center for Global Development $18.75; Kindle $9.99 169 pages 2010 Reviewed by Shlomo Bachrach (Ethiopia PC Staff  1966–68) It’s nice to come across a book that takes an optimistic view of Africa, where the usual account of famine, coups and ethnic violence is replaced by evidence of improving governance and growing economies. Steve Radelet, in Emerging Africa: How 17 Countries Are Leading The Way, makes the case for optimism that since the 1990s, development is taking hold in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In these seventeen countries, and six more on the threshold, “it was the interplay between economic reform and political change that ignited the change.” Radelet divides SSA into three groups: Emerging and Threshold countries, Oil Exporters and Other Non-Oil Exporters. Until the mid 1990s, there was little to distinguish these countries. Signs of economic . . .

How to Cook a Crocodile: A Memoir with Recipes (Peace Corps memoir) by Bonnie Lee Black (Gabon 1996-98) Peace Corps Writers $15.99 448 pages October 2010 Review by Thurston Clarke (Tunisia 1968) I BEGAN How To Cook A Crocodile, an account of Bonnie Lee Black’s service as a Peace Corps health and nutrition volunteer in Gabon, expecting a literary and culinary homage to one of her heroes, and mine, the elegant essayist and early foodie M.F.K. Fisher, whose 1942 How To Cook A Wolf offered a bracing mixture of recipes promising appetizing meals despite the constraints of wartime rationing, peppered with commonsense wisdom for living a full and satisfying life. Black’s book turned out to be all of this, and much more. Fisher’s approach to food and life is best encapsulated by her statement, as she wrote in Wolf,“Since we must eat to live, we might as well do it . . .

Professor Profile: Charles Larson By Chris Lewis [Charles Larson is retiring from American University and was recently interviewed on campus by their student-run website. For those who don’t follow (closely) Peace Corps writers, Larson is an early published writer, mostly academic books, but also the novel, The Insect Colony, set in Nigeria, and published in 1978 by Holt, Rinehart. Charlie is best known in the academic world, here and overseas, for his work encouraging African writers and writing about their work. In this interview, published with the permission of the editor-in-chief of AWOL website, Charlie sums up his Peace Corps connection and his academic interests.]   American University’s second-longest teaching faculty member is retiring at the end of this year. Charles R. Larson is a pioneer in the study of African literature in the Western world. Chris Lewis, AWOL editor-in-chief and former Larson pupil, sat down with him to discuss his storied career. Next semester Larson will teach “The African . . .