Archive - March 2, 2011

EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE I get a surprise in the mail. Out of nowhere comes a book by an RPCV that sets me back in my work as I have to sit down and read it asap. When I finish, I end up thinking: ‘wow’ we (i.e. RPCVs) are writing prose that still makes us want to turn the page. We are writing literature in ways that no one else can because of our Peace Corps years. Yesterday I received in the mail from Holt Paperbacks a debut novel entitled The Civilized World: A Novel in Stories written by Susi Wyss (Central African Republic 1990-92). Susi was raised in the U.S. and the Ivory Coast and worked for twenty years managing health programs in Africa, where she lived for more than eight years. She has a B.A. from Vassar, an M.P.H. from Boston University, and holds an M.A. in fiction writing from Johns Hopkins University. . . .