Archive - 2011

Gloryland: A Novel by Shelton Johnson (Liberia 1982-83) Sierra Club/Counterpoint $15.95 288 pages 2010 Reviewed by Andy Trincia (Romania 2002-04) I REMEMBER SHELTON JOHNSON from the Ken Burns film “The National Parks:  America’s Best Idea” on PBS a couple years ago. Johnson, a park ranger at Yosemite, was featured prominently in the acclaimed documentary series, speaking eloquently and passionately about our great parks. What I didn’t know was that he was a Peace Corps Volunteer and wrote a book, Gloryland. Indeed, it was a pleasure to dive into this man’s debut novel. In the fictional but historically based memoir Gloryland, Johnson takes us on the life journey of Elijah Yancy, a sharecropper’s son from Spartanburg, South Carolina, born on Emancipation Day in 1863. Elijah is a feisty kid whose African and Seminole blood — and poor but close-knit family — give him a fierce pride despite the difficult post-Civil War . . .

For those who wish to prolong the pleasure of the recent Masters, here’s a book for you. (If I can suggest my own novel, The Caddie Who Won the Masters, published on April 7, 2011, the opening day of the Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Course.) Briefly, here’s what the book is all about, as described by a “golf blogger” on her site today: “After watching the dramatic finish of The Masters, I couldn’t help but feel a longing for more visions of Augusta National Golf Course. The azaleas in bloom, the walk through Amen Corner, the history that surrounds this golf mecca has me wishing the first major of the season was just beginning and not at an end. “For book lovers who also wish to prolong the magic of The Masters golf tournament, John Coyne has written The Caddie Who Won The Masters a suspenseful novel about a middle-aged amateur’s seemingly impossible . . .

[Richard Sitler has been working on this photo project for years and he has produced a wonderful  book. It is a great way to celebrate the 50th, giving his book as a gift, or keeping it yourself for your coffee table.]  Order Making Peace with the World, a commemorative book celebrating the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps, at Other Places Publishing: http://www.otherplacespublishing.com/mpwtw.html The book is also available at Amazon.com – A portion of publisher proceeds from this title will go to Peace Corps projects around the globe. In June 2009, Richard Sitler embarked on an epic journey to document Peace Corps Volunteers serving communities around the world. Over the next two years, Richard would find himself traversing the planet while staying with Peace Corps Volunteers, experiencing their communities and work sites, and documenting what it’s like to be a Volunteer in the modern Peace Corps. Richard discovered that the values President Kennedy had imagined . . .

Answering Kennedy’s Call: Pioneering the Peace Corps in the Philippines Edited by Parker W. Borg, Maureen J. Carroll, Patricia MacDermot Kasdan, Stephen W. Wells (all Philippines (1961–63) A Peace Corps Writers Book $25.00 498 pages March 2011 • One Hand Does Not Catch A Buffalo: 50 Years of Amazing Peace Corps Stories — Africa Edited by Aaron Barlow (Togo 1988–90) Series Editor Jane Albrition (India 1967–69) Travelers’ Tales/Solas House $18.95 March 2011 • Fiesta of Sunset: The Peace Corps, Guatemala and a Search for Truth Taylor Mills Dibbert (Guatemala 2006–08) iUniverse $17.95 paperback, $27.95 hardback 208 pages February 2011 • Through Our Eyes: Peace Corps in Korea, 1966–1981 edited by William Harwood (Korea 1976–78) Korea: COMA, the Artist Company $50.00 + $6.00 shipping 2009 • Out in the All of It by Chris Honoré (Colombia 1967–69) iUniverse $9.95 45 pages March 2011 • Revere Beach Elegy: A Memoir of Home . . .

Robin Williams is on Broadway in the New York premiere of Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, a play written by RPCV Rajiv Joseph (Senegal 1996-98). The story was the winner of the 2009 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) award for Outstanding New American Play and was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Today, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo is at the Richard Rodgers Theater in New York for a limited run. It stars Robin Williams in tattered clothes as the eponymous tiger, roaming the streets of present-day Baghdad.   The lives of two American Marines and an Iraqi translator are forever changed by an encounter with this quick-witted tiger who haunts the streets of war-torn Baghdad attempting to find meaning, forgiveness and redemption amidst the city’s ruins. The New York Times writes, “This boldly imagined, harrowing and surprisingly funny drama is wonderfully daring.” In a . . .

The Civilized World:  A Novel in Stories by Susi Wyss (Central African Republic, 1990–92) Henry Holt and Company $15.00 226 pages March, 2011 Reviewed by  Mary-Ann Tirone Smith (Cameroon 1965–67) IN HER DEBUT NOVEL, The Civilized World:  A Novel in Stories, Susi Wyss infuses her characters with the same affability and intimate pain that Alexander McCall Smith infused Precious Ramotswe, his #1 Private Lady Detective, but on a much wider and nuanced scale. Wyss has created contemporary African characters who are not look-alike, one-size-fits-all pieces of cardboard and too, American characters with equally distinguishable lives. The Americans live side-by-side with the Africans under circumstances both provocative and reasonable. Whether Ghanaian or U.S. military brat, Malawian or Washingtonian, each is a unique personality facing conflicts and heartbreaks and successes, sagas which will pull you into the page. Here is Ophelia, newly arrived in Malawi, wife of an American Embassy drone, making plans . . .

The book that Richard C. Holbrooke, former Peace Corps CD in Morocco (1970-72), always wanted to write, the story of his life dealing with international conflicts, will now be written by George Packer (Togo 1982-83). Packer signed a contract with Knopf to “write a book about Mr. Holbrooke’s career and the trajectory of American foreign policy during his time as a diplomat” according to a piece in today’s New York Times. Packer is reported as saying he had “been thinking about it” when a group of Holbrooke’s friends approached Packer and asked him if he had thought of writing a book. Packer says in the Timespiece, “What a life he had, how much ground he had covered, how many crises and big events in American foreign policy he had touched. He had such an outsized life that connected with so many important periods of recent American history.” The book will be released in . . .

History Begins in Africa by Mary Acosta (Afghanistan 1964–66) Birds Nest Publishing $29.95 385 pages December 2010 Reviewed by Shlomo Bachrach (Ethiopia Staff 1966-68) THE CLAIM IN MARY ACOSTA’S TITLE is a bit more modest than the one made by the paleoanthropologists who locate all human origins in the Danakil and the Awash Valley in eastern Ethiopia. But she’s plenty bold: she says that written history begins with a bronze plaque reporting the victory of Terkinos, a king from what is Ethiopia today, over Melmanios, the next to last ruler of Uruk, a major city in Sumer, which became Babylon, which became Iraq in modern times. (Gilgamesh, for those who recognize the name, was a king in Uruk a few centuries after the events she writes about.) Acosta dates her insights into history on material on two plaques that refer to events in the 4th millennium BC. History begins there, . . .

In January 2008 I received an email from Jane Albritton (India 1967–69) asking if I would get the word out about her books project. I was happy to do so. Anything to help RPCV writers get published. Anything to help RPCVs tell their stories. Anything to fulfill the Third Goal of the Peace Corps. Jane’s plan was to publish four books of stories for the 50th anniversary. The four volumes focusing on Africa and the Middle East; Central Asia and Eastern Europe; Asia and the Pacific; and Central America, South America and the Caribbean, would feature stories from past and present Volunteers, staff and instructors. Even while I was “spreading the word” I thought to myself: This is a crazy idea! Well, once again I was wrong. I am now holding: One Hand Does Not Catch A Buffalo, 50 Years of Amazing Peace Corps Stories, Volume One, edited by Aaron Barlow (Togo 1988-90) the first collection of . . .

He’s back! After running unsuccessfully several times for governor of Texas (not teabagger enough), Kinky Friedman (Borneo 1967-69) is being ‘written about’ in a new musical based on his life. The second act of this new musical is “Kinky in the Peace Corps” –see, Fitzgerald was wrong: there are second lives in a man’s life. The ‘world premiere of Becoming Kinky…The World According to Kinky Friedman, written by Ted Swindley, who also wrote the international hit, Always….Patsy Cline, features three actors, including recording artist Jesse Dayton, portraying Kinky at different stages of his life. Little Jewford will play the role he was born to play–himself. Kinky Friedman himself will not appear in the play, but he will attend the world premiere and be available for pictures and autographs after the show. The world primiere is Monday night, March 28, at McGonigel’s Mucky Duck. It will benefit Kinky’s  Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch. Benefit tickets cost . . .

Christopher Beale (Eastern Caribbean 2005-07 ) has done an amazing thing for RPCV writers. He had built a book publishing company–Other Places Publishing–located in North Carolina that publishes travel guides written by Returned Peace Corps Volunteers who, as he says, “Few travelers (or travel guides) have the experience and local knowledge that an RPCV has about his or her country.” Chris started in early 2009 to develop his travel guides written and researched by RPCVs. To date, they had published eight book with another 10 coming out within the next few months. With a few exceptions, everyone who works with Chris, from editors, writers, researchers andphotographers, are RPCVs. Today, Other Places Publishing has guide books for Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and the Pacific. The newest publication is Making Peace with the World Photographs of Peace Corps Volunteers by Richard Sitler (Jamaica 2000-02). Sitler, who worked at newspapers in Ohio, Indiana, New Hampshire . . .

Answering Kennedy’s Call: Pioneering the Peace Corps in the Philippines Edited by Parker W. Borg, Maureen J. Carroll, Patricia MacDermot Kasdan, Stephen W. Wells (all Philippines (1961-63) A Peace Corps Writers Book $25.00 498 pages March 2011 Reviewed by P. David Searles (CD Philippines 1971-74; Regional Director NANEAP and Deputy Director Peace Corps HQ 1974-76) IF ANY ADDITIONAL PROOF IS NEEDED, the early groups of Peace Corps Volunteers in the Philippines achieved a remarkable level of unit cohesion, as this massive collection of essays shows.  In all, 110 of those involved in the first three groups — 96 of whom are returned Volunteers — have joined  together to produce a remarkable and historically valuable set of reminiscences focusing on their experiences in the Philippines during 1961–63. The overriding impression one gets from reading them all is that the experience was life altering, life altering in a very positive and long . . .

Publisher Marian Haley Beil writes — FOUR MEMBERS from the first groups of Peace Corps Volunteers to arrive in the Philippines in 1961 have just publish Answering Kennedy’s Call: Pioneering the Peace Corps in the Philippines — Parker Borg, Maureen Carroll, Patricia MacDermot Kasdan and Steve Wells. These four tackled the huge task of editing submissions from 91 RPCVs who served in that era, and preparing two print-ready photos from each of the essayist to produce a 500-page look at the lives of PCVs and the long-term effect of their service. It is a book that will be loved by those who contributed to it, will provide much to researchers looking at what the Peace Corps was all about in its early years, and will be a wonderful resource for those interested in the Peace Corps as a life choice. For me, it is a book I enjoy picking up, . . .