Archive - June 15, 2012

Salsa, Soul, and Spirit: Leadership For A Multiculural Age by Juana Bordas (Chile 1964–66) Berrett-Koehler Publishers [Second Edition, Updated and Expanded] $22.95 (paperback); $11.62 (Kindle) 232 pages 2012 Reviewed by Bob Arias (Colombia 1964–66) I WAS PREPARED that Juana’s book would read like a text . . . so I got ready to prep myself like any good student. Wrong — from the first page this “text” read like a novel, excitement and adventure on every page . . . I stopped underlining her quotes with my yellow pen, and just started reading what felt like another beautiful novel from Isabel Allende, same colorful and intense style. Surely they must have been childhood friends! I began to see myself, and my Mexican heritage, as Juana opened doors for me to appreciate the beauty of who we are . . . a “text” of a different nature. There is more to . . .

[Charles Larson (Nigeria 1962-64) who has written some fine books on Africa,  is an African scholar himself, and now a Emeritus Professor of Literature at American University, in Washington, D.C. has published a very good review of Paul Theroux (Malawi 1963-65) new novel The Lower River. It is in the weekend edition ( June 8-10, 2012) of  Counterpunch, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair. The review is reprinted with Charles permission. You can reach Larson at clarson@american.edu.] Africa Distressed by Charles R. Larson (Nigeria 1962-64) Paul Theroux’s early novels (Fong and the Indians, Girls at Play and Jungle Lovers) drew on the writer’s years in the Peace Corps, in Malawi, where he began teaching in 1963. These works were generally comic, satiric, even hopeful-not the bleakness about Africa revealed in his most recent novel, The Lower River. When Ellis Hock, the main character in the latest work, contemplates . . .