Archive - February 14, 2014

The King History Forgot: Makikele, The 19th Century Legend of Phalaborwa, South Africa (Novel) Robert T.K. Scully (Kenya 1965-66) Two Harbors Press $16.95 (paperback), $5.99 (Kindle) 380 pages 2013 Reviewed by Robert E. Hamilton (Ethiopia:  1965-67) This is not your conventional African historical, political, biographical novel.  (Try saying that tongue-twister rapidly three times.)  Dr. Robert T. K. Scully has drawn extensively upon his own collection of oral history and oral tradition in the 1970s among “the people of” (Ba-) Phalaborwa (pronounced “Palaborwa)-North Sotho-speaking residents of the Lowveld of Northeastern South Africa.  Much of this area of Limpopo Province was incorporated in 1926 into the present Kruger National Park. Many readers-like this one-personally unfamiliar with this area of South Africa will benefit from reading the “Author’s Notes” at the end of the novel (pages 361-372) for a description of the larger historical context. The book “is the story of a talented . . .

Last Sunday  The Seattle Times ran an ad about Collin’s new book Into the Storm: Journeys with Alzheimer’s in the Arts [Books] section. It will run again on February 23rd in the Sunday New York Times Book Review. The Christian Century, a biweekly national journal, will run a half-page color ad in its March 19th edition. KPLU, 88.5 FM, one of Seattle’s local NPR affiliates is doing an interview with Collin, as well as The Stranger. The University of Washington, Washington State University, Seattle University, and University of Redlands alumni magazines are doing announcements and/or feature stories.  Crosscut News,  The International Examiner, and Peace Corps Writers are coming out with reviews. Collin will do a reading and have a book signing at Elliott Bay Book Co., on Sunday, 3:00 pm, March 16.