Peace Corps writers

The Vast Unknown: America’s First Ascent of Everest by Broughton Coburn (Nepal 1973-75) Crown Publishers (a division of Random House). $26.00 300 pages 2013 Reviewed by Don Messerschmidt (Nepal 1963-65) This is a book of true high adventure. Good reading for those of us who like outdoor adventures and severe challenges. This book is full of them, start to finish. Just a little past half way along, the story of the 1963 American Mount Everest Expedition reaches a dramatic climax, of sorts. On May 22, 1963, standing ready to challenge the peak from a point high on the ridge, the two American climbers, Hornbein and Unsoeld, faced a strategic decision. “Favorable luck, strange omens, obstacles, and argument be damned,” they thought. “The dazzling, vast unknown¾a key threshold to the uncertainty… was beckoning them forward and upward.” This “was no longer an academic exercise,” writes Brot Coburn, this was a decision . . .

[RPCV Writers, Editors and Film makers will hold a session at the NPCA Conference in Boston this month, June 28-29. For more information, call 202.293.7728 x 13. Check out: www.peacecorpsconnect.org/annual-gathering/ If you are going to the conference, check out the Writers’ Panel. Here are the details: Panel: Telling Your Peace Corps Story – RPCV Writers and Filmmakers. Moderator: Allen Mondell. Panelists: Will Siegel, Rajeev Goyal, and Cynthia Phoel. RPCVs will receive practical insight on creative ways for writing and producing films about their Peace Corps experience.] Allen Mondell (Sierra Leone 1963-65) has worked in films and television as a writer, producer and director for 40 years.  He began his career as a newspaper reporter in Baltimore and then went to work for Westinghouse Broadcasting in Baltimore (WJZ-TV) as a writer/director of documentary films. Allen spent five years at public television station KERA-TV in Dallas as a writer, producer and director of . . .

[It is time to nominate your favorite Peace Corps book published in 2012. Make your nomination(s) in the comment section following this announcement so people can see what books have been recognized. You may nominate your own book; books written by friends; books written by total strangers. The books can be about the Peace Corps or on any topic. The books must have been published in 2012. The awards will be announced in August. Thank you for nominating your favorite book written by a PCV, RPCV or Peace Corps Staff. A framed certificate and money are given to the winners.] Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award First given in 1990, the Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award was named to honor Paul Cowan, a Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Ecuador. Cowan wrote The Making of An Un-American about his experiences as a Volunteer in Latin America in the sixties. A longtime activist and . . .

The Unwinding by George Packer (Togo 1982-83) Farrar, Straus and Giroux $27.00 432 pages 2013 Reviewed by Mark Brazaitis (Guatemala 1991-93) It seems unfair to criticize something for not being what it never intended to be. Imagine Hemingway being criticized for not including an analysis of 1940s fishing yields in the Caribbean in The Old Man and the Sea. Or the Rolling Stones being rebuked for not slipping a violin concerto into Exile on Main Street. Or Georgia O’Keefe being taken to task for not depicting an occasional tractor or bulldozer or tomato soup can in her orchid series. In his June 9 review of George Packer’s The Unwinding, David Brooks, in the New York Times Book Review, faults the author for failing to provide a “theoretical framework and worldview” that would explain the lives and situations Packer examines. Brooks, a Times op-ed columnist, compares The Unwinding to John Dos . . .

Discovering the New America: Where Local Communities Are Solving National Problems by Francis P. Koster (Sierra Leone 1964-66) The Optimistic Futurist, $25.25. 264 pages 2013 Reviewed by Matt Losak (Lesotho 1985-88) In Francis Koster’s Discovering the New America (The Optimistic Futurist, 2013), the author offers a volume chockablock with proven,  innovative ideas for solving common community problems like conserving water and homelessness and nationwide scourges such as obesity and criminal recidivism. Koster, an “optimistic futurist” by trade and thinking, is selling his badly needed brand of the Peace Corps can-do tonic for anyone who might slow their gate in front of his friendly wagon. Sadly, though, in today’s climate, where truth and reason are too often being burned at the stake, this catalogue of optimism might seem a little out of touch for the increasingly embittered and paranoid American audience. I mean, I actually have relatives who still believe our . . .

Strange Stones—Dispatches from East and West By Peter Hessler (China 1996-98) Harper Perennial trade paperback; $14.99 354 pages May 2013 Reviewed by Richard Lipez (Ethiopia 1962-64) Strange Stones is Peter Hessler’s fourth book that’s all or mostly about China, and it’s as fresh, meaty, and irresistible as the acclaimed three others, Country Driving, Oracle Bones , and his exemplary Peace Corps memoir, River Town .   The new book is a collection of eighteen pieces, most of which first appeared in The New Yorker, where Hessler is a staff writer now reporting from Cairo . Having picked up some anti-Chinese sentiment in Thailand and Burma , I’ve never been all that eager to set foot in the Peoples Republic .   Their neighbors to the south tend to regard the Chinese as aggressive, exploitive and rude, and I’ve witnessed a good deal of this behavior.   I have more favorable second thoughts about . . .

New York Times columnist David Brooks in the Sunday (6/9) Book Review gives a long and largely positive review of George Packer’s (Togo 1982–83) new book The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America recently published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Brooks compares Parker’s book to the novels of John Dos Passos U.S.A. trilogy (1930–1936) that came out during the Great Depression. The difference being that Packer’s characters are real, and Packer is not writing fiction. Brooks writes that The Unwinding is “a gripping narrative of contemporary America” and goes onto say in his long, long review, that “the stories that do fill its pages are beautifully reported.” Brooks major complaint is this: “Packer does an outstanding job with these stories, The Unwinding offers vivid snapshots of people who have experienced a loss of faith. As a way of understanding contemporary America, these examples are tantalizing. But they are . . .

Faded Gray by Jeffrey Vollmer (Estonia 1997-99) Self Published, $15; ebook $8.00 391 pages March 2013 Reviewed by Darcy Munson Meijer (in Gabon from 1982-1984. Faded Gray by Jeffrey Vollmer is the only Peace Corps Worldwide book I’ve reviewed that involves a corrupt Peace Corps. This and the development of the main character make this work of fiction quite interesting. However, before Vollmer pens additional books, he should take a course in syntax and punctuation or pay an editor to help him with his stories. Faded Gray follows Grayson Palmer, a PCV posted in Estonia, part of the “former Soviet Union’s wild east.” Palmer’s assignment is to author grant proposals for the Tartu Industrial Park and Science Incubator, or TIPSI. Grayson quickly learns that he can make additional money by writing grants for goods and services already funded. As he settles in, he comes to see this not as corruption . . .

Hey Joe: Poems and Stories from the Peace Corps by Robert F. Nicholas (the Philippines 1968-70) Self Published $9.99 (paperback); $1.99 (ebook) from Barnes and Noble 146 pages October, 2012 Reviewed by P. David Searles (Staff 1971-76) Every American who has been to the Philippines will be captivated by the title of this book: ‘Hey Joe.‘  My guess is that this phrase is among the most remembered aspects of living in the country, especially for those who lived in the barrios.  All Filipinos – young, old, male, female, educated or not – used ‘Hey Joe’ to greet any and all Americans at every turn.  Once, needing to pass through a raucous demonstration to enter the American Embassy, dozens of Filipinos stopped what they were doing to hail me with ‘Hey Joe’ dozens of times, all with good humor and affection.  For Americans in the Philippines ‘Hey Joe’ is a perfect . . .

Thanks to a suggestion made by Pat Wand (Colombia 1963-65) I have been in touch with a new Peace Corps Archives at American University in Washington, D.C. and made arrangements, with the cooperation of Susan McElrath and Erica Bogese of the Archives, to have the university take our’Peace Corps Memoirs.  As Susan wrote me recently, “we would be interested in receiving copies of all of the Peace Corps memoirs.” The one requirement is that the writers contact the Archives before sending anything to them. The contact is: Erica Bogese Bender Library American University 4400 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC 20016-8046 Erica’s contact information: Phone (202) 885-3242 Email bogese@american.edu The information you need to know about what material to send the Archives  is outlined below or you can go directly to: http://bender.library.american.edu/pcca/?page_id=16 Thank you Susan and Erica and everyone connected with this American University Peace Corps Archives project. This is a wonderful opportunity . . .

Peace Corps in Panama: Fifty Years, Many Voices Edited by Meredith W. Cornett (Panama 1991–93) Peace Corps Writers $10.00 182 pages 2013 Reviewed by Barbara E. Joe (Honduras 2000–03) This slender volume is a delight, providing stories from the earliest days of Peace Corps Panama right up to 2013. First envisioned during a reunion of Panama RPCVs during the 50th anniversary, the project grew as vignettes, poems, and letters written by those who served through the years were gathered together. They appear in chronological order, with a 20-year break beginning in 1971 when General Omar Torrijos ousted the Peace Corps amid rumors that volunteers were CIA spies.  After the signing of the treaty returning the canal to Panama, followed by Torrijos’ death in a plane crash and Manuel Noriega’s arrest, volunteers were invited back again. Editor Cornett, also a contributor, obviously undertook her task as a labor of love, offering . . .

In feature articles The New York Times and International Herald Tribune have said that here is a poet “whose muse is a world traveler.” Andrew Oerke has lived many lives.  After suggesting, he told me,  the idea of the Peace Corps to Jerry Clark, Kennedy’s campaign manager in Wisconsin, he went on to become a Peace Corps Director in Africa and the Caribbean, and for many years president of a private and voluntary organization working in developing countries. Oerke worked and visited in more than 160 countries, is a Golden Gloves champ, football player, university professor and Poet-in-Residence, dean of administration at one of the largest community colleges, U.S. Korean War veteran, World Bank consultant, and consultant to the United Nations on the Gulf War, on financial services, and on the environment. Mr. Oerke was also the first Director of the International Folk Festival on the Mall for the Smithsonian, . . .

The Last Train to Zona Verde: My Ultimate Safari by Paul Theroux (Nyasaland/Malawi 1963-1965) Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $27 353 pages May 2013 Reviewed by Tony D’Souza (Ivory Coast 2000-02, Madagascar 2002-03) OUR OWN PAUL THEROUX has been on a tear; readers of my reviews know how much I admired last year’s novel The Lower River, and this year’s offering, The Last Train to Zona Verde: My Ultimate African Safari, is equally good, though a travelogue. The cover image is a lonely railroad track heading off into the dense and engulfing green of the African forest. But that’s a red herring to make his train book fans think that’s what they’ll be getting. Theroux is rarely on trains on this journey from Cape Town to Angola. Now in his seventies, he’s mostly on bush taxis and local transport, slowly banging over ruined roads. Imagine that; an aging writer of rare accomplishment . . .