Peace Corps writers

The January 14, 2013 issue of The New Yorker has a long, long informative  “Letter From Cairo” piece by Peter Hessler (China 1996-98). Entitled “Big Brother–Where is the Muslim Brotherhood leading Egypt?” the article gives a history lesson on the Muslim Brotherhood and sums up where the Brotherhood (and the nation) are today. Peter, as many of you know, lives in Cairo with his wife and young family. This coming April his next book, Strange Stones: Dispatches from East and West, will be published.

Award-winning novelist Marnie Mueller (Ecuador 1963-65) and memoirist Elisabeth H. Breslav will discuss their experiences coming of age in a warzone during World War II in a free reading at Bluestockings Bookstore in Manhattan on January, 13 at 7 p.m. Both women just published book chapters in a new collection of first-hand stories entitled That Mad Game: Growing Up in a Warzone, an anthology of essays from around the globe. The book is perhaps the first anthology of essays by writers describing what it’s like to be a child enduring the insanity of war. As a Dutch child during World War II, Breslav lived through the Nazi occupation of Holland and survived the “Hunger Winter,” the extension of the occupation to 1945 in parts of Holland that grew from the November 1944 Allied defeat profiled in the epic A Bridge Too Far. While there are numerous first-person accounts of the Holocaust, . . .

Two Poems of the Mediterranean Archipelago Majorca The woman in the hotel pool swam in steady lengths, Mindless of the Mediterranean, The yellow sun on harbor walls, The dance of docked white yachts. Mindless as well of my gin and tonic, Or Robert Graves, buried in the thick crust of Deya. Her blond hair combed the turquoise water. Beyond the high tips of palm trees, Palma de Malorca rushed by, While she kept pace in her wet world. Swimmers know nothing but their breath, The pull of muscles, coolness of flesh. She did not know us, watching her slight body, Tan limbs framed in red. I moved my drink with the care given antiques, Wanting to hold the yellowness of light Caught in the glass, Wanting to hold this last image Of the island, the woman, and the sea. Then she rose from the water with a rush, Spraying the . . .

David A. Taylor (Mauritania 1983–85) is the author of three books, including Ginseng, the Divine Root, winner of the 2007 Peace Corps Writers Award for Travel Writing, and Success: Stories, a fiction collection finalist in the Library of Virginia’s 2009 Literary Awards. His recent book is Soul of a People: The WPA Writers’ Project Uncovers Depression America, selected as a Best Book of 2009 by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He wrote and co-produced a documentary film of Soul of a People, nominated for a 2010 Writers’ Guild award. He has also written for documentaries on PBS, Smithsonian Channel and National Geographic. You’re invited to a staging of: My People Writers Guild of America Screenplay Reading Series January 9, 2013 David is invited us to a staged reading in New York of a new screenplay based on my book about the 1930s, Soul of a People. The plot goes this way: Three . . .

To order books whose titles are in blue from Amazon, click on the title or book cover — and Peace Corps Worldwide, an Amazon Associate, will receive a small remittance that will help support our annual writers’ awards. • Somalia: Short Fiction by Martin R. Ganzglass (Somalia 1966–68) $7.99 (paperback); $2.99 (Kindle) 356 pages July 2012 • The Marble Room: How I Lost God and Found Myself in Africa by Bill Hatcher (Tanzania 1994–96) Lantern Books $18.00 (paperback); $8.99 (Kindle) 278 pages November 2012 • Dr. Dark (Novel) by Robert Hamilton (Ethiopia 1964–66) Amazon Digital $.99 (Kindle) 356 pages October 2012 • In the Valley of Atibon (Memoir) by Leita Kaldi (Senegal 1993–96) Peace Corps Writers $20.00 (paperback) 272 pages November 2012 • The Beach at Galle Road: Stories from Sri Lanka by Joanna Luloff (Sri Lanka 1996–98) Algonquin Books $22.95 (hardcover); $11.99 (Kindle) 278 September, 2012 • Road Scatter: . . .

Lunch with Buddha Roland Merullo (Micronesia 1979-80) AJAR Contemporaries 347 Pages Paperback $16.85 2012 Reviewed by Tony D’Souza (Ivory Coast 2000-02, Madagascar 2002-03) GOD COMES IN MANY FORMS, so the saying goes, and in Roland Merullo’s latest offering, Lunch with Buddha, the “ultimate” is packaged in the guise of a burly, aging Russian Buddhist monk, Volya Rinpoche, who looks like a sun-burnished field peasant and behaves like a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, only dressed here in a monk’s robe and wandering the American highway. I must confess to not having read this novel’s precursor, Breakfast with Buddha, nor obviously the Dinner with Buddha that is certain to follow. Merullo seems to be striving for nothing less in this series than to lay the literary foundation of his own religion, a hybrid East-meets-West catchall to be named “Buddhianitry” or “Christian-Buddhism”; Volya Rinpoche hasn’t yet decided. The novel ends with . . .

Africa Lite? Boomers in Botswana Christopher M. Doran (Botswana 2009-11) Author House  (amazon.com $16.95 paperback) 269 pages 2012 Reviewed by Leita Kaldi Davis (Senegal 1993-96) Warning from the author:  “Do not read this book unless you want to spend the day laughing out loud while being inspired by Africa and the Peace Corps.”   Dr. Christopher Doran and his wife, Maureen, joined Peace Corps in Botswana in their early sixties.  Their accomplishments were many.  They taught 86 medical students the basics of Mental Health, co-authored a book about discussing HIV/AIDS, Power Parents – Our Children and Sex, mentored 40 young adults on issues of leadership, health and HIV, photography and public speaking, and also guided younger Peace Corps Volunteers. Maureen taught reading and writing to “Bee Girls,” culminating in essays that were sent to the author of The Secret Life of Bees.  They gave over 40 workshops, lectures, and presentations . . .

Mark Brazaitis (Guatemala 1991-93) Director of Creative Writing at West Virginia University will appear (Tuesday) December 11, 2012 at 11 a.m. on the Diane Rehm Show to discuss his short story collection The Incurables. Broadcast from Washington, D.C., the Diane Rehm Show has been called “the gold standard of civic, civil discourse” and reaches more than 2.2 million listeners. Past guests have included Bill Clinton, Desmond Tutu, Julie Andrews, and Toni Morrison. The Diane Rehm Show is produced at WAMU 88.5 in Washington, D.C., and distributed by National Public Radio, NPR Worldwide, and SIRIUS satellite radio. “I’m thrilled to talk about my book, and about how the themes of my book connect to the work I’ve been doing at WVU-my teaching, my work with the Appalachian Prison Book Project, and my talks at the Health Sciences Center on the importance of listening to and understanding patients,” Brazaitis said. For more, see: http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-12-11/mark-brazaitis-incurables . . .

Well, I knew that would get your attention! How ’bout a paperback porn novel entitled Passion Delights by Frances Sibley published in 1985 that has for a jacket cover the rather overwhelming bare breasts of a young PCV woman beckoning you to buy the paperback for $3.50 and find out what really happens to PCV women in Senegal? The story, as far as I read (and I’ve only read enough to write this blog, I promise!) is about a newly married couple, Doug and Penny, just out of college with degrees in anthropology who are assigned to “Corps-sponsored Mgoro Techical School” and are deeply and newly in love. That is until Penny realizes what is wanting for her in West Africa! It doesn’t take long. By page 26, Penny is having a hard time ‘adjusting’ to the sight of her naked houseboy, Ojike, and his “omnipresent erections” (I didn’t write this, I just copied . . .

Killing time this morning as I had my car serviced for winter, I picked up and leafed through dozens of mainstream magazines left in the waiting room and was delighted to find a number of RPCVs listed on the mastheads of some serious publications. For example, National Geographic Traveler has P.F. Kluge (Micronesia 1967-69) as a Contributing Editor. Outside Magazine has both  Peter Hessler (China 1996-98) and  Bob Shacochis (Eastern Caribbean 1975-76) listed as Contributing Editors. (The publication also lists Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a Contributing Editor, but, I guess, we can’t count him.) So, what about the rest of you?

Yesterday, Thursday, November 29, 2012, I posted the American Writers Museum list of literary works that their readers said world leaders should read to gain a better understanding of America?” Okay, today it is our turn! I ask this question! What Peace Corps book gives our  U.S. Leaders a better understanding of the world where we lived and worked as Peace Corps Volunteers? Send in your book(s) selection and comment why this writer ‘gets it right’ and why our political ‘eaders should buy a copy so that they will know what is really happening in the developing world. Thanks.

American Writers Museum Reveals List of Literary Works Named by Writers and Readers as Providing a Better Understanding of America The Great Gatsby, Leaves of Grass, To Kill a Mockingbird, Moby Dick, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and The Sun Also Rises Top List “Which works by American writers should world leaders read to help them gain a better understanding of America?” That is the question posed last May to 38 contemporary American writers and the reading public in the first online exhibition of the future American Writers Museum®. The exhibit, Power of the Word: Leaders, Readers and Writers, was curated to dovetail with the U.S. hosting this year of the G8 and NATO Summits, as well as the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates. According to Malcolm O’Hagan, chairman of the American Writers Museum Foundation, many readers and writers chose books that grapple with the challenges of American life. Author . . .

EDITOR’S NOTE: From the book description of The Marble Room:  “At 27 years of age, Bill Hatcher was at crossroads. Brought up in an evangelical household in the Bible Belt, his religion had provided no answers to his parents’ broken marriage, or, indeed, his own divorce. The key to his salvation would come from a most unlikely source: a Peace Corps flyer! A year later, Hatcher was in Tanzania as a geography teacher at an all-girls’ boarding school. It was here that he “challenged” himself by engaging in dangerous ascents on Mount Kenya, Kilimanjaro, and Mount Meru, and through tragedy and triumph, questioned the core of his being and he managed to escape the confines of his “marble room” and gain a new understanding of himself and God.” This memoir is the story one PCV’s self-discovery and proof that, as he says, “even the most naïve and insular American can . . .

Lost and Found in Macedonia: A Journey to Unexpected Places By Marilyn Wheeler (Macedonia 2004-06) 187 pages Park Place Publications $15.95 August 2012 Reviewed by Barbara E. Joe, (Honduras 2000-03) Lost and Found in Macedonia is the only recent Peace Corps narrative I know of, beyond my own, describing the experiences of a “mature” volunteer.  Although older volunteers may not be starry-eyed idealists, they are still beckoned by the unknown, which provides both the thrills and frustrations of Peace Corps service. The adventure of joining is precisely not knowing quite what to expect, finding surprises at every turn, with no two experiences being alike.  Like volunteers of any age, author Marilyn Wheeler found strength in her own resourcefulness in confronting new challenges.  Since I often talk Peace Corps with over-50 audiences, I’m delighted to have another book to recommend. Many parallels emerge between myself and the author.  Inspired originally by . . .

RPCV writers keep writing and keep finding our site. We just heard from John Mundahl a former PCV and now a Crisis Corps Volunteer in Romania. Here’s a short bio on John and his books, most of which are published by the small and wonderful Monkfish Publishing. John Mundahl is a retired ESL teacher.  He taught for 32 years kindergarten-university at various places in the United States and throughout the world.  He has been a yoga teacher and practitioner for 30 years and was a resident at the original Kripalu Yoga Ashram in Sumneytown, Pennsylvania during Swami Kripalu’s four-year stay from 1977-1981.  He is also an Ayurvedic Health Care Educator and the author of nine books.  He served in Venezuela (1967-69) and joined the Peace Corps again in 2012 as a Peace Corps Response volunteer assigned to the Ministry of Education in Bucharest, Romania.  He can be reached at:  johnmundahl@yahoo.com.” . . .