Peace Corps writers

Vietnam Journeys Photography by Charles Fields Introduction and text by Mary Ann Bragg (Botswana 1980–82) Fields Publishing 264 pages $50.00 Reviewed by Richard Lipez (Ethiopia 1962-64)   WHEN THE PICTURE-TAKING COMMENCES at a family gathering of ours, just before the shutter clicks my mother-in-law jokingly commands everybody to “look pleasant!” In Fields’s big, handsome, underly satisfying book of photos of Vietnam and Vietnamese life, he seems to have urged Vietnam to “look pleasant,” and it obliged.   It’s true that Vietnam is in decent shape overall. The free-market reforms of the ’80s have the economy moving at a steady trot (though foreign investors complain that the bureaucracy is still godawful), and most of the population isn’t old enough to remember “the American war”; the chief preoccupation of the young seems to be charging into the neon-lit, mall-culture, consumerist future. Based on what I saw of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam . . .

Out in the All of It by Chris Honoré (Colombia 1967–69) iUniverse, Inc. 45 pages $9.95 2011 Reviewed by Richard Lipez (Ethiopia 1962–64) THIS CHARMING SHORT COLLECTION of sketches about Honoré’s Peace Corps life in Colombia in the late sixties touches all the familiar themes –– isolation, confusion, ineptitude, fear of going over a cliff in a bus, longing to go home, wonder, growing confidence, feelings of connectedness, apprehension about going home — and explores them with both skill and a becoming modesty. At the last big Peace Corps get-together, the 25th anniversary conference in Washington, a bunch of us Ethiopia-ones admitted to one another what we were thinking on that initial bus ride from the Addis Ababa airport to the university: “God, what have I done!” Honoré’s early months as a teacher trainer in Cartagena were like that. Alone and feeling constantly clumsy and misplaced, Honore wonders how he . . .

The 2011 Independent Publisher Book Awards were announced yesterday and One Hand Does Not Catch a Buffalo: 50 Years of Amazing Peace Corps Stories, edited by Aaron Barlow (Togo 1988-90), won the Silver Award in the Travel Division.  This is the first of four books edited under the direction of  Jane Albritton (India 1967-69) and published by Travers’ Tales, an imprint of Solas House. In 2007, Albritton initiated a project to collect Peace Corps stories in four volumes to publish this year on the 50th Anniversary. At that time, she named the project Peace Corps at 50 (www.peacecorpsat50.org). Jane and three other editors collected and edited these books over the last four years. Two of the books in the series-One Hand Does Not Catch a Buffalo: Africa,  and Gather the Fruit One by One: The Americas, are now available. The next two volumes-A Small Key Opens Big Doors: The Heart of . . .

Joan Richter is the wife of early Washington, D.C. Evaluator and Deputy Director of the Peace Corps in Kenya, Dick Richter, and is a  long-time successful short story writer. We were privileged to publish one of her stories in our collection of Peace Corps fiction, Living On The Edge, published by Curbstone Press in 2000. She has recently published a collection of her stories, The Gambling Master of Shanghai: And Other Tales of Suspense, with our new imprint, Peace Corps Writers. It is the third book that we have published this year and I asked her recently a few questions about her writing and her Peace Corps connection and experiences. • Joan, what’s you connection to the Peace Corps? My husband Dick Richter was an evaluator for Peace Corps from 1963 to 1965, and then deputy director of PC/Kenya from 1965 to 1967. Our two sons, age 5 and 7 . . .

Vietnam Journeys Photos by Charles Fields Text by Mary Ann Bragg (Botswana 1980–82) Fields Publishing $50.00 264 pages 2011 • I Did What I Had to Do by James E. Diamond (Chad 1971– ) Vantage $14.95 334 pages 2010 • The Caddie Who Won The Masters by John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962-64) Peace Corps Writers $13.50 316 pages 2011 • The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Barefoot Running by Thomas Hallowell (Morocco 2006–08) and Dr. Craig Richards Alpha $18.95 352 pages 2011 • The Everything Travel Guide to Ireland by Thomas Hallowell (Morocco 2006–08) and Katie Kelly Bell Adams Media $15.95 432 pages 2010 • Unofficial Peace Corps Volunteer Handbook by Travis Hellstrom (Mongolia) Lulu $15.95 256 pages 2010 • You Never Try, You Never Know: Six Years in Liberia by Ruth Jacobson (Liberia 1971–74) Court Street Press $18.95 (paperback); $6.95 (e-book) 402 pages 2011 • The Gambling Master of Shanghai: And . . .

Remembering Moritz Thomsen Loren Finnell  (Ecuador 1964-66) It was a Saturday afternoon on a summer day in 1964, and we were in a respite from the daily grind of Peace Corps training at Montana State College (now Montana State University).  The two of us were somewhat comfortably situated on a rocky ledge in the wilderness areas outside of Bozeman, watching the roaring flow of the river below and the passing wildlife, as well as taking in the breathtaking view of mountainous terrain.  Mostly, however, we were just glad not to be in language lab repeating Spanish dialogues that we barely understood the meaning of or rushing off to learn something about the geography and political history of Ecuador. We were free to enjoy what we were going to be doing for the next 36 hours…….absolutely nothing! My friend, who I was just getting to know, was a 48-year-old, chain smoking, pig . . .

The Lion of Judah in the New World: Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia and the Shaping of Americans’ Attitudes toward Ethiopia by Theodore M. Vestal (APCD Ethiopia 1964–66) Praeger $44.95 231 pages 2011 Reviewed by Martin Benjamin (Ethiopia, 1962–64) POLITICAL SCIENTIST THEODORE M. VESTAL tells the story of Haile Selassie, focusing on the Emperor’s relationship with and visits to the United States. It’s a good story, well told. Haile Selassie emerged on the world stage in 1936 when Italy invaded Ethiopia. The exiled Emperor then made a dramatic presentation before the assembly of the League of Nations, requesting that sanctions be imposed on Italy. Though his appeal was unsuccessful, Haile Selassie became something of a celebrity. He was named Time magazine’s Man of the Year and his speech was later included in many textbooks on international relations. Needing a morale-boosting success in the early days of World War II, the . . .

Soldiers of God (graphic novel) by Kelly Clancy (Turkmenistan 2004–06) Sixta Comics (www.thedivinebanquet.com) $15.00 256 pages 2010 Reviewed by Ian Kreisberg IF YOU ARE INTERESTED in reading a smart, challenging, visceral, slightly unnerving comic which compellingly and uniquely shares the converging story of two people in a style that is both familiar and foreign authored by someone who spent two years in Turkmenbashi, Turkmenistan and paid for by the co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, then may I suggest Soldiers of God by Kelly Clancy? Or, to expostulate, there is something about Soldiers of God that is flawlessly unsettling (not the same as unsettlingly flawless, the book has flaws) and embedded in the book’s DNA. There are patches of narration that unsettle because you don’t know who the speaker is, you only know that you believe in them and, when they combine with the spidery scrawl of the lettering, . . .

A Russian Requiem Roland Merullo (Micronesia 1979–80) AJAR Contemporaries March 2011 461 pages Paperback $22 Reviewed by Tony D’Souza (Ivory Coast 2000–02; Madagascar 2002–03) ROLDAN MERULLO’S 1993 NOVEL, A Russian Requiem, has been re-released by AJAR Contemporaries. Coming new to the book, I can’t help but draw parallels between his take on the last days of the USSR and the contemporary changing of the guard we are fortunate to be witnessing in North Africa, bloody as it’s been. For those of us old enough — yes, there is already a generation too young to remember drunk Boris Yeltsin waving the Russian flag from the hood of a tank in Red Square — the lightning quick obliteration of the Iron Curtain seemed, to me, at least — having practiced hiding under my school desk in Chicago through the ’80s as the nuns conducted our nuclear attack drills — something so monumental . . .

This essay (# 3) is the last from Andrew Clark’s (Senegal 1978-80) unfinished memoir Lost and Found in West Africa. While there is much more in this manuscript, it would be up to the family (Michiko Clark especially) to publish it as a book. But for now, thank you, Michiko, for sharing these short pieces with us.] Birth After I had been in Bidiancoto about a month, a very special event occurred. I knew that Ruby Diallo, Mamadou Boye Sow’s only wife, was expecting their second child. No one ever talked directly about pregnancy, fearing bad luck and “evil spirits.” Nevertheless, it was obvious Ruby was expecting, and very soon. One of my friends remarked that Ruby’s stomach “wasn’t just full of millet and leaf sauce.” That was as close as anyone came to saying that Ruby was expecting. I spent a lot of time in the compound with Ruby, and in many . . .

[This essay (# 1) is from Andrew Clark’s (Senegal 1978-80) unfinished memoir Lost and Found in West Africa. His niece, Michiko Clark, was kind enough to send me the manuscript that the family found after Andrew’s death earlier this year.  This is one of three short sections that I culled from the book.  These pieces show how well Andrew understood Senegal, and it gives us all a feeling of how much he loved his host country. In the old days we would have called  him a Super Vol.] Arrival Perhaps the greatest gift that Senegal and Africa gave me was the ability, on a mere moment’s notice, to plunge right back into that world, see once again the faces, recall snatches of conversations, hear voices and laughter and cries, and relive experiences as if they had only just happened minutes before. Even in the dead of a bitter Midwestern winter, I could close my eyes . . .

[This essay is from Andrew Clark’s (Senegal 1978-80) unfinished memoir Lost and Found in West Africa. His niece, Michiko Clark, was kind enough to sent me the manuscript that the family found after Andrew’s death earlier this year.  This is one of three short sections that I culled from the book.  These pieces show how well Andrew understood Senegal, and it gives us all a feeling of how much he loved his host country. In the old days we would have called  him a Super Vol.] Assimilation, Acclimation, and Accommodation In the early days, one of the main problems with the language was figuring out the different tenses without a common language. After some perplexing experiences, I realized that Mamadou didn’t clearly understand tenses in French because he had never learned them. I was, therefore, on my own when it came to deciphering past, present, and future in Pulaar. As long as I had those . . .

Michiko Clark wrote me recently. She works for Pantheon, the book publisher, and she helped to promote a Peace Corps book awhile back, but she was writing now about her family, especially about her uncle Andrew Clark, who recently passed away. In her email, she wrote:   “I come from a family of Peace Corps Volunteers. My father was in Nigeria and Uganda, 1966-68. Then his two brothers, Andrew (Senegal, 1978-80) and Peter (Paraguay, 1988-90) joined. The next wave includes a cousin in Mauritania (2000-02) and my sister in the Dominican Republic (2003-2005). “But it was my uncle Andrew who never really ended his Peace Corps experience. After his service in Senegal, he went on to get his doctorate in African History and became a professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, spreading his knowledge and stories of Senegal and West Africa with his students, and encouraging many of them to join the Peace . . .

My recent blog on novels that featured ‘Peace Corps fictional characters’ has generated some interest in novels written by RPCVs with Peace Corps characters. And that, naturally, leads us to Paul Theroux (Malawi 1963-65). Theroux’s first three novels were set in Africa: Fong and the Indians (1968); Girls at Play (1969); Jungle Lovers (1971). Years later the books were combined into a single edition from Penguin (1996) and published as On The Edge of the Great Rift: Three Novels of Africa. In the Preface to this volume, Theroux writes: “At the age of twenty-two, hoping to avoid being drafted into the US army, but also wishing to see the world, I joined the Peace Corps. When I went to Malawi in 1963 it was called the Nyasaland Protectorate.” After the Peace Corps and his ‘dismissal,” which he has written about elsewhere, he went to Uganda and signed a four-year contract to teach at Makerere . . .

Huntsville poet describes Peace Corps influences during Washington, D.C., conference Thursday, April 21, 2011 By Ann Marie Martin The Huntsville Times The Peace Corps promises to give you “the toughest job you’ll ever love” helping people around the world. When you’re a poet, the Peace Corps also gives you experiences that can inspire your art for a lifetime. Acclaimed local poet Virginia Gilbert discussed how her time in the Peace Corps has fueled her writing during “Broadening the Poet’s Vision Through the Peace Corps Experience,” a panel presentation she led during the Association of Writers & Writing Programs’ 2011 Conference & Bookfair in Washington, D.C., in February. Gilbert, professor emeritus of English at Alabama A&M University, is the author of the poetry collection “That Other Brightness.” Her poems also have appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, The Seneca Review, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Now, The North American Review, Southern Poetry Review, New . . .