USA Africa Dialogue Series - looking for transwonderland

as i am teaching noo saro-wiwa's Looking for Transwonderland this week,
i want to share very briefly my first reactions. (i have read the book,
and am now rereading it). for me it is a mixed success. she personalizes
this interesting trip of an ogoni woman, raised in england, her youth
punctuated by summer vacations spent in nigeria w her father's family,
mostly in ogoniland. she is now in her 30s, a travel guide writer, who
takes the style of travel writing to inform much of this account of her
4 months traveling around nigeria. the narrative is marked by two
competing styles: her personal account, including much about her own
feelings as a woman used to the style of life in england, now traveling
under more strenuous conditions in lagos, in maidougeri, in the delta,
etc, and esp traveling back to bane, her home village in the delta
region, where she remains sufficiently the outsider as one who
understands very little of her father's tongue khana.

we get bits about ken saro-wiwa, both from the point of view of a
daughter who was critical of her dad, and of a more dispassionate
commentator who admired his strengths.
anyway, my comment is that each time she turns into the travel guide
writer, giving us the history, the ethnic this or that, i cringe. but
when her own, personal voice speaks, her own feelings about what she is
experiencing, i admire her ability to get onto that okada, to like it so
much, to learn to be there.

there are maybe two worlds in africa today: one for people with money,
and who create comfort around them with chauffeur driven expensive cars
and air conditioners run w generators, with guards that surround and
insulate them; and there are those who live on the streets, walking the
streets, taking public transport, eating local foods, being there in
flesh and in blood, as we say in french.
she was there, despite her initial apprehensions and fears and
discomforts, and she gave us enough of the encounters with ordinary folk
on the street to appreciate it. she is no intellectual, so her
encounters with issues, like conservation, are marked by relatively
superficial statements. and that extends even to issues bearing on her
father's political straits, and death. the real interest in this volume
lies with her, a woman who is alive, and not too shy to let us see that.
i wonder if others have read this book and what their reactions were?
ken

--
kenneth w. harrow
faculty excellence advocate
professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
619 red cedar road
room C-614 wells hall
east lansing, mi 48824
ph. 517 803 8839
harrow@msu.edu

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