Updated
April 5, 2004
Gambia Tourist Support - Reg Charity No 362/2003
The Poisonwood Bible
Must reading for anyone thinking of 'helping' in Africa
One of those mind changing books like Alex Haley's Roots
The authouress
of Poisionwood.
Quoting the Faber
& Faber edition,
Barbara Kingswood was trained as a biologist before becoming a writer.
In her own notes
she says:
I thank Virginia and Wendell Kingsolver, especially, for being different
in every way from the parents I created for the narrators of this tale.
I was the fortunate child od medical and public-health workers, whose
compassion and curiosity led then to the Congo. They brought me to a place
of wonders, taught me to pay attention, and set me early on a path of
exploring the great, shifting terrain between righteousness and what's
right.
The book was heaped with praise when it was first published ... I particularly like the comment from the Times Literary Supplement
... precise and lyrical ... immediate and sensuous - particularly in the descriptions of African village life.
Comments to GTS
I really think that this book is essential reading for anyone with a wish to help in Africa.
I'm glad that I read it 8 years into our involvement in The Gambia, rather than at the start - as I would have never known just how much influence it would have had on the GTS approach to 'helping Gambia' - this has been learnt over the last years and hopefully is worlds apart from intentions of the missionary who takes his family to the Belgium Congo in the days before Independence.
This novel says so much about Africa and very vividly portrays the white attitude to Africa, sadly just as recognisable today as it was in the late 50's when the book starts its 30 journey through the lives of those involved.
The author spent a couple of years as a child in Africa and made extensive notes and observations during that time, but then spent 30 years living and maturing before putting the notes to such good use in this novel.
Having read it and talked about it - I discover friends and colleagues who have also read it who have been afraid to mention it, incase GTS bears any similarity to the 'help' being given by Nathan Price - the missionary.
It doesn't help my close friends who know that I was an RE teacher for a number of years and assume that maybe deep down there is a religious dimension guiding or misguiding what GTS is achieving in Gambia.
Published in paperback by Faber & Faber
- ISBN 0-571-20175-X (rrp £7.99)
GTS is totally ecumenical in its approach, we welcome anyone & everyone who simply wants to help without wanting to impose their culture on the rich culture already there.
The book highlights the way we catalogue people for our own easy reference, and the dangers of doing that are exactly what this book explores. If you are interested in more than just a holiday break in Africa I highly recommend that you read this book, and maybe visit http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/poisonwood/ a website that further explores the book at a variety of different levels.
I will be very interested to have feedback from people who have read Poisonwood already and also from anyone who reads it as a result of this page.
Feedbacks
One
I loved the book so much that I have read it twice over in the last 6
months. Now my daughter is reading it and finds it hard to put the book
down.
This reminds me of an interesting comment I read the other day by Bishop
Desmond Tutu. It went a bit like this: Before the arrival of the missionaries
we had the land and they had the Bible. The missionaries asked us to pray
and we closed our eyes and prayed. When we opened our eyes we had the
Bible and they had the land!
Another absolutely must read book is: OUR GRANDMOTHERS DRUMS by Mark Hudson.
It's specifically about the women's lives in the Gambia and an account
of the author's time spent in the Bintang Bolong area in 1987.
Rose
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