Tattoos on the Heart is a book that will imprint itself on you as soon as you start reading it. I’ve been looking forward to my date with this book before I fall asleep every night, and the minute I got to the last page, I just flipped the book back to the first page,… Continue reading Tattoos on the Heart
I had to share this story from the Writer’s Almanac, because of a few things. 1) As you all notice, I’ve been writing a lot since I’ve arrived in Congo. The adage “write what you know” is true, and I was happy to see it exemplified below, as a piece of advice to Margaret Mitchell… Continue reading Madam, I greet you
I found out (thanks to The Writer’s Almanac) that today is Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s birthday. He’s one of my favorite authors and The Little Prince is, bar none, my favorite book. I carry it with me everywhere I go and read it many times each year. The Little Prince is singlehandedly responsible for my ability… Continue reading happy birthday, mon prince
This is a book by Sony Labou Tansi, a very famous Congolese writer. If you want to read what Congo/DRC are like like from the very mouth of one of their native sons, pick this book up, it’s powerful and heartbreakingly well written. I don’t have any idea how it translates, it would be… Continue reading The Antipeople
It’s winter in Congo. After a week here, I’ve settled into a nice familiar routine. I get up around 6:30 or 7 every morning, much to my stunned and my parent’s pleasant surprise. I let the Congostyle puppy outside to do his business, and in between pure squeals of joy at being watched and cared… Continue reading accustomed earth
I just finished this book, and I couldn’t wait to write about it. I. Facts Elizabeth Gilbert writes a best-selling novel, or in the words on her own web site: A NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER #1 on the NYT Paperback Nonfiction List for over a year! American Booksellers Association Acclaimed Best Seller #1 on… Continue reading gluttony, asceticism, goddess-worship
A beautiful first book by Dinaw Mengestu, about America through the eyes of an Ethiopian immigrant and his two African friends, a Zairean and a Kenyan…Their interactions and comments are so authentically African, I’m enjoying it immensely. It correlates the American experience by Africans, ties into details of their lives. The small prides, the meaningful… Continue reading The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears
“French Lessons” by Alice Kaplan She carves out such beautiful writing from words I know and experiences I’ve had. She expresses these so sparingly, elegantly, sometimes even so crudely that I can’t imagine what I could add. She writes a memoir, and her memories of childhood are so precise. Detailed. Vivid, worth retelling. Her writing… Continue reading French Lessons
Sleep is eluding more and more, because of those devastating bats which are now no longer as darkly charming as they initially were, my first night here. I hate them and I’m thinking of calling the exterminator or climbing up the tree and throwing a mosquito-net over their branches so they can’t rest on them… Continue reading A fumbling search for Africas
I have progressively felt less and less original, but maybe now it’s at an all-time low because the Calvin Comic strips illustrate my life. I feel like I have original thoughts only to see them displayed for the entire world to see. But then Seinfeld does that too. Just tonight, actually, I was watching a… Continue reading Losing my originality
This is a great list of author interviews from Powell’s. Jhumpa Lahiri, Tom Perrotta, Khaled Hosseini, Paul Auster and others.
Someone else’s life. I find it simultaneously daunting and crippling to find out about other people’s courageous lives. I’m sure everyone feels the same..but when you find out about someone who is your age or younger and has published a best-selling life-changing novel, saved refugee camps, already had your dream career and excelled at it,… Continue reading what people do with their lives
The Three-Legged Duck 