Books

JUST FINISHED The Poisionwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver (1998). Great book about a family that moves from the American South to a small town in the (then) Belgian Congo in 1959, on the eve of independence. The patriarch of the family is a fervent missionary, intent on imposing his religion and his way of doing things on everyone and everything. He has already accomplished that with his wife and four young daughters.

The Congolese and the Congo, not so much. In fact, in the end, the intercultural exchange that follows is much more of a two-way street than he could ever have imagined. The consequences are profound.

I won't spoil the plot. Definitely worth reading. Original New York Times review by Michiko Kakutani is here.

Now reading In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo, by Michela Wrong. (Except, that is, when I'm feeling particularly self-indulgent; that's when I curl up with Mitch Katz's Multivariable Analysis.)