Items related to Whiteman
Synopsis
In an Ivory Coast village where Christians and Muslims are squaring off for war, against a backdrop of bloody conflict and vibrant African life, Jack Diaz--an American relief worker--and Mamadou, his village guardian, learn that hate knows no color and that true heroism waits where we least expect it.
During lulls in the violence, Jack learns the cycles of Africa--of hunting in the rain forest, cultivating the yam, and navigating the nuances of the language; of witchcraft, storytelling, and chivalry. Despite the omnipresence of AIDS, he courts a stunning Peul girl, meets his neighbor's wife in the darkened forest, and desperately pursues the village flirt. Still, Jack spends many nights alone in his hut, longing for love in a place where his skin color excludes him.Brimming with dangerous passions and the pressures of life in a time of war, Whiteman is a stunning debut and a tale of desire, isolation, humor, action, and fear.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Tony D'Souza is the author of three novels, including the award-winning Whiteman. He has contributed to The New Yorker, Playboy, Esquire, Outside, Salon, Granta, McSweeney's, O. Henry Prize Stories, Best American Fantasy, and elsewhere. A recipient of the Sue Kaufman Prize, Florida Gold and Silver Medals for fiction, and fellowships from the Guggenheim and the NEA, Tony was nominated for a National Magazine Award for coverage of Nicaragua's Eric Volz murder trial and spent three years in Africa with the Peace Corps.
From the Back Cover
"What makes Whiteman so affecting is D Souza s understanding of what it s like to fall in love with people who will never be like you, with a place that will never be home and with a troubled continent that despite your best intentions you can do nothing to save." People (Critic s Choice, four stars)
In a vibrant Ivory Coast village, Christians and Muslims are squaring off for war. Against this backdrop of bloody conflict, Jack Diaz an American relief worker--follows the cycles of Africa. From the villagers and his village guardian, Mamadou, he learns of hunting in the rain forest, cultivating the yam, and navigating the nuances of the language.He witnesses witchcraft, storytelling, and chivalry. And together, he and Mamadou realizethat hate knows no color and true heroism waits where weleast expect it. Brimming with dangerous passions and the pressures of life in a time of war, Whiteman is a stunning debut and a tale of desire, isolation, survival, fear, and humor.
"A powerful debut novel, full of insight and sly humor, about a man who desperately wants to belong to a place that has little need of him. This is a visit to Africa you will not soon forget." St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"It's the quality of vision that makes D'Souza's novel notable . . . In original, unfussy prose, Whiteman suggests, with force and restraint, why a young American serving abroad, however haplessly, might not relish the prospect of having to return home."--The New York Times Book Review (Editors Choice)
TONY D SOUZA s writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Playboy, Salon, Esquire, McSweeney's, and Tin House, among other publications. His story Djamilla earned a 2007 O Henry Prize. Tony is a recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and lives in Sarasota, Florida."
From the Inside Flap
Jack Diaz arrives in Ivory Coast as yet another American relief worker in West Africa. But when religious tensions rise and Muslims and Christians square off for civil war, he quickly becomes something else: acolyte to the village witch doctor, agile polyglot, adopted son of the local chief, reckless maverick to his own aid organization. And most important to the Worodougou people of his village, he becomes Adama Toubabou: Whiteman.
Despite the mounting violence and the psychic isolation it brings, Jack refuses to leave his post, a Muslim village deep in the bush. With no funding and little contact with the outside world, he devotes himself to learning the cycles of life there of hunting in the rain forest, cultivating the yam, navigating the nuances of the language; of witchcraft, storytelling, and chivalry. Longing for love in a place where his skin color excludes him, he courts Djamilla, the stunning Peul girl; meets Mariam, his neighbor s wife, in the darkened forest when the moon is new; and desperately pursues Mazatou, the village flirt, all the while teaching his neighbors about the dangers of AIDS.
Alongside Mamadou, his village guardian, Jack learns that hate knows no color, that heroism waits for us where we least expect it. Brimming with dangerous passions, ubiquitous genies, spirited proverbs, and the pressures of life in a time of war, Whiteman is a harrowing tale of desire, isolation, humor, action, and fear.
"
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Africa Unchained
At nine a.m., the doorbell rang. I couldn’t see who it was because of the high wall surrounding the house, but after a moment’s debate whether I shouldn’t just ignore it, I picked up the crowbar we’d been keeping handy and started across the courtyard to the security door. I’d talked with the girls about getting a gun in the black market, but we hadn’t gone that far yet. Jack’s a man. He’ll protect us,” Samantha had winked and said, and I’d shaken my head and told them, Then consider yourselves dead already.” Because while I didn’t like to think of myself as a coward, my first impulse on hearing gunfire was to hit the floor and crawl under something. At the door, I raised the crowbar like a baseball bat. I’d never swung a weapon at anyone, didn’t know if I could now, but I held it like that anyway. C’est qui?” I shouted, trying to sound larger and more menacing than I really was.
Adama, restes tranquille,” a woman’s voice called to me. C’est Méité Fanta, ta voisine.”
I quickly turned the lock and pushed open the door onto Ama Méité, a weathered old woman with a steel tub on her head, the heads of the fish in it peeking down at us like children eavesdropping on adults. She also had a stick poking out of the corner of her mouth, an extra-large toothpick. Ama Méité was grandmother to the rabble of naked children who played dust-raising ragball on our street in Séguéla, hollering all day like they owned the place, which they did, and who had brought us water, bucket-by-paid-for-bucket, from their well during the last coup when the water and electricity had been cut in the city. Méité’s face did not change when she saw the crowbar in my hand. She went on chewing her stick, the local version of a toothbrush, as though it were a carrot, or a tasty piece of licorice. But I knew from experience that it wasn’t tasty at all, that it was infused with a bitter oil as succulent as varnish. People were like that here.
We quickly went through the morning salutations in Worodougou, a cultural requirement you couldn’t ignore in the biggest of rushes, even if, say, you felt like the world was ending.
Manisogoma,” I said, lowering my eyes in respect. Good morning, respected mother.’
Say va! Ah see la,” Ama Méité said like shouting, which was how it was done. Thank you, respected sir. Did the night pass well?’
Em’ba, Ama,” I said. Thank you, respected mother, yes.’
ONT-FAMILY: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt"
Allah bis sonya!” God bless your morning.’
Amina, Ma.” Amen, Mother.’
Allah kenna ahdi.” God grant you beautiful health.’
Amina, Ma,” I said, touching my hand to my forehead as if bowing in thanks and deference to her benedictions.
Allah ee balo,” she said. God grant you a wonderful youth.’
Amina, Ma.”
Allah bato luma.” God nourish your home and family.’
Amina, Ma.”
Allah bo numa.” God bless all that you do.’
Amina, Ma,” I said louder than before, indicating in their way that I’d received all the benedictions I could bear.Iniché, iniché. Allah ee braghee.” Amen, Mother. Thank you, thank you. God bless you in thanks for your benedictions over me.’
Amina, Va!” Amen, sir.’
le="mso-tab-count: 1" Allah den balo, Ma.” God bless and protect your children, Mother.’
Amina, Va!”
Allah kenna ahdi.” God grant you beautiful health.’
Amina, Va!”
Allah sosay djanna.” God grant you long life.’
Amina, Va!”
Allah bis sonya.” God bless your morning.’
Amina, Va! Iniché. Adama Diomandé.” Amen and thank you, respected Adama Diomandé.’
Then we were done with that and Ama Méité said to me, Bon,” flatly in French because we could now get on with our lives. I could already feel the sweat starting to stand out on my forehead, and the fish in the tub on Méité’s head seemed to me to be wilting in the sun now, hanging over the rim like the melting watches in the Dalí painting. She rolled her eyes from the weight of the load and planted her hands on her hips, which were wrapped in a wildly colored bolt of cloth depicting cellular phones. The cloth was a pagne celebrating the arrival of Nokia to our stretch of West Africa two weeks ago, and many women in Séguéla were wearing them, were tying their infants snugly onto their backs with them. Coups and guinea worm and female circumcision and HIV and mass graves in Abidjan full of the Muslim north’s political youth and the women had turned traditional dances all night around bonfires to celebrate the arrival of the cell phone. This was what West Africa was about: priorities. So you already know about the coup,” Ama Méité chewed on her bitter stick and said.
Know about the coup?” I said. All I know is that I got up this morning and turned on the radio and there wasn’t any radio.”
class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 24.0pt"
Oui,” she said, so you know about the coup. But what are you going to do with that stick? When the bandits come, they will have guns. Therefore, you should buy a gun. A rich man like you, Adama, with so many wives”
They’re not my wives!” I started, like a thousand times before. They’re my colleagues. I work with them. Nothing else.”
If they’re not your wives, oh, then why won’t you marry my daughter Nochia, oh?” she sang in French to embarrass me. She knows how to cook and likes to work in the fields. If you know how to do anything, she’ll give you many healthy children, maybe even twins. And even if you don’t know how to do those things, she will teach you. Like that you will be rich in America and make your mother proud. Then you will bring us health and happiness and, of course, many gifts, oh, when you come and visit. Anyway,” she said, spitting wads of mulled wood on the ground between us like hay, you should buy a gun. My son knows a man who can sell you a strong gun washed with good magic.”
We are a humanitarian organization, Ama,” I said lamely. We don’t believe in guns.”
And she said, In all the films from America, all is guns. So don’t tell me! What I’ve come to say is this: Don’t open the door today, Adama Diomandé. There are many looters and bandits. They will come and rob you. Everybody knows whites live in this house. And who knows what riches you have in there, anyway? So do not open the door. Now I have to go to market and sell these fish. They don’t care if there’s a coup or not. All they care is that they want to stink soon.”
Thank you, Ama,” I said as she turned to walk back to her compound, where the children were kicking a soccer ball that was really half of a coconut shell, were playing hopscotch in the dirt and clapping and singing like it was the best day ever, like always. She waved her hand back at me and said, You whites are bizarre, oh! Going to chase away bandits with a stick, Allah!”
I could not remember if this was the third coup or the fourth in the two months since I’d arrived up north, and anyway, talk of coups was a very complex thing because you had bloody coups and bloodless coups and attempted coups and aborted coups and averted coups and rumored coups and the coups that happen that nobody knows about except you go to the post office one day to mail a letter to your retired mother in Florida to say everything’s getting all blown out of proportion in the Western media and there’s a new general-president smiling at you from the stamp like somebody who’s gotten away with something big, and also there were thecouvre-feus, which is pronounced somewhat like coup” but means you can’t go out at night or you’ll be shot, which should not be confused withcoups de grâce, which is how chickens were killed for dinner. All of this is to say that every three weeks the country was erupting into general mayhem from the capital to Korhogo, producing very little change except for a mounting body count and the ulcers growing in my stomach. Oh yes, there was also the matter of a few towns in the far north like Kong and Tengréla that had declared themselves independent states and were being deprived of all services by Abidjan in an apparent attempt to siege them into submission. There was also the small matter of the new guns the traditional hunters and witch doctors were showing off in the villages, shiny AKs that they said came from Mecca, and other small matters such as the Christian military kicking in people’s doors like storm troopers and beating old women, and the list could go on for a very long time, but after I locked the door behind Ama Méité, I went inside to call the Potable Water International office in Abidjanmy organizationfor an update and found that the line had been cut, which wasn’t reassuring. Then I sat on the couch and fiddled with the shortwave’s antenna. Just as I was ablewith many strange maneuvers of my arms like a semaphoreto draw in the BBC, where the female announcer was calmly saying in her lovely British voice, . . . rebel forces in the Ivory Coast . . . ,” all the power was cut and then I was suddenly very alone in a dark and quiet house in what the U.S. embassy security officer had referred to just weeks before as the most unstable city in the country.” I switched the shortwave over to its batteries. Of course nothing happened. I turned the radio over. The cover to the battery compartment was missing, and so were the batteries. One of the girls knew where they were no doubt, as one of them was out in the bush right now, humming softly as she dug a new latrine, working to the music playing from her battery-powered Walkman.
At nine a.m., the doorbell rang. I couldn’t see who it was because of the high wall surrounding the house, but after a moment’s debate whether I shouldn’t just ignore it, I picked up the crowbar we’d been keeping handy and started across the courtyard to the security door. I’d talked with the girls about getting a gun in the black market, but we hadn’t gone that far yet. Jack’s a man. He’ll protect us,” Samantha had winked and said, and I’d shaken my head and told them, Then consider yourselves dead already.” Because while I didn’t like to think of myself as a coward, my first impulse on hearing gunfire was to hit the floor and crawl under something. At the door, I raised the crowbar like a baseball bat. I’d never swung a weapon at anyone, didn’t know if I could now, but I held it like that anyway. C’est qui?” I shouted, trying to sound larger and more menacing than I really was.
Adama, restes tranquille,” a woman’s voice called to me. C’est Méité Fanta, ta voisine.”
I quickly turned the lock and pushed open the door onto Ama Méité, a weathered old woman with a steel tub on her head, the heads of the fish in it peeking down at us like children eavesdropping on adults. She also had a stick poking out of the corner of her mouth, an extra-large toothpick. Ama Méité was grandmother to the rabble of naked children who played dust-raising ragball on our street in Séguéla, hollering all day like they owned the place, which they did, and who had brought us water, bucket-by-paid-for-bucket, from their well during the last coup when the water and electricity had been cut in the city. Méité’s face did not change when she saw the crowbar in my hand. She went on chewing her stick, the local version of a toothbrush, as though it were a carrot, or a tasty piece of licorice. But I knew from experience that it wasn’t tasty at all, that it was infused with a bitter oil as succulent as varnish. People were like that here.
We quickly went through the morning salutations in Worodougou, a cultural requirement you couldn’t ignore in the biggest of rushes, even if, say, you felt like the world was ending.
Manisogoma,” I said, lowering my eyes in respect. Good morning, respected mother.’
Say va! Ah see la,” Ama Méité said like shouting, which was how it was done. Thank you, respected sir. Did the night pass well?’
Em’ba, Ama,” I said. Thank you, respected mother, yes.’
ONT-FAMILY: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt"
Allah bis sonya!” God bless your morning.’
Amina, Ma.” Amen, Mother.’
Allah kenna ahdi.” God grant you beautiful health.’
Amina, Ma,” I said, touching my hand to my forehead as if bowing in thanks and deference to her benedictions.
Allah ee balo,” she said. God grant you a wonderful youth.’
Amina, Ma.”
Allah bato luma.” God nourish your home and family.’
Amina, Ma.”
Allah bo numa.” God bless all that you do.’
Amina, Ma,” I said louder than before, indicating in their way that I’d received all the benedictions I could bear.Iniché, iniché. Allah ee braghee.” Amen, Mother. Thank you, thank you. God bless you in thanks for your benedictions over me.’
Amina, Va!” Amen, sir.’
le="mso-tab-count: 1" Allah den balo, Ma.” God bless and protect your children, Mother.’
Amina, Va!”
Allah kenna ahdi.” God grant you beautiful health.’
Amina, Va!”
Allah sosay djanna.” God grant you long life.’
Amina, Va!”
Allah bis sonya.” God bless your morning.’
Amina, Va! Iniché. Adama Diomandé.” Amen and thank you, respected Adama Diomandé.’
Then we were done with that and Ama Méité said to me, Bon,” flatly in French because we could now get on with our lives. I could already feel the sweat starting to stand out on my forehead, and the fish in the tub on Méité’s head seemed to me to be wilting in the sun now, hanging over the rim like the melting watches in the Dalí painting. She rolled her eyes from the weight of the load and planted her hands on her hips, which were wrapped in a wildly colored bolt of cloth depicting cellular phones. The cloth was a pagne celebrating the arrival of Nokia to our stretch of West Africa two weeks ago, and many women in Séguéla were wearing them, were tying their infants snugly onto their backs with them. Coups and guinea worm and female circumcision and HIV and mass graves in Abidjan full of the Muslim north’s political youth and the women had turned traditional dances all night around bonfires to celebrate the arrival of the cell phone. This was what West Africa was about: priorities. So you already know about the coup,” Ama Méité chewed on her bitter stick and said.
Know about the coup?” I said. All I know is that I got up this morning and turned on the radio and there wasn’t any radio.”
class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 24.0pt"
Oui,” she said, so you know about the coup. But what are you going to do with that stick? When the bandits come, they will have guns. Therefore, you should buy a gun. A rich man like you, Adama, with so many wives”
They’re not my wives!” I started, like a thousand times before. They’re my colleagues. I work with them. Nothing else.”
If they’re not your wives, oh, then why won’t you marry my daughter Nochia, oh?” she sang in French to embarrass me. She knows how to cook and likes to work in the fields. If you know how to do anything, she’ll give you many healthy children, maybe even twins. And even if you don’t know how to do those things, she will teach you. Like that you will be rich in America and make your mother proud. Then you will bring us health and happiness and, of course, many gifts, oh, when you come and visit. Anyway,” she said, spitting wads of mulled wood on the ground between us like hay, you should buy a gun. My son knows a man who can sell you a strong gun washed with good magic.”
We are a humanitarian organization, Ama,” I said lamely. We don’t believe in guns.”
And she said, In all the films from America, all is guns. So don’t tell me! What I’ve come to say is this: Don’t open the door today, Adama Diomandé. There are many looters and bandits. They will come and rob you. Everybody knows whites live in this house. And who knows what riches you have in there, anyway? So do not open the door. Now I have to go to market and sell these fish. They don’t care if there’s a coup or not. All they care is that they want to stink soon.”
Thank you, Ama,” I said as she turned to walk back to her compound, where the children were kicking a soccer ball that was really half of a coconut shell, were playing hopscotch in the dirt and clapping and singing like it was the best day ever, like always. She waved her hand back at me and said, You whites are bizarre, oh! Going to chase away bandits with a stick, Allah!”
I could not remember if this was the third coup or the fourth in the two months since I’d arrived up north, and anyway, talk of coups was a very complex thing because you had bloody coups and bloodless coups and attempted coups and aborted coups and averted coups and rumored coups and the coups that happen that nobody knows about except you go to the post office one day to mail a letter to your retired mother in Florida to say everything’s getting all blown out of proportion in the Western media and there’s a new general-president smiling at you from the stamp like somebody who’s gotten away with something big, and also there were thecouvre-feus, which is pronounced somewhat like coup” but means you can’t go out at night or you’ll be shot, which should not be confused withcoups de grâce, which is how chickens were killed for dinner. All of this is to say that every three weeks the country was erupting into general mayhem from the capital to Korhogo, producing very little change except for a mounting body count and the ulcers growing in my stomach. Oh yes, there was also the matter of a few towns in the far north like Kong and Tengréla that had declared themselves independent states and were being deprived of all services by Abidjan in an apparent attempt to siege them into submission. There was also the small matter of the new guns the traditional hunters and witch doctors were showing off in the villages, shiny AKs that they said came from Mecca, and other small matters such as the Christian military kicking in people’s doors like storm troopers and beating old women, and the list could go on for a very long time, but after I locked the door behind Ama Méité, I went inside to call the Potable Water International office in Abidjanmy organizationfor an update and found that the line had been cut, which wasn’t reassuring. Then I sat on the couch and fiddled with the shortwave’s antenna. Just as I was ablewith many strange maneuvers of my arms like a semaphoreto draw in the BBC, where the female announcer was calmly saying in her lovely British voice, . . . rebel forces in the Ivory Coast . . . ,” all the power was cut and then I was suddenly very alone in a dark and quiet house in what the U.S. embassy security officer had referred to just weeks before as the most unstable city in the country.” I switched the shortwave over to its batteries. Of course nothing happened. I turned the radio over. The cover to the battery compartment was missing, and so were the batteries. One of the girls knew where they were no doubt, as one of them was out in the bush right now, humming softly as she dug a new latrine, working to the music playing from her battery-powered Walkman.
Copyright © 2006 by Tony D’Souza
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
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Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work
should be mailed to the following address: Permissions Department,
Harcourt, Inc., 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work
should be mailed to the following address: Permissions Department,
Harcourt, Inc., 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.
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Whiteman: A Gripping Literary Novel Set in Africa â" Passion, Heroism, and War in Ivory Coast
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ISBN 10: 015603249X
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