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AFRICAN LAUGHTER

Name: AFRICAN LAUGHTER
Author: Doris Lessing
ISBN: 0060924330

FOUR VISITS TO ZIMBABWE

by Doris Lessing ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 21, 1992

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Leasing, once a "Prohibited Immigrant" barred from her childhood homeland of Rhodesia by its white minority government, returns to what is now Zimbabwe—and in inimitably forthright style records her impressions. The author last visited her homeland in the late 50's, when the country was a British colony, not as rigidly segregated as South Africa but nonetheless dominated by a white ruling class that enjoyed a way of life impossible elsewhere. When she returned in 1982, Zimbabwe was just two years old, and blacks and whites were still bitterly divided as well as devastated by the ten-year bush war that had pitted blacks against whites as well as blacks against blacks. The countryside seemed equally devastated ("...the game mostly gone. The bush was silent"), and squatters were overfarming already fragile lands. Most whites whom Lessing met, including her brother, delivered what she called "The Monologue," as much a racist critique as a display of the after-effects of a tremendous shock. On her three subsequent visits, the last made earlier this year, race relations proved healthier, but Prime Minister Mugabe's government seemed increasingly autocratic and corrupt; the economy was poorly organized along socialist lines; a terrible drought had ravaged the region; and unemployment continued to rise, especially among the young. On these visits, Lessing talked to a range of contacts, black and white; stayed on farms where white owners were trying out new crops to boost the local economy; accompanied the multiracial Book Team, which helps rural women create "how-to" textbooks; and traveled fearfully to her childhood home, where the beloved bush had disappeared and "everything spoke of failure." Always the fair-minded realist, Leasing isn't overly optimistic about the future, but her sympathetic account of Zimbabwe's struggle to forge a common destiny is most worthwhile.

Pub Date: Oct. 21, 1992

ISBN: 0060924330

Page Count: 416

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1992

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
ALFRED AND EMILY
by Doris Lessing

- BOOK REVIEW
THE CLEFT
by Doris Lessing

- BOOK REVIEW
THE STORY OF GENERAL DANN AND MARA’S DAUGHTER, GRIOT AND THE SNOW DOG
by Doris Lessing

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.