Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
This is the most wonderful travel book. It’s the story of a boy from Togo who went to Greenland in the 1960s to live with the Inuits and he learnt to dig an igloo burrow and drive dogs, and he integrated all right! He ended up in hospital with a suspected case of the clap.
An African In Greenland?
This is the most wonderful travel book. It’s the best book ever written on Greenland. I read it while I was there. It’s the story of a man from Togo who went to Greenland in the 1960s and he didn’t carry the white man’s burden and could therefore look at the people and the country more objectively.
The people, the Inuits, were then on the cusp of integration and acculturation and what he did was live with them. He learnt to dig an igloo burrow and drive dogs, and he integrated all right – he ended up in hospital with a suspected case of the clap!
He was a boy from the jungles of Togo really and part of the story is how he got there and what he was doing there, but he talks about his relationships and he sleeps with the women. They have just got their first cinema and the projectionist has to stop the film every ten minutes for someone to stand up and give the translation. He is a natural writer and is able to write in an objective way. He lives in Paris now.
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Sara Wheeler is a London-based writer who has written books on the Antarctic and the Arctic. She spent seven months in Antarctica as writer in residence with the US Polar Program.
