David Grajal

This book is the history of a missionary family, who in 1959 move from Georgia to the fictional village of Kilanga in the Belgian Congo. The book tells how they arrive on the new continent with lots of hopes and ideas, and how all those ideas failed because they were based in misconceptions about Africa and how the nature, the war and the political problems destroy the family and change forever each one of the main characters.

The Poisonwood Bible

It’s the first book I read that is written with a main argumental line on the background but without a clear interlocutor. Each charpter is written in first person, speaking from the mouth of one of the main characters in the book. I felt like entering in the head of different persons every few pages. Most of the chapters are written from the point of view of the teenager daughters and it’s interesting to see how they mature as you progress on the book.

The book is reveling because it tells in first person what happened in Congo in the last years of the Belgian colony and the first years of independence. The author often drops key points about why the Congo was a mess after the colonial period and the effect the foreign interference had on the people.

Overall, the book is a critique of inflexible positions and about situations were there is no possible win scenario. It is also a detailed overview of how the European colonization affected the people on the rural areas and a very detailed description of the post-colonial era following the independence. Social and political changes are always in the background and the characters are not heroes but normal people that looked around and questioned why the things are like they are.

What I learned reading this book? I discovered that I don’t know anything about Africa. I’ve never studied what happened on Africa on the last 100 years during school and sincerely,  I’d never cared about it. The media only tell us how poor and mismanaged they are and to remember us the aid they need each time there is a humanitarian catastrophe. In fact, each time something happened, normally a new war with lots of displaced people I never really understood it because I didn’t know anything about their current situation.

Since reading the book I’ve become a lot more interested on the African puzzle. I’m reading a lot about Africa and I’m getting a huge update about what happened on the continent on the last 100 years. It’s very interesting and fascinating and I recommend everyone to invest a little of time on discover it.