Baking Cakes in Kigali: A Novel Review

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Baking Cakes in Kigali: A Novel ReviewI picked up this book anticipating it would be the story of a tribal cakebaker and was pleasantly surprised to find it was set in modern day Rwanda, in a culture dealing with the restoration of the mess left behind by the horrors of genocide and struggling with the devastation of the AIDS epidemic. It is the story of a professor's wife in an apartment complex; a woman who is wise and compassionate, who hears stories and teaches lessons gained in her 50 years of living in an educated culture. She interacts with a variety of people: diplomats, prostitutes, single mothers, soldiers, neighbors; all needing cakes as their common thread, but all arriving at her doorstep with a different story. Many of their personal lives have been impacted by the war and it is shocking to realize what kinds of things people did to survive. Sure it touches on the typical womens issues: rape, abuse, prostitution, single parenting, even cutting. We don't think about the individual aspects and the personal stories of war and AIDS until they touch us personally. She too, has felt the impact as she is raising her children's children, as all were victims, and we watch her come to grips with that. She is a very real character, a great role model for older women in an enjoyable book.Baking Cakes in Kigali: A Novel Overview

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The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World Review

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The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World ReviewI really wanted to love this book. I've been a big fan of Jacqueline Novogratz ever since I started reading about the Acumen Fund's work while serving in the Peace Corps in central Africa. In the years since, I've been working for a global health organization in several countries and read up on developments in this field regularly - and like Novogratz, I'm a UVA grad! And getting my MBA! I thought I'd eat this book up.
What first struck me was that this book is much less about the developing world (to say nothing of the Acumen Fund) than it is about Novogratz herself. The author is not a gifted writer, as others have pointed out, and the constant attempts at vivid descriptions of scenes of Africa and India become very tiresome. They also lend to the strong theme of the author's utter naivete. Novogratz seems to be constantly shocked or surprised when something she tries doesn't work, and nevertheless repeats the same self-sure pattern of presumption on her next "project."
I was an innocent abroad once too. The developing world, especially Africa, has a steep learning curve... but it's one that the author, from her luxury accommodations in the capital, jet-setting between countries as an overpaid ADB "consultant," hobnobbing with expat (read: white) elites in tennis clubs and fancy restaurants where local Kenyans/Rwandans/Tanzanians/etc. are nonexistent, never seems to overcome. She's exactly the type of foreign "expert" which she skewers early in the book (and whom exasperates the rest of us in this field). My eyes became sore from so much rolling, hearing her wax eloquent about local people and cultures to which she clearly has little true exposure or understanding of.
I give it two stars because many of the lessons she discusses - about accountability, the power of business in bettering people's lives, instilling a sense of dignity through economic security - are sound. I just wish she would talk more about business and less about, say, how shocked - just shocked! - she was when she was mugged while jogging alone in Tanzania, or about how she feels about the Rwandan genocide.The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World Overview

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Chronicler of the Winds (Vintage) Review

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Chronicler of the Winds (Vintage) ReviewI had never read anything by Henning Mankell. I randomly chose Chronicler of the Winds, and it was a fantastic book. However, many will believe the opposite, and I fully understand why. On the surface it tells the grim story of Nelio, a mortally wounded ten-year-old homeless boy, shot twice in the chest and destined to die on the grubby rooftop of a bakery in Mozambique. In the nine nights he clings to life, he manages to tell everything to Jose Antonio Maria Vaz, a sympathetic and lonely baker. He tells a brutal story--murder, rape, and the lesser horrors of daily survival in the city--but in the end, the story possesses an odd feeling of hope. It changes Jose Antonio's life, and he roams the city telling Nelio's story to the wind.
Many will dislike this book for two reasons. The first involves the bits of magical realism that gradually overwhelm the plot. Nelio lives in the empty belly of an abandoned equestrian statue. He has never been beaten up by other homeless kids, appears to have curative powers, and expresses simple wisdom like an old sage. He shares his travels with an albino dwarf, then (by chance) befriends an albino toward the end of the tale. Mystical cats, healing herbs, floating spirits--not to everyone's liking.
The second reason, and for many the most damning, involves Mankell's clear attempt to "say something." I won't rant, but people tend to see any search for deeper meaning as an attempt at The Five People You Meet in Heaven, as if there can be nothing meaningful yet sincere. People either like or don't like to be given answers, and those who dislike will see Mankell as a heavy-handed dispenser of philosophy-lite. I think they miss the point. Mankell doesn't intend to give answers; he reminds you to ask the questions. Mankell's big question is this: What kind of world allows a child to die? Mankell doesn't answer this except to say that it matters. Who can argue with that? How can you not be moved when a child "forced to eat life raw" makes the simple observation, "Old people are supposed to die. Not children"? It's a question that, when handled with care, leads to a fine novel like Chronicler of the Winds.
Mankell also makes this brutal story oddly uplifting by reminding the reader that happiness, to a certain extent, comes from how you live inside more than how you live outside. I wouldn't say that Nelio enjoys his existence, but he does the most with what he has. He challenges the sorrow of his world, and while he doesn't overcome it, his gains small victories. Mankell has written a book that wallows in realistic brutality yet leaves the reader feeling moved, thankful, and oddly inspired. He earns my respect for that.Chronicler of the Winds (Vintage) Overview

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