Frank Westerman

A hard one to review. I got it from a friend with the message: read this, it goes about stories and how they evolve, how facts become myths and the other way around, or not?
I worked (yes, worked) myself through this book because i was hoping that at the end some conclusion would be made, but ... nope.
So dear author, tell me why this book has been written? It is non-fiction, it goes through all the different interpretations given to a disaster that happened in the eighties in Cameroon but show more .... it stays there. The book depicts the various points of view and what has become of them in the imagination, the African storytelling, the facts by different scientists who didn't agree, the oral tradition, connection with ancient gods and devils .....
But no conclusion.
Yes it is about storytelling, how history modifies certain things, how people with different interests make something different of the same but for me it could have been a bit more. But the author is clearly no historian, and so in my opinion he just adds one extra version of different facts.
As i said: a difficult one. show less

In the eighties Frank was confronted unexpectedly with a stuffed negro in a glass case in a museum in a small spanish town. How did this human being end up in this part of the world, preserved like a prized animal? And what kind of thinking led to his bizarre fate? He became captivated by the broader history of colonialism and racism, the story of Europe’s imagined superiority to the rest of the world. It was a history in which he would later play a brief role himself, in a more show more enlightened period, as a young idealist whose dreams were quickly shattered by the realities of aid work in developing countries. The 'happy end' of 'el negro' being sent back to South Africa in 2000 is not so much a happy ending as a new chapter in post-colonialism and the ever going on battle against racism abroad but even in our own minds.
The title, El Negro and Me illustrates the two stories with the same theme, intriguing biography and candid autobiography, travel literature and historiography combined. show less

I feel compelled to write a review (I usually just rate my books) as I, unlike the other reviewer so far, have found this to be a very tight book. The life of Konstantin Paustovsky provides its narrative backbone, and the disappearing bay at Kara Bogaz - its focal point. At various nodes along the way, where Paustovsky's narrative intertwines or intersects with the stories of other Soviet writers, Westerman elaborates on those writers as well, and how their own lives and writing are affected show more by the narrative of Soviet literary policy. There's no denying that this policy ruined some of the Soviet Union's finest writers, such as Andrey Platonov, and left others writing for the desk drawer. What makes this book highly unusual is its theme of despots and massive waterworks. I'm not sure yet that I'm entirely convinced, but I also think that Westerman is onto something! show less

leest als een trein. schokkend om de controle op literatuur te zien in het stalinistische tijdperk. en de manier waarop gedacht moest worden over indrukwekkend grote en ingrijpende waterwerken.