The Kongolese Saint Anthony: Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the Antonian Movement, 1684-1706

The subject matter is fascinating, but the execution is lacking. The Kongolese Saint Anthony relates the story of an intriguing, but little known, incident in Kongolese history: the heretical Catholic movement founded by Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita, a young Kongolese noblewoman who is sort of an African Joan of Arc. She claimed to be possessed by Saint Anthony of Padua and led an uprising against both the secular rulers of Kongo—unpopular because of their constant warmongering—and its religious hierarchy—mostly white Capuchins from Italy. Despite widespread support, Kimpa Vita was captured by orthodox forces and burnt at the stake at the age of 22.

However, though the topic itself was intriguing, Thornton's stylistic and organisational show more decisions made this a book that I struggled to finish, though it's only about 200 pages long. He disdains oral and anthropological evidence in favour of working from written commentary from European sources. It's a thoroughly Eurocentric approach, compounded by the fact that when those sources "quote" a Kongolese speaker, Thornton changes those indirect speech remarks to direct quotations, often with remarks on tone such as "he said sarcastically." It makes for a dramatic narrative, but it's jarring, makes pretty much everything Thornton writes suspect, and requires us to view everything through a European lense. Interesting introduction to what is a new topic to me, but very flawed. show less