Customer Reviews

Hustling Is Not Stealing: Stories of an African Bar Girl

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John M. Chernoff's Hustling is Not Stealing is a unique and highly enjoyable insight into a woman who too often would be viewed in stereotypes or lost in statistics about the hand-to-mouth existence of people in what used to be called the Third World. Chernoff focuses upon the life of one woman, Hawa, describing her as small, cute, and a gifted storyteller. She becomes vividly real as she tells her tales of life as a bar girl, doing what she needs to do to survive -- and with great humor and style! Chernoff begins with a comprehensive and fascinating introduction, which places Hawa's experience in the broad context of African realities, also explaining his own years in Africa as a student of ethnomusicology and of the social milieu in which Hawa's adventures take place. The reader is drawn in, sometimes laughing, sometimes appalled, often both at the same time. Hawa is often hassled by poverty or by those seeking to exploit her. But she laughs her irresistible laugh -- hee hee hee -- and gets her own back. She is no victim! As she travels through Ghana, Togo, and Burkina Faso, one gets a sense of excitement and fun, despite the hard times and dangers. Hawa comes off as a very admirable woman, and Chernoff's book is a real pleasure. His valuable scholarship is matched by his humanity. As you peek into Hawa's world, she comes vividly and unforgettably to life and becomes a friend. This book is priceless! I loved it!

Read this book in two days. Couldn't put it down. The main character lives in a culture with few options for women. While the choices she makes may be appalling to the typical American, and while her profane language may at first cause dismay, once you get to know her, her intelligence, a certain grace, sense of fairness, sense of irony, strength and courage make you love her in spite of her chosen life. All the while you are intrigued and trying to understand her, she is slying educating you on the realities of current West Africa in a way that a textbook never could. Excellent book. Don't miss it.

"Hustling Is Not Stealing: Stories of an African Bar Girl" by John M. Chernoff is a compilation of interviews with a woman named Hawa living and working in 1970s Ghana, Togo, and Burkina Faso as a bar girl, or prostitute. The book provides an in-depth and distinctive look at her experiences in the sex trade. Merely from reading the 300-plus pages of interviews that the author conducts with her, the reader gets an intimate sense of Hawa's personality and character. Contrary to the stereotypes one might associate with members involved in the sex trade, the reader finds her to be humorous, amicable, and an overall light-hearted person.
The book starts with Hawa recounting the years after her mother's death when Hawa was only three years-old. Throughout her childhood and adolescence she is in constant rotation between her (sometimes abusive) relatives' homes. You can tell by the way in which she narrates the stories of her childhood and the exchanges between relatives that take place during this time that from the beginning Hawa has never been anyone's fool. Although she seems to have always been a free spirit, extremely assertive and in complete control of herself and her surroundings, one cannot help but wonder how, in light of all of this, hustling is the route that Hawa ended up on. Surely, she had greater aspirations. As she explains in one section of the book entitled "What No Girl Says", "`There is not any girl who will wake up as a young girl and say, "As for me when I grow up I want to be ashawo, to go with everybody, to do this and this." Not any girl will think of this.' " (Chernoff 203) Obviously, Hawa never planned nor aimed to become a bar girl yet she has still fallen into this line of work.
In Chernoff's interviews, Hawa reveals not only her character but also the climate of living and working as a bar girl in 1970s West Africa. The stories she tells are more akin to what you might read in someone's diary rather than what you would find someone telling a relative stranger. The recounts of beatings, sexual escapades, and power struggles in the ashawo community are all told so enthusiastically and with such detail and fervor that you feel like Hawa is actually a close friend, not some voice recorded on tape by an ethnographer in the 1970s.
Besides a lengthy 118-page introduction, the reader doesn't actually hear anything from Chernoff; the rest of the book is solely Hawa's interviews. Personally, this was a pleasant surprise. I would rather read the stories as they were told, straight from the source, rather than have her memories sorted, sifted, and possibly altered for the ends of the author. However, since Hawa's stories are what comprise virtually the entirety of the book, it is surprising that she is not given more credit for her contributions.
Overall, "Hustling Is Not Stealing" was a remarkably entertaining, refreshing look into the life of a woman whose livelihood would normally be stereotyped as depressing, dead-end, and destructive. Not to say prostitution is none of those things, I wholeheartedly agree that it is in most cases. However, as an individual, Hawa and her stories give at least this reader the hope that although hustling is nothing to be celebrated nor condoned, neither is it a death sentence.

Its hard to describe what I love most about this book... the glimpse into a often-ignored slice of a misunderstood culture on a forgotten continent... the fierce strength of Hawa, the woman who tells the stories... her humor, her joy, her wisdom. In the end though, what kept me turning the pages was the sheer inventiveness and mastery of language. The transcription faithfully captures the amazing things that can happen when english escapes its shackles: this woman, who speaks 10 languages, mixing their vocabulary and construction together, is a masterful communicator and a mesmerizing storyteller. The book is extensively footnoted for explication, but I found Hawa's constructions simultaneously unique and obvious in the best way, and unfailingly charming.

One piece of advice: Read the stories first and the introduction last. Although it ultimately adds a lot of interesting and useful background, the first third of Chernoff's intro is so riddled with opaque anthropological jargon as to provide an unintentionally hilarious-- in a sort of Pale Fire-esque way-- counterweight to Hawa's graceful, lively and quicksilver stories of living "the life".

Buy this book-- read this book-- tell your friends about this book.

A wonderful inside look at modern life in Ghana. Not to be missed by anyone who loves or wants to know more about contemporary Africa. A refereshing approach, easily read, full of detail and color unavailable elsewhere. The author's commitment to the culture and people of Ghana shines through in the colorful translations and brilliant editorial work required to piece together the main character's story.