Customer Reviews

Nowhere in Africa: An Autobiographical Novel

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4 star:		(2)
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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is the story of Jewish refugees from Germany coping in a foreign and magical land during WWII. It is beautifully told though the eyes of the Redlich family: Walter, a former attorney, Jettel, his beautiful and emotional wife, Regina, the precocious, intelligent and receptive child, and Owuor, their African "houseboy" or cook. With the purple Ngong hills of Kenya, the famous Norfolk hotel and the pink-flamingo-covered Lake Nakuru in the background, this autobiographical account tells a unique tale of the suffering and pain inflicted upon this family, forced into exile by the actions of the Nazi regime.

The Redlich family was lucky enough to escape their beloved homeland, but not all members of their families shared the same fate. As she tells the story of a proud family losing everything, particularly social status and an understandable language, Stefanie Zweig uses a variety of languages to describe their myriad and varying emotions. Translated into English from German, this version loses a little bit of the importance of language barrier to the tale; however, Swahili, German and even a few Latin phrases are peppered throughout and do help.

Regina, Zweig's alter ego, is the strongest and most enjoyable voice. In fact, I wished the entire story were told through her perspective, for she is the one who most captures the spirit of Kenya. This is primarily due to Regina's relationship with Owuor, and her own secret fairy, that guides her through lonely experiences at boarding school, a luxury her refugee parents can barely afford. Even though she is a child, she becomes the voice of reason for the entire family.

If you've spent any time in Kenya, this book will bring your experience back to life and make you further appreciate the distinctions of class, race and ethnic heritage. I highly recommend.

Michele Cozzens, Author of A Line Between Friends and The Things I Wish I'd Said.

I anxiously awaited the release of this English translation after I saw the movie. In comparison, there are a few differences in the plot, but the story in both is moving. My primary reason for wanting to read the book was to understand the characteres better, to hear that inner voice that does not translate well on film. The book certainly provided this, though some times I found myself frustrated with the lengthy descriptions of secondary characters, such as the Professor and Diane. Still, the chapters that do delve more closely into the hearts and minds of Regina, Walter, Jettel and Owuor do not disappoint. Overall, though the writing at times wavers between meandering and powerfully direct, the story is heartbreaking and inspiring. I look forward to the sequel.

I actually haven't read it in English... but in it's original language it was wonderfully written. It's about a German Jewish family who was displaced in WWII by the Nazis. They were exiled into Africa. Zweig does a wonderful job of telling the story of what it was like for a Jewish family to reside in Africa.

I didn't think that she stereotyped the others... maybe it came out that way in the translation. In it's original work though I thought that the Africans had the best portrayal out of all the groups, including her own family. Her mother and father were definitely flawed... her father with his ambitions and her mother, a little self centered. Of course I don't know what the translation is like, so I'll have to look at it.

I must confess that I read only two-thirds of this novel, and then went to the movie, which is much better written. I lost my patience with the long similes in the novel that slowed down the story. In one paragraph I counted three long similes in four sentences. The story does not "flow" and I got tired of counting the pages until the end of the chapter.

I saw the movie version of this book first and kept wondering when all the steamy sex scenes were going to happen in the book.

The book is supposed to be from the point of view of a child, Regina, whose Jewish parents escaped Nazi Germany to survive in up-country Kenya. The movie seems to be more from the point of view of Regina's mother, and makes her mother look at the start to be a childish, self-centered slut, but ends up the mature, self-centered slut. Because of this, the movie takes a lot of things out of order and leaves out or understates a lot of interesting characters.

I was an American teacher in Kenya in the 1970s for four years, and thought I knew the country pretty well. The movie makes you think you can see Mt. Kenya from hundreds of miles away, but for the most part, you are lucky to see the peaks from twenty miles. What you see from Rongai is Menengai Crater, if anything, which is unique enough.

German is my second and Swahili is my third language, so it was that I understood much of the sentence structure of German that the translator left in the English version. Germans love excessively long and complicated sentences; at least that is my impression from two years of college German. Swahili is very different from one part of Kenya to another, and the movie had some excellent Swahili speakers, especially Owour, who for a Luo spoke well in the movie. Luo are known for learning English first very well. Also, the movie had the mother staying on the farm while Walter joined the British army, while the book had her staying in an apartment in Nairobi. The locust attack was early in the book and Owour saved the day and Walter gave him his black lawyer's robe. In the movie he got the robe for staying with Walter's malaria. The book explained Walters relationship with Kimani much better, Regina's relationship with her headmaster, what happened to Walter and Jettel's family better, and so on.

For those who do enjoy a German syntax, this translation is recommended as a good and vivid read.

Zweig belongs to the unfortunately large group of victims who victimize others. If literature has social or political power, this novel reinforces a negative stereotype for every ethnic group it encounters. The black characters are such bizarre caricatures that I expected them to break out in song or start tap dancing and passing Regina lollipops at any moment. The English characters could have been substituted with cold sausage and mash. The Jewish characters were generic Jewish refugees. The "good" German woman is a loud and pushy bar owner, who protects Jettel, Regina's mother. The Indian owners of the local general store and the apartment could have been copied directly from Apu, the owner of the Kwik-e-mart on The Simpson's, if Apu were mean. Jettel fits the stereotype of a wealthy and pampered Jewish woman. Regina's friend at the boarding school is an almost exact replica of Frances Hodgson Burnett's character Ermengarde St. John from A Little Princess. She is a foil to highlight Regina's great gifts. Regina is smart "because she is poor" and somehow has magical knowledge of how everyone is feeling and thinking because she "knows without words." Her access to Africa has somehow endowed her with this incredible insight. The characters are completely laughable and unrealistic. The most successful part of the novel is chapter one, before Regina shows up. Chapter 1 consists of a series of letters from Regina's father to Jettel, her mother, advising her about what to bring with her when she leaves Germany.

If the novel were not so poorly written, it would be incredibly offensive.