The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo: A Novel [Paperback]

Peter Orner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 16, 2007

When Mavala Shikongo deserted them, the teachers at the boys' school in Goas weren't surprised. How could they be? She was too beautiful, too powerful, and too mysterious for their tiny, remote, and arid world. They knew only one essential fact about their departed colleague: she was a combat veteran of Namibia's brutal war for independence. When Mavala returns to Goas with a baby son, all are awed by her boldness. The teachers try hard, once again, not to fall in love with her. They fail, immediately and miserably, especially the American volunteer, Larry Kaplanski.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Orner's poetic, episodic examination of the varieties of life at an isolated Catholic primary school deep in the veld of Namibia coheres around the title character, a beautiful guerrilla fighter turned kindergarten teacher. Set in the early 1990s, soon after Namibia won independence from South Africa, this impressive debut novel (after Esther Stories) is mostly narrated by Larry Kaplanski, a young volunteer who leaves Cincinnati, Ohio, to teach English and history at Farm Goas. Orner captures Goas's glacial rhythms, the extraordinary contrast between the desert's night and day, and the community's daily privations, including—for the single male teachers—a lust arising from boredom and loneliness. Mavala Shikongo, the principal's sister-in-law and the object of her colleagues' desires, reluctantly settles at Goas with her illegitimate baby boy, Tomo. Orner punctuates Larry's observations with brief interludes told from the points of view of other inhabitants of the school, and with haunting, cinematic imagery—boys do pull-ups on a huge cross; Mavala and Larry, who become friends and intimates, hold their afternoon trysts on the graves of Boer settlers. These telling snapshots stand in for the larger sociopolitical, cultural and religious issues facing a country emerging from a century of colonization. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Talk about stories never told. Larry Kaplanski from Cincinnati is a volunteer teacher in a small, rough all-boys Catholic school in the Namibian desert in 1991, just after independence. He shares a shack with colleagues and is in love with beautiful Mavala Shikongo, who is a kindergarten teacher and veteran guerilla fighter from the antiapartheid "struggle." The weight of the brutal colonial and apartheid past is always there, but the freedom story is never reverential, and the taut vignettes, anguished and sometimes hilarious, are about ordinary people now. The novel is more situation than story, but there are scenes that will stay with you forever: the three illegal refugee children from across the border, who only want school, and then are gone after three days; the drought stories; the fence building (Why? How?); the farce of the Cincinnati community that sends an old broken piano "for the adorable little school somewhere in deepest Africa." Orner, a prizewinning short story writer, has lived in Namibia, and his debut novel brings close those far from the centers of power. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Back Bay Books (May 16, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316066338
• ISBN-13: 978-0316066334
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #707,024 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful staccato music!!!!!, May 2, 2006

By 

Dagmar F. Pelzer (Miami, Florida) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo: A Novel (Hardcover)

I wanted to skim this book. I couldn't stop reading. Finished the whole book before even trying to put it down.

What a great read. Staccato. Short chapters, short sentences, half sentences. An English teacher's nightmare!! Staccato, like in music. Great.

Presented Namibia exactly like I have always imagined it. Dry, desolate, capturing. The people, the same. This woman, Mavala. Just as staccato as the book itself.

Read it, you will love it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great sense of place, March 29, 2007

By 

kmilerun (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo: A Novel (Hardcover)

I picked up this book based solely on the setting of Namibia. I was simply looking to read some contemporary African fiction.

I loved the book. Cleverly written. Orner did a terrific job capturing the sense of place. I could feel the heat and dust as I read. He was able to tell a great tale, very well researched, with good humour. While touching throghout, I found myself laughing at many scenes.

Nice job! Go get it and enjoy it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unique and evocative, May 20, 2006

By 

E. K. Marcoe - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo: A Novel (Hardcover)

It was no surprise to find the author is a poet. This book contains many stunning turns of phrases. There were sentences I re-read first in disbelief then with gradual understanding and finally with a great joy of true edifying comprehension.

That he can be so articulate of landscape, eloquent on character and damn funny at the same time is a wonder.

Half way through this book I realized, with great relief, that I was reading a truly unique writer with a voice so strong and idiosyncratic that that burdensome word 'art' started popping into my head. As the final pages unfurled it was obvious that THE SECOND COMING OF MAVALA SHIKONGO is indeed worthy of such classification. Bravo to Mr. Orner.