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Summary
Summary
WINNER OF THE 2020 CHAUTAUQUA PRIZE
ONE OF NPR'S BEST BOOKS OF 2019
"Engrossing, beautiful, and deeply imaginative, Out of Darkness, Shining Light is a novel that lends voice to those who appeared only as footnotes in history, yet whose final, brave act of loyalty and respect changed the course of it. An incredible and important book by a masterful writer." --Yaa Gyasi, author of Homegoing
"This is how we carried out of Africa the poor broken body of Bwana Daudi, the Doctor, David Livingstone, so that he could be borne across the sea and buried in his own land." So begins Petina Gappah's powerful novel of exploration and adventure in nineteenth-century Africa--the captivating story of the loyal men and women who carried explorer and missionary Dr. Livingstone's body, his papers and maps, fifteen hundred miles across the continent of Africa, so his remains could be returned home to England and his work preserved there. Narrated by Halima, the doctor's sharp-tongued cook, and Jacob Wainwright, a rigidly pious freed slave, this is a story that encompasses all of the hypocrisy of slavery and colonization--the hypocrisy at the core of the human heart--while celebrating resilience, loyalty, and love.
Author Notes
Petina Gappah is a widely translated Zimbabwean writer. She is the author of two novels, Out of Darkness, Shining Light; The Book of Memory; and two short story collections, Rotten Row and An Elegy for Easterly . Her work has been short-listed for the Orwell Prize, the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the PEN/Open Book Award, the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, and the Prix Femina (etranger), among other honors. She is the recipient of the Guardian First Book Award and the McKitterick Prize from the Society of Authors. A lawyer specializing in international trade and investment as well as a writer, Petina currently lives in Harare, Zimbabwe.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Gappah (The Book of Memory) uses two distinct voices to tell her version of the remarkable tale of the transportation of doctor and missionary David Livingstone's body from where he died in what is now modern-day Zambia in May of 1873 to Africa's eastern coast so that it could be returned to England. The tale of the 285-day journey is taken up by the sharp-tongued cook Halima on the night of Livingstone's death. She is quick to offer her opinions on other members of the group, such as the untrustworthy Chirango and simpering Ntaoéka. Although she talks about the evils of African slavers and a massacre at Manyuema, in chapters that describe Livingstone's final months, hers is the more lighthearted portion of the narrative. When the self-righteous and self-important Jacob Wainwright takes over to tell the tale of the trek in his journal entries, his poor opinion of his companions just adds to the misery as they face privation in the wilderness, varied receptions in villages, and more death along the road. Readers who enjoy expedition travelogues or smartly drawn characters will appreciate Gappah's winning novel. (Sept.)
Guardian Review
Western history builds up its great men with sleight-of-hand, nudging our attention away from all the things we're not supposed to see, while it keeps others in the shadows. A great deal of what we know about Victorian missionary and explorer David Livingstone, as well as the fact that we know very little about his African attendants, is thanks to this kind of mythologisation, casting him as the hero while they were merely his "dark companions". Out of Darkness, Shining Light is the fourth publication by Zimbabwean author Petina Gappah, whose debut An Elegy for Easterly won the Guardian first book award. It deconstructs that myth by providing a fictionalised account of Livingstone's attendants' 1,500-mile journey from Chief Chitambo's village, in what is now Zambia, to Zanzibar, bearing his corpse on the way home to England. It's a captivating premise for a novel that despite its Faulknerian DNA is entirely Gappah's own. She amplifies two voices among the "69 who carried his bones": Livingstone's loquacious cook Halima and his pompous servant Jacob Wainwright. Though Halima's narration sometimes seems stalled by gossip about which of the women is going off with which of the men, she is in no way blinkered by domestic trifles. She sees right through the "Nile madness" that led Livingstone to abandon his own children to "wander about looking for the beginning of a river", and often comes across as savvier than Wainwright. "People can do good and still be bad, and do bad and still be good," she reasons, following Livingstone's death. "Choose only to remember him as it gives you comfort." Wainwright, a Yao man from east Africa educated by Christian missionaries, commandeers the novel's second half. Had he not been a real person, Gappah might have been tempted to invent him. Awkward and anglophilic, practically the only thing he has to show for having "lived all my life with Englishmen and been trained and instructed in their ways of doing things" is that he is constitutionally self-deprecating. In a moment of epiphany a fellow traveller turns on him: "You want to dress like they do, and speak like they do," he says, "but you will never be one of them." This is one of the harsh truths of an imperial project that taught people to love their conquerors and hate themselves. Wainwright is left an outsider in his own homeland, in thrall to a man who would never see him as anything other than a servant. He decries Halima as "the most empty-headed of the women" even though she manages to sidestep many of the flimsy colonial views that he accepts. Some of Wainwright's sections are marvels of verisimilitude (his diaries were published online in early 2019). Counterbalancing this mimetic quality, Halima's observations sweep towards an aching lyricism. Consider this description of enslaved people arriving at the coast: "When they lay down their loads and realise there is no return, their hearts die within them. Their hearts just give out and crack." What the novel achieves through the intersection of these jostling narratives is a stripping back of Livingstone's legacy to reveal a man who was often petty and occasionally venal; who blundered through the continent propelled by a conviction of the superiority of his own ideas; who considered it impossible to overstate slavery's evils yet relied heavily on the assistance of slave traders; and who wasn't above "having a man beaten if that is what has to be done". Worst of all is that Halima only became a member of Livingstone's camp because he purchased her as an unwilling concubine for one of his men. Even Wainwright can't help but conclude that "to procure a slave in this way seemed most un Christlike", and one of Halima's more pressing questions is whether the bwana's death means she's finally free. As the novel opens we hear the attendants' collective voice: "We were only ever the porters and the bearers [who] cooked his meals and washed his clothes and made his beds. On the long and perilous journey to bring him home, 10 of our party lost their lives." Out of Darkness is a satisfying reminder of their sacrifice as well as our obligation to memorialise them. There were moments when I found myself wishing for a revving of the narrative engine; when the novel felt loaded too heavily with information at the expense of plot. But in the scheme of this ambitious, meticulously researched work, perhaps a craving for more plot might be considered a failing on my part. The novel succeeds on the terms it has set for itself, which are not so much to do with making things happen as with a critical understanding of the usefulness of fiction for filling in history's gaps.
Kirkus Review
A rollicking novel that retells the history of British colonial exploration in Africa from the perspective of historical figures who have otherwise been silenced.Zimbabwean writer Gappah (The Book of Memory, 2016, etc.) tells the story of the black attendants who bore the Scottish explorer David Livingstone's corpse from present-day Zambia to the African coast in the late 19th century. As the prologue says, "This story has been told many times before, but always as the story of the Doctor." Gappah turns the tables by making Livingstone's attendants into protagonists. Our heroes are Halima, a young slave woman Livingstone purchased as a partner for his assistant, the abusive and cruel Amoda; and Jacob Wainwright, a former slave from East Africa who was educated by Christian missionaries in Mumbai. Halima is a jovial and headstrong young woman who speaks boisterously despite her status. "Why any man would leave his own land and his wife and children to tramp in these dreary swamps...is beyond my understanding," she wonders about Livingstone. Jacob is Halima's opposite, a self-serious young man who keeps a journal which he hopes will be published in the future. When Livingstone dies of malaria, his attendants decide to carry his body to the coast in a display of loyalty, so that it may be carried back to England. After burying his heart in the village where he died, the band sets off toward Zanzibar in a show of dedication. The arduous journey through hostile terrain gradually erodes their reverence for the doctor, though. Halima begins to wonder how worthy he is of her dedication. "Was he worth it? What were we doing, taking a father to his children when he had let one of those children die?" Meanwhile, Jacob reads Livingstone's journals and finds a man whose anti-slavery ideals clash with his actions as a colonialist explorer. The journey to the coast turns out to be an education in how the band is oppressed by colonial power. Along the way, though, Gappah captures the diverse cultural milieu of colonial Africa with compelling detail. The result is a rich, vivid, and addictive book filled with memorably drawn characters.This is a humane, riveting, epic novel that spotlights marginalized historical voices. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Gappah's (The Book of Memory, 2016) riveting novel opens in the days following the 1873 death of legendary Scottish missionary and explorer Dr. David Livingstone in an African village. The more than 60 servants in his expedition carry his remains on an arduous 1,500-mile journey to the coast so that his body can be returned to his home country. The first section is told from the perspective of headstrong Halima, Livingstone's cook. Now a free woman, Halima convinces the men in the caravan that the journey is a worthwhile one, despite its significant challenges and conflicts and the group's misgivings. Contrasted with Halima's tale is that of religious Jacob, who narrates the closing account of the group's later struggles as their travels become increasingly perilous. As a stalwart student of Livingstone, young Jacob offers a poised and significant, if appropriately flawed view of the intricacies of his companions' experiences as well as his own motivations. Together, Gappah's contrasting narrators offer a deeply layered exploration of courage, sorrow, and resilience, culminating in a revelatory quest and an entrancing vision.--Leah Strauss Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Zimbabwean author Gappah's second novel (after The Book of Memory) presents the story of David Livingstone's posthumous journey from central Africa to the coast, told through the eyes of the Africans who made the arduous trek with his preserved body. The two primary narrators are Halima, the expedition's cook, who never tires of telling the rest of the company about her earlier life in the court of a sultan, where her mother was a concubine; and the pious Jacob Wainwright, rescued from enslavement and educated by missionaries as a child, who keeps a diary in the style of Pilgrim's Progress and dreams of being ordained so that he can save the souls of his African brethren. As months pass, the company faces disease, different communities (some amicable, others violent), and the internal conflicts endemic to a large group that includes a variety of ethnicities, religions, ambitions, and grudges. VERDICT Gappah decolonizes the legend of Dr. Livingstone by turning the tale inside out, giving voice to those who are overlooked, or dealt with dismissively, in the official narratives. The result is an indictment of the legacy of slavery and colonialism that is also an engrossing adventure story. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 3/4/19.]--Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis