Harmattan: Wind Across West Africa

Rating:
Summary: A Different Kind of Journey
Review: Di Cintio certainly has the wanderlust, but Harmattan is not your typical adventure chronicle. Di Cintio takes us on a decidedly different journey: one of inward and reflective experience. While the book is an explicit autobiographical account of a young person's year abroad, the author writes with great maturity and power. Innocence and naiveté have been supplanted-wonder and curiosity remain. His theme: the universality of human nature.

Isn't real life with its complexities and contradictions stranger than fiction? The realist would say that it's more interesting too. This begs the question: Are Di Cintio's stories nonfictional recaps of his travel year in West Africa, or through numerous rewrites, have his characters and stories become fiction?

The narrative is terse and deliberately stark: his tone is candid and musing; the stories are carefully chosen and polished to essential brevity. Each stands on its own. The book as a whole hangs together as a collection of disparate parts, with no more justification from the author than: this is true, this is my life. Di Cintio excels at relating the tragicomic. The prose is fluid and there are moments of poignancy and brilliance. Overall, it is a tale well told.

Harmattan is gritty and hard-hitting and yet reverences great love for West Africa and its people. It's a soulful read. I'd like to see more from this writer. Di Cintio wrings more blood out of true-life stories than most. I am reminded of the 20th century Russian short story master, Isaac Babel. It's that good.

Rating:
Summary: Harmattan is a wonderfully written travelogue
Review: I came across a review of Harmattan: Wind Across West Africa in a Canadian Literary magazine, subTerrain. The word Harmattan immediately caught my attention. I had not heard this word since I was a child living in Nigeria, West Africa. And to see a book written by a fellow Canadian on this topic was rather surprising. (I suspect it's a rather small club of us who have ventured to this part of the world.) I was so pleased to see it offered on Amazon.com.
Harmattan is a wonderfully written travelogue and intimate portrait of one man's visit to an area of the world that is not on the travel adverturers list of "must see places". diCintio captures the essence of the people, customs, culture in a most accurate way with honesty and humour. If the paragraph about the beggar girl in Cape Coast does not move you, nothing will. Harmattan was a wonderful return to Africa for me!

Rating:
Summary: Harmattan is a wonderfully written travelogue
Review: I came across a review of Harmattan: Wind Across West Africa in a Canadian Literary magazine, subTerrain. The word Harmattan immediately caught my attention. I had not heard this word since I was a child living in Nigeria, West Africa. And to see a book written by a fellow Canadian on this topic was rather surprising. (I suspect it's a rather small club of us who have ventured to this part of the world.) I was so pleased to see it offered on Amazon.com.
Harmattan is a wonderfully written travelogue and intimate portrait of one man's visit to an area of the world that is not on the travel adverturers list of "must see places". diCintio captures the essence of the people, customs, culture in a most accurate way with honesty and humour. If the paragraph about the beggar girl in Cape Coast does not move you, nothing will. Harmattan was a wonderful return to Africa for me!

Rating:
Summary: The most frightening place on earth...
Review: I too stood in the damp, unlit dungeons of Elmina Castle and wondered at the fate of hundreds of thousands of Africans who were herded into these horrific holding areas to await transport to the new world during the centuries of slave trade. It's the most frightening place on earth. Di Cintio's personal account of his vist there does it justice. I liked this book well enough to recommend it to my friends: my now tattered copy of Harmattan has only met with praise from many a reader. I hear it's up for some award.

Rating:
Summary: self indulgent tripe
Review: Please stay away from this awful piece of self-infulgent, poorly written, simplistic and arrogant tripe. A piece of work (and I use the term loosely) which barely qualifies as travel writing. At best it is an introduction to the world of naïve children playing explorer, at worst, it is racist and exploitative. Your money would be better spent on Michael Palin's excellent 'Sahara'. UTTER GARBAGE!!!