Harmattan: A Journey Across the Sahara

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Summary: by BOB SHACOCHIS, author of "Swimming in the Volcano"
Review: "Harmattan" is an utterly riveting narrative and, in the stunning, seductive world of travel literature, an instant classic, an unforgetable contribution

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Summary: by LORET MILLER RUPPE
Review: "Harmattan" tells of the world Geraldine Kennedy and her adventurous friends found on their epic journey across the Sahara. It makes me proud of the special spirit and talents of women volunteers and reminds me why the Peace Corps was the best job I ever had. Three Cheers! (LMR, Former Director of the Peace Corps and Former Ambassador to Norway

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Summary: AWARD WINNER!
Review: "Harmattan: A Journey Across the Sahara" won the Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award from the RPCV Writers & Readers. It was also named Best Book for Young Adults by the New York Public Library in 1995

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Summary: by RICHARD LIPEZ, WORLD VIEW
Review: After Eisenhower and before Vietnam was a lovely time to be young and American and on the loose in an optimistic world, and Kennedy records her adventure lovingly. And honestly too­the five young women were an unlikely grouping and got sick of each other. The depth of understanding that grows in her is with the desert, with her place in the human race, and with herself . . . now written down in this book full of wisdom and heart

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Summary: by PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Review: An affecting travel and spiritual adventure. Writing with a sense of immediacy, Kennedy . . .evokes the magic and awesomeness of the alternatingly hot and frigid desert lashed by the Harmattan wind and sand. . . The unpredictable, rugged, often dangerous conditions . . .served both to forge and strain bonds among the tempermentally diverse travelers

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Summary: SARGENT SHRIVER, Founding Director of the Peace Corps
Review: For those in a hurry, here is the bottom line on "Harmattan," Geraldine Kennedy's new book: Get it. Beg, borrow or steal it. Read it. You will laugh. You will learn. You will be inspired. Nothing better reveals the spirit and courage necessary to create a new world for the 21st Century.

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Summary: The author's remembrance in her own words.
Review: Geraldine Kennedy tells the inspirational true-life story of her vulnerable and intrepid band of travelers. With extraordinary skill she evokes the prolonged solitude that engulfed them and shares the excitement, the uncertainty, and the insight and rare humor that sustained them

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Summary: Interesting story told adequately, not brilliantly.
Review: Having made almost the identical Sahara-crossing (in reverse) almost a quarter-century after those five Peace Corps women, I was really looking forward to reading Ms. Kennedy's book. Upon completing it, I was amazed to realize how little things had changed in that part of the world. Kennedy's writing captures well the ceaseless wind, the all-pervasive sand, the air thick with dust, the cold, starry nights in the desert, the aloof, graceful Tuareg, the all-too-forward men, the invisible women, the endless difficulty in searching out transportation, the waiting. However, the book is no "West With the Night." Their story is epic, yet so often I felt the author revealed her pettiness by the relentless focus on who among the group was or wasn't sharing, bickering, pitching in. Made me want to hear how the other four might tell the tale, and left me sad that Kennedy, even after so many years, reveals the grudge she still carries toward some of her companions. Every story is told through the filter of the storyteller, who discloses more of what's inside her than she may realize or intend.

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Summary: This beautifully written book carries you across the Sahara.
Review: If you loved the film "Lawrence of Arabia", if you enjoy beautiful writing and yearn for a good book, if you are intrigued by the Peace Corps mystique, if you like good stories about courageous women, or if you want to relive the spirit of the early '60s in Africa, this book is for you. "Harmattan" is one of those rare books, written with such simple beauty it can be read and enjoyed by readers of all ages. Geraldine Kennedy's book is better written and better edited than most books today from much larger publishers. She knows how to write just enough to sweep the reader into the lives of herself and her four companions who make this epic journey across the Sahara in 1964. The story is gripping throughout, because of the incredible boldness of this trek by five women, and because of the dramatic interplay of the characters. I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in West Africa in 1965 myself, and this book captures the spirit with shocking effect. I stayed up half the night reading it. Reviewed by Linda Donelson, author of "Out of Isak Dinesen in Africa: the untold story"

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Summary: Una Extraordinaria Escritora
Review: La época de la narración nos ubica en 1964 a muy poco tiempo del asesinato del Presidente Kennedy. Cinco jóvenes americanas, partes de los Peace Corps -Cuerpos de la Paz- parten hacia Algeria a desempenarse como maestras. La travesía dura siete semanas y las hace recorrer miles de kilómetros desde Liberia en el Sur hasta Algeria sobre el Mar Mediterráneo. Los Medios de transporte son varios, desde camellos hasta viejos camiones que las obligan a viajar en la caja entre animales domésticos, frutas, muebles y cualquier otra cosa que el conductor del vehiculo decida transportar. El libro no es una narración descriptiva del desierto sino un pormenorizado estudio do los personajes reales en condiciones extremas. Geraldine Kennedy es una extraordinaria escritora que sin ningún esfuerzo y con un riquisimo vocabulario inglés nos lleva por experiencias a veces cómicas y otras llena del dramatismo de las situaciones inesperadas y peligrosas que se pueden vivir en lugares desconocidos y entre pueblos do pensamiento y conducta totalmente diferentes al mundo occidental. Un libro ameno donde los franceses que habitan el desierto son dibujados en toda su fragilidad social