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Adventures in Africa | 
 enlarge | Author: Gianni Celati
Creator: Adria Bernardi
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Category: Book
List Price: $20.00
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Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 1813625
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 170
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.8
ISBN: 0226099555
Dewey Decimal Number: 916.60433
EAN: 9780226099552
ASIN: 0226099555
Publication Date: November 1, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
"In the life of a tourist who travels a bit far, I think that at a certain point, a question necessarily arises: 'But what have I come here for?' A question that sets in motion a great cinema of justification to oneself, so that one doesn't have to seriously say to oneself: 'I'm here doing nothing.'"
In 1997 the celebrated Italian novelist and essayist Gianni Celati accompanied his friend, filmmaker Jean Talon, on a journey to West Africa which took them from Mali to Senegal and Mauritania. The two had been hoping to research a documentary about Dogon priests, but frustrated by red tape, their voyage became instead a touristic adventure. The vulnerable, prickly, insightful Celati kept notebooks of the journey, now translated by Adria Bernardi as Adventures in Africa. Celati is the privileged traveler, overwhelmed by customs he doesn't understand, always at the mercy of others who are trying to sell him something he doesn't want to buy, and aware of himself as the Tourist who is always a little disoriented and at the center of the continual misadventures that are at the heart of travel.
Celati's book is both a travelogue in the European tradition and a trenchant meditation on what it means to be a tourist. Celati learns to surrender to the chaos of West Africa and in the process produces a work of touching and comic descriptions, in the lucid and ironic prose that is his hallmark. Hailed as one of the best travelogues on Africa ever written and awarded the first Zerilli-Marimo prize, Adventures in Africa is a modest yet profound account of the utter discombobulation of travel.
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| Customer Reviews:
Adventures in Africa December 7, 2001
Carrie Sherlock (Arvada, Colorado, USA, December, 6, 2001)
2 out of 14 found this review helpful
After reading Adventures in Africa, we think that this book was not the best book ever. We thought that it was rather dull throughout almost the whole book. One reason that we might have thought that it was dull is because, the book is written like a journal. We haven't ever read a book written like a journal before, and I don't like that style of writing. That could have had an impact on us not liking the book, or just simply because we didn't like the way it was written. Also, the story line was not too interesting. Each journal that he would write each day would just tell about what he did that day. It is like reading a book about a person that sits at home all day. The main character was a tourist in Africa, and would meet new people and travel to different places. Most of the day's he would do the same thing. We found this book to be very repetitive, and we find that pretty boring about books. He would always tell about how he would go to this river and watch all the people bathe. He would do that everyday for a long period of time, and it just got old. After that he would go to a cliff and climb it everyday. Most days though, he would take a tour bus somewhere. While he was in Africa he made many friends, sometimes it was hard to keep them straight. His friend Jean, was his best friend, they went almost everywhere together. This book isn't the best book, and we wouldn't recommend it unless you like to read other peoples' journals. We just didn't find it interesting at all. It didn't grab my attention or make me actually want to read the book. The only reason why we read it was because we had to for a grade.
Flat and Disppointing February 21, 2005
Phnom (Washington, DC USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Maybe there are two ways of writing about travel. First, you write about startling things or things that other people normally might not notice. Second,you present a somewhat ordinary world but you do so in high-flown prose that---because of the quality of the writing---carries the reader along no matter what. This journalistic travel book seems one that a publisher might have picked up ONLY because the writer is well known. It is neither well written nor particularly acute in what it sees and reports. Too often there is a grim habit of stereotype, and always there is a languid sense of a prose style that suggests little more than some jottings in a loose-leaf along the way. A Graham Greene brings heart, keen perception, and inspiration to his "Journey without Maps" into Africa, and may other writers encounter people who remain in your mind. Celati just putters along.
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