THE CROSSING FEE

by Esther Warner ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 14, 1967

When Esther Warner first came to the Mano village in the Liberian interior she was in her late twenties, a craftswoman interested in learning from Bidu the dye woman, and in learning about village life. She found a community guided by elders, the bridge to the spirit world, where a desire for personhood in one rebellious teen-ager who refused the Devil (initiation) had no other escape than death. She ""stood under the sass-wood"" to her friend Konsue promising her return; when she did so with her husband twenty years later, she found the roads had been taken over by the Department of Public Works instead of the Poro Devil, the village itself had moved to take advantage of the mission school, and Konsuo's own daughter was fighting for her freedom to become a nurse, not a bartered bride. Mrs. Warner's sensibility, her way of moving into the lives of other peoples, is extraordinary. It vitalizes not only her encounters but her book and its message: what we can learn from the Africans is laughter, how to really listen with our entire person, a way of life packed with meaning.

Pub Date: Feb. 14, 1967

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1967

Categories: NONFICTION