An engaging, readable depiction of the foreign-aid worker experience.
An American doctor tells of her experience fighting smallpox in India.
In this debut memoir, Davis recounts the years she spent as a young doctor working with the World Health Organization in the 1970s. The book blends elements of travelogue, as Davis was determined to experience the country of India during her stay, with descriptions of administering a smallpox vaccine program, tracking the spread of disease in rural communities, and navigating post-colonial and intergovernmental bureaucracies. The author was the only African-American woman in a group composed largely of white American and European men, which offered her a unique perspective on the communities she worked with. However, as a Western woman, she faced some challenges in the field that her male colleagues didn’t (“Experienced field epidemiologists told me that I would ruin my kidneys and that I needed to drink more water. They were all men. Where was I to pee?”). She was exempt from many of the traditional local restrictions placed on women, though, and at times her complexion allowed her to pass as Indian and to access dangerous areas that the WHO had forbidden its staff to enter. As a Catholic, she found lodging and friendship among the rural missionaries, and she writes movingly of a visit to Mother Teresa’s hospice. She draws a vivid picture of India and the regions she worked in, from West Bengal (“the kaacha roads, the heavily overloaded bullock carts headed for market, the bicycle rickshaws vigorously moving in and out of the congested traffic, and the ubiquitous sacred cow just wandering down the middle of the road”) to Rajasthan (“I met children living in the desert who were ten years old and had never seen rain”). Her descriptions of small details of daily life will allow readers to easily picture the world that she encountered 40 years ago.
An engaging, readable depiction of the foreign-aid worker experience.Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0692341131
Page Count: 336
Publisher: KonjitPublications
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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