Tag: Malawi
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A Literary Prize
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The small gods visit us softly. So soft, sometimes, it’s possible we miss their presence altogether. Two weeks passed before I noted the happy trespass of one such deity through my recent gloom. The first inkling appeared last week, good news arriving to my in-box from another writer, a former professor, writing mentor, and current…
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First Night Africa
the dancers moved us to the center of a great circle, surrounded us singing and shouting and dancing, a lump forming in my throat
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Without a Country
Just that morning, without a visa, I’d talked my way across the border. A little patience, a little humility, small Kwacha, and Dunhill cigarettes solved the visa problem.
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Around the World & Right Here
I would visit corners of this strange land not unlike my hometown: unknown and invisible to the world, no place of pride on any map, unsung in the guide books. Places nobody came from and nobody went to. Corn farms. Tobacco farms.
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Eggnog Around the World
The first year I cooked eggnog, the result was a combination of lumps and slime. Not even the high-proof white lightening we poured in–the Malawian jungle juice known as Powers No 1–could cure the stuff. We were Peace Corps Volunteers celebrating Christmas in the back of beyond. We had most of the right ingredients, fresh…
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Peace Corps, the Musical
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Five years ago, I flirted with writing a musical based on ‘the generic Peace Corps experience.’ I tabled the idea quickly. The unique nature of volunteer service set abundant hurdles. Peace Corps Africa and Peace Corps Latin America are different beasts. The organization’s six decades presented another problem. We’d moved from the era of ‘Drop…
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Always
Puzzled that I’d spend my time doing this, people will ask, ‘How long have you been writing?’ Part accusation, part sincere inquiry, it deserves consideration. The truest answer I have—and it’s not a wise guy answer—is always. I say ‘truest’ because of the stages leading up to my present output: two published novels; two mid-grade…
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May the Bird of Paradise Rest in Your Armpit
The man with the 70’s hangover—big stache, wide lapels, swooping toupee—assigned to teach my fifth grade class regularly heaped this wish upon us: ‘May the bird of paradise rest in your armpit.’ What this meant, and why it should happen to us, was never made clear. It was only, mysteriously, repeated. This was a 1982-83,…
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The first readers
It’s almost twenty years since I first shared my fiction beyond the confines of family or classroom. I found three trusted readers during the months of pre-service training as a Peace Corps Volunteer. What else to do on the dusty plains of Central Malawi beneath the boiling sun, the cloudless sky? I wrote my first novel. I wrote…
Ben East Books 