An African in Greenland (New York Review Books Classics)

• Paperback - 31 October, 2001 - New York Review Books
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• By: Tete-Michel Kpomassie, James Kirkup and A Alvarez
• ISBN: 0940322889

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Reviews by readers

African heart and Greenlandic soul

I finished the entire book in 1 night :) Kpomassie is a charming person, both astute and innocent. His clear writing describes life on the isolated island: brawls and dances and drinking, poverty and neglect, snowfall thick as a million feathers, Danish influence and the autumn sickness. His observations of the Eskimos are not tainted by romantic Western misconceptions ... to say the least. This is really 3 travelogues in 1: Greenland, Denmark and the author's native Togo. After reading this, Greenland is on my "must see" list.

Remarkable Journey, Remarkable Man

AN AFRICAN IN GREENLAND is the most remarkable travel journal I have read in a very long time. As a boy in Togo, Kpomassie was injured and while recovering read a book on Greenland that seized his imagination. The book recounts the events that led to this early obsession with Greenland, his efforts to reach the country and his travels in Greenland once he arrived. Kpomassie is a charming and honest narrator. He is at once perceptive, wry and compassionate in his account. He describes his travels and interactions with various cultures with almost anthropological detail and yet he never forgets the people he meets are human, wonderfully flawed perhaps, but human nonetheless. He turns his critical eye on his Togolese upbringing, his time in France, Germany and Denmark and ultimately Greenland. He never neglects to mention his own foibles, in his interactions in the lives of those he meets. (How could he not since he was the first African most of the Greenlanders had seen.) The story is also tinged with sadness for the loss the customs and rituals Kpomassie had hoped to witness in Greenland, the combined poverty and generosity of the people and the inevitable sorrow of ending a journey. It is a fascinating study of Greenland but also a study of a man pursuing a dearly held dream and that is what makes it such a satisfying read.

Inspiring story and intriguing cross-cultural observations

A man in Africa becomes intrigued with Greenland and finds a way to get there, live with Greenlanders--what a story! He is also clear-eyed and unsentimental about what he experiences. A fast, worthwhile read.

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