Book Description
A chance encounter with a picture book about Greenland inspires the young Tete-Michel Kpomassie to embark on a life-changing journey that would last ten years. Leaving his native Togo, he travels to the Ivory Coast, Senegal, Mauritania, Paris, and Copenhagen before reaching his ultimate destination. The author's distinctly African voice and perspective create a narrative that is refreshingly free of Western assumptions and prejudices. Readers witness innumerable culture clashes between the African and Inuit cultures, as well as occasional surprising similarities. A New York Times Notable Book.
Language Notes
Text: English, French (translation)
An African in Greenland FROM THE PUBLISHER
A chance encounter with a picture book about Greenland inspires the young Tete-Michel Kpomassie to embark on a life-changing journey that would last ten years. Leaving his native Togo, he travels to the Ivory Coast, Senegal, Mauritania, Paris, and Copenhagen before reaching his ultimate destination. The authorﾽs distinctly African voice and perspective create a narrative that is refreshingly free of Western assumptions and prejudices. Readers witness innumerable culture clashes between the African and Inuit cultures, as well as occasional surprising similarities. A New York Times Notable Book.
FROM THE CRITICS
John Derbyshire - The New Criterion
It is, as it sounds, the strangest travel book ever written.... Kpomassie carries the whole thing off brilliantly. Openminded, self-assured, adaptable, acutely observant, and obviously very personable, he is the perfect guide to the Eskimos and what was left of their culture in the mid-1960s. There is no trace of cultural condescension in him.... What a wonderful book, to make a person think so much!
Art & Photography
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