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"In the small African republic of Kinjanja, British diplomat Morgan Leafy bumbles heavily through his job. His love of women, his fondness for drink, and his loathing for the country prove formidable obstacles on his road to any kind of success. But when he becomes an operative in Operation Kingpin and is charged with monitoring the front runner in Kinjanja?s national elections, Morgan senses an opportunity to achieve real professional recognition and, more importantly, reassignment. After he finds himself being blackmailed, diagnosed with a venereal disease, attempting bribery, and confounded with a dead body, Morgan realizes that very little is going according to plan."--The publisher.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Smiler69
"Like Rome, Nkongsamba was built on seven hills, but there the similarity ended. Set in undulating tropical rain forest, from the air it resembled nothing so much as a giant pool of crapulous vomit on somebody's expansive unmown lawn. Every building was roofed with corrugated iron in various
Morgan Leafy is the protagonist of this comedy set in the fictitious town of Nkongsamba, state capital of the Mid-West region of Kinjanja, West Africa. As the second in command to the Deputy High Commissioner, he occupies what could be considered an important post in Her Majesty the Queen's diplomatic service, if only Nkongsamba could be considered a posting of any consequence. As the story begins, Leafy's many trials are just beginning with the announcement that his new assistant, just recently arrived for the UK to give a helping hand, has gotten engaged to his boss's daughter, which he himself had had high hopes of marrying. This is only a minor setback though, because there are more pressing matters to attend to, mainly the business of bribing a high official, a task which he's been blackmailed into taking on, and also getting rid of the body of a local woman recently hit by lightning, which her compatriots absolutely defend anybody from touching for fear a local wrathful deity will take offence. Caught between a boss who uses him to take care of any and all unpleasant and humiliating tasks he can come up with and a megalomaniac local politician who threatens to reveal his most compromising secrets, not to mention the amorous attentions of the politician's wife, and a nice dose of ghonorrea passed on to him by his local girlfriend, Leafy's trials and tribulations truly make for a comical read as he tries to extricate himself from a mess that just keeps getting more complicated and unpleasant with every move he makes.
I'm not altogether sure what to make of [A Good Man in Africa]. It was certainly entertaining, and I guess I should take into consideration that it was William Boyd's first published effort (for which he won both a Whitbread and a Somerset Maugham award), and also that it was hardly a story I could expect to end with all loose ends perfectly tied up and neatly tucked in. While this book certainly works well as high comedy, I couldn't help but feel a slight discomfort about the way in which the locals are depicted as either unscrupulous power hungry manipulators or superstitious simpletons content to live in squalor and stinking decay, but in all fairness, all the characters in this biting satire receive evenhanded treatment as unlikeable individuals, all the better to reflect Leafy's own cynical view of humanity, which he may or may not be forced to reconsider by novel's end.
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advanced stages of rusty erosion, and from the window of the Commission -- established nobly on a hill above town -- Morgan could see the roofs stretch before him, an ochrous tin checker-board, a bilious metallic sea, the paranoiac vision of a mad town planner."Morgan Leafy is the protagonist of this comedy set in the fictitious town of Nkongsamba, state capital of the Mid-West region of Kinjanja, West Africa. As the second in command to the Deputy High Commissioner, he occupies what could be considered an important post in Her Majesty the Queen's diplomatic service, if only Nkongsamba could be considered a posting of any consequence. As the story begins, Leafy's many trials are just beginning with the announcement that his new assistant, just recently arrived for the UK to give a helping hand, has gotten engaged to his boss's daughter, which he himself had had high hopes of marrying. This is only a minor setback though, because there are more pressing matters to attend to, mainly the business of bribing a high official, a task which he's been blackmailed into taking on, and also getting rid of the body of a local woman recently hit by lightning, which her compatriots absolutely defend anybody from touching for fear a local wrathful deity will take offence. Caught between a boss who uses him to take care of any and all unpleasant and humiliating tasks he can come up with and a megalomaniac local politician who threatens to reveal his most compromising secrets, not to mention the amorous attentions of the politician's wife, and a nice dose of ghonorrea passed on to him by his local girlfriend, Leafy's trials and tribulations truly make for a comical read as he tries to extricate himself from a mess that just keeps getting more complicated and unpleasant with every move he makes.
I'm not altogether sure what to make of [A Good Man in Africa]. It was certainly entertaining, and I guess I should take into consideration that it was William Boyd's first published effort (for which he won both a Whitbread and a Somerset Maugham award), and also that it was hardly a story I could expect to end with all loose ends perfectly tied up and neatly tucked in. While this book certainly works well as high comedy, I couldn't help but feel a slight discomfort about the way in which the locals are depicted as either unscrupulous power hungry manipulators or superstitious simpletons content to live in squalor and stinking decay, but in all fairness, all the characters in this biting satire receive evenhanded treatment as unlikeable individuals, all the better to reflect Leafy's own cynical view of humanity, which he may or may not be forced to reconsider by novel's end.
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LibraryThing member raggedprince
William Boyd at his best: there are a number of hilarious moments but it is also a wise book. Africa is very much present.
LibraryThing member BBcummings
No, this book was just not for me.
Another satirical, tongue-in-cheek tale of the trials and tribulations of a white man in Africa
Ho hum.
Throw in some white man's history - the battle for Moshi in northern Tanzania during WWI.
Ho hum. Yawn.
In fact, because I had once lived in Moshi for a couple of
Now I'll go and take a nap.
Another satirical, tongue-in-cheek tale of the trials and tribulations of a white man in Africa
Ho hum.
Throw in some white man's history - the battle for Moshi in northern Tanzania during WWI.
Ho hum. Yawn.
In fact, because I had once lived in Moshi for a couple of
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years I read this book at a friends suggestion.Now I'll go and take a nap.
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LibraryThing member baswood
[A Good Man in Africa] - William Boyd.
That Good Man in Africa is Morgan Leafy; sexist, racist, usually drunk and very British who gets to play the hero in the end, but it's all OK because it's satire. The black Africans are either corrupt or stupid or both, while the white British consulate staff
Satire as I understand it is the use of humour, irony, exaggeration or ridicule to expose and criticise peoples stupidity or vices. It seems to me that Boyd works very hard to convince his readers that for the most part a small African country that was under imperial rule is just like he says it is. Our hero Morgan Leafy is quite content as long as he has a steady supply of beer and sex and he doesn't have to work too hard or think too hard to keep the supply coming. He is open to corruption, he throws his ever increasing weight around and thinks only of himself. I felt that Boyd wants his readers to have a soft spot for this racist, misogynist. Poor Morgan Leafy with all the weight of the world's troubles on his shoulders largely caused by his own actions is just looking to survive. This is not a bildungsroman or a novel about redemption, the satire does not bite it is just played for the readers amusement, with plenty of sexual titillation.
I suppose you should know what you are getting when British journals like The Times call it "Wickedly funny" or the Spectator 'Splendid rollicking stuff' and the novel won the 1981 Whitbread Literary Award and later the 1982 Somerset Maugham Award. The writing is certainly of a good standard and Boyd furnishes plenty of detail while keeping the story moving along. It is easy to label this novel as just good fun, but good harmless fun I don't think it is, I might have enjoyed this forty years ago, but not now; I almost felt like I needed to take a shower to wash away the underlying sleaze that rises up from this book. 2.5 stars.
That Good Man in Africa is Morgan Leafy; sexist, racist, usually drunk and very British who gets to play the hero in the end, but it's all OK because it's satire. The black Africans are either corrupt or stupid or both, while the white British consulate staff
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are just as stupid, but know when they need to assert their authority. This book comes from a long line of British satire writers on the lives of their hard pushed countrymen who are trying to make sense or make their way in the Dark Continent. Boyd who was educated at Gordonstoun and Oxford follows in the footsteps of successful authors such as Evelyn Waugh, and Kingsley Amis, but Boyd writing his first novel in the 1980's has no excuse in treading this well worn path. Satire as I understand it is the use of humour, irony, exaggeration or ridicule to expose and criticise peoples stupidity or vices. It seems to me that Boyd works very hard to convince his readers that for the most part a small African country that was under imperial rule is just like he says it is. Our hero Morgan Leafy is quite content as long as he has a steady supply of beer and sex and he doesn't have to work too hard or think too hard to keep the supply coming. He is open to corruption, he throws his ever increasing weight around and thinks only of himself. I felt that Boyd wants his readers to have a soft spot for this racist, misogynist. Poor Morgan Leafy with all the weight of the world's troubles on his shoulders largely caused by his own actions is just looking to survive. This is not a bildungsroman or a novel about redemption, the satire does not bite it is just played for the readers amusement, with plenty of sexual titillation.
I suppose you should know what you are getting when British journals like The Times call it "Wickedly funny" or the Spectator 'Splendid rollicking stuff' and the novel won the 1981 Whitbread Literary Award and later the 1982 Somerset Maugham Award. The writing is certainly of a good standard and Boyd furnishes plenty of detail while keeping the story moving along. It is easy to label this novel as just good fun, but good harmless fun I don't think it is, I might have enjoyed this forty years ago, but not now; I almost felt like I needed to take a shower to wash away the underlying sleaze that rises up from this book. 2.5 stars.
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LibraryThing member verenka
On the cover the author is compared to Tom Sharpe, so I thought I'd give the book a try. I always liked the Wilt novels. I'm about one third through the book right now, but don't think it's all that great. Every single one of the main characters is flawed, worst of all the main character. The side
Managed to finish the book, although it didn't really pick up until the last third or so. Only at the very end there were some slapstick elements which I guess were the reason why the author was compared to Tom Sharpe. It was enjoyable, but not all that great, I thought.
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characters are very two dimensional, depicted as silly and superstitious or as lazy and indifferent or as ambitious and greedy. I'm not in the mood to finish it right now, but might pick it up later - there's still hope that Morgan gets to his senses. As a classical anti-hero I expect he will become a better person by the end of the book.Managed to finish the book, although it didn't really pick up until the last third or so. Only at the very end there were some slapstick elements which I guess were the reason why the author was compared to Tom Sharpe. It was enjoyable, but not all that great, I thought.
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LibraryThing member jayne_charles
Some good laughs in this, and some gloriously toe-curling situations, but it took a while to get to them as the start was rather slow. Also (and rather a lame objection, I know), I found the main character's name a bit silly.
LibraryThing member tortoisebook
This book is about Morgan Leafy who works as a British diplomat at the Deputy High Commission in the fictional west African country of Kinjanja. It is a comedy and follows his frustrations and exploitations as a series of events unfolds.The backdrop is the town of Nkongsamba and there is a cast of
I tried to hate this book. To begin with I found the humour puerile and I was frustrated throughout with the role of women in the book. There was not one strong female character and each and every one was a source of sexual entertainment of some description for Mr Leafy and not one of them managed to keep her clothes on. Mr Leafy himself is not an attractive person, physically or personally, so I found it hard to believe his success with the opposite sex. This book was published in 1981 so I suppose attitudes were different back then. Having said that, William Boyd was teaching at St Hilda's College, Oxford, when he wrote this so I would have thought he'd have come across some decent role models for his characters.
As the book went on I began to enjoy it. Anyone who has worked in a job they don't enjoy can relate to Leafy's predicament. Being delegated impossible tasks which your boss refuses to take responsibility for, making an idiot of yourself, not fitting in with those around you and making monumental cock-ups that you can't see any way out of. The colonial expat scene adds to the farcical setting as the cast drink their gin and tonics, hold cocktail parties and lounge by the pool whilst remaining oblivious to the fact that the country is on the brink of a military coup.
Morgan Leafy himself is not a likeable character so the reader gets a certain amount of satisfaction from his mishaps. At some points he is downright nasty, slapping his mistress across the face and being mean and contrary towards his servants. His downfall is quite satisfying - he brought much of it on himself - but you do want to keep reading to see how things work out.
The book all comes together in an exciting climax with a memorable twist that makes the mind boggle. I won't give it away but Mrs Fanshawe comes into her own!
Overall I enjoyed this one and would recommend it to someone who doesn't take life too seriously. It is dated and irritating but it comes good in the end.
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characters including the Deputy High Commissioner, Mr Fanshawe, and his family, a young public-school upstart Dalmire, the Commission's doctor and a local big-wig and his wife.I tried to hate this book. To begin with I found the humour puerile and I was frustrated throughout with the role of women in the book. There was not one strong female character and each and every one was a source of sexual entertainment of some description for Mr Leafy and not one of them managed to keep her clothes on. Mr Leafy himself is not an attractive person, physically or personally, so I found it hard to believe his success with the opposite sex. This book was published in 1981 so I suppose attitudes were different back then. Having said that, William Boyd was teaching at St Hilda's College, Oxford, when he wrote this so I would have thought he'd have come across some decent role models for his characters.
As the book went on I began to enjoy it. Anyone who has worked in a job they don't enjoy can relate to Leafy's predicament. Being delegated impossible tasks which your boss refuses to take responsibility for, making an idiot of yourself, not fitting in with those around you and making monumental cock-ups that you can't see any way out of. The colonial expat scene adds to the farcical setting as the cast drink their gin and tonics, hold cocktail parties and lounge by the pool whilst remaining oblivious to the fact that the country is on the brink of a military coup.
Morgan Leafy himself is not a likeable character so the reader gets a certain amount of satisfaction from his mishaps. At some points he is downright nasty, slapping his mistress across the face and being mean and contrary towards his servants. His downfall is quite satisfying - he brought much of it on himself - but you do want to keep reading to see how things work out.
The book all comes together in an exciting climax with a memorable twist that makes the mind boggle. I won't give it away but Mrs Fanshawe comes into her own!
Overall I enjoyed this one and would recommend it to someone who doesn't take life too seriously. It is dated and irritating but it comes good in the end.
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LibraryThing member AHS-Wolfy
At the start of this novel the main protagonist, Morgan Leafy, is a loathsome creature. A British diplomat serving as First Secretary to the Commission in the fictional West African country of Kinjanja, he is pretty much a caricature of all the worst elements of the role. Racist, selfish, jealous
Leafy is also involved with a local politician, Sam Adekunle, and his wife and with elections coming up his boss has charged him with overseeing the British interest for the most favoured party. So when he's found in a compromising position by Adekunle, he ends up getting it from both sides. Adekunle wants Leafy to bribe the head of the university as he needs a land deal to go through to help with funds for his election campaign and now he has a hold over Leafy he uses him as a go-between.
The first part of the book sets the scene before then travelling backwards in time to describe how these events came to pass with the whole kit and caboodle ending up in the hands of one Morgan Leafy and by the end of the book you're actually feeling quite sorry for the man. That's quite an achievement in itself by the author and when you throw in some highly amusing scenes as well as some cringe-worthy moments and it all adds up to a fairly decent read.
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and quite over-bearing. It's a wonder his local mistress can stand to stay with him or he with her after she gives him a nasty dose of gonorrhoea and just at the wrong time too as he's just started going out with Priscilla, the daughter of his boss.Leafy is also involved with a local politician, Sam Adekunle, and his wife and with elections coming up his boss has charged him with overseeing the British interest for the most favoured party. So when he's found in a compromising position by Adekunle, he ends up getting it from both sides. Adekunle wants Leafy to bribe the head of the university as he needs a land deal to go through to help with funds for his election campaign and now he has a hold over Leafy he uses him as a go-between.
The first part of the book sets the scene before then travelling backwards in time to describe how these events came to pass with the whole kit and caboodle ending up in the hands of one Morgan Leafy and by the end of the book you're actually feeling quite sorry for the man. That's quite an achievement in itself by the author and when you throw in some highly amusing scenes as well as some cringe-worthy moments and it all adds up to a fairly decent read.
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LibraryThing member readyreader
I enjoy reading anything about Africa, fiction and nonfiction but this was not in the ranks of one of the good ones. The protagonist was totally unlikeable and had few redeeming qualities. There was humor, at least I thought it funny, how he managed to get himself into and out of all kinds of
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trouble and still live to tell the tale. I kept waiting for the story to get better, but then it ended. Show Less
LibraryThing member sianpr
Not as good as later Boyd novels but a good read with laugh out loud moments and plenty of farce.
LibraryThing member Eyejaybee
What a brilliant novel! I first read it in the early 1980s, perhaps not long after it was first published, and thought it was marvellous. Thirty years later it still seems just as entertaining, with a dazzling mix of humour and tragedy, with a healthy dose of parody of the overwhelming
Morgan Leafy, the central figure, is a brilliant creation. Dissolute, lazy and prey to rampant frustration, he spends most of his days struggling to get by doing as little as he can get away with. (I wonder why I identify with him so well!) He is, however, a decent man at heart, though for most of the book he finds little opportunity to demonstrate his inner qualities.
Life has not gone to plan for Morgan. As the novel opens he is in his third year in Nkongsamba , a quiet region in the hinterland of Kinjanja, an independent West African state that until recently had been under British suzerainty. He works for the odious Arthur Fanshawe who represents all the hidebound attitudes and prejudices that proliferated in the 1970s. Morgan is sinking into ever deeper despair: he is being blackmailed by an ambitious and relentlessly corrupt local politician, the woman whom he had had visions of marrying has just announced her engagement to his younger, better looking junior colleague, and he has contracted gonorrhoea. And then things start to get worse …
Boyd relates the story with his customary pellucid, gripping prose. This was his first novel but he seemed to hit mid-season form almost immediately. Morgan Leafy is not a particularly nice man, but Boyd conjures huge empathy for him as everything seems to go wrong. Corruption abounds. The High Commission is far from blameless in its interventions in local elections, but then most (though not all) of the local politicians are equally opportunistic with an eye on their financial gains rather than the interests of their long suffering electorate. .Overall the novel is exceptionally funny though there are also moments of great poignancy and sensitivity, and even Morgan manages to rise to some occasions and act for the greater good.
This was a fine start to what has proved to be an illustrious writing career.
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self-satisfaction and unassailable rectitude of European diplomats in post-colonial West Africa.Morgan Leafy, the central figure, is a brilliant creation. Dissolute, lazy and prey to rampant frustration, he spends most of his days struggling to get by doing as little as he can get away with. (I wonder why I identify with him so well!) He is, however, a decent man at heart, though for most of the book he finds little opportunity to demonstrate his inner qualities.
Life has not gone to plan for Morgan. As the novel opens he is in his third year in Nkongsamba , a quiet region in the hinterland of Kinjanja, an independent West African state that until recently had been under British suzerainty. He works for the odious Arthur Fanshawe who represents all the hidebound attitudes and prejudices that proliferated in the 1970s. Morgan is sinking into ever deeper despair: he is being blackmailed by an ambitious and relentlessly corrupt local politician, the woman whom he had had visions of marrying has just announced her engagement to his younger, better looking junior colleague, and he has contracted gonorrhoea. And then things start to get worse …
Boyd relates the story with his customary pellucid, gripping prose. This was his first novel but he seemed to hit mid-season form almost immediately. Morgan Leafy is not a particularly nice man, but Boyd conjures huge empathy for him as everything seems to go wrong. Corruption abounds. The High Commission is far from blameless in its interventions in local elections, but then most (though not all) of the local politicians are equally opportunistic with an eye on their financial gains rather than the interests of their long suffering electorate. .Overall the novel is exceptionally funny though there are also moments of great poignancy and sensitivity, and even Morgan manages to rise to some occasions and act for the greater good.
This was a fine start to what has proved to be an illustrious writing career.
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LibraryThing member leslie.98
Morgan Leafy is a civil servant in the early 1970s Foreign Service posted to the small (mythical) country of Kinjanja in Africa. He simultaneously has inferiority and superiority issues -- he walks around with a huge chip on his shoulder but feels innately more important than any of the Africans.
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While this dicotomy is exaggerated in this satire, I suspect that it is not uncommon in people with Foreign Service postings in out-of-the-way places in Africa, Asia and elsewhere. However, Boyd's satire didn't entertain me the way Evelyn Waugh did in his African satires -- the humor is more caustic and felt more mean-spirited. Show Less
LibraryThing member yarb
I laughed (out loud, as if there were any other kind of laugh) several times at the misadventures of Morgan Leafy in post-colonial Kinjanja. As satire-cum-farce this reminded me of Lucky Jim and Black Mischief, with Graham Greene and Tom Sharpe representing its tonal extremes. It's not subtle — a
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major subplot involves the corpse of a woman named Innocence, struck down by lightning and therefore untouchable, decaying not-so-gradually in the street — but it is satisfyingly cruel and, in the pathetic figure of Leafy, boasts a delightful antihero. Show Less
Awards
Costa Book Awards (Shortlist — First Novel — 1981)
Somerset Maugham Award (1982)