Call number
Publication
New York : New York Review Books, [2001]
Pages
xii; 300
Description
Tete-Michel Kpomassie was a teenager in Togo when he discovered a book about Greenland--and knew that he must go there. Working his way north over nearly a decade, Kpomassie finally arrived in the country of his dreams. This brilliantly observed and superbly entertaining record of his adventures among the Inuit is a testament both to the wonderful strangeness of the human species and to the surprising sympathies that bind us all.
Awards
Language
Original language
French
Original publication date
1981 (Flammarion)
1983 (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich English translation)
2001 (New York Review Books English translation)
Physical description
xii, 300 p.; 8.3 inches
ISBN
0940322889 / 9780940322882
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User reviews
LibraryThing member kidzdoc
This unique and highly entertaining travelogue begins in the west African country of Togo in the late 1950s, as the teenage author recuperates from a near fatal illness. Kpomassie, an avid reader, is enthralled by a book that he discovers at the town's evangelical bookshop, The Eskimos from
Kpomassie slowly makes his way to Greenland via the countries on the west African coast, France, Germany and Denmark, aided by relatives and benefactors who are impressed with and fond of the soft spoken but determined young man. He finally arrives in the southern Greenlandic town of Julianehåb, eight years after he left Togo, and is warmly welcomed by the town's Inuit and Danish inhabitants, who are entranced by the gentle black giant.
Kpomassie's descriptions of the different cultures in Greenland, the people he meets, and the unique if not exactly palatable cuisine are entertaining, often warm and humorous, and always evocative and pointedly descriptive. He becomes disenchanted with the culture of southern Greenland, and slowly travels to the even more isolated northern regions, in order to seek the true Inuit people that he read and dreamed about.
An African in Greenland is an improbable and unforgettable work of travel literature, which is easily my favorite in this genre. I suppose that my ultimate compliment is that it made me eager to accompany Kpomassie to Greenland, despite its brutal climate and horrid cuisine.
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Greenland to Alaska, with its descriptions of vast territory devoid of trees, eternal cold, hunters clothed in animal skins, and a society that valued the child above all else, which contrasted sharply with Togo's elder dominated society and its numerous tropical forests, blistering hot beaches, and dangerous snakes. He soon decides that his destiny is to travel to Greenland, instead of fulfilling his father's promise to entrust him to the healers that saved his life.Kpomassie slowly makes his way to Greenland via the countries on the west African coast, France, Germany and Denmark, aided by relatives and benefactors who are impressed with and fond of the soft spoken but determined young man. He finally arrives in the southern Greenlandic town of Julianehåb, eight years after he left Togo, and is warmly welcomed by the town's Inuit and Danish inhabitants, who are entranced by the gentle black giant.
Kpomassie's descriptions of the different cultures in Greenland, the people he meets, and the unique if not exactly palatable cuisine are entertaining, often warm and humorous, and always evocative and pointedly descriptive. He becomes disenchanted with the culture of southern Greenland, and slowly travels to the even more isolated northern regions, in order to seek the true Inuit people that he read and dreamed about.
An African in Greenland is an improbable and unforgettable work of travel literature, which is easily my favorite in this genre. I suppose that my ultimate compliment is that it made me eager to accompany Kpomassie to Greenland, despite its brutal climate and horrid cuisine.
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LibraryThing member RidgewayGirl
After a snake-assisted accident leaves Tété-Michel Kpomassie with some time to rest, he finds a book about the Inuit of Greenland on a shelf in a small bookstore run by missionaries. He's immediately smitten and decides that he wants to go to Greenland, quite an unusual goal for a teenage boy
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living outside of Lomé, Togo in the 1950s. And so Kpomassie sets out, working his way first in Africa and then in Europe. It takes him eight years to reach Greenland, but he makes friends along the way. And he makes friends in Greenland, where he stands out among the Inuit and the Danes. He's remarkably game to live as the Greenlanders do, from eating raw seal intestines and whale blubber, to living under conditions markedly different from what he grew up with. It's refreshing to see a "stranger in a strange land" story where the Western world is omitted entirely and Kpomassie's comparisons of Togolese and Greenlander culture are fascinating. There are certainly fewer snakes in Greenland! Show Less
LibraryThing member thorold
When I started this book, I was rather afraid that it would turn out to do nothing more than what it says on the tin. The idea of someone from Western Africa who is curious to see the Arctic is interesting and surprising, but it didn't seem like enough to sustain a whole book. Indeed, the opening
It seems to be not so much his African origin as Kpomassie's personality and his willingness to live with the Inuit villagers on their own terms and share their poverty that define the way the book works, and allow him to make such interesting observations about their way of life. He never suggests that a shared experience of colonialism gives him a special bond with Inuit culture (indeed, at one point a Greenlander tells him that he read something about "someone from your country" and shows him a photograph of General de Gaulle).
Whenever I read something about the Arctic, I'm reminded that this is not a part of the world for squeamish vegetarians. How could it be? But Kpomassie goes further than most. We get far more details of Inuit diet and methods of food preparation than even the most hardened meat-eaters are likely to be comfortable with.
Curiously, this seems to be a book that is readily available in just about any language other than the original French, where the 1981 edition has apparently never been reprinted and is now scarce and expensive. I failed to find a copy for a sensible price and had to read it in the English translation, which has the merit of being done by the late James Kirkup, one of the few modern poets to have had the honour of seeing his work discussed in Britain's highest critical forum, the Old Bailey. Interesting that the US publisher included a short bio of Al Alvarez, another distinguished British poet, who wrote the introduction, but said nothing about Kirkup, who had a much bigger role in the book. It's almost as though they think that readers might be put off by mention of Whitehouse v. Lemon...
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chapters, where Kpomassie describes how, as a boy in Togo, he came up with the idea of going to Greenland, struck me as disappointingly close to pastiche Things fall apart. But I'm glad I didn't stop there: The point of the book only really becomes clear when he gets to Greenland and starts writing about the Greenlanders: it's not a book about "an African in Greenland", but a book about Inuit culture in Greenland in the 1960s from the point of view of an observer who happens to be an African. The Greenlanders, not Kpomassie, are at the centre of the book. It seems to be not so much his African origin as Kpomassie's personality and his willingness to live with the Inuit villagers on their own terms and share their poverty that define the way the book works, and allow him to make such interesting observations about their way of life. He never suggests that a shared experience of colonialism gives him a special bond with Inuit culture (indeed, at one point a Greenlander tells him that he read something about "someone from your country" and shows him a photograph of General de Gaulle).
Whenever I read something about the Arctic, I'm reminded that this is not a part of the world for squeamish vegetarians. How could it be? But Kpomassie goes further than most. We get far more details of Inuit diet and methods of food preparation than even the most hardened meat-eaters are likely to be comfortable with.
Curiously, this seems to be a book that is readily available in just about any language other than the original French, where the 1981 edition has apparently never been reprinted and is now scarce and expensive. I failed to find a copy for a sensible price and had to read it in the English translation, which has the merit of being done by the late James Kirkup, one of the few modern poets to have had the honour of seeing his work discussed in Britain's highest critical forum, the Old Bailey. Interesting that the US publisher included a short bio of Al Alvarez, another distinguished British poet, who wrote the introduction, but said nothing about Kirkup, who had a much bigger role in the book. It's almost as though they think that readers might be put off by mention of Whitehouse v. Lemon...
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LibraryThing member bookmuse56
My thoughts:
• I enjoy armchair travelling and a good travelogue especially to places I have not yet visited. This was an intriguing read as I learned about Togo and Greenland.
• Written with charm and wit, the author’s personality shines through and as your reader you understand Kpomassie’s
• While the author does not spend much time talking about Togo (except for the events that led to his fascination with Greenland) I certainly became interested to learn and read more about Togo.
• The author demonstrated an ability to quickly learn new languages as he travels across African and Europe to get to his goal Greenland.
• I appreciated how the author keenly observes the Inuit and their culture and felt at ease no matter the customs.
• While reading with my modern American eyes, I know wondered how certain customs/traditions developed and how I would adapt to them. But it easily becomes obvious that time and environment influences how a person lives and you have to use the resources at hand. I did not find the Inuit diet appetizing or appealing but when you live in an area without arable land ant timber then the food source has to come from mostly from the sea and those few than animals that can survive and it made sense to eat most of this raw.
• I did wonder why all of the coffee drinking and how did this become a big part of their culture. Every household had a pot of coffee going for themselves and guests.
• While I would have liked a little less detail regarding the fishing/hunting adventures, this is activity is so important to the survival of life in Greenland that doing this help helps determine if you eat and have warm clothing, and have something to barter with for other supplies.
• Once I finished reading I wondered how the author fared after his Greenland adventure and what lessons he had learned that we would apply to life wherever he landed.
• I enjoy armchair travelling and a good travelogue especially to places I have not yet visited. This was an intriguing read as I learned about Togo and Greenland.
• Written with charm and wit, the author’s personality shines through and as your reader you understand Kpomassie’s
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charisma and ability to easily integrate himself into a society/culture to his own.• While the author does not spend much time talking about Togo (except for the events that led to his fascination with Greenland) I certainly became interested to learn and read more about Togo.
• The author demonstrated an ability to quickly learn new languages as he travels across African and Europe to get to his goal Greenland.
• I appreciated how the author keenly observes the Inuit and their culture and felt at ease no matter the customs.
• While reading with my modern American eyes, I know wondered how certain customs/traditions developed and how I would adapt to them. But it easily becomes obvious that time and environment influences how a person lives and you have to use the resources at hand. I did not find the Inuit diet appetizing or appealing but when you live in an area without arable land ant timber then the food source has to come from mostly from the sea and those few than animals that can survive and it made sense to eat most of this raw.
• I did wonder why all of the coffee drinking and how did this become a big part of their culture. Every household had a pot of coffee going for themselves and guests.
• While I would have liked a little less detail regarding the fishing/hunting adventures, this is activity is so important to the survival of life in Greenland that doing this help helps determine if you eat and have warm clothing, and have something to barter with for other supplies.
• Once I finished reading I wondered how the author fared after his Greenland adventure and what lessons he had learned that we would apply to life wherever he landed.
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LibraryThing member bragan
Tété-Michel Kpomassie grew up in Togo, in West Africa. When he was a teenager, he fell out of a tree during an alarming encounter with a python, and was taken to the priestess of a snake cult to attend to his injuries. The priestess was apparently quite impressed with him and suggested that once
But before the deal could be done, Kpomassie happened to read a book about so-called "Eskimos" and suddenly developed an overriding obsession with running away to Greenland. So he did. It took him eight years to get there.
Kpomassie comes across as a really interesting person. His oddly persistent obsession with Greenland seems a little, well, crazy, but crazy in that weird, wonderful way that's it's good to see in the world from time to time. And he writes thoughtfully and well about his adolescent turning point, his travels, and the people and culture he found in Greenland when he got there. Both Togo and Greenland being equally unfamiliar to me, I found his descriptions of both equally fascinating, and very much enjoyed the entire account. Well, OK, maybe not so much the graphic descriptions of butchering animals, including dogs. But even that was sort of interesting, in its own gruesome way.
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he was better he return to become a priest himself. The boy had no desire to do this, but he father was in favor, and in his culture, a father's word is law.But before the deal could be done, Kpomassie happened to read a book about so-called "Eskimos" and suddenly developed an overriding obsession with running away to Greenland. So he did. It took him eight years to get there.
Kpomassie comes across as a really interesting person. His oddly persistent obsession with Greenland seems a little, well, crazy, but crazy in that weird, wonderful way that's it's good to see in the world from time to time. And he writes thoughtfully and well about his adolescent turning point, his travels, and the people and culture he found in Greenland when he got there. Both Togo and Greenland being equally unfamiliar to me, I found his descriptions of both equally fascinating, and very much enjoyed the entire account. Well, OK, maybe not so much the graphic descriptions of butchering animals, including dogs. But even that was sort of interesting, in its own gruesome way.
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LibraryThing member Marensr
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. This book recounts the events that led to this early obsession with Greenland, his
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 an 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.
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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 an 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.
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LibraryThing member Othemts
Kpomassie, who grew up in a traditional society in Togo, writes a charming, insightful and very human account about his year living among the traditional societies of Greenland. The story begins when Kpomassie is a boy and is injured in a fall from a tree. In his convalescence he comes across a
Kpomassie seeks out the most remote and traditional Inuit villages he can reach and enjoys the hospitality of many villages, forms friendships, and by the end of the book expresses the desire to live out his days in Greenland. There are some great scenes of hunting for seal, fishing, community gatherings, and a ride across the ice by dogsled (and the embarrassment of falling off). There's also a dark side to Greenland as Kpomassie observes the loss of traditional culture to Danish colonialism, widespread underemployment and the ensuing poverty and alcoholism. The sunless winter in the most remote village Kpomassie visits is especially depressing.
I broke my rule of focusing on fiction for my Around The World For a Good Book project because I could not resist the cross-cultural premise of a man from an African traditional society visiting the traditional cultures of Greenland. Part travelogue, part memoir, and part anthropology, this is one of my favorite books I've read thus far this year.
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book about the Eskimos and finds himself obsessed with the idea of visiting Greenland. After 10 years working his way across Africa and Europe, earning money and travel visas, Kpomassie finally arrives by ship on the shores of Greenland.Kpomassie seeks out the most remote and traditional Inuit villages he can reach and enjoys the hospitality of many villages, forms friendships, and by the end of the book expresses the desire to live out his days in Greenland. There are some great scenes of hunting for seal, fishing, community gatherings, and a ride across the ice by dogsled (and the embarrassment of falling off). There's also a dark side to Greenland as Kpomassie observes the loss of traditional culture to Danish colonialism, widespread underemployment and the ensuing poverty and alcoholism. The sunless winter in the most remote village Kpomassie visits is especially depressing.
I broke my rule of focusing on fiction for my Around The World For a Good Book project because I could not resist the cross-cultural premise of a man from an African traditional society visiting the traditional cultures of Greenland. Part travelogue, part memoir, and part anthropology, this is one of my favorite books I've read thus far this year.
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LibraryThing member bonniethreebf
Excellent and enlightening.
LibraryThing member starbox
"I...began dreaming of eternal cold", April 12, 2016
This review is from: An African in Greenland (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)
Fascinating travel book, in which the reader encounters two vastly different societies. The author describes his young life in Togo, culminating in a visit
Inspired by a book on the Eskimos, which he finds on the bookshelf of the local mission, he determines to go to Greenland; the next section of the book explains his lengthy journey across Europe, and the helpful people he met en route. Some years on, he finds himself in S Greenland, and here begins the main part of the tale, as he makes his way from the relatively westernized Julianehab to the north. Life becomes increasingly brutal, dirty and harsh as he enters the real Greenlandic world.
Highly readable and full of interesting facts: the criminal system; Arctic 'madness'; the dogs - who live a hard life, and can turn on humans and kill, and who are another source of food for the Greenlanders. The author compares the native beliefs in spirits have a parallel with those in Africa.
And, above all, vivid descriptions of the place, such as his first experience of the Northern Lights:
"Suddenly looking up, I saw long white streaks whirling in the wind above my head. It was like the radiance of some invisible hearth, from which dazzling light rays shot out, streamed into space, and spread to form a great deep-folded phosphorescent curtain which moved and shimmered, turning rapidly from white to yellow, from pink to red...the wind shook it gently like an immense transparent drapery ...Its movements were now regular as an ocean swell, now hurried, jerky, leaping and tumbling like a kite."
Great read.
This review is from: An African in Greenland (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)
Fascinating travel book, in which the reader encounters two vastly different societies. The author describes his young life in Togo, culminating in a visit
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to a - wonderfully described - python priestess, with all her voodoo paraphernalia.Inspired by a book on the Eskimos, which he finds on the bookshelf of the local mission, he determines to go to Greenland; the next section of the book explains his lengthy journey across Europe, and the helpful people he met en route. Some years on, he finds himself in S Greenland, and here begins the main part of the tale, as he makes his way from the relatively westernized Julianehab to the north. Life becomes increasingly brutal, dirty and harsh as he enters the real Greenlandic world.
Highly readable and full of interesting facts: the criminal system; Arctic 'madness'; the dogs - who live a hard life, and can turn on humans and kill, and who are another source of food for the Greenlanders. The author compares the native beliefs in spirits have a parallel with those in Africa.
And, above all, vivid descriptions of the place, such as his first experience of the Northern Lights:
"Suddenly looking up, I saw long white streaks whirling in the wind above my head. It was like the radiance of some invisible hearth, from which dazzling light rays shot out, streamed into space, and spread to form a great deep-folded phosphorescent curtain which moved and shimmered, turning rapidly from white to yellow, from pink to red...the wind shook it gently like an immense transparent drapery ...Its movements were now regular as an ocean swell, now hurried, jerky, leaping and tumbling like a kite."
Great read.
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LibraryThing member Bodagirl
Kpomassie brings a unique viewpoint to the ethnographic travel memoir: an African with a traditional upbringing and some European education who is writing about another indigenous people, the Inuit. He is not sentimental about his hosts and his writing style is sparse and matter-of-fact, yet poetic
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at times. Show Less
LibraryThing member dypaloh
I was hoping to read An Inuk in Togo but it doesn’t seem to exist. An African in Greenland did well in its stead.
Tété-Michel Kpomassie’s youthful dream was to live among the native peoples of Greenland, that glaciated land Eric the Red, showing an impressive ability to emphasize the verdant
Kpomassie, who was born and raised in Togo and later resided in Europe, is a man of cultural and linguistic versatility. He’s willing to participate in traditional Inuit ways of survival, is open to their culture’s behavioral norms (notably, regarding sex), and is alert to describe occasional modern oddities such as watching a French movie with Danish subtitles that is stopped every 10 minutes to explain, over the loudspeaker in the Inuit language, what is going on.
There is much that is beautiful in this book. Counterbalancing that are scenes of unpleasantness. Kpomassie is exposed to some ugly home life. Man’s best friend can be something quite other. People succumb to drunkenness in ways that are hard to read about. Kpomassie traveled far to emulate the Inuit but his business is not to adulate them or any others whose affairs have brought them to Greenland.
Part of the reason many of us come to read this book, I’d guess, is a notion that it’d be strange to find a black African in Greenland. Kpomassie’s reception on arrival shows how true that once was. The reader’s good fortune is that his book is a great deal more than the account of an incongruity and can be recommended for its other qualities as much and more.
Tété-Michel Kpomassie’s youthful dream was to live among the native peoples of Greenland, that glaciated land Eric the Red, showing an impressive ability to emphasize the verdant
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aspects of a place, named for the green of its lichens in 983. Nearly a thousand years after Eric, the author arrives to find out just how green Greenland isn’t.Kpomassie, who was born and raised in Togo and later resided in Europe, is a man of cultural and linguistic versatility. He’s willing to participate in traditional Inuit ways of survival, is open to their culture’s behavioral norms (notably, regarding sex), and is alert to describe occasional modern oddities such as watching a French movie with Danish subtitles that is stopped every 10 minutes to explain, over the loudspeaker in the Inuit language, what is going on.
There is much that is beautiful in this book. Counterbalancing that are scenes of unpleasantness. Kpomassie is exposed to some ugly home life. Man’s best friend can be something quite other. People succumb to drunkenness in ways that are hard to read about. Kpomassie traveled far to emulate the Inuit but his business is not to adulate them or any others whose affairs have brought them to Greenland.
Part of the reason many of us come to read this book, I’d guess, is a notion that it’d be strange to find a black African in Greenland. Kpomassie’s reception on arrival shows how true that once was. The reader’s good fortune is that his book is a great deal more than the account of an incongruity and can be recommended for its other qualities as much and more.
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LibraryThing member VioletBramble
When Kpomassie was a teenager in Togo he would climb to the tops of coconut trees to get fresh coconuts. One day he chanced upon a python and her nest in the top of a tree. The python chased him out of the tree, causing him to fall a great distance to the ground. His family, who had witnessed the
Kpomassie hated snakes and started thinking of ways to avoid becoming part of the snake cult. One day he saw a book about Greenland. He immediately fell in love with the idea of Greenland - the low temperatures, no snakes, and no trees. He came up with a plan to runaway to Greenland. He spent the next decade traveling north to Greenland. Once in Greenland he worked his way north so he could have the true Greenland experience -- dogsledding, seal and whale hunting, eating raw fish, surviving the long night of winter, etc.
Full of interesting facts about the social aspects of life in Greenland. One section near the end contained way too much information on the preparation of raw seal and fish. I skimmed that section, looking for important information between the carving up bits.
Kpomassie is a charming and open minded memoirist. Recommended.
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end of the altercation thought he had been bitten. They could not understand why the remedies weren't healing him. In desperation his family took him to the Sacred Forest to be healed by a priestess of the snake cult. When the priestess had finished the ceremony she sent him home to heal. Before he left the priestess told him that he should come back after he was finished healing to study with the snake cult. In gratitude his father agreed. Kpomassie hated snakes and started thinking of ways to avoid becoming part of the snake cult. One day he saw a book about Greenland. He immediately fell in love with the idea of Greenland - the low temperatures, no snakes, and no trees. He came up with a plan to runaway to Greenland. He spent the next decade traveling north to Greenland. Once in Greenland he worked his way north so he could have the true Greenland experience -- dogsledding, seal and whale hunting, eating raw fish, surviving the long night of winter, etc.
Full of interesting facts about the social aspects of life in Greenland. One section near the end contained way too much information on the preparation of raw seal and fish. I skimmed that section, looking for important information between the carving up bits.
Kpomassie is a charming and open minded memoirist. Recommended.
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LibraryThing member wagner.sarah35
Sometimes this memoir felt like a novel and other times, it nearly became an anthropological study. The author, who was from Togo in Africa, read about Greenland in book as a child and determined that he must go there. Resourceful and determined, he begins his travels, first up the coast of Africa,
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then across Europe, and finally from Denmark to the ice-covered island of Greenland. He describes the people of Greenland with wonder and curiosity, and makes a number of insightful comparisons to African cultures. He travels even further north in Greenland, living in several villages and learning new customs, but never quite making it as far north as he had hoped. I didn't initially realize how long ago this book was written (it was originally published in 1981), so this memoir is certainly not a depiction of how things are today, but they do capture the spirit of a traveler's curiosity and wonder in a unique land. Show Less
LibraryThing member tronella
Since I didn't really know anything about either Greenland or Togo before reading this, it was a very interesting topic, but the author skips over a lot of things that I would have liked to know and focuses heavily on things that I would rather not know about in such detail. Still, I'm glad to have
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read it. Show Less
LibraryThing member varielle
This memoir is about a young man who grew up in the former Togo dreaming of Greenland because of a book he encountered in his youth. Due to an accident involving a snake he is as pledged to a snake cult. He decides to run away to Greenland because, obviously, no snakes. He worked his way across
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Africa and Europe to finally fulfill his dream. He was apparently a charmer because he found helping hands along the way. His observations about nature and the peoples he meets along the way are wonderfully descriptive. Show Less