Harmattan: Wind Across West Africa

By Marcello Di Cintio and Marcello Di Cinto

Each year the harmattan wind blows sand from the Sahara Desert into the skies throughout West Africa. In the midst of such a wind, suddenly things are not what they were. For Marcello Di Cintio, the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1894663322
• ISBN13: 9781894663328
• Release Date: September 2000
• Publisher: Insomniac Press
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.5" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

A Different Kind of Journey

Di Cintio certainly has the wanderlust, but Harmattan is not your typical adventure chronicle. Di Cintio takes us on a decidedly different journey: one of inward and reflective experience. While the book is an explicit autobiographical account of a young person's year abroad, the author writes with great maturity and power. Innocence and naiveté have been supplanted-wonder and curiosity remain. His theme: the universality of human nature.Isn't real life with its complexities and contradictions stranger than fiction? The realist would say that it's more interesting too. This begs the question: Are Di Cintio's stories nonfictional recaps of his travel year in West Africa, or through numerous rewrites, have his characters and stories become fiction? The narrative is terse and deliberately stark: his tone is candid and musing; the stories are carefully chosen and polished to essential brevity. Each stands on its own. The book as a whole hangs together as a collection of disparate parts, with no more justification from the author than: this is true, this is my life. Di Cintio excels at relating the tragicomic. The prose is fluid and there are moments of poignancy and brilliance. Overall, it is a tale well told. Harmattan is gritty and hard-hitting and yet reverences great love for West Africa and its people. It's a soulful read. I'd like to see more from this writer. Di Cintio wrings more blood out of true-life stories than most. I am reminded of the 20th century Russian short story master, Isaac Babel. It's that good.

The most frightening place on earth...

I too stood in the damp, unlit dungeons of Elmina Castle and wondered at the fate of hundreds of thousands of Africans who were herded into these horrific holding areas to await transport to the new world during the centuries of slave trade. It's the most frightening place on earth. Di Cintio's personal account of his vist there does it justice. I liked this book well enough to recommend it to my friends: my now tattered copy of Harmattan has only met with praise from many a reader. I hear it's up for some award.