Whiteman by Tony D'souza
Written by Barb Friday, 12 January 2007 00:00
I just finished this book by Tony D'Souza. Wow. I wasn't sure I liked it while I was reading it. I'm only just now concluding that I do. I really, really do.
It's about an aidworker in Western Africa... I like books about this sort of thing. White people going off to try to do some good in the world and all the problems that come from that. Philip Caputo's Acts of Faith was good;. it problematizes various aspects of "helping" (privilege, racism, classism, the concept of development, the painful dynamics of unequal relationships etc.)
But this one is a bit different. It's a first person narrative from just one person's point of view while Caputo gives you multiple perspectives from several different main characters (and I believe his's a third person narrative). So what that means is that D'souza's more focused on the individual psychology of Jack Diaz, who works for Potable Water International and what happens to him there in Africa. Caputo is more situational. How his different characters react to particular complex situations kinda results in the book being broader, more general. I guess I'd say it's like one is an interesting portrait of the psychology of the aid worker and the other makes you question the whole concept of aid work in and of itself. Maybe you could say D'souza's does this too by default (the guy goes to the village to help dig wells but ends up nearly raping somebody, sleeping with another man's wife and killing an old woman, to mention just a few things) but it almost takes a backseat to the individual psychology of the protagonist. I think. If anyone else had read this and has a different take, feel free to comment below.
To tell you the truth this book made me a bit uncomfortable sometimes. It seemed very accurate to me, the uglier parts. Parts about how it feels to be in another country in another culture reminded me of Colombia, of course. What was nice about it though was that it certainly didn't glamorize the profession or idealize those who do it, which was a relief.
It's a good book. It really is. I recommend it. The author is about my own age and it turns out he spent three years in the Peace Corps which I guess provided a lot of the material here. At one point I wanted to write a book like this. Maybe I still will.