On June 5th award winning author and former Peace Corps volunteer Tony D'Souza (Cote d'Ivoire 00-02, Madagascar 02-03) gave a talk at the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington D.C.
D'Suoza, who worked as a rural AIDS educator while serving in Africa, has since published two critically acclaimed novels; Whiteman and The Konkans. He spoke about and answered questions on both his writing and his Peace Corps experience. He also read a passage from Whiteman, a novel which describes the experiences of an American relief worker in West Africa. Whiteman has been praised for refusing to fall back on stereotypical tropes common to novels of Americans traveling in developing countries. A New York Times review proclaimed: "where many a fledgling novelist would aim a protagonist's awakening solipsistically inward, D'Souza directs it generously outward. He resists the temptation to use Africa as a colorful backdrop, to mill a bildungsroman from exotic grist: a young American goes to Africa to change the world, but finds it is he who has changed."
Tony D'Souza's novels are fiction but heavily influenced by the real events of his life. He made clear that while Whiteman is not his memoir (the protagonist Jack Diaz is in no way connected to the Peace Corps) certain incidents described in the novel were drawn directly from his personal experience serving in Cote d'Ivoire. He explained that he intertwined memorable moments from his own reality into a fictional plot in order to produce the most captivating narrative. D'Souza likened this method to the practices of traditional oral storytellers from his West African village.
D'Souza was very candid about his time in the Peace Corps. He admitted that part of the reason he initially joined the Peace Corps was because people said it would be a good chance for him to write; however, it was only when he stopped focusing on writing and stepped out of his hut that his experience really began. He noted that the Peace Corps is "an individual experience, a test of what's most difficult for you." Many he knew could not handle the difficult transition and left. He spoke specifically to the issue of language barriers, and explained how only when he was proficient in the dialect of his village did he feel he could have a real impact. Although this process was difficult and at times humiliating, D'Souza emphasized that this trial and error was integral to being able to really communicate with his African neighbors. Throughout his talk D'Souza kept the audience consistently engaged by not only focusing on the lessons that came from his experience, but also the humor, mistakes and mishaps that happened along the way.
Click here to read more on Tony D'Souza and his writing.
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