A Basket of Leaves: 99 Books that Capture the Spirit of Africa: Geoff Wisner Interview

This summer, I’m going to Ghana on a volunteer trip to teach young children. In the meantime, I’m making sure to read absolutely everything related to the people, country and continent.

It’s almost like taking a class, except the teacher is me, so I can assign homework whenever I choose.

I’m thrilled to share my recent interview with Geoff Wisner, author of A Basket of Leaves: 99 Books that Capture the Spirit of Africa. I scooped up this delicious book a few months ago. A book about books about Africa made it a no-brainer.

A Basket of Leaves chronicles the numerous books Wisner read about Africa while he was a volunteer there. He includes insightful commentary about books and authors that speak to each country’s character, people, political climate and culture. It’s simply fascinating.

A bit about the author: Wisner holds a bachelor’s degree in literature from Harvard University and his work has appeared in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the Boston Globe, The African and Transition. Later this month, he’ll be at The PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature in New York City, covering some of the programs for the Words Without Borders blog.

Laura Cococcia: I have a bit of a selfish question. I’m going to Ghana in July as part of a volunteer program. When you discuss Ghana, you’ve included Maya Angelou’s “All Gods Children Need Traveling Shoes” as well as “No Sweetness Here” by Ama Atoo Aidoo. Were there any themes between the two books that you found reflected culture / life in Ghana?

Geoff Wisner: The two books have very different points of view on the country, and that’s something I was aiming for when I put together A Basket of Leaves. But one thing they have in common is a sense of disillusionment about what became of Ghana. There was a real euphoria about the place when it won its independence under Kwame Nkrumah, which drew many African Americans and others there, and the reality didn’t live up to the dream.

But disillusionment is such a common literary theme that finding it here isn’t a big discovery. I did notice in my reading that the literature of Ghana tends to be rather quiet and graceful compared to some of the big, brash storytelling that comes out of Nigeria. For that reason, it may be overlooked. One novel I admired, though I didn’t make room for it in my book, is “Beyond the Horizon” by Amma Darko, about a Ghanaian woman trying to adjust to life in Europe. And there are some older books like “A Woman in Her Prime” and “The Narrow Path” that are worth seeking out.

Laura Cococcia: You’ve included many authors in your book. Some of them are very well-known authors / people (Chinua Achebe, Maya Angelou, Dian Fossey). However, I know many of our Laura Reviews readers have likely not heard of some of the authors you cite (but are excited to find out more!) Of those authors, which one would you say inspired you most?

Geoff Wisner: My first impulse is to say Tahar ben Jelloun. He’s a major author, from Morocco, but I don’t think he’s very well-known in the U.S. I had read”The Sacred Night” before I started work on my book, and found it devastating, but “The Sand Child,” which I wrote about in my book, may be a better one to start with.

But I’ve also been inspired by some of the great new Nigerian writers like Chris Abani and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and non-Africans like Redmond O’Hanlon, who wrote an amazing book about this quest to find a living dinosaur in the Congo.

Laura Cococcia: You began compiling this list when you were volunteering in Africa. Was there a particular book you related to most, based on your work there?

Geoff Wisner: I’d have to say “African Laughter” by Doris Lessing, which combines the viewpoints of an insider and an outsider in a very compelling way. Doris Lessing grew up in Zimbabwe, or Rhodesia as it was then, and returned several times after independence. She hung out in the white settler communities and also learned a lot by picking up African hitchhikers.

There are details about food and the weather and the music of the mbira and the way people talked about politics that bring it all back to me.

Laura Cococcia: Finally, the question I ask of all of our interviewees: what advice do you have for aspiring writers just starting out on their writing journey?

Geoff Wisner: In some way I feel like I’m just starting on that journey myself. But here goes: Do what Orwell recommended and read widely and constantly. Get the rhythms of some writers you admire into your system, and reread the people who mean the most to you.

Start a blog: it’s a good way to figure out what you think, and you may realize that you have a lot more to say than you thought you did. It’s also a way to get your ideas and personality out there so that when you have a book to publicize, you have a little ready-made audience for it. And figure out a way to support yourself that you can live with, because literary writing almost certainly won’t support you — and if you try to make it do so, you can end up making compromises you’ll regret later.

Big thanks to Geoff Wisner for taking the time to talk with us about his insights on African culture, as read through his and other authors’ eyes.

You can find out more about Wisner on his site.

Tagged as: Global Cultures, Interviews, Laura Cococcia, Travel, Writing