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Lädt ... I Was an Elephant Salesman: Adventures between Dakar, Paris, and Milan43 | 1 | 586,752 |
(4) | 21 | A landmark bestseller in Italy, I Was an Elephant Salesman gives a name and a face to the thousands of anonymous African street vendors in cities across Europe. Through the voice of a thinly veiled first-person narrator, Pap Khouma offers us a chilling, intimate, and often ironic glimpse into the life of an illegal immigrant. Khouma invents a life for himself as an itinerant trader of carved elephants, small ivories, and other "African" trinkets, struggling to maintain courage and dignity in the face of despair and humiliation. Constantly on the run from the authorities, he finds insight into the vicissitudes of law and politics, the constraints of citizenship, national borders, skin color, and the often paralyzing difficulties of obtaining basic human needs. His story reveals a contemporary Europe struggling to come to terms with its multiracial, multireligious, and multicultural identity.… (mehr) |
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Die Informationen stammen von der englischen "Wissenswertes"-Seite. Ändern, um den Eintrag der eigenen Sprache anzupassen. I come from Senegal. | |
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Die Informationen stammen von der englischen "Wissenswertes"-Seite. Ändern, um den Eintrag der eigenen Sprache anzupassen. How does it feel to be an illegal immigrant? Terrible. Mostly because you have to compete with people just as bad off as you. An immigrant has to put up with everyone and everything. He has to keep quiet and accept the worst of everything because he has no rights. He has to suppress every reaction, empty himself of his personality, and face the fact that there's nothing he can do. Africa is poorly governed. There are too many people making a profit at her expense. You can even study and work, but nothing changes because those in charge aren't willing to concede any of their power. And so the people must leave. | |
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▾Literaturhinweise Literaturhinweise zu diesem Werk aus externen Quellen. Wikipedia auf EnglischKeine ▾Buchbeschreibungen A landmark bestseller in Italy, I Was an Elephant Salesman gives a name and a face to the thousands of anonymous African street vendors in cities across Europe. Through the voice of a thinly veiled first-person narrator, Pap Khouma offers us a chilling, intimate, and often ironic glimpse into the life of an illegal immigrant. Khouma invents a life for himself as an itinerant trader of carved elephants, small ivories, and other "African" trinkets, struggling to maintain courage and dignity in the face of despair and humiliation. Constantly on the run from the authorities, he finds insight into the vicissitudes of law and politics, the constraints of citizenship, national borders, skin color, and the often paralyzing difficulties of obtaining basic human needs. His story reveals a contemporary Europe struggling to come to terms with its multiracial, multireligious, and multicultural identity. ▾Bibliotheksbeschreibungen Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. ▾Beschreibung von LibraryThing-Mitgliedern
Zusammenfassung in Haiku-Form |
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BewertungDurchschnitt: (4)0.5 | | 1 | | 1.5 | | 2 | | 2.5 | | 3 | | 3.5 | | 4 | 3 | 4.5 | | 5 | |
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I enjoyed this book for its vivid depiction of the life of these immigrants and the ways they try to stay beneath the radar of the authorities, including arriving places separately, traveling in different cars on trains, and more. I also appreciated the way it illustrates the mixed relationships between the Senegalese and the Italians, the tourists who want to buy the items the vendors are selling while the police not only try to stop them from selling (confiscating their merchandise, threatening them with jail or deportation), but also suspect them all of selling drugs; the terrible lack of treatment the narrator receives when he is very ill and goes to a hospital versus the kindness of some Italian café owners and others. Above all, the reader gets a real sense of what it is like to be very hard-working but very poor and very black and very undocumented.
In the introductory notes to the translation I read, both the translator and a Dartmouth Italian professor point out that Khouma was not only one of the first Senegalese to come to Italy but one of the first to write about the experience of African immigrants there. When he wrote the book, which was published in Italy in 1990, he had the help of an Italian journalist in shaping the stories, but he has since gone on to write other books without that kind of editorial assistance. They also point out that he was a trailblazer: other immigrants have followed in his footsteps and written perhaps more complex and novelistic works. Nonetheless, this was a compelling read.