Book set in Nyala, Sudan. Reviewed on 2019/09: https://www.instagram.com/p/B2ErFT_gKnQ/
I mean, who commissioned this book? The Catholic Church itself? The Catholic Church was a M A J O R player in #slavery , ripped (and it still continues to!) every single benefit you can possibly imagine out of the international #slavetrade and when the economy machine wasn’t profitable any longer then it decided to ‘atone’ for its mistakes… #veroniqueolmi completely fails to acknowledge this reality. She can claim to some extent that #bakhita ‘s story begins right after the church condemns slavery at least officially. However by claiming that, she does exactly what I believe is her major mistake in this book: she fails to let Bakhita tell her own story. To be fair #olmi isn’t the only one. No one ever stops for a second and asks Bakhita what she wants to do with her life. Therefore she goes from one master to another, from shackles to rosaries. Apparently #véroniqueolmi based her fiction story loosely on the real historic life of Bakhita. If this is true, I’m simply baffled. Olmi refuses to let any of the characters to be remotely complex. There are simply no nuances here. The Arabs, the blacks, the Africans, the non-catholic people want to enslave Bakhita which in turn is saved by the grace of white Catholic people in #italy . What is this? 1985? The only parts of this book which deserve any sort of praise are perhaps the first chapters re her slavery years. They are difficult to read for sure. However they fail to carry the entire rather simplistic and condescending story. #pleasegivemeanotherbook#conversion #sudan #darfur #otherpress#venice #khartoum#frommastertomaster #notagoodread#saharalit #notsurewhyeveryonelovesit#canteven
hebdo_readings 