I'm James Penhaligon, author of "Speak Swahili, Dammit!"
A young boy's chaotic life in a remote, wild, corner of East Africa taught him early some stark facts about life — tragedy, vulnerability, danger, arrogance and cruelty. Only the extraordinary sympathy, loyalty and kindness of the local watu, imbued with irrepressible and hilarious humour, saved him from despair.
A story of learning about the world, and life, a little by education, a lot by accident, but overwhelmingly by fate and happenstance, in circumstances few people in the developed world have experienced.
About the Author
James Penhaligon is a multi-lingual consultant psychiatrist in the United Kingdom. Born to Cornish parents, and raised deep in the bush in Tanganyika, later to emerge as Tanzania, he remains a fluent Swahili speaker, and has never been able to escape his early influences, or the gaze it gave him on life and the world.
Despite having left Africa, and carving himself a successful career in medicine, and later psychiatry, James has always had a fascinating East African story waiting to be told, and, finally, he has written it. The result is "Speak Swahili, Dammit!"
|
