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    Out of Darkness, Shining Light: A Novel
    Out of Darkness, Shining Light: A Novel
    Out of Darkness, Shining Light: A Novel
    Audiobook10 hours

    Out of Darkness, Shining Light: A Novel

    Written by Petina Gappah

    Narrated by Nyasha Hatendi and Sibongile Mlambo

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    “Engrossing, beautiful, and deeply imaginative” (Yaa Gyasi, author of Homegoing), this epic novel about the explorer David Livingstone and the extraordinary group of Africans who carry his body across impossible terrain “illuminates the agonies of colonialism and blind loyalty” (O, The Oprah Magazine).

    “This is how we carried out of Africa the poor broken body of...David Livingstone, so that he could be borne across the sea and buried in his own land.”

    So begins Petina Gappah’s “searing…poignant” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis) novel of exploration and adventure in 19th-century Africa—the captivating story of the African men and women who carried explorer and missionary Dr. Livingstone’s body, papers, and maps, fifteen hundred miles across the continent of Africa, so his remains could be returned home to England and his work preserved there. Narrated by Halima, the doctor’s sharp-tongued cook, and Jacob Wainwright, his rigidly pious secretary, this is a “powerful novel, beautifully told” (Jesmyn Ward, author of Sing, Unburied, Sing) that encompasses all of the hypocrisy of slavery and colonization—the hypocrisy of humanity—while celebrating resilience, loyalty, and love.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateSep 10, 2019
    ISBN9781508295556
    Author

    Petina Gappah

    Petina Gappah is a widely translated Zimbabwean writer. She is the author of two novels, Out of Darkness, Shining Light; The Book of Memory; and two short story collections, Rotten Row and An Elegy for Easterly. Her work has been short-listed for the Orwell Prize, the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the PEN/Open Book Award, the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and the Prix Femina (etranger), among other honors. She is the recipient of the Guardian First Book Award and the McKitterick Prize from the Society of Authors. A lawyer specializing in international trade and investment as well as a writer, Petina currently lives in Harare, Zimbabwe.

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    Reviews for Out of Darkness, Shining Light

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      Fictional account of the trip to bring Dr. Livingston's body out of Africa. Told from the POV of Halima and Jacob Wainwright. Why did they decide to make the trip? Halima tells her story of how she came to be with the Livingston party. Jacob Wainwright dreams of becoming a priest and missionary back in Africa. Jacob is very self-righteous.
    • 4/5
      This tells a fictional account of what happened after David Livingston died and it was decided he should go back to England for burial.We also learn something of the quest David Livingston undertook.Told by two of the participants it's an engaging tale. It does take a while to get into but in my opinion it's worth perseverance. It's a long and tortuous journey and not for the faint hearted. 1500 miles in the heart of Africa was very tough going for all the 69 participants.We also learn the back story of Jacob who was sold into slavery and is now desperate to bring people to Christ.The reader through the journey learns about the different attitudes of those they meet on the way and the white men. A good read which taught me more of a subject I knew little of , so can recommend
    • 5/5
      This is what I think of as a warp/weft novel, reframing a story we think we know. Other examples include Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, which offers the story of Bertha Mason, the madwoman whose story is reduced to Rochester's contemptuous narrative in Jane Eyre; Michael Cunningham's The Hours, which illuminates aspects of Woolf as she wrote Mrs. Dalloway; and Peter Carey's Jack Maggs, which imagines the backstory of Magwitch in Great Expectations. Gappah's novel reframes the Scotsman David Livingstone's explorations of Africa, which is traditionally refracted through the English/American Henry Morton Stanley's account of finding Livingstone at Ujiji. Set in 1870s Africa, this book imagines the perspectives of the native Africans who buried Livingstone's heart in the jungle and brought his dried bones to Bagamoyo on the east coast. The first section is told by Halima, the shrewd and sharp-tongued cook, and the second by Jacob Wainwright, one of the "Nassick boys" who were seized from slave ships and educated by the British in a school in Bombay. She is voluble and wryly humorous; he is self-righteous and naive, and their comments about each other add spice and humor. (To be honest, I found Halima's section more engaging.) There is a full complement of secondary characters, including Stanley, the various villagers, thieves, porters, chiefs, and children. The novel is immersive, thoughtful, and profoundly aware of how our experience is deeply subjective, and the stories we tell ourselves shape our lives. I think fans of Geraldine Brooks's YEAR OF WONDERS will enjoy this book. Recommend to fans of historical fiction.
    • 3/5
      "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" The familiar question is attributed to journalist/explorer Henry Morton Stanley, who came to Africa in search of David Livingstone, a Welsh physician and missionary who had set out to find the source of the Nile but had not been heard from for six years. If you expect Livingstone's story to be the focus of Out of Darkness, Shining Light, you may be disappointed--although his corpse is central to the novel. Gappah gives us two narrators who are among the mourners who accompany the body of "Bwana Daudi" from the depths of what is now Zambia to the coast, so that it may be shipped home for burial. Halima is the explorer's cook, a woman whose mother gave birth to her in a harem. While she constantly reminds us of her privileged birth, Halima had fallen into slavery and was purchased by Livingstone. The other narrator is Jacob Wainwright, a young Indian and also a former slave, who had been chosen to be educated by a missionary group for Christian service. He was one of eight selected to accompany Livingstone to Africa. The chapters he narrates take up the larger part of the book, which is rather a shame since Halima is the more interesting of the two. Jacob's dream is to go to England, where he hopes to be ordained, and then return to Africa to save as many souls as possible. Not surprisingly, his journal is full of pompous sanctimony as he judges everyone around him, apparently so that he can forgive them, and constantly cites examples from the bible. It was rather satisfying to see him fall to his own hypocrisy. Halima, on the other hand, while not always the most reliable narrator, is earthly, garrulous, emotional, and charming. Both she and Jacob are devoted to Livingstone and devastated by his illness and death.The book describes events after the missionary succumbs to malaria and dysentery. Everyone agrees that his body should be returned home, but the first problem they face is how best to transport a stinking, decaying corpse that will weigh them down. Once that has been resolved, the journey to the coast begins. Along the way, the travelers encounter friendly villagers who offer them food and shelter, many of whom wish to hold ceremonies honoring Livingstone. But all does not go smoothly: there are violent outliers ready to attack, villages that close their gate when the travelers are most in need, and betrayals and jealousies within the party itself. The internal conflicts and what they reveal about human nature are definitely the best part of the novel.Gappah writes well, but at times I admit to wishing that she would just get on with it. Some scenes seemed to drag on forever, and I found myself skimming the chapters written by Jacob as I was getting tired of his irritating voice. I stuck with it to the end, and it was worth it to find out how everyone--especially Halima--ended up.
    • 3/5
      I knew of David Livingstone, but not much more than his name and that he was a missionary. Out of Darkness, Shining Light sheds, well, light on Livingstone's life and death. I always enjoy historical fiction which fleshes out a real life character and Gappah does a great job of this.
    • 3/5
      When you say Stanley and Livingstone, is the first thing that pops into your head, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" I know it was the first thing that popped into mine. And while this encounter is undoubtedly famous, there was much more to David Livingstone's trips through Africa looking for the source of the Nile than this. Livingstone did not exist in a vacuum, lost until Stanley tracked him down. In fact, he was surrounded by quite a large entourage of native African people whose role in his exploration, his survival on his travels, and in the end the catalyst for his body being transported to the coast over months and months and hence to England for his hero's burial, has been downplayed or minimized, effectively excluding them from the mythic narrative about the man. Petina Gappah redresses some of this erasure in her novel about Livingstone's death and the slow march to take his body to the coast, told through the voice of Livingstone's cook Halima and the diaries of the British-Indian educated, pious, missionary trained, former slave Jacob Wainwright.Told by Halima and Jacob, this is not the story of Livingstone's journeys. It is of his final African journey, the one undertaken after his death, and as such, mostly devoid of his voice (although chapter epigraphs sometimes have excerpts from his journals). It is the story of the people who called him Bwana Daudi and who undertook the immense task of getting his body 1500 miles to the coast so he could be sent home and buried among his own people. Halima, Livingstone's cook, narrates the first part of the novel in a sly, gossipy tone. She notes the undercurrents flowing throughout the group in terms of power and sex, religion and education. She presents herself as one who knows and suggests the correct decisions to the group, even if she has to be sneaky or roundabout in convincing the men to adopt her conclusions. She is very concerned with the earthly while Jacob is much more concerned with the spiritual. If Halima is contentious with the women and mouthy with the men, Jacob is much more circumspect but not any better liked with his arrogance and his desire to convert the others to Christianity. Halima's voice is firmly from the domestic sphere, gossipy and confidential, while Jacob's, through his journal entries, is superior and judgmental, the voice of a particularly fervent missionary, one trained to scorn the wrongheadedness of his own people. Halima's account of the journey is more outward focused than Jacob's inner wrestlings (especially against his lust for one of the women) but neither one sees the whole truth of all of the goings on, the strife, the fear, the anger, the loyalty, and the compliance of those with whom they travel.The story is slow and deliberate, echoing the journey itself. The tone is dark and ultimately tragic. And Gappah presses on the wounds of colonialism as she puts this invented tale in the mouth and pen of two real historical figures. Readers won't miss the commentary on the slave trade; the contradiction of Livingstone, an abolitionist, buying and using Africans in his own quest (or as "road wives" for his men); the tensions between religions, native, Islam, and Christianity; the rage and fear that this one dead white man being returned, with his papers, to his people will bring more waves of colonizers who will steal the land and force their ideas on the people; or the constant death and distrust that travels with the expedition. The world that Gappah has brought to life is one on the cusp, or perhaps already falling into the abyss, of massive change at the hands of outsiders and her research and attention to historical detail is impressive. There are times that some of that research is overwhelming in a story overloaded with characters, place names, and so forth that have to be explained to the reader but which wouldn't have occasioned any kind of explanation from either Halima or Jacob in actual practice, being common knowledge as they were. This is not an easy read, heavy and full of the portents of the future. It is a very different heart of darkness from Conrad's but a heart of darkness nonetheless.
    • 4/5
      Well written and quite compelling. The way the author tells the story makes you feel like you are right there watching all this happen.
    • 5/5
      Unusual book - This is the telling of the struggles to bring the body of Dr. David Livingston the eastern coast of Africa where he died to the western coast where the body was sent home for burial in England. The first part of the book is narrated by Halima, a sharp-tongued slave cook in Livingston's party. Halima has been purchased by Livingston to be the "road wife" of another man in the party. Her telling is witty and so believably told - seeing the world from her eyes. The second part of the novel (and larger part) is told by the sanctimonious Jacob Wainwright, a young man who was captured to be a slave and was remarkably saved and sent to India where he learned to be a Christian and took on a new name. Jacob's telling while also humorous in a way is not as engaging as Helima's.I loved the premise of the book and the research that has gone into it. Each chapter begins with a short notation from either Dr. Livingston's own accounts or similar accounts from the time. The author has taken obscure names from these real accounts and put personalities to them. These represent the unknown people who have had a role in historical events. The idea of disemboweling Dr. Livingston in order to take him across the continent is based on fact as is organs are buried in Africa and his bones buried in Westminster Abbey. Well written with a light touch and deep respect to all the characters. Really a great novel (took off half a star for the bit too wordy section told by Jacob). Interesting look at slavery in Africa and the part that the European missionaries played in it.
    • 4/5
      "This is how we carried out of Africa the poor broken body of Bwana Duadi, the Doctor, David Livingstone, so that he could be borne across the sear and buried in his own land."~ from Out of Darkness, Shining Light (Being a Faithful Account of the Final Years and Earthly Days of Doctor David Livingstone and His Last Journey form the interior to the Coast of Africa, as Narrated by His African Companions, in Three Volumes) by Petina GappahTruth is often stranger than fiction, for who would imagine that the body of Doctor David Livingstone would be carried 1000 miles across Africa, under threat of dangers including kidnapping into slavery, so he could be shipped back to England and rest in his native land? It seems the stuff of legend. But it happened in 1873. Petina Gappah spent ten years researching this journey, then imagining the forgotten people whose dedication to the Doctor spurred their journey.I had hoped for a great adventure story and found a journey that vividly recreates late 19th c Africa with its clash of cultures, religions, and power. It is filled with unforgettable characters, culminates in an explosive late revelation, and brings to light the impact of colonization. The Doctor's missionary zeal abated while his anti-slavery zeal and respect for the Africans grew. He became obsessed with discovering the source of the Nile, believing its discovery would bring him the status and power to advance his ideals. When Stanley found the missing Livingstone he was already ill but would not return to civilization. The mixed group he had gathered, Africans, Muslims, manumitted slaves, and mission-trained Christian blacks, were left with the responsibility for his remains. They buried his heart and organs, dried his body, and proceeded to walk 279 days to Zanzibar.Gappah tells the story in two voices. The appealing Halima was documented as Livingstone's cook, bought from slavery and freed by him. Halina's mother was a concubine in the house of a servant of the Sultan. Halima was a bondswoman passed from man to man. She dreams of the house Livingstone promised her. Then there is Jacob Wainwright, bought from slavery and sent to the mission school, a devote Christian who quotes The Pilgrim's Progress. Jacob's tale is stilted in language and filled with religious concerns, he is dislikeable and arrogant. He struggles with his passions and questions of faith. And yet, this faithful, educated, ambitious man's hopes are dashed because of his color and ethnicity.The journey is rife with conflict and even death as the men vie for power and control and importance--and women. They face enemies and famine. They see hopeless villages devoid of their youth by the slavers. And everywhere, dry bones tied to trees, kidnapped Africans left by the slavers to die. Instead of welcome and assistance, the Europeans confiscate essentials."...this was no longer just the last journey of the Doctor, but our journey too. I was no longer just about the Doctor, about the wrongs and rights of bearing him home, or burying him here or buying him there, but about all that we had endured. It was about our fallen comrades." ~from Out of Darkness, Shining Light by Petina GappahHow did this one man, this Doctor Livingstone, manage to inspire such loyalty? He was beloved because of his acceptance and respect for those he met, his understanding of human nature, his commitment to ending slavery--liberal Christian values out-of-sync with his time. "But out of that great and troubling darkness came shining light. Our sacrifice burnished the glory of his life." ~from Out of Darkness, Shining Light by Petina GappahI was given access to a free egalley by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.