After many years of research, teaching and traveling in Africa, David Chappell has written a historical mystery novel. The crime's outline is well-documented: in the European scramble for prestige and resources overseas, France conquered the Ivory Coast in West Africa between about 1890 and 1910. The victim is also known: the sovereignty of dozens of indigenous peoples. But what specific motives and methods made that possible? Inspired by the Botiwa spirit mask performance, the author deploys both re-presented historical actors and composites of personalities he has known. This lively cast, through their interwoven individual life portrayals, reveals the complexity of colonization, which also presages the challenges of later decolonization struggles.
"Botiwa is really quite good. Your writing really flows and is quite "natural," so I want to see where the story goes.'
Njoroge Njoroge, African History Professor, and author of Chocolate Surrealism: Music, Movement, Memory and History in the Circum-Caribbean.
"I appreciated the shifting perspectives of newly introduced characters and how it all is coming together. And there is certainly a good amount of action!"
Ned Bertz, African History Professor, and author of Diaspora and Nation in the Indian Ocean: Transnational Histories of Race and Urban Space in Tanzania
"I particularly enjoyed the many ways that you developed the main characters (and their distinct values), the powerfully escalating narrative tensions...and the way that you rendered a detailed, immersive world."
Gabriel Moseley, Guest Editor of The Masters Review.
