Fisherman's Blues: A West African Community at Sea

by Anna Badkhen

An intimate account of life in a West African fishing village, tugged by currents ancient and modern, and dependent on an ocean that is being radically transformed.

The sea is broken, fishermen say. The sea is empty. The genii have taken the fish elsewhere.

For centuries, fishermen have launched their pirogues from the Senegalese port of Joal, where the fish used to be so plentiful a man could dip his hand into the grey-green ocean and pull one out as big as his thigh. But in an Atlantic decimated by overfishing and climate change, the fish are harder and harder to find.

Here, Badkhen discovers, all boundaries are permeable--between land and sea, between myth and truth, even between storyteller and story. Fisherman's Blues immerses us in a community navigating a time of unprecedented environmental, economic, and cultural upheaval with resilience, ingenuity, and wonder.

Genres: Nonfiction, Africa, Travel, Environment, Senegal, Anthropology, Audiobook

304 pages, Hardcover

Published March 13, 2018

Reviews

[Daniel Chaikin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Badkhen uses the phrase "like an itinerant storyteller" near the end of this book. A Russian born American whose books are about journeys through war zones, the African savanna and Afghanistan, this may have served as her self-description. In a poetic voice she does a complete immersive journalism, trying to become part of a Senegalese fishing village, invisibly of course. Except that she fails to become invisible, as she acknowledges. She does join these fisherman on their long fishing voyages in their rickety boats, hiring herself out and helping with the labor, getting very intimate with many of those around her, even as they see her always taking notes, and sometimes ask her to write things down for them.



This is a community on the edge, starved out of the Senegalese interior, they are still viewed as migrants some hundred years or so since they took to the sea, only to witness the fishing stock crash and continually diminish (she doesn't analyze too much, but the fisherman blame the large international fishing vessels with gigantic nets and no restrictions.) The community lives a precarious life where death is cheap, crews are lost, and bodies wash up routinely. They are surrounded by temporary unmarked graves which all seem to wash away eventually. And yet they are connected to the larger world in numerous ways, and many of the men she talks to have left Senegal to find work, usually illegally, in Spain and elsewhere, sometimes doing very well, sometimes just to be imprisoned.

I finished this book, which she reads herself, very much in it's thrall, very enchanted by everything she reported and sees. Yet, I notice a lot of negative reviews, and complaints about her prose. She writes in a thick poetic prose where the facts and the story come second to the atmosphere she is trying to create. And I suspect that the same discomfort readers tend to feel with poetry in general today crops up in these reviews. So, recommended to those with more poetic tastes.

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36. Fisherman's Blues : A West African Community at Sea (audio) by Anna Badkhen
read by the author
published: 2018
format: 7:54 overdrive audio (304 pages in hardcover)
acquired: Library
listened: June 8-19
rating: 4

[Steph · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's not often that non-fiction reads like magical realism, but this text does. If you believe in dipping your hands in an ocean of plenty and with bare hands pulling out a meal, or if you believe in making offerings to the djinn that reside in a termite mound, and bringing red dirt from the termite mound to the pirogue and sprinkling the blessing into the hull of the pirogue, or if you believe in the collection and burning of hair as a charm, or if you believe in Mama Wati, West Africa's version of a mermaid, or you believe in the a blessing blown from the mouth of a praying marabout, this magical text will bring West Africa to life.
But not all is a romantic vision of the lives of fishermen. Their very real lives end with tremendous frequency. Currents carry off children, women scan the horizon for husbands, brothers, fathers, and sons. Bodies wash ashore, and in the absence of identification, are buried on the sandy beaches with no markers to signify any body is present. Pirogues run out of fuel and the fishermen are left adrift without food or water, starving to death.
With a penchant for a lyrical voice, Badkhen weaves together magic, culture, horror, marine biology, nautical language, climate change, migration, religion, economics, and history.

[Courtney · Rating 1 out of 5]

I heard Badkhen do a reading of this book at my local library, and I it just happened to be available for check-out when I saw her. On a whim, I checked it out. Sometimes I really enjoy an unexpected journey to another place in the world to learn about the lives, loves and pains of another people.

However, I found myself lacking genuine sympathy for the Sengalese fishermen. I also found myself constantly confused. There are too many people that Badkhen wants to follow, too many stories and none of them are complete enough to make the characters and their plight sympathetic. These are a fishing people, their ancestors fished in the same waters and their fathers became rich off of the bounty of the sea. However, due to globalization and capitalism they have sadly and unfairly had to compete with developed countries and industrial fishing boats that have better equipment and abilities. They are out-skilled, out-moneyed and out-smarted. This I understand. This is certainly a very upsetting reality that happens with capitalization and globalization. Personally, I think that people should have locally provided diets. If you can't get something in a certain area, then oh well. But, that's just not the world we live in anymore. Everyone wants so much of everything that the world literally can't keep up. And, the fishermen are no different.

If these fishermen had the money and access to industrial boats, I believe they would seize their opportunity to over fish the ocean themselves. The rely on religion and superstition to guide them in life, they work tremendously hard and save as much money as possible . . . all very admirable and sympathetic . . . only they do all this just to fish. They don't keep their village or seas clean - torn gill nets are left in the sea when ruined, which continues to kill fish (ghost-fishing). They fish in their protected wildlife refuge areas, which is illegal, but they don't care. In a petty fight a one man almost burned the entire harbor full of the towns boats. If you're saving $30K for a boat, why don't you invest in something that has a more definite future? It's so frustrating to read about a group of people so stuck in their history and culture that they can't find a way to adapt. Plus, I'm not at all a fan of polygamy why does one man need four wives if he's so poor and his business is drying up?

I don't mean to sound insensitive, I really don't. I understand that this is all they have currently. BUT, they also have school and they basically deny their children the opportunity to go to school to get into a dying business. I'm actually shocked that there wasn't more of a drug trade given how bleak Badkhen paints this lifestyle. These people are not protected by their government, they are sold out by it and they are sold out by themselves. The scene of men butchering a green sea turtle was so disturbing to me. Badkhen's writing is beautiful and poetic, but become redundant. I felt read the same scene and the same action over and over again. Perhaps this would have worked better for me if it had been an article in a magazine or a newspaper?

[Kerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am mostly in agreement with the 3-star reviews posted already on this site. The prose is a mixture, frequent flashes of brilliance and occasional moments of impatience for this reader. I know it's tempting to wax lyrical about the sea, but it's not necessary every time the subject comes up, and it comes up a lot in this book. However, the aforementioned flashes of brilliance gave me enough patience to wade through the purple passages. The fourth star in my rating is mainly gesture of gratitude for the author's audacious undertaking in moving to a place I would never visit, and immersing herself in a culture I would otherwise never experience. I wish she had included a passage about how she came to choose this particular adventure for herself.

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part spiritual journey, part ethnography, Anna Badkhen's Fisherman's Blues does an adequate job of bringing a West African fishing village to life. Though it is most certainly interesting to hear stories and excerpts of lives that are so different than ours, Badkhen's tendency to flowery prose and unnecessary allusions gets a bit tiresome and keeps the prose from ever taking off.

Focusing primarily on one extended family, the Souares, Badkhen traces the daily life of a fisherman and his relations. Fisherman tell many stories, they love their greasy, sweet and carb-filled foods, they have a strong focus on family life and they struggle for a way out of a dying business. These themes are compelling; they underscore what we already know, the world is changing quickly and those that cannot adapt will be left behind. It is all the more heart-wrenching to put real faces and real stories to this abstract understanding.

However, Badkhen never quiet gets to the heart of the matter. Instead she focuses too much on her own musings--referencing every Western myth she can think of, from Greek mythology to Goethe and beyond. Why she feels the need to drag these to a land where stories and myths are ripe for the picking remains unclear. There are also oh so many philosophical refrains on the transience of life, the shifting nature of the oceans and so on and so forth--yet this does not add anything to the story, only gives us a better picture of the author herself.

Never quite getting beyond the obvious, Badkhen simply shows us a glimpse of a different place, briefly introduces us to the friends she's made. If this was part spiritual journey, part ethnography, it may have been better to embrace one or the other, as it stands, this book feels unfinished and without a clear purpose.

[Bobby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as interesting as I expected it to be. Badkhen doesn't portray much depth among these third-world fishermen and I didn't really get into their heads. I think it's because, although she writes in a poetic style suited for a novel and has a good ear for dialogue and song rhythms, it's actually a documentary that she's constantly injecting herself in as an observer. We're always aware that she is there riding in the boats with them helping them haul in nets, trying to interview them, as an outsider looking in. Without that constant outsider reference breaking in I think I'd have been more immersed in the story of these people's day to day lives. Badken can't help to make it as much about her personal feelings towards what she's learning and the people's reactions to her as a white Western woman in a Muslim man's environment, but there's just not much of interest about her either to make that approach worthwhile. She is a cypher as we know nothing about what led her here, and her subjects remain the Other in her picture of this somewhat quaint, ignorant, and apparently doomed subculture.

[Sarah Ensor · Rating 4 out of 5]

These Senegalese pirogue fishers' lives are hard, the sea is brutal and there's no government help to speak off. Large, probably European Union boats hoover up the fish. The author works and is paid her share like everyone else. At a young fisher's funeral she is included with the men because they are all fishers together.

It is sometimes overwritten but it shows a deep solidarity with people trying to live well where underdevelopment means a lack of medical and social services. Not everyone is heroic in the face of envirnmental degradation, protected species and climate change but why should they be?

It shows the true cost of fish and capitalism.

[Vicky Hunt · Rating 1 out of 5]

Moments of Tangency
There were momentary glimpses of ideas from the author's mind about slave ships, family life, childhood, survival, and race. Some of it seemed related to the main idea of the book, which was life in a fishing community. But other parts seemed to be unrelated. Fisherman's Blues is a rough, often meaningless attempt to share sights and experiences from the author's time in Senegal, but without an actual plot. After reading the book, I feel as if I know less about Senegal than before. Many ideas expressed were not tangent to the idea of the book. To be fair, I will share a single quote here for illustration:

"This is what that was. A baptism. A ritual as old as man's life by the sea. I think: If I were the ocean I would barf up some sardines."

Those two sentences were taken in exact sequence from near the end of the book. I felt like much of Badkhen's book was filled with random ideas pasted together like this. She seems to be trying to emulate Pablo Neruda or other poetic writers.

I think that many readers dislike the fact that she read the book in disjointed phrases, as if it were poetry. It is not poetry. It is prose. The author herself narrates the book. I usually prefer for the author to read the book, because I appreciate hearing the author's voice. It's an identification thing. But, many book listeners prefer for the author to go ahead and get professional narration for their books, because a good writer is not necessarily a great reader. Here, I have to agree with them. She does not have the voice for this. She read so slow that I was forced to speed the book up. There were no errors of any kind. She just sounded monotone, and never varied her voice inflection... not even with the profanity.

Seriously, the book was not to my taste. I am sure there are people who would enjoy it more than me. Everything expressed here is simply my opinion... except for the direct quote from her book. I am glad to escape to the Gambia now. I read this book for my stop in Senegal on my Journey Around the World in 80 Books for 2019. But, I feel like I still want to know something about the country of Senegal, more than just what the map shows me.

[Tanner R · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not enjoy what I read of this book. It never really got off the ground. The authors writing style was stream of consciousness and so flowery and whimsical that I could never really tell what was actually happening. I feel like I could sum up the first 40 pages in one sentence. Other readers tended to agree that there really was no plot. The only people that seemed to enjoy this book wrote their reviews in the same sort of descriptive, ornate and unintelligible manner. I did like the cover art.

[Bob Newman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Existential fishing

Living in a small town on the Atlantic coast of the West African nation of Senegal, Anna Badkhen joined the lives of the fishermen there who competed for the dwindling stocks of ocean fish with trawlers from several nations. It was neither an easy or profitable life. She befriended the fishermen (all men) and worked with them out to sea. It’s quite extraordinary. The author was born in the USSR but wound up as a journalist living in America. She wrote books about experiences and people in Afghanistan which I have not read. But after reading this one I would say she’s in a special category of “poetic journalism”!

I imagined Anna Badkhen as a Johnny Appleseed of adjectives with a bag of them slung over her shoulder. She scatters them as she goes, only instead of planting them in the earth she sends them to your brain as you read. Though there is no anthropological content, no mention of anthropology at all, her journalistic tactic is the same as “participant observation” often used by anthropologists during their research. She gets up early, goes down to one boat or another and chugs out to sea with the three or four crew members in search of “a haul”. She has to do various tasks, but she constantly observes the sea, the sky, shadows, waves, and birds. She feels the wind and sun, describing them most poetically. She observes the lives of the young guys who crew, talks to them of their hopes and their pasts, she meets the women of the families as well. Many youths dream of emigrating to Europe for a better future. Fishing is coming to an end because the trawlers are sweeping clean the seas. The Senegalese government tries to put restrictions on fishing, hopes to establish safe zones, but there is no enforcement of the laws.

What is missing here—if you are not content with a poetic view of Senegalese fishing—is much information about Senegal’s history or larger society. It’s all about the one community’s work. Also missing is any information on how she got there and what she went to do originally, if anything besides writing a book. How did she get established there? Why were the Muslim African fishermen ready to accept her, a European lady who does not look that sturdy? And in what language did they communicate? Did they all speak French? No, it’s all totally existential. She’s there. She has a son. He’s not there. She has no past. I much enjoyed her lyrical language and the pictures she paints so well, but I had questions. How did she happen to know English terminology so well? She outdid herself and confounded me on pp.208-209 with “carvel-planks”, “inwales”, “thwarts”, “rachet strap”, “the bilge under each thwart”, “to kerf”, “boomkin”, “knee-joints”, “splashboard”, “lazarette” and “bitt”. Of course you can just let these terms fly by, and so if you like poetic writing about a part of the world and a way of life that you very likely will never see, this could be your book. I liked it a lot even if I did have questions. “Nothing ever is what we imagine it to be” are her last words and I must agree. Including this book.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting look at a community of West African fishing families in Joal, Senegal. The writing was, at various points, stark, poetic, surprising, and sometimes vague enough to be confusing. Badkhen lived among these families and worked on their boats for what seemed like nearly a year, traveling out to fish with them in these tiny boats, often through the night or in bad weather. What a brave journalistic endeavor! The way of life for this community is a dangerous one, often lacking in enough food or income to support their families and is threatened by climate change and industrialization. I was very intrigued by all the portions of the book that included their ancient beliefs - those that predate Islam in Senegal - and how they still pay tribute to these old gods and what some would say are superstitions.

Unfortunately, I struggled with Badkhen's writing a little and I became lost in all the characters, all the families, this wife, that wife. A man with four wives, and one wife names her daughter after the second wife. So many ship names similar to one another. I tried at first to keep them all straight and then lost the motivation and just let their names and stories wash over me.

I heartily struggled with the obvious pollution in Joal and in the ocean, but that's not Badkhen's fault. She painted a true portrait of the community around her, but I was saddened there was no infrastructure to support these families and this community. How much is the pollution - the ever present sheen of gasoline on the water from the boats - and nets left to languish in the ocean contributing to the poor fishing conditions, and how much is it due to big industrial trawlers scooping up what's available? They fish their own marine preserve, often illegally, and pitch garbage overboard. I guess I assumed those who live off one particular resource, like the ocean, and have done so for generations, would also care about how they treat it, if they want it to keep supporting them.

[Anja Sebunya · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an incredibly tactile and visceral read for me as I know the scenery, the places, the vibe, the people and the culture. Anna Badkhen paints luminous pictures of people and places with words. I was however most fascinated by the micro story intertwined into the larger story: the one of the place of the storyteller aka the observer in narrative non fiction.

During the first half of the book, I felt Anna's distance from her subjects ( I was confused and even at times irritated because it felt like she didn't much like these people among whom she was living so intimately) and then in the second half - the self imposed distance crumbles, she falls head over heels and the whole tone of the narrative shifts as she is 'bouleverséed.'

And this is the journey I was on in Senegal... as a perennial foreigner all my life, I have loved most of places I have had the privilege of living in. I have been a curious, interested and I hope empathetic observer but nevertheless essentially apart. Well that strategy did not work in Senegal and the place engulfed me in an impossible melange of emotions ... a melange and an embrace from which I am yet to emerge.

So Anna Badkhen wow what a tour de force!!!! Indeed what does it mean to tell a true but by the very nature of it - a subjective story? You convey that magical mix of stoicism, humor, spirituality and grit that gets human beings through life. This is a universal story and you make it so much more powerful by showcasing one specifically beautiful version of it in Joal, Senegal.

[Holly Taggart · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, I read this via audiobook - read by the writer, and honestly, I was expecting somehow... more, different or "better" I also feel like, in it's time this book was, typical, but that this time is kind of... gone.
The writing is lovely and enjoyable. The scenes painted are delightful, but I have to admit, I felt like this was sort of weird. A middle aged white lady decides to embed herself into a fishing village in Senegal, for the express purpose of writing a book. So, her essential reason for being there was to profit off a community that she was not a part of. So even though she really relays things in gorgeous prose, I still felt like I was seeing this fishing village through the perspective of this middle aged white lady, and having spent my fair share of time in Africa, as a middle aged white lady myself, this is not a perspective I was looking for.

[BookBrowse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Badkhen (who has previously immersed herself in both the African savanna and rural Afghanistan) is fully willing to do hard work - she blisters her hands pulling nets, bakes in the sun while helping to build a boat and expends emotional energy consoling abandoned wives in the community; clearly she is not afraid to fully immerse herself. Yet there is a piece missing and it is the one she reserves for herself; her writing looks in more than it looks out and we find ourselves wishing to break free, to see more of what she has chosen to obscure.
-Natalie Vaynberg

Read the full review at: https://www.bookbrowse.com/mag/review...

[Jenni]

DNF at Page 114--this was just not really what I thought it was going to be; it's much more lyrical/introspective non-fiction writing, which is not really my style. Additionally, I did not feel like Badkhen had given the reader an adequate picture of the different members of the community she discusses, so I had a hard time keeping track of who was who. I loved the idea and would definitely read more about this topic (how commercial fishing and climate change are impacting small fishing communities) but the execution of this one didn't work for me personally

[Kathryn Gavaghan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for my RPCV book club. Beautifully written, and Badkhen is marvelously evocative at narratives that describe culture and people. But as a professional in the environmental world, I was frustrated by the lack of context for these fishermens' stories. Some mentions of climate change, habitat loss, and overfishing, but not enough to satisfy the curious reader. But good on Badkhen for her ceaseless long-form journalism that shines a light on the global south. Looking forward to reading her new book.

[Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first I’ve read from her, and it’s an experience. Very stream of consciousness, you’ve got to just get into the flow and forgive yourself if you can’t place s character or location. It reads more like poetry:

“Perhaps another reason why fisherman spend their days in mbaars looking out to sea is that the sea does not question their origins or their journeys, does not discriminate, bestows and conceals it’s wealth in equal measure.”

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

So disappointed by this. It was confusing and I couldn't really figure out the point of it all (other than disappearing fish). I think the book may be quite good but the audio is terrible. The author should have had a professional reader do it because her Russian accent and sing songy voice make it impossible to pay attention.

[Shanti · Rating 3 out of 5]

fascinating journalism, the woman had never met a nice phrase she doesn't like or an amorphous thing she wants to anthropomorphise, would have liked more insight into ethics, fact checking, and the reporting process but this is basically anthropology and it's pretty good and would have been better without random interludes about irrelevant shipwrecks. But maybe everything is profound.

[Nora Rawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

God I loved this. Beautiful, stunning prose, intimate, lived reporting on life in a small fishing town on Senegal's coast. Made me want to leave my life and become something utterly different. Just gorgeous transporting writing and work. I listened to the audio, read by the author, and it was mesmerizing.

[daelin · Rating 5 out of 5]

i knew very early on this would be 5 stars— this is such a beautiful piece of the connection (whether negative or positive) between humanity and the ocean. the story of the senegalese fishermen with the struggle of colonialism, climate change, and poverty is so wonderfully illustrated through badkhen’s prose and emotional stories.

[Linh · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was interested in learning more about fishing communities in West Africa, but found Badkhen impossible to read. She has a stream of consciousness style that was at times poetic, but mostly confusing and some of the weirdest narrative non-fiction I've ever read.

[Lindsay Harkness · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very poetically written. Although a book about fishermen in Senegal, undoubtedly an action-packed life, this story is more poetic than thrilling perhaps for a reader seeking a thoughtful read rather than adventure.

[Ellen Riggenbach · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author, who I had the privilege of meeting in 2018 in Senegal, writes as if you are on the waves with her and the fishermen.

[Angela · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting story matter, but the narrative itself got to be dull and repetitive by the end. Probably would have been better as a longform magazine article.

[Milo Adkison · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great example of journalism by immersing yourself in the community you want to learn about. She spent a year? Participating in Senegalese artisanal fishing, living in their community

[Glen Retief · Rating 5 out of 5]

A dazzling story, poetic, lyrical, and sensitively observed.

[Adrienne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I know there are many good reviews for this book - and it's my book club's September selection, but although I marked it "read," I did not finish it. It just did not grab me - I kept waiting for some sort of story to start. Initially I thought it might be like reading Michener where he usually describes how the earth was formed where the story takes place, but this story never got off the ground, at least not for me.