Blue Taxis: Stories about Africa

by Eileen Drew

Stories deal with the interaction between native Africans and American diplomats, volunteer workers, and missionaries

Genres: Short Stories, Africa, Fiction

155 pages, Paperback

First published January 29, 1989

About the author

Eileen Drew is the author of The Ivory Crocodile. Her short story collection Blue Taxis was acclaimed as a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times Book Review. Born in 1957 in Morocco as the child of an American diplomat, Drew grew up in Nigeria, Guinea, Ghana, Korea, and Washington D.C. In her early twenties, she joined the Peace Corps to return to Africa for a two year stint.

(from http://coffeehousepress.org/authors/e...)

Reviews

[Ann Kuhn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think that this must be a collection of fictionalized personal history stories, in which the author changed the names of some of the places in Africa. In several of the stories I recognized details about Zaire (the language, the currency) but not the place names. Ms. Drew captures some very vivid memories and images for me, but her background as an "embassy kid" and peace corps volunteer instead of a "missionary kid" provided a very different view point. The strangest thing to me is that every white woman in every single story seems to be having sex with a local African man with no negative consequences. Perhaps I was naive and sheltered but I had the idea that this was the exception and not the rule, and that this type of relationship between expatriate and local nearly always resulted in some difficulty.

[Rochelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A set of powerful stories where literary sensibility and felt observation intersect. Highly recommended for readers who remember their own experiences overseas. They are likely to find their own experience narrow compared with Ms. Drew's. For other readers, a chance to see African life from many angles through the eyes, ear and pen of a master who happens to be a woman.