Letters from Nigeria

A Young American observes a newly independent country, 1961-62

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About the Book

Conversation just outside our compound with the mosquito patrol. Note that two are barefoot.
Conversation just outside our compound with the mosquito patrol. Note that two are barefoot.
2017 two Ben Franklin Silver awards for Multicultural and Nonfiction/Best New Voice!

2016 New England Book Festival Honorable Mention

Impressions and images of a young American couple going to live and work for the government with economist Wolfgang Stolper in West Africa sixty years ago.

A young American joins her husband on a pre–Peace Corps mission to newly independent Nigeria: she to work in the Ministry of Education, while he joins a team of economists sent by the Ford Foundation. Gretel’s letters home give an inside view of the fledgling government. Full-color slides bring alive the vibrant cultures of the new nation.

Life among British civil servants, visiting foreign diplomats and speculators, and daily interactions with the Nigerian people are the heart of this story. Included in Clark’s anthropological musings, and economic development theories, is the birth of her first child in a West African government hospital.

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Reviewer’s Bookwatch: June 2016 Margaret’s Bookshelf

Synopsis: Today Gretel Clark has a BA from Vassar College, an MA from University of Michigan, and … [Read More...]

Boston University’s Director of African Studies Reviews Letters from Nigeria

“An extraordinary account of an idealistic young couple changing the world in newly-independent … [Read More...]

© 2016. Gretel Clark · published by Peter E. Randall Publisher