Journeys through the Congo, Sierra Leone and Outback Australia in an inventive memoir by a Commonwealth Poetry Prize-winning ethnographer. The Accidental Anthropologist is a fascinating, impeccably written memoir, or more accurately, a series of fragments. Compelling and absorbing as well as intense and insightful, Jackson writes a far from classically autobiographical text. There is nothing predictable about the mode or incidents he has chosen to write about: this is literary memoir at its best and most inventive. Jackson has a fascination with the concept of personal metamorphosis, the idea that a life can be dismantled and reassembled in a different country and set of relationships. And throughout the story the author makes a pretty good fist of living the theory. Jackson’s experiences begin with his earnest portrayal of young adulthood in Wellington where he associates on the fringes with many of the literary figures of the early 1960s: Bob Lowry, Fleur Adcock, James K. Baxter, R.A.K. Mason and the artist McCahon. Jackson finds himself homeless in London where he’s drawn to help the poor and eventually finds his way to Cambridge, where he stumbles upon anthropology. His subsequent ethnographic fieldwork takes him to the Congo, Sierra Leone, and outback Australia. Jackson makes it clear that our lives are barely our own, they belong as much to the people, the landscapes, the influences of thought and ideology that absorb us. He excells at the intensely personal and captivates with this masterful work. The Accidental Anthropologist is a challenging and magnificent memoir; much of it is spellbinding, astute and disquieting.
Epub (Kobo), Epub (Adobe)
Publication Date: 16/12/2013
- ISBN:
- 9781775531760
- 9781775531760
- Category:
- Biography: general
- Format:
- Epub (Kobo), Epub (Adobe)
- Publication Date:
- 16-12-2013
- Language:
- English
- Publisher:
- Penguin Random House New Zealand
This item is delivered digitally
Great!
Click on Save to My Library / Lists
Click on Save to My Library / Lists
Select the List you'd like to categorise as, or add your own
Here you can mark if you have read this book, reading it or want to read
Awesome! You added your first item into your Library
Great! The fun begins.
Click on My Library / My Lists and I will take you there
Click on My Library / My Lists and I will take you there
Reviews
Be the first to review The Accidental Anthropologist.
Share This eBook: