Reseña del libro "Dining and Dancing With the Devils (en Inglés)"
In Dining and Dancing with the Devils, Ben Sesay, the protagonist from the fictional nation of Songhai in Western Africa, is plunged into a turbulent odyssey in the United States that could have ended badly. Without valid immigration papers, Ben had to migrate to Syracuse, to hide for a while, to see which other devils he would have to dine and dance with. In debates with his pan-African friends on African and African-American politics, society, culture, and social-psychology, Ben always put forth his own ideas that seem to be the minority, conservative, unrealistic view point. Yes, they were all from Africa, but Ben was indeed from a different kind of Africa than his homeboys from the better-off classes; from where he stood, he was dining and dancing with the devils in the great American Wilderness. Ben's relationship with his African-American girlfriend, Cathy Montgomery, reveals deep-seated historical, cultural and psycho-social complexities that are webs of trials and tribulations in the larger relationships amongst African people; in other words, between Africans and the African Diaspora. Ben's journey takes him into cultural, social, political and mental entanglements with the Western World. In his mind's debate with itself, Ben walks on a lonely road that he knew he must take, in order to build an African nation that no one will ever mess with again. To construct that continental Pan-African nation that the other world regions will have to reckon with, Ben Sesay and Cathy Montgomery, Africa and its Diaspora, will have to know that they know themselves individually and collectively, and forgive each other, so that they can craft a nation they can call their own. To accomplish this feat, a few good white men and women will have to make their own, individual, free-willed contributions to the next African nation, an African Middle Kingdom. Dr. John Karefah Marah's Dining and Dancing with the Devils is a Pan-African novel that concerns the lived experiences, hopes, wishes, visions and desires of African people, in Africa and abroad; and, in our contemporary global village.
