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Return to Laughter

An Anthropological Novel

Elenore Smith Bowen

$45

Paperback

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English
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group
01 January 1987
This dramatic, revealing novel tells the story of a year with a remote African tribe-a classic of anthropological literature hailed by Margaret Mead as ""the first introspective account ever published of what it's like to be a field worker.""

Simply as a work of ethnographic interest, Return to Laughter provides deep insights into the culture of West Africa-the subtle web of its tribal life and the power of the institution of witchcraft. However, the author's fictional approach gives the book its lasting appeal. She focuses on the human dimension of anthropology, recounting her personal triumphs and failures and documenting the profound changes she undergoes. As a result, her story becomes at once highly personal and universally recognizable. She has vividly brought to life the classic narrative of an outsider caught up and deeply involved in an utterly alien culture.
By:  
Imprint:   Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group
Country of Publication:   United States
Volume:   N36
Dimensions:   Height: 203mm,  Width: 130mm,  Spine: 18mm
Weight:   254g
ISBN:   9780385053129
ISBN 10:   0385053126
Pages:   320
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Elenore Smith Bowen is the nom de plume of Laura Bohannan, an anthropologist trained at the University of Arizona and Oxford University. The author of several articles in anthropological journals, she has contributed to a number of books on Africa and has taught at Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle.

Reviews for Return to Laughter: An Anthropological Novel

There is no stranger and more rocky journey than the voyage of self-discovery made over the sea of an alien culture. This is the journey Elenore Smith Bowen, a young American anthropologist, made when she undertook the study of an African tribe. She came to the tribe without its language and learned it as she tried to find the dynamics of tribal life. She became enmeshed in intertribal struggles for power, and learned to play the sides to the advantage of her gleaning; she ultimately had to face her protector, Chief Kako, and prove the efficacy of her knowledge and witchcraft. She discovered the power of witchcraft in the culture and experienced the inefficacy of it when her gentle friend Amara died and accusations did not save her; she saw her friends turn mad when water was brought into the village - when a smallpox epidemic raged and age-mate turned against age-mate, brother against brother. She herself escaped during the epidemic to return a few months later, appreciative both of her own background which had made her something forever different in basic outlook from her tribal friends and of their ability to accept their failures and misfortunes, facing them with laughter, a laughter acknowledging reality. Unusual in intent and execution. (Kirkus Reviews)


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