The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo

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"When Mavala Shikongo deserted them, the teachers at Goas weren't surprised. How could they be? She was too beautiful, too powerful, and too mysterious for their tiny, remote world. They had a thousand theories about their departed colleague and only one essential fact: she was a combat veteran of Namibia's brutal war for independence. She must have had something to hide - why else would she have endured the long days and cold nights at this threadbare boys' school, so deep in the veld that, the teachers say "even the baboons feel sorry for us"?" ...
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More About This Book

Overview

"When Mavala Shikongo deserted them, the teachers at Goas weren't surprised. How could they be? She was too beautiful, too powerful, and too mysterious for their tiny, remote world. They had a thousand theories about their departed colleague and only one essential fact: she was a combat veteran of Namibia's brutal war for independence. She must have had something to hide - why else would she have endured the long days and cold nights at this threadbare boys' school, so deep in the veld that, the teachers say "even the baboons feel sorry for us"?" "So when Mavala returns to Goas their astonishment is genuine. In her arms is a baby son, and there is no mention of a husband. Awed by her boldness, the teachers try hard, once again, not to fall in love with her. They all fail, immediately and miserably, especially the American volunteer, Larry Kaplanski." This novel is a chronicle of longing in an arid place where people create an alternate, more fertile universe through the stories they tell one another. History is given a truly human voice.
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Editorial Reviews

Mark Schone
Orner has a gift for language. He writes with confident economy, evoking and peopling his parched, lonely world with patient detail — the scraggled bushes that "looked like they'd rather be dead," the sky "like watered-down milk," the residual German, crazy from the heat, who is, of course, a butcher. As Orner unspools their quirks through sharp, eccentric dialogue and interior asides, his characters grow distinct without ever becoming Gothic. He hits the right notes and no others, having reworked some of the text from stories published years before. Even the chapters are perfect miniatures, averaging two pages.
— The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
Orner's poetic, episodic examination of the varieties of life at an isolated Catholic primary school deep in the veld of Namibia coheres around the title character, a beautiful guerrilla fighter turned kindergarten teacher. Set in the early 1990s, soon after Namibia won independence from South Africa, this impressive debut novel (after Esther Stories) is mostly narrated by Larry Kaplanski, a young volunteer who leaves Cincinnati, Ohio, to teach English and history at Farm Goas. Orner captures Goas's glacial rhythms, the extraordinary contrast between the desert's night and day, and the community's daily privations, including-for the single male teachers-a lust arising from boredom and loneliness. Mavala Shikongo, the principal's sister-in-law and the object of her colleagues' desires, reluctantly settles at Goas with her illegitimate baby boy, Tomo. Orner punctuates Larry's observations with brief interludes told from the points of view of other inhabitants of the school, and with haunting, cinematic imagery-boys do pull-ups on a huge cross; Mavala and Larry, who become friends and intimates, hold their afternoon trysts on the graves of Boer settlers. These telling snapshots stand in for the larger sociopolitical, cultural and religious issues facing a country emerging from a century of colonization. (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
In Orner's beautiful debut, Larry Kaplanski, a teacher from Ohio, volunteers at a boys' Catholic primary school in the newly independent Namibia. The climate and landscape in the remote town of Goas are relentless-too hot or too cold, drought-stricken, and barren. Solace comes from the school's collection of characters and the stories they tell one another, stories fraught with both public and private devastation. Mavala Shikongo, a combat veteran who returns to the school to teach, a child unaccountably in her wake, is the irresistible force of gravity in a place occupied by men and boys who, for scarcity, are starving for "woman." But the restless and searching Mavala is not as sure as gravity after all. Author of the short story collection Esther Stories, which received the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Goldberg Prize from the National Foundation of Jewish Culture, Orner is a miraculous writer with a stunning ability to compel the reader softly with ever-increasing increments. Inspired by Orner's own experiences in Namibia, this novel so evokes the place and its people that, by the end of the book, readers will find themselves reluctantly brushing the sandy loam of Goas off their feet to the reverberating voices of its inhabitants. Highly recommended for all public libraries.-Jyna Scheeren, Troy P.L., NY Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A group of teachers cope with their desolate existence at a remote boarding school in Namibia. Southwest Africa never had it easy. Colonized by the Germans and then the British, and later annexed by apartheid-era South Africa, the country endured a 20-year guerilla war before being reborn in 1989 as Namibia. And then there's the cruel climate, with its killer droughts. Orner sets his first novel in Goas, a tiny settlement in the veldt. Once an unproductive farm, it passed to the Catholic church, which sent monks there to raise sheep. The sheep died; the monks disappeared into the empty veldt. Their ghosts, along with many others, haunt the school eventually erected there. In 1991, narrator Larry Kaplanski, a young American Jew from Ohio, joins the four other male teachers as a volunteer. Within weeks, there's another arrival, Mavala Shikongo, the principal's sister-in-law: beautiful, stern, tight-lipped Mavala, who was a soldier in the war. She soon disappears, but returns with a small boy, Tomo. Her fellow teachers are bewitched. The five men drink, reminisce and commiserate with each other. Orner's novel is a montage of conversations, historical episodes and character sketches. Kaplanski's neighbor in the singles quarters, Pohamba, visits the nearest town for female companionship. Head Teacher Obadiah, trapped in a loveless marriage, finds solace in drink and erudite commentaries. Kaplanski and Mavala start meeting for trysts at siesta time. Sometimes they'll just talk; sometimes they'll make love on the graves of the Voortrekkers (pioneer Boers). Both are enigmas: Kaplanski admits his "ineptitude" as a teacher, leading one to wonder why he's there in the first place, and Mavala neverreveals the identity of Tomo's father. Is Kaplanski serious when he suggests they get married? Probably not. Any intentions evaporate in the heat as the cattle die. Mavala leaves again, abandoning her child; there had been unpleasantness with her sister and lecherous brother-in-law. In the endless drought, she becomes the memory of sweet rain. Powerfully evocative, but wispy characterizations leave a void at the center.
Mark Schone
A starvation diary about desire, with as much sexual tension as a bodicebuster? Orner hits the right notes and no others.
— New York Times Book Revew
Alan Cheuse
Lyrical, comical, full-blown . . . A gifted short-story writer gives us his first booklength work of fiction, and does so with flair and panache.
— Chicago Tribune
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780316735803
  • Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
  • Publication date: 4/24/2006
  • Pages: 320

Meet the Author

Peter Orner has received many honors for his fiction, including the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Goldberg Prize from the Foundation of Jewish Culture, and a 2006 Guggenheim fellowship

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Read an Excerpt

The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo

A Novel
By Peter Orner

LITTLE, BROWN

Copyright © 2006 Peter Orner
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-316-73580-9

Chapter One

THE TAR ROAD

Boys stand with road-sore feet holding cardboard suitcases. They stand clustered, but not in a group. They're not together. They don't talk into the wind; they only wait on the brake lights that so rarely happen. Still, every new car or bakkie or combi or lorry is a new hope, rising and dying like a beating heart glowing and then spending itself on the pavement, only to live again when the next one comes. Out there in their best clothes, trying to get to the school deep in the veld. At certain moments in the early afternoon the tar road looks like it's burning. A boy kneels and sniffs. There's always one who thinks he can tell how much longer it will be by smelling the road.

"Stupid," another says. "Not stupid, science. It's about air currents near the pavement's surface. They change when -"

"Ai, go on." "Where? Go on where?"

They're hungry, but you don't want to pull out food, because no one would want to be caught chewing if the miracle of car does stop. Imagine a comfortable ride in a bucket seat with the radio playing. They keep their bread in their pockets. Boys have it worst. They are chosen last, after old mammies, mothers with babies, old men. Most of the time their only option is a lorry.Lorries don't stop, they only slow down, just long enough for the boys to toss their bundles and leap, before the driver shifts gears and accelerates again. Klim op! Then they huddle against each other in the wind and wait for it to be over, as the lorry gains speed and begins to cross bridge after bridge over the dry rivers.

(Continues...)


Excerpted from The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo by Peter Orner Copyright © 2006 by Peter Orner. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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Customer Reviews

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Sort by: Showing all of 2 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted October 21, 2008

    The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo by: JoSchwitz

    The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo<BR/><BR/>In The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, Peter Orner does a great job of keeping the reader interested. He uses good details and fascinating subjects that make the reader crave for more. The book takes place at a school in Africa, and tells the tales of what has happened there, and the stories happening there at that very moment. It takes place around 1987 after the War for Independence and around the time when the South West African People¿s Organization was trying to become the dominant party. However, the book doesn¿t focus these events, but instead focuses on the stories of people who have encountered these events in their life. <BR/>The main character and narrator of the story is a teacher at the school in Africa. Although his name is never given off, the reader learns enough about him, that his name seems unnecessary, but keeps the reader¿s interest high. It is through the narrator¿s eyes that the reader learns about other characters, which gives the book an attention-grabbing point of view. The reason this point of view is so intriguing is because sometimes the narrator tells stories about people who have what seem to be secret lives. The reader will never know what is really going on inside of these people¿s minds who have secret lives, which gives the reader some curiousness, and more of a need to keep reading. <BR/>The whole story tells the daily life of the main character, and all of his thoughts and emotions towards the other characters. Eventually the book turns into a story of internal conflict with the main character and his feelings for another teacher at the school named Mavala Shikongo. The narrator has these emotions throughout the whole book, but has a hard time of trying to show his emotions to Mavala Shikong with out getting in trouble. He feels as if he has lost his chances with her when he sees Mavala pack her bags and leave. However, the book wouldn¿t be called The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo with out the return of Mavala Shikongo. When Mavala comes back for her job, she brings an unexpected guest, her new son. This messes up everyone¿s outlook on Mavala, and causes even more mixed emotions for the narrator. <BR/>The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo is a great book because it keeps the readers on their toes, and never ceases the reader¿s curiosity towards the characters in the book. Mavala leaves early in the book, and returns soon after, which makes the reader question what is so important about Mavala¿s second coming. This goes to show that even the title grabs the reader, which hints that the whole book is going to make the reader never want to put the book down.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted December 9, 2008

    more from this reviewer

    deep look at Nambia

    In 1991 Cincinnati, Ohio resident Jewish idealist Larry Kaplanski accepts a position to teach English and history in Goas, Nambia at a boys¿ only Catholic School. Larry like the other four male volunteers already working there Larry finds the desert climate unbearable and the locale lonely and tedious with little to do. --- Not long after Larry arrived in Nambia, Mavala Shikongo, the sister-in-law of the school¿s principal, shows up for a short while. The former female civil war soldier does not stay long before vanishing only to return soon afterward with a small boy accompanying her. She becomes a teacher at the school. Her peers are bewitched by Mavala and so are many of her students perhaps because she is the only available game in town. Still while the other male teachers seek female companionship in a nearby village, she and Larry begin rendezvousing however like the vanishing sheep she disappears again leaving her lover to wonder if his beloved will ever return to him. --- The vivid portrayal of the climate (endless drought), the symbolism of the vanishing sheep and the failed farm turned church school, and the aftermath of a bitter civil war make this a poignant but not easy to read complex tale. The harshness rightfully so permeates the cast and subsequently the audience. Larry seems like a fish out of water as he realizes he cannot teach, fumbles at lovemaking, and has not adapted to the environs except when he is with Mavala. She is an enigma, coming and going in at first thought like a wisp, but is actually much deeper. Though the support cast never seems fully developed, THE SECOND COMING OF MAVALA SHIKONGO is a deep look at Nambia at a time of hope and despair. --- Harriet Klausner

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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