{"product_id":"the-jive-talker-samson-kambalu-9781416559313","title":"The Jive Talker: An Artist's Genesis","description":"\u003cb\u003eWhat do you do when it looks like the odds were stacked against you before you were even born, when you're having trouble feeding a family that just keeps growing, when you've got a little too much of an affection for Carlsberg Brown and when the life president of your country, Malawi, keeps shuffling around the public health system that employs you, forcing you and your family into perpetual nomadism? You catch up on your reading, adding \u003ci\u003eI'm OK, You're OK\u003c\/i\u003e and Nietzsche to the bathroom library.\u003c\/b\u003e Holding on to your dignity, you keep dressing up in threadbare three-piece suits you ordered from London back when you could afford them. You raise your head high like a giraffe and call yourself a philosopher, not a civil servant. With a bottle of beer in hand you philosophize before your mystified kids at night -- on anything from football to Shakespeare -- and you look to the future with boundless optimism. In short, and most important, you talk jive. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e The father of Samson Kambalu is the \"Jive Talker\" of this vivacious and warm, bristling and hilarious memoir. Kambalu Senior died of AIDS in 1995, bequeathing to his son a passion for words and an imagination that transcended all limitations. Described by \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e newspaper as \"one of the artists to color the future,\" Samson Kambalu is one of the most successful young conceptual artists on the contemporary art scene: he has been featured in Bloomberg New Contemporaries and he has won a Decibel Award; he has exhibited around the world, including at the Liverpool Biennial with Yoko Ono and the FIFA World Cup in Germany in 2006. He is currently on a five-year artist residency funded by the Arts Council England. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In this utterly original, often subversive book, Samson Kambalu introduces us to his country of birth, Malawi, an impoverished nation in which no dissent is tolerated, where political opponents are \"disappeared\" and where a portrait of Life President Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda is always guaranteed to be watching. It's also a place in which a little boy obsessed with Michael Jackson, \u003ci\u003eFootloose\u003c\/i\u003e, Nietzsche, girls, fashion and football can move beyond his station to become a rising star in international pop culture, creating a life-affirming expressionist philosophy, \"Holyballism,\" along the way. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Narrated with sass and charisma, \u003ci\u003eThe Jive Talker\u003c\/i\u003e is a love letter to an Africa that is hardly understood, and it's a coming-of-age story that takes its place among the finest work by Tobias Wolff, Mary Karr and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Samson Kambalu\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1416559310\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781416559313\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Free Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 08\/12\/2008\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 336\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.95lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.50h x 5.70w x 1.00d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 06\/15\/2008 pg. 636\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 06\/30\/2008 pg. 170\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e 08\/01\/2008 pg. 23","brand":"Samson Kambalu","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":44069443141887,"sku":"9781416559313","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_661576b7-9779-4732-a5e1-54392caef7fa.jpg?v=1685424738","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-jive-talker-samson-kambalu-9781416559313","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}