Now I know...

After being totally drawn into The White Masai, I needed to know how Corinne and her daughter adapted to life in Europe. I was not disappointed .

This short book is the sequel to the nonfiction book The White Masai in which the author,as a Swiss tourist in Kenya, falls in love with and marries a Masai tribesman. She lives in a humble manyatta with him and his family and bears him a child but eventually leaves him because of their cultural differences. Back From Africa is the story of the author and her little girl as they return to life in Switzerland. Needless to say their transition and adjustments are enormous and I found the entire story fascinating. Corinne Hofmann has a way with words and tells the tale very simply in a manner that unconsciously portrays her great strength and courage to live her life on her own terms.

Sehr unterhaltsam

Ich fand Corinne Hofmanns erstes Buch sehr interessant, obwohl sie teils wenig reflektiert ist. Wie "Die weisse Massai" liest sich das Buch sehr schnell. Die Sprache ist einfach und einnehmend, ich wurde sehr ins Buch hineingezogen und wollte immer weiter lesen (ähnlich wie beim ersten Buch). In diesem Buch erzählt Hofmann, was nach der Landung zurück in der Schweiz passiert: Aufenthaltsgenehmigung, diverse Jobs, das Leben mit ihrer Tochter in der Schweiz, Erholung von Malaria und Hepatitis. Vieles aus Kenia hat sie verdrängt, was sie auch selbst erkennt. Das erste Buch schreibt sie auch, um mit der Zeit besser umzugehen und diese zu reflektieren. Immer noch vermisst sie ihre ehemalige Massai Familie und ist mit ihnen mittels Briefen in Kontakt.
Ich fand das Buch sehr spannend und habe es schnell und gern gelesen.

A much quicker read than her first book, but still so interesting to see where her life has gone. Crazy how you just want more. I’m off googling to see where she is and if I can get my hands on her next book. Writing style is quite direct, but I think that’s the German to English conversion, but I still enjoy it.

I enjoyed reading Back From Africa simply because I felt compelled to find out what happened next in the life of Corinne Hofmann. I felt a sense of kinship while reading The White Masai but not with this book. I was thrilled to see that all that she gave away so willingly was returned to her tenfolds. I especially enjoyed the chapter where she sets out to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. I felt the pain of the adventure, and laughed when there was an ounce of humor in the most treacherous moments of the trek up the mountain.

If you read The White Masai it is essential to follow through and read Back From Africa. If you don't a part of you will always wonder, what happened to Corinne?

What a boring book. The book is a sequel to 'The White Masai', which apparently was a best seller in Germany and Swizterland. I imagine that a description of a white woman's life in a Masai village would be far more interesting than the description of her life after she returned to Switzerland after her marriage fell apart, which is what this book describes. The writing is not particularly inspiring and her life, post-Africa, was not particularly interesting. I don't think I've ever read a more boring description of an ascent on Kilimanjaro, which is how the book ends. The book would have been a lot better if the author had reflected on why her marriage failed and the difficulty of cross-cultural marriages or even, of living in another country, rather than focusing on the day-to-day trials and tribulations of getting back on her feet on Switzerland.

I should add that this book was originally written in German. I read it in Slovenian, primarily to practice reading in Slovenian.

Nederlandse versie. Leuk vervolg van deel 1

read and wrote a review on "The "White Masai" which I hated because of the ignorance and self-centered personality of the author. However, I did read this follow up because I wanted to know how such a person would be able to return to society and flourish as she obviously did. I read the book and at first it did not anger me but as the book went on I saw not only is this woman self centered, she is in my opinion a narcissist. I couldn't count the times she wrote "I" at the beginning of a sentence. She really thinks the universe revolves around her. I could admire her for her chutzpah if not for her personality which I call "poisonality" I really dislike this woman. I am not jealous of her success. Her writing is atrocious, like a teenager's diary, and her bragging about how well she looks with her new clothes, and red hair and how mamy men and jobs she could get made me kind of ill.
I am not going to damn he as a mother. I don't know enough about that but she does seem to see her daughter as a Kenyan version of herself and revels in that. The worst part of the book for me, was the mountain climb to the "top of Africa" where she is so proud she has the stamina over others to reach the summit. I surmise she means that because of how she suffered in Kenya she became strong but she has no empathy for others. I am sorry so many people think she is so good and was so abused that she had to leave. She put herself in a situation that had no chance for success. It's not that she was abused or not. It is that she didn't go into a different culture with any kind of understanding how her deep "love" (meaning shallow attraction) would hurt everyone she came in contact with in some way. Of course she had to come back one time or another and it wouldn't have worked out but her shallow thinking and insular world view is what hurt her parents, her husband, her daughter and many others.
That she is successful with her book and has a good business acumen-read caginess is not a good sign for the world. It is as sign that people who are willing to walk over others and claw their way to the top sometimes win at first. I don't think she will win in the end. I hope her daughter does.

Dit is echt een fijn en mooi boek om te lezen.

Eigentlich spannend, besonders die Besteigung des Kilimandscharo hat mich gepackt ABER ich habe das Gefühl die Autorin reflektiert nicht ganz genau, sonder berichtet nur im positiven Licht von sich und davon, wie sie Probleme löst.

Another good account of Corinne's life between Switzerland and her beloved Kenya.

Enjoyed this book and would like to read the White Masai now.