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Absent. The English Teacher
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Absent. The English Teacher- By : Eppel, John
- Pages : 164
- ISBN : 9781779221858
- Publisher Name : ABC
When Mr George loses his job teaching English at a private secondary school in Bulawayo, ëhis pension payout, after forty years of full-time service, bought him two jam doughnuts and a soft tomato.à When he backs his uninsured white Ford Escort into a brand new Mercedes Benz, the out-of-court settlement sees him giving up his house to the complainant, Beauticious Nyamayakanuna, and becoming her domestic servant. Through the prism of this engaging post-colonial role reversal, and spiced with GeorgeÃs lessons on Shakespeare, John Eppel draws down the curtain on one particular white man in Africa. But before itÃs time to go, George will delight us with the antics of his literature classes; his various arrests ñ all timed to coincide with the police chiefÃs need for help with essays on Hamlet and A Grain of Wheat; his keen eye for flora and fauna; and the long trek back through the hundred years of his familyÃs Zimbabwean past, as he returns an abandoned child to her home. Eppel has satirized the racial politics of southern Africa in many of his previous novels. In Absent: The English Teacher he turns his gaze inwards for a generous and richly rewarding parody of the land of his birth.
About the Author: In addition to writing short stories, John Eppel is also an award-winning poet and novelist. His first novel, D.G.G. Berry’s The Great North Road (1992), won the M-Net Prize in South Africa. His second novel, Hatchings (1993), was short-listed for the M-Net Prize and his third novel, The Giraffe Man (1994), has been translated into French. -
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