Campaign for the American Reader: Pg. 69: "The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo"

The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo is Peter Orner's first novel.

And what a debut. The novel earned rave reviews, won at least one prize, and was called "one of my five favorite novels of all time" by Stephen Elliott.

Here's what Peter said about page 69 of his novel:

Christ, I remember so well writing this page, took me years to get it right. I think I have a hundred drafts of it in a folder somewhere. All that work for something that is so completely random and goofy. My editor kept wanting to know what orificial excretions were. Anyway, I won’t even try to give much context here, except to say that we’re at a school on a farm in the semi-desert scrubveld of west-central Namibia, and one of the teachers, Obadiah Horaseb, is trying to sleep during siesta. I will say though that the speech he begins to give at the bottom of the page (to the offending whistler outside his window) is a jab at the United Nations. You have to love the United Nations. Namibia was occupied for decades by South Africa and the UN passed hundreds of useless, toothless resolutions in honor of the freedom of the Namibian people, much as they’ve done lately for the people of Darfur. But Obadiah’s speech is no political screed (the screed is mine), he’s only a character – probably my favorite of anyone else in the book (I miss him) – and at the moment he has just been woken up and he’s pretty pissed off, so pissed off he quotes Deng Xiaoping.
28. Siesta

We must raise the political and social
status of teachers. They should command
the respect not only of their students, but
also of the whole community.

-Deng Xiaoping
After classes, after lunch. A consecrated time of languishment. A flopped, dead-eyed hour. Our beds damp oases, narrow paradises of our own orificial excretions. And here we wallow in moist, sweat-clammy bliss until the study hour triangle rings, this is the general idea anyway.

One siesta – hark – treason! A boy (ruffian! villain! bandit!) whistles – loudly – as he wanders by Obadiah’s open bedroom window. The insomniac inside just so happens to be asleep this day. (Taped to Obadiah’s screen, facing out for the world to be inspired by, is a photo of Mandela after his release, that peppered hair, that raised fist, that loving-even-my jailers smile.) But Obadiah, now that he is awake, is no gentle spirit of the nation today. Nonetheless, he uses the language of diplomacy. The below resolution is translated from the French.
Be it known that Head Teacher Obadiah Horaseb of the Goas Primary School RC Calls upon all boys of Goas to heed the following…That Head Teacher Recognizes the need for spontaneous joy in young plebeians who do not yet comprehend that life on earth amounts to nothing but sorrow, regret, failure, and, ultimately, humiliation.

Many thanks to Peter for the input.

Click here to read an excerpt from The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo. Read additional excerpts here.

For reviews by Alan Cheuse, Dave Eggers, and others, click here.

Stephen Elliott did not review the novel--he went one better and wrote this piece.

Click here to read an interview with Peter Orner.

This summer, when Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie put Namibia in the news, Peter wrote this