For universities, libraries and groups

Literature: perspective and institutions

Read beforehand. The whole novel.

Preparation. About four to six hours to read the novel, plus an hour or two for a comparison text or an extract from one.

Seminar questions.

1. Part One often stays close to Adam Sterling’s way of seeing. In Part Two he is seen only from outside, through the people of Nafawol, and his thoughts about the present are never shown. What does this change of viewpoint do to our judgement of him, and of the fund he works for?
2. Later, from chapter 5: showInstitutions in this novel often appear through their paperwork: a letter of intent signed in a ministry, an amendment Adam does not read to the end, the exercise book Aisha starts when Khresay tells her, “Write everything down” (p. 44). How does the novel use documents to show where power sits, and who is left out of it?
3. Later, from the end: showThe book ends at the well, and then a one-paragraph Coda returns to Wagadu: “One pair of hands can always be made to let go” (p. 233). How does the Coda change the way we read the two parts, and whose hands is it talking about?

Optional comparison texts. Bessie Head, When Rain Clouds Gather (1968), in which an English agricultural expert and a South African refugee try to set up cooperative farming in a Botswana village during a drought. Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed (1974), for a novel that tests a society’s rules for sharing against the people who live under them.

Development studies: participation and control

Read beforehand. The whole novel. If time is short: chapters 1–4, 10–11, 16–17 and 23–26.

Preparation. About four to six hours for the whole novel, or about two hours for the selected chapters, plus time for a comparison text.

Seminar questions.

1. Later, from chapter 11: showCompare the two agreements. In Madina, “Adam had no Nabari” (p. 17), and he hands the pen to the Ministry’s man while Samba objects that “A signature tells you who held the pen” (p. 18). In Nafawol, Fatou reads every page aloud because “Every one of them skipped a line” (p. 100), yet “Alkalo Sankung signed for Nafawol, alone, as alkalos did” (p. 101). How much participation does each process allow, and to whom?
2. Later, from chapter 26: showWhen the agreement has been read aloud, Kadiatou speaks for the first time to ask, “Who keeps the padlock?” (p. 101). Years later, when a company offers to take the model to scale, she answers, “With whose hand on the key” (p. 187), and when Adam hands back Proxima’s second key, Fatou says, “It was always ours. This is only the receipt” (p. 213). Is control the same thing as ownership in this novel?
3. Later, from chapter 23: showBy the time of the offer, Nafawol keeps everything in public: the ledger in the square, its filings and the charter on the academy wall. “They had made themselves impossible to rob quietly” (p. 186). The next line is “They had also made themselves very easy to study” (p. 186). What are the limits of openness as a safeguard, and who else reads a ledger on a wall?

Optional comparison texts. Robert Chambers, Whose Reality Counts? Putting the First Last (1997), on how outside professionals’ views of a place crowd out the knowledge of the people who live there. James Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine (1990), a study of a development project in Lesotho and the way it turned political questions into technical ones.

Environmental humanities: water and responsibility

Read beforehand. The whole novel. If time is short: chapters 1, 8, the bridge “Ten years later”, and chapters 10, 12, 16, 26 and 28.

Preparation. About four to six hours for the whole novel, or about two hours for the selected chapters, plus time for a comparison text.

Seminar questions.

1. Later, from chapter 16: showDr Arramata says of the harvester, “This is a bridge” (p. 102), and it settles at “a little under seventy per cent of its design yield” (p. 125). Meanwhile crews lay stone lines whose rewards may come after them; asked why the grandfathers built the same thing, an old man answers, “For us” (p. 126). How does the novel weigh quick technical fixes against slow work on the land?
2. Later, from chapter 10: showAisha takes a district post because of a borehole whose water is good and where “Nobody is responsible for it” (p. 70). Kadiatou keeps a well and thinks, “This water is slow poison, and I am the one who serves it” (p. 87). Who is responsible for water in this novel, and what does that responsibility cost the person who carries it?
3. Later, from the end: showYears after the stone lines go in, water returns to the old channel: “Nobody under thirty had ever seen water in that channel” (p. 210). The last chapter ends with “The well was kept now by a girl who did not yet know it was hers” (p. 232). How does the ending handle time, inheritance and the slow pace of repair?

Optional comparison texts. Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (2011), on gradual environmental harm that falls on the poor and is easy to overlook. Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons (1990), on how communities manage shared resources such as water and grazing under rules they make themselves.

Preparation

• Everyone reads Part One, chapters 1–9. Anyone who wants to try the book first can start with the free opening.
• One person agrees to keep time and read out the prompts.
• Print the scenario and the role prompts below, and cut the roles into cards. The people and words page helps with names and pronunciation.

Timings

For a 60-minute session, hold the meeting for 15 minutes and choose two of the book questions.

The discussion scenario

This is a fictional scenario for discussion.

A fund has offered a market town a solar-powered water pump and a small treatment unit. A contractor will build it and run it for two years, then hand it to the district council. All parts must come from an approved supplier list, and the warranty ends if anyone uncertified works on the equipment. A local mechanic has kept the town’s old diesel pump running for twenty years. The council’s appointed representative is ready to sign this week, but some farmers say the plot chosen for the pump is still under dispute. A public meeting is called the day before the signing.

Role prompts

Give one card to each person. In a large group, several people can share a role.

• The fund’s engineer. You want a system that works first time and keeps working. Certified parts and warranties protect the town as well as the fund. Your question: what happens if local repairs go wrong? (Compare Adam in chapter 1.)
• The local mechanic. You have kept the old pump going for twenty years and have not been asked anything. Your question: who will mend it at night, in the hot season, when the contractor has gone home? (Compare Malik in chapter 2.)
• The council representative. The town needs water now, and if you delay, the money may go elsewhere. Your question: what is the cost of saying no? (Compare Khresay in chapter 1.)
• A farmer with a claim to the land. Your family’s claim to the plot has not been settled. Your question: who has the right to sign for this ground? (Compare Samba in chapter 2.)
• A young person hoping for work. The build means wages, and perhaps a trade. Your question: will local people be trained, or only hired? (Compare Talib in chapters 2 and 3.)
• A resident who will use the water every day. Nobody has asked what you need. Your question: who will I go to when the tap stops?

At the end of the meeting, the group decides what it would ask the fund to change before anyone signs.

Questions on the book

Closing reflection

Each person writes one sentence on a card: one thing my organisation would do differently after reading Part One. Read the cards aloud without names, and keep them if the group meets again.

An optional second session: Part Two

Part Two returns to many of Part One’s situations, so a second session works well a few weeks later, with the same timings. Read the whole of Part Two (chapters 10–28 and the Coda) if you can. For a lighter session, read the bridge “Ten years later” and chapters 10–11 and 16–17, about thirty-five pages, and use only the first set of questions. The scenario can be run again, with the group now asked to write the agreement themselves.

Catalogue details

Ordering

The Kindle edition is available now from Amazon. The paperback and hardcover can be ordered by ISBN once they are published. Other ways of buying the book will be listed on this site as they become available.