'A very funny, intelligent, deliberately and engagingly resistant, and
moving piece of writing' Amit Chaudhuri
A 'recovering writer' - his first novel having been littered with typos
and selling only fifty copies - Frank Jasper is plucked from obscurity
in Port Jumbo in Nigeria by Mrs Kirkpatrick, a white woman and wife of
an American professor, to attend the prestigious William Blake Program
for Emerging Writers in Boston.
Once there, however, it becomes painfully clear that he and the other
Fellows are expected to meet certain obligations as representatives of
their 'cultures.' His colleagues, veterans of residencies in Europe and
America, know how to play up to the stereotypes expected of them, but
Frank isn't interested in being the African Writer at William Blake -
any anyway, there is another Fellow, Barongo Akello Kabumba, who happily
fills that role.
Eventually expelled from the fellowship for 'non-performance' and
'non-participation, ' Frank Jasper sets off on trip to visit his
father's college friend in Nebraska - where he learns not only
surprising truths about his father, but also how to parlay his
experiences into a lucrative new career once he returns to Nigeria: as a
commentator on American life...
Seesaw is an energetic comedy of cultural dislocation - and in its
humour, intelligence and piety-pricking, it is a refreshing and hugely
enjoyable act of literary rebellion.
