tle=”I Laugh So I Won't Cry- Kenya's Women Tell The Story Of Their Lives by Helena Halperin” width=”300″ height=”300″ class=”alignleft size-full wp-image-69″ />From Robert Ruark’s “Something of Value” of 50 years ago to John le Carre’s cheap cialis 20mg “Constant Gardner,” popular literature about Kenya has been visualized through the point of view of white people making their way there.

Halperin’s non-fiction book is a first. It’s a story of the land, compiled from the viewpoint of very many actual Kenyans, mostly female: It is about what’s really been happening there over the past half century. How the society has changed, sometimes for better, often for worse, in the past generation, as more and more people have to live on fewer acres of farm-able land or depart for the impoverished cities.

It’s about living with AIDS, the effects of money on a barter society, how education affects relationships and what it means to be a born again Christian (or Muslim) in a society where animistic beliefs

often prevail. In short, its about what it is like being a Kenyan. It is a book of anthropological thoroughness that reads like the deep-felt personal narrative that it is.

This is an interesting and informative book. It has a bit of an academic format but because the author includes so many firsthand accounts of real women in all stations, ages and

social strata, it

has a great story telling aspect as well.

Helena’s recounting of lives and situations is really indicative of what’s going on there.