The white Maasai

The white Maasai is the first part of an autobiographical tetralogy in which Corinne Hofmann tells her life story. She fell in love with a Samburu warrior while on vacation in Kenya and gave up her previous life in Switzerland to live in Kenya with the Samburu tribe in Barsaloi . The Samburu are "related to the Maasai". The book, published in August 1998, has sold more than four million copies worldwide and has been translated into over 30 languages. The film version of the book was released in German cinemas in 2005.

action

Corinne Hofmann, born in Switzerland in 1960 to a French mother and a German father, went on vacation to Mombasa in 1986 with her boyfriend Marco . On a ferry she falls in love with the warrior Lketinga from the Samburu tribe . Half a year after returning to Switzerland, she travels to Kenya to marry Lketinga and live with his family in the village of Barsaloi in Samburu country (northern Kenya).

The villagers, the Italian missionary Father Giuliano, their friends and their own family did not initially trust the narrator to survive in the foreign culture for more than a few weeks. However, it adapts to the usual living conditions in the village, including living in a mud hut (manyatta) and accepting the lack of infrastructure and logistics. The next larger town Maralal is several hours away and difficult to reach. There are also difficulties getting a vehicle repaired and getting gasoline or simple groceries like sugar or corn. In order to get her bank account, Corinne has to travel to the capital Nairobi , a little more than 500 km to the south. This is also necessary in order to obtain IDs and permits. Corinne finally sets up the first grocery store in the village, which she also runs herself. Since she does not sufficiently learn the Maa language spoken by the Maasai in the village, communication with the villagers is more intuitive. The author describes the simple life reduced to the elementary things that nature provides as very positive.

During her stay with the Maasai, Corinne fell ill with malaria several times , gave birth to her daughter Napirai, completely malnourished, under poor care conditions, and raised her in a culture that was still foreign to her. In addition, she perceives that her own ideas of partnership, sexuality and upbringing are completely incompatible with those of traditional Samburu culture. Polygamy , female genital mutilation , lack of education and the inadequate hygienic conditions worried her, but she believed for a long time that these problems could be solved.

Only when Lketinga threatened and insulted the author out of jealousy and in the end questions the fatherhood of his daughter, Corinne questions her stay, she feels misunderstood in the tribe, she now feels the differences between the different living environments are too serious. Together with Lketinga, she opened a Maasai shop for tourists in Mombasa, but returned to Switzerland with her daughter in October 1990.

Sequels

Corinne Hofmann writes about the genesis of the book “The White Massai” in “Back from Africa”, the second part of the tetralogy. The third volume, “Reunion in Barsaloi”, tells of the author's visit to her Maasai family and shows the differences that have arisen in the village since she left. In the fourth part, Corinne Hofmann describes, in addition to individual stories about life in the slums of Nairobi, the moving reunion of daughter Napirai with her father in Kenya.

filming

In 2004, the German director Hermine Huntgeburth filmed Corinne Hofmann's first part of the trilogy “The White Massai”, which was shown in German cinemas from September 2005. The film was not shot in Barsaloi, but in a Maasai village near Wamba that was set up for the film . Traditional families lived as extras in the film camp, Corinne (called Carola in the film) is played by Nina Hoss , Jacky Ido , an African living in Paris, is Lketinga (called Lemalian in the film). The film reduces the book report in some sections, for example Corinnes is no longer with Lketinga and Napirai in the tourist area of Mombasa. Other contents, which are only hinted at in the book, however, experience a scenic embellishment. These include love scenes, other experiences such as the circumcision of a girl and a stillbirth on the loading ramp of a Land Rover. Critical voices have therefore accused the film of an undifferentiated, shortening tendency towards the mythical “black and white eroticism as exotic Africa” ( Neue Zürcher Zeitung of September 19, 2005). In her book “Wiedersehen in Barsaloi” the author expressed her basic agreement with the cinematographic processing of the material, despite some skepticism.

criticism

It is criticized that Corinne Hofmann “kidnapped” her own child from Africa. The daughter did not see her father again until she was of legal age. It is also criticized that the author has turned her husband, a Samburu warrior, into a Maasai for her book, because this tribe is better known in Europe. The Samburu, who probably split off from the Maasai after a war in the 16th century, prefer not to be equated with this tribe.

Furthermore, Hofmann's portrayal of Africa and its inhabitants is about modernized racism with colonial stereotypes. Lketinga is often reduced to his body and the exotic is emphasized, and he is infantilized by the author . Black women are generally described as having no rights. Due to the allegedly static roots of people in their respective cultures that she suggests (she sees the need for change only in blacks anyway), there is a lack of real dialogue at eye level or a mutual effort to come closer. Differences and hierarchies are not negotiated because Hofmann is too convinced of the superiority of “white culture” and way of life. Therefore, she focuses very much on the backwardness of her surroundings, which she perceives as being so, and is increasingly assuming the unreflected missionary role of a civilization bringer.

literature

George Adamson , Safari of my Life , translated from English by Karl Berisch and Johannes Piron, Hamburg 1969 (Original Bwana Game , 1968), Hoffmann and Campe
Hofmann, Corinne: The white Maasai . A1 Verlag 1998, ISBN 978-3-927743-36-6
Hofmann, Corinne: The white Maasai . Knaur-Taschenbuch-Verl. 2000, ISBN 978-3-426-61496-9
Hofmann, Corinne: Back from Africa . A1 Verlag 2003, ISBN 978-3-927743-66-3
Hofmann, Corinne: Back from Africa . Knaur-Taschenbuch-Verl. 2004, ISBN 978-3-426-77717-6
Hofmann, Corinne: See you in Barsaloi . A1 Verlag 2005, ISBN 978-3-927743-78-6
Hofmann, Corinne: Reunion in Barsaloi , documentary, DVD. A1 Verlag 2005, ISBN 978-3-927743-81-6
Hofmann, Corinne: See you in Barsaloi . Knaur-Taschenbuch-Verl. 2007, ISBN 978-3-426-77893-7
Hofmann, Corinne: See you in Barsaloi . Weltbild 2006, ISBN 3-8289-8642-0
Hofmann, Corinne: The history of the white Maasai , all three volumes including DVD. A1 Verlag, ISBN 978-3-927743-92-2
Hofmann, Corinne: "Africa, my passion" . A1 Verlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3-940666-18-5
Reiniger, Franziska: The great love in a strange world. The staging of blackness and whiteness in contemporary African novels using the example of Corinne Hofmann's »The White Massai« . VDM-Verlag, ISBN 978-3-639-00549-3
Maurer, Elke Regina: The foreign in view, at the place of the own: A reception analysis of "The White Massai" . Centaurus Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8255-0768-8

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ George Adamson, p. 152
^ Catherine Silberschmidt: Black and white eroticism as Africa exoticism. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. September 19, 2005, accessed April 30, 2019 .
↑ Margit Maximilian Terribly Beautiful Africa , Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 2011, ISBN 3-218-00827-1 , p. 122 f.

[1] George Adamson, p. 152

[2] Catherine Silberschmidt: Black and white eroticism as Africa exoticism. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. September 19, 2005, accessed April 30, 2019 .

[3] Margit Maximilian Terribly Beautiful Africa , Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 2011, ISBN 3-218-00827-1 , p. 122 f.