Harmattan: A Journey Across the Sahara, by Geraldine Kennedy

With an introduction by Sargent Shriver

Beautifully written and funny, too. In this tale of her courageous and foolhardy crossing of the Sahara, Geraldine Kennedy captures perfectly the spirit of the Peace Corps in the idealistic and exuberant '60s.

It is 1964. President Kennedy is dead. In Africa most of the European colonies are newly independent nations. Like the relentless Harmattan winds, optimism and change swirl across the forbidding desert.

Kennedy and her four female friends, all teachers in Liberia at the time, make their way by their wits in a land where females are virtually invisible. This is the story of a quest that begins a day at a time and ends victoriously when this vulnerable and intrepid band do what Western women do not do.

We salute their spirit, their honesty, their dogged perseverance and, after sharing 4,000 miles of sand, cold and excrutiating uncertainty, we know why the men of the desert called them "desmoisellesformidables."

A favorite of reading groups, travelers and women. A perfect gift for anyone needing a dose of inspiration in the thick of a page-turning adventure.

Reviews and reader comments

* Winner, Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award, 1995
*Best Book for Young Adults, The New York Public Library, 1994

304 pages, map
LC 93-073120
ISBN 0-9628632-1-1
Hardcover, U. S. $22.00

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