Mandoa, Mandoa!

A Comedy of Irrelevance

By: Winifred Holtby

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Paperback | 19 August 1982 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback
394 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
19.84 x 12.85 x 2.06

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''One of the exciting books of this period . . . it strikes a wholly new note in the catalogue of books about Africa'' KIRKUS REVIEWS

Mandoa is a small African state: at its head a Virgin Princess, conceiving (immaculately) further princesses. The old traditions remain undisturbed until Mandoa''s Lord High Chamberlain, Safi Tala, visits Addis Ababa. There he discovers baths and cocktail shakers, motor cars and cutlery from Sheffield, telephones and handkerchiefs. In short, he has seen an apocalyptic vision - a new heaven and a new earth.

Meanwhile in England it is 1931. Maurice Durrant, youngest director of Prince''s Tours Limited, has won North Donnington for the Conservatives. His socialist brother Bill is unemployed and their friend Jean Stanbury loses her job on The Byeword, a radical weekly paper. How all three, and others too, find themselves in Mandoa for the wedding of the Royal Princess to her Arch-archbishop is hilariously told in this wonderful satirical novel, first published in 1933.

Industry Reviews

A unique book, one of the exciting books of this period, and one which has already created a sensation in England. It strikes a wholly new note in the catalogue of books about Africa, in books about anywhere, for that matter! One can not make out whether it is satire - or humor - or tragic drama. Almost there is a Gilbert and Sullivan motif in this depicting of a black principality, tinged with European civilization as evidenced by the ephemeral contacts of a stranded motion picture group, of some films left behind, of the training the Lord High Chancellor acquired at Addus Abada, - but still essentially a race and civilization apart, until Princes Tours, Ltd. decides to investigate the possibilities of Mandoa as a new field for exploitation for the jaded traveler. Then the troubles begin. It makes good reading, with plenty of humor, with an ironical touch in the showing up of serious-minded investigators, looking for trouble on the moral plane. A book that is assured a good pross, and that the publishers are backing with a big advertising appropriation and ample publicity. (Kirkus Reviews)

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